Chaotic Astronomy

The asteroid Ceres passes through Messier 8 the lagoon nebula on Monday and Tuesday evening — photo op!

Only 3 hours and 17 minutes of astronomical darkness on Saturday evening. Not many mosquitoes yet fortunately.

Comet C2008 R1 (McNaught) is now about magnitude 7.8 and expected to brighten as it nears the Sun, may get to magnitude 2 according to some predictions. Take a look around 4:15 am.

Duration : 0:4:32

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Headed south and managed to find a great secluded spot for astro in the Tetons.

Friday 21th Aug 2009
After much thought of whether to head onto Butte or back to Great Falls, Falls won, simply as I new the lay of the land there. I knew there was a walmart which was the first stop to buy a portable hairdryer. Second was onto starbux where I rendered and uploaded another movie. Shortly after midday I started the trek down to Butte. When I got there I was disappointed to find the Sears I was heading to had no auto. Picked up fuel and food and headed on down to Idaho falls. Got there about 6pm and was surprised that their sears was still going. Got an oil change and tyre rotation (up to ca 10k miles). Then onto the pass of the tetons where I hoped to find a nice observing site. I got VERY luck and found a fantastic place. There are two passes between Idaho Falls and Jackson. The first and smaller one was the one I stopped on and was surprised to find a good quality dirt road leading out back (thats great as it got me off the main road, which turned out to have traffic on it throughout the night). Set the scope up and collimated. Jupiter looked good and the seeing, while showing some turbulence was pretty good. By midnight the milkyway formed a glowing arch over the velvety black celestial sphere. I set the camera up firstly on andromeda, then moved to M33, the triffid nebula and M51. After that I was getting tired and so set up the timelapse on Jupiter (taking a frame a second). The tracking was still slipping periodically and I had to somewhat babysit the tracking. The terrain was not good for the night wanders and hunters in that it was open and very still, such that it was impossible to approach without making noise in the dry grass. However one incident got me out of my chair quickly. Initially I heard a sound like something big breathing, but wasnt certain, then a few seconds later something like a large snort a hundred or so meters away. I scanned the surrounding eagerly and purposefully, ready at a second notice to head for the security of the car, but my flashlights revealed nothing and I heard nothing else. Then about 4ish there was a multitude of howling across the valley, the night hunters were at work, and moving around too, I could hear the canine vocalization moving around the tree covered hills opposite. There are wolves in the tetons, and I was alone on a hilltop. Orion rose brilliantly just before dawn, and as the seeing on Jupiter was now terrible I gave it a go, and for only the second time in my life, I captured the horsehead nebula! Also took a brief look at Mars and Venus, but one was rather small, and the other rather bright. By then the sky was lighting up with vibrant pastel colors and I packed up and headed down to the pass carpark where I looked for a place that would get some shade from the firey sun that would soon rise, and I went to sleep just before dawn.

Saturday 22th Aug 2009
Back to Idaho falls and spent day processing piccies of timelapse. Had taken a piccie per second with the webcam, and using registax 20-40 frames gave a very good result. However was it labor intensive. I couldnt figure out any way to automate it (well I could have done, but if its a one off, writing the automation would take longer than just doing in the labor intensive way. The result blew away previous results, but by the time I was finishing up it was dusk in Idaho falls. By chance there was a walmart out back of the starbux so I just went for a wander (I was tired after a day of CPU work) and to my surprise found something that would do the AV record for the plane only 80 bux too! I bought it (last one) but after an hour or so of messing with it in the car worked out that it wouldnt sync up with the feed. Plus it died with loss of signal (same as the HD aiptek). Headed back to the pass but it was seeing (a good thing too as I was not really in any state to do anything). Slept on pass I had done the astro on the night before.

Duration : 0:5:39

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Reissued in HD. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait explores his favorite images from the early days of Hubble. Visit Phil on http://www.badAstronomy.com. His amazing book “Death from the Skies” is now available in paperback via Amazon.com.

Duration : 0:5:7

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NASA Astronomy Pictures of the Week (3/2010).

