Venus-Jupiter conjunction

2065.  That is the number running around in my head this morning...or to be clear, the year 2065.  In 2065, should I still be kicking and screaming, I'll be in my 96th year here on the 3rd rock from the Sun...and that is the next time that Earth, Venus, and Jupiter will be lined up as closely as they are now.  Below, is a picture I took from the roof of our home last night of Venus and Jupiter in the western sky just after sunset.  You will need to click to enlarge it to appreciate the planets near center.

Click to enlarge and see the planets near center!

I arrived home later than anticipated and barely had time to climb up to the roof and take pictures of the conjunction- and for the life of me could not seem to get a decent exposure quickly.  Of course when I came back into the house it was then that I discovered I had left my circular polarizing filter on the lens.  Very good for landscape, not so good in low light!

Venus is the brighter planet above and to the left of Jupiter.  Last night these planets were separated in our sky by less than the diameter of our full moon!  Keep in mind that these planets are not actually near each other in space-  after all Venus (the 2nd planet) is inside our orbit to the Sun and Jupiter (the 5th planet) much further outside our orbit.  It is just that from Earth, looking out on a line to Jupiter, we see Venus in its orbit right next to that line.

So, 2065 until we experience such similar geometry...if I'm around, I hope we have limited artificial lighting enough to see the alignment...and if not, perhaps my family members will have opportunities to see an Earth - Jupiter conjunction from Mars!

Jupiter February 17th

Last night was the first clear night in several for us here in Tucson and I spent a few hours observing.  In addition to some typical targets, I observed the Supernova in M82 and was pleasantly surprised to see that it has dimmed only slightly.  It was still easily visible even in my 90mm refractor.  Using the 11 inch SCT, it seemed to have a slight yellow cast to it!?!

Of course, I also took an image of Jupiter under average seeing conditions-  and to my surprise, there is a very interesting feature on the "boring side" of the planet...a disturbance that is nearly as large as the great red spot and is also a shade of red.  It is more stretched than typical storms, and it will be interesting to obsreve how this region changes and how long it persists.  The image below was taken through my 11 inch Celestron Edge HD SCT with an ASI120MC camera...it is approximately 250 frames aligned and stacked in Registax with some tweaks in Photoshop.

Jupiter and Io's shadow

To my surprise tonight, Io was making a transit of Jupiter about the time I started observing tonight.  Naturally, I used the experience to practice taking an image, despite the fact that my telescope was not acclimated to ambient temperature...and the result is below.  It is a stack of approximately 400 frames.  Seeing conditions were slightly above average, and certainly good enough for my level of processing skill!

Jupiter, Io and a shadow transit

Arriving home from work tonight under partly cloudy skies, I did not even bother to open the observatory roof.  This turned out to provide good karma as my poor planning led to skies that were crystal clear at 9 PM.  While the transparency (clarity of the atmosphere) was reasonable for observing Jupiter, the seeing (atmospheric stability) went from average to poor rather quickly between 9 and 10 PM.  This was unfortunate as tonight was a transit of the Galilean moon Io and its shadow.  Regardless of sky conditions, being the faithful amateur astronomer that I am, I took several videos through my 11-inch Celestron Edge HD SCT and my ASI120MC camera in order to stack the frames and create an image of the event.

First up, is a stack of 2 images, each of which itself represented a stack of approximately the best 450 frames out of a 60 second video.  That is Io's shadow cruising through the south equatorial band.  Just think, if you were on Jupiter standing in the shadow you would be seeing a solar eclipse!

Seeing had deteriorated significantly by the midpoint of the transit, and the image below is a stack of three images, each of which was a stack of only 90-120 frames each from a 30 second video.  Compared to the above image the details are far less clear.  Io's shadow is nearly on the center of the disc, and the Great Red Spot has come around onto the face.

Next up is the image I was after.  You can see that the Great Red Spot has rotated onto the face (less than an hour after the previous image), Io's shadow has moved further along, and on the limb of Jupiter the moon itself is now visible!  Despite the obviously poorer seeing conditions, I ended up with a salvageable picture, and the process gives me confidence that with better conditions I may be able to capture some nice transit images.

Jupiter meets the Stellarvue

Recently, I mounted my 90mm Stellarvue triplet in a side by side configuration with my Celestron 11-inch Edge HD SCT.  This has turned out to be an exceptional set up combining the high powered views the C11 can deliver, with a small telescope that can provide the wider context.  While the Stellarvue is by any definition a small telescope,  it excels at wide field views of the Milky Way as well as views of extended objects such as the Great Andromeda galaxy or the Pleiades.  It is also useful for observations of Jupiter and Saturn as among planets these two have enough angular diameter to reveal details.  Last night seeing conditions were better than they had been in some weeks and observing Jupiter revealed a great bit of detail in both telescopes.  I wondered how an image through the Stellarvue would compare to the C11 and so took my first ever image of Jupiter through my Stellarvue 90mm Triplet.  I was surprised at the level of detail, given the small aperture.

The image below is a stack of about 600 frames taken using a 2x barlow and my ASI120MC camera.  The Great Red Spot is actually in the southern equatorial band on Jupiter, but the composition was much nicer placing south up in the image.  Io is the moon at far left and Ganymede at far right.

Jupiter's 'boring side'

Everyone loves the GRS (Great Red Spot); a giant storm that has persisted in the Jovian atmosphere since before the time a telescope was first pointed at Jupiter by Galileo.  Tonight, the GRS was somewhere on the side of Jupiter facing away from Earth and I imaged what astronomers jokingly refer to it's boring side.  The picture below is a stack of 3 images, each of which was itself a stack of between 250 and 400 individual frames, all taken within about 90 seconds of each other.  Jupiter rotates so quickly (a day on Jupiter is approximately 9 hours!) that if I were to spend more time taking video, the resulting stacked image would be blurred from Jupiter's rotation.  There is software to deal with this 'de-rotation' issue in processing, but I am still too far back on the learning curve to deal with that.  This is, I think, my best image of Jupiter to date.

Picture taken through my Celestron 11" Edge HD, using an ASI120MC camera

Jupiter, Io and Europa

Not a lot of time for words this morning, which for those of you that know me, is a good thing.  Below is an image of Jupiter I took last night at about 9:15 PM MST (0415 UT, 1.14.14).  To the right of Jupiter are the moons Io (top) and Europa (bottom).

Image was taken through my C11 Edge with an ASI120MC color camera.  Seeing was average and I came a little closer on focus and collimation.  It may be time for a Bahtinov mask to achieve focus, and studying some real processing techniques.  Image is a stack of about 450 frames.

Naked eye observation of Jupiter's moons possible tonight!?!

Doing my Sunday morning reading on the internet of all things astronomical, it has come to my attention that it may be possible to observe one or more of Jupiter's moons tonight, with the unaided eye!  This is due to several favorable circumstances and the opportunity for such an observation is, I suspect, rather uncommon.

If you are interested in taking on what will be a challenging observation, I recommend beginning by reading a short article published in Sky and Telescope magazine in 1976, by the late Dr. Denis Dutton.  The linked article contains a bit of information on the history of naked eye observations of the Jovian moons, as well as references to other historical articles and observations.  In addition to the topic at hand, I particularly enjoyed his words at the end of the article when he wrote "The concept of true scientific discovery involves grasping the meaning or importance of what is revealed."  Contained in these words is the often unspoken wisdom that guides those of us who spend hours at the eyepiece, straining to tease out the faintest hints of light from the dark background.  What we are looking at is quite frequently not impressive at all, even to our fellow amateurs; it is only with an understanding of what we are looking at does the observation take on meaning and significance.

12.22.13/TEC 140 APO/Lost Pleiad Observatory

Today, January 5th, Jupiter is at opposition (exactly opposite the Sun in our sky) and rises at sunset.  Perhaps most remarkable about this opposition, is that if seen from Jupiter, the Earth would appear to transit the Sun!  The result is that the phase angle is quite small and the opposition effect on Jupiter and her moons will be quite strong.  Les Cowley has an explanation of the opposition effect on his website, and essentially it is a result of objects appearing brighter when they are near the anitsolar point in the sky.  As he identifies, "The Moon's brightness at full is greater than can be accounted for by the increase in its illuminated area compared with its partial phases."