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• http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience
• http://www.youtube.com/ScienceMagazine
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► Eclipse over the Temple of Poseidon
The Moon moved to partly block the Sun for a few minutes last week as a partial solar eclipse became momentarily visible across part of planet Earth. In the above single exposure image, meticulous planning enabled careful photographers to capture the partially eclipsed Sun well posed just above the ancient ruins of the Temple of Poseidon in Sounio, Greece.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100118.html

► Dust Sculptures in the Rosette Nebula
Noted for the common beauty of its overall shape, parts of the Rosette Nebula, also known as NGC 2237, show beauty even when viewed up close. Visible above are globules of dark dust and gas that are slowly being eroded away by the energetic light and winds by nearby massive stars. Left alone long enough, the molecular-cloud globules would likely form stars and planets. The Rosette Nebula spans about 50 light-years across and lies about 4,500 light-years away.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091202.html

► Watch Jupiter Rotate
What would it be like to coast by Jupiter and watch it rotate? This was just the experience of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approached and flew by Jupiter. Visible above in the extensive atmosphere of the Solar System’s largest planet are bands and belts of light and dark clouds, as well as giant rotating storm systems seen as ovals. The robotic New Horizons spacecraft continues to speed toward the outer Solar System and has recently passed the halfway point between Earth and Pluto.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

► NGC 6992: Filaments of the Veil Nebula
Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,500 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091201.html

► Dark Sand Cascades on Mars
They might look like trees on Mars, but they’re not. Groups of dark brown streaks have been photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on melting pinkish sand dunes covered with light frost. The image was taken near the North Pole of Mars. At that time, dark sand on the interior of Martian sand dunes became more and more visible as the spring Sun melted the lighter carbon dioxide ice. When occurring near the top of a dune, dark sand may cascade down the dune leaving dark surface streaks — streaks that might appear at first to be trees standing in front of the lighter regions, but cast no shadows.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100119.html

► Eclipses in the Shade
Eclipses are everywhere in this shady scene. The picture was taken on the Indian Ocean atoll island of Ellaidhoo, Maldives, in January 2010, during the longest annular solar eclipse for the next 1,000 years. Tall palm trees provided the shade. Their many crossed leaves created gaps that acted like pinhole cameras, scattering recognizable eclipse images across the white sands of a tropical garden near the beach. From this idyllic location near the centerline of the Moon’s shadow track, the ring of fire or annular phase of the eclipse lasted about 10 minutes and 55 seconds.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100123.html

► Dust and the NGC 7771 Group
Some 200 million light-years distant toward the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7771 is the large, edge-on spiral near center, about 75,000 light-years across, with two smaller galaxies just below it. Large spiral NGC 7769 is seen face-on to the right. Galaxies of the NGC 7771 group are interacting, making repeated close passages that will ultimately result in galaxy-galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100121.html

► Millennium Annular Solar Eclipse
The Moon’s shadow raced across planet Earth on January 15. Observers within the central shadow track were able to witness an annular solar eclipse as the Moon’s apparent size was too small to completely cover the Sun. A visually dramatic ring of fire, the annular phase lasted up to 11 minutes and 8 seconds depending on location, the longest annular solar eclipse for the next 1,000 years. This picture of the Moon’s silhouette just before mid-eclipse was taken within the eclipse path from the city of Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100122.html

► Himalayan Skyscape
Capella, alpha star of the constellation Auriga, rises over Mt. Everest in this panoramic view of the top of the world at night.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091205.html
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Duration : 0:3:36

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Moon interfers with dark sky viewing this week unless you are willing to get up very early in the morning. There are some brief but fairly bright passes of the ISS in the early evenings. Still time to view Jupiter in the early evening. Mars is getting a bit bigger and brighter. It will be at opposition with Earth in late January. There is a transit of Io, Ganymede, and the GRS Friday evening. Might make neat video sequence for dedicated planetary imagers.

Duration : 0:5:47

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Highlights from the early days of Hubble, from Bad Astronomer Phil Plait.

Duration : 0:5:7

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