How much brighter?  Due to the opposition effect, Jupiter's moons may appear as much as 30% brighter tonight!  As it happens, the crescent moon sets approximately 10:40 PM and is far from Jupiter in the sky.  Below is a graphic representation of Jupiter and the location of it's moons (created with Winjupos) at 10:30 PM MST (0530 UT Jan. 6th)

Click the graphic to enlarge

Here is some technical data on the moons (in order from left to right in the graphic), which will give one an idea how dark the skies at your observing site need to be to have a chance at seeing one or more moons naked eye, (not accounting for the opposition effect):

                   Diameter  Visual magnitude

Io                  1.190"           5.0 mag
Europa         1.029"           5.3 mag
Ganymede   1.725"           4.6 mag
Callisto         1.573"           5.7 mag

While all of the moons are intrinsically bright enough to be seen by most observers at a reasonably dark site, it is the glare of Jupiter that typically prevents their observations.  Tonight, Ganymede will be the easiest given that it is the brightest and will sit nearly 15 Jupiter diameters from the gas giant herself (one Jupiter diameter at tonight's opposition is 46.76 arcseconds).  Io, while the second brightest, will likely be lost in the glare of the planet, and Europa will be exceedingly difficult.  Callisto will be interesting as it is the faintest moon, yet will be furthest away at approximately 19 Jupiter diameters.

One recommended trick for attempting to see the moons is to stand (or sit) in a location where one can block Jupiter with the edge of a wall (or pole, tree, etc).  Doing so may reduce the perceived glare and make spotting one or more moons a bit easier.  Personally, I will attempt this observing challenge tonight, and would love to hear from others who attempt to see the Galilean moons without optical aid.   Drop me a note, lostpleiad@gmail.com  (or comment below). Good luck!

Jupiter's bland side

I am a glutton for punishment.  Not only did I watch/listen to the entire UA vs. UCLA football game last night, I stayed up until nearly 3 AM to take an image of Jupiter and also to observe Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1).  The comet is fantastic right now sporting a very large coma and a condensed nucleus.  It is a much better target than ISON, despite the apparent lack of a tail.  The comet is high enough over the eastern horizon by about 1 AM to start observing, although as it rises higher there is less atmospheric extinction and it appears brighter.

Jupiter on the other hand was much less forgiving than the comet last night.  Comets are inherently fuzzy objects and one does not notice the turbulent seeing conditions as readily.  Point the telescope at Jupiter and all of a sudden it looks like a living and breathing monster of a planet.  The image below is a stack of only 200 frames (out of 1800!) aligned, stacked and processed in Registax.  Left to right, the moons are Europa and Io.  According to Firecapture (freeware used for image acquisition), the ephemerides are:

Diameter=42.44"
Magnitude=-2.45
CMI=82.5° CMII=316.8° CMIII=107.5°  (during mid of capture)

The image was taken through my TEC 140 with a 2x Barlow and the ZWO ASI120MC camera.

First time Jupiter!

I awoke at 4:30 this morning specifically to observe Comet ISON, currently cruising through the constellation Virgo as it nosedives toward the Sun.  As comets go it was not that remarkable but I wanted to see it prior to it's close encounter with El Sol on November 26th.  Once I finished obseving I was not going to go back to sleep so I tried my hand at imaging Jupiter with the ASI120MC video camera that has been the subject of the past few posts.

The image below is a stack of approximately 900 frames out of 1510 processed in Registax.  The image was captured through my TEC 140 with a 2x Barlow in slightly below average seeing conditions, using the freeware program Firecapture.  Looking at the log file that is automatically generated in Firecapture, I noticed that it provided ephemerides and other information for Jupiter.  While I am not sure the source of these, pertinent data is as follows:

Diameter=41.96"
Magnitude=-2.42
CMI=320.2° CMII=223.8° CMIII=13.5°  (during mid of capture, which was 12:48:36 UT, Nov. 6th)

For a first attempt, I was nearly jumping up and down...of course I needed to stay warm and this helped restore blood flow....but seriously, with more practice (and perhaps a 2.5X Powermate in my future) I believe the images will only get better.  The moon closest to Jupiter is Callisto, and the two moons further out are Europa (upper) and Io (lower).

Planetary conjunctions!

Today I returned from LA to the comfy confines of Tucson and my observatory.  As the sun was setting and I was noting the beautiful colors in the Belt of Venus I was reminded of how lucky I am to live in an area with such open horizons and frequently clear atmosphere.   The evening was so nice I decided to take a picture of the planetary conjunction in the west  from my home so as to capture many of the colors in the sky that I could simply not capture from the middle of LA.  The image below was taken at 8:13 MST (0313 UT) with my canon T2i and a 24-105mm zoom lens at 88mm.  The image was .8/sec, ISO 200 at f/4.5.  Click on the images to enlarge them and if your browser automatically re-sizes images you may need to click them a second time.  The images are identical with the exception of the labels on the right hand image.

As it happens, I discovered on my cameras memory card another conjunction image that I had taken earlier in the month, on May 13th at 0332 UT when the Moon was very close to Jupiter.  Jupiter is the bright dot near the lower right of the image (click to enlarge):

This was a 1 second exposure at f/4 with a Canon 15-85mm EF-S lens set at 85mm, at an ISO of 400.  I am quite happy with the exposure on the moon, particularly in that one can appreciate not only the Earthshine, but also some of the detail on the lunar terminator.  For instance you can see how some of the crater floors are not yet illuminated by the rising Sun, resulting in a scalloped look to the bright terminator.  Below is a full resolution crop of the moon from the above image...as always, click to enlarge.

Good night moon!

It's time for a revival!

On Jupiter that is!  Typically, the king of planets sports two distinct cloud belts, creatively referred to as the north and south equatorial bands (NEB and SEB respectively).  This year has been an interesting one on Jupiter as the SEB had disappeared!  To the left is an image from Mr. Anthony Wesley in Australia that provides a comparison of Jupiter's appearance from 2010 to 2009.  North is up in these images and you can clearly see the missing SEB, leaving the Great Red Spot (GRS) all alone.



In mid November, observers around the world began to take note of what has been termed the SEB Revival.  There is an interesting article on NASA's webpage that details much of what has taken place since the SEB's disappearance in the spring, including many spectacular infrared images.  Two nights ago I opened up the Lost Pleiad Observatory just at sundown to begin to let the telescope acclimate to ambient temperature.  There was a bit of high level cirrus hanging around and I noticed that Jupiter was blazing through the thin cloud layer.  Visual observers know that often a slight bit of haze can actually improve views of Jupiter by cutting down on the brilliance and allowing for greater contrast- so I decided to put dinner on hold and take a peek at the king...and I was not disappointed!  I was treated to a steady view of the SEB revival.  While the sketch to the right does not do the eyepiece view justice, you can see that there was a distinct dark band in the south, that included a bright knot on the central meridian.  The band appeared to curve up toward the equator on the proceeding limb (left in the sketch).  Utilizing my TEC 140 refractor at 196x, the sketch was completed at 0043 UT on December 9th (5:43 PM local time on December 8th).

SkyNights volunteering and observing report

In an earlier post I mentioned that I have recently been volunteering at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, assisting with the SkyNights public observing program on the 24 inch RC Optical Systems Ritchey-Chrétien telescope seen at right  (Photo credit to Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona (Board of Regents)).  Last night the sky center hosted an extended version of the SkyNights program where in addition to the standard educational and viewing program, guests brought lawn chairs and loungers to relax and stretch out under the stars to observe the annual Perseid Meteor shower.  We were very fortunate in that the weather pattern has been holding steady this week, and we were treated to a sky devoid of clouds, with better than average seeing conditions.  The shower certainly displayed several long and colorful meteors for the guests, however, in my opinion the shower was better on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.  Regardless, all the visitors had a good time.

Another benefit of this extended program was that there was less of a rush to see objects at the telescope for the visitors.  We had more time, and folks were occupied looking for Perseids when not at the eyepiece.  The summer milky way dominates the view right now and guests were treated to most of the showpiece objects of the summer sky. They observed the Lagoon Nebula, the Swan Nebula, globular clusters M22 and M13 (the great Hercules Cluster), the Dumbbell, Veil and Ring nebula, as well as open clusters such as the Wild Duck and the Butterfly.  Of course, everyone was awed by the king of planets, Jupiter.  As the night wore on, most of the guests departed and a few very interested folks remained.  These folks were interested in seeing some of what the 24 inch RCOS could do, so we took a look at some advanced observing targets.

We aimed the scope at the ring nebula and using a 17mm Nagler eyepiece (297x) we attempted see the magnitude 15.7 central star.  Sure enough, with careful observation, 3 of the 4 of us spotted the star with averted vision!  This was quite exciting as I had never seen this star before.  Given the patience and ultimate success demonstrated by these guests, I then slewed the scope to M33, the Triangulum galaxy (image at left).  This galaxy is a very large  face on spiral galaxy, but has a very low surface brightness.  Using a 31mm Nagler eyepiece (153x) the galaxy filled the field of view.  Looking through the eyepiece I was able to detect the spiral structure of the galaxy as well as 5 of the brighter star forming regions in the arms.  If I had been alone and had time to study the galaxy I am sure I could have seen much more, but I was mostly looking for features quickly so that I could assist the visitors in observing the galaxy.  All 3 guests were able to enjoy the detailed view.  Since they were appreciating this more advanced look through the telescope we spent some time looking at other deep space targets.  I can not remember all of them, but we were treated to fantastically detailed views of NGC 6888, the Crescent nebula;  a picturesque view of NGC 7331 and the 4 accompanying galaxies that comprise the "deerlick" group; dust lanes in the Andromeda galaxy, and amazingly, structure in NGC 7662 the "Blue Snowball" nebula!

When the last guests departed I went back to NGC 7662 to make a sketch of what I was seeing.  This is a fine example of a planetary nebula and at 297x displayed a striking aquamarine color.  It is very large, about the same apparent size as Jupiter.  Most shocking to me was that there was a bright arc within the nebula itself as well as a bright knot in the southern portion of the outer halo.  This nebula is about 5000 light years away in the constellation Andromeda.  Here is my sketch as well as an image of the nebula:

My colleague Mike Terenzoni who was leading the program suggested we look at NGC 891, an edge on galaxy in Andromeda.  I had observed this galaxy before in my 9.25 inch SCT and it was always an attractive but faint target.  We slewed the scope over, inserted the 31mm Nagler, and the view about knocked my socks off.  What was always a faint smudge to me, was a bright and beautiful edge-on galaxy with a dust lane that bisected its entire length.  Most often when observing dust lanes one sees subtle differences in contrast that take experience, patience and averted vision to see.  Not so tonight!  This dust lane was dark and readily visible with direct vision.  The galaxy is brighter toward the core, and below is my sketch as well as an image.

We had a few minutes left and decided to take a look at Jupiter one last time.  Mike had a new Tiffen FL-D filter that we attached to the 31mm Nagler to improve contrast- and it worked splendidly.  While the seeing conditions had dropped to about average, we were still treated to a pleasing view of Jupiter that now featured the great red spot traversing across the disc.  There was no way that I could capture the details that we observed in a sketch, but I decided to give it a try.  Typically, Jupiter sports two dark cloud belts, named the north and south equatorial bands.  For the last couple months, the south equatorial band has vanished (this is very uncommon, happening most recently almost 20 years ago), although there are some indications that it may be reforming.  There is a dark band of material immediately south of the great red spot, and the spot itself is clearly sitting in a hollow.  The north equatorial band remains quite dark yet does show some disturbance toward the preceding limb of the planet.  Below are my sketch (completed at 0723 UT 8/13/2010), as well as an image posted on the internet from a little while after my sketch.  You can see that I need some practice in terms of getting the features into a more accurate latitude, but I am pleased with this attempt.

 All in all, it was a very fun evening, and if you have read this far I hope that you will sign up for one of the SkyNights programs...

Odds and Ends

It's Friday night, new moon weekend, and the sky over the Lost Pleiad Observatory is covered with high thin clouds...what happened to the clear sunny day?!?!

I was surfing the internet for some information related to observing Jupiter and quickly learned that the southern equatorial belt (SEB) on Jupiter has disappeared!  Typically, even very small telescopes will reveal the two main equatorial belts in Jupiter's atmosphere.  The famous Great Red Spot exists in a hollow within the southern belt...or, it used to.  Currently, it is hanging out by itself, as seen to the left.  It turns out that the SEB has disappeared historically; once in the 1970's and as recently as the early 1990's.  The image to the left was taken by Mr. Anthony Wesley from Australia.   Mr. Wesley is the same individual who first reported the impact scar from a cometary impact on Jupiter last July.  The image to the right was taken by Mr. Christopher Go from the Phillipines and is a composite showing the disappearance of the SEB over several months.  Read more about the disappearance of the SEB on space.com.

Another odd and end is the following video that documents some of the history of Celestron Telescopes.  It is quite interesting...

The Path Of Light (Episode 1) from Celestron Telescopes on Vimeo.