Night and Day

The wonderful thing about having a small home based observatory is that there is virtually no set-up or preparation involved in observing.  Simply head outside, roll off the roof and wake the telescope mount from hibernation.  After a long day of work it is simply a 30 foot walk out the backdoor and I am relaxing under the night sky.

Earlier this week I was at a meeting with University of Arizona Astronomer Carl Hergenrother, who maintains an excellent blog called The Transient Sky which deals with comets, asteroids and meteors.  I highly recommend a visit to his site.  Carl reminded me that Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd was still fairly bright in the evening sky in the northeast.  I have been following this comet since late August 2011, when I first sketched it at magnitude 8.2 and have since made about a half-dozen sketches of it.  I remarked to Carl that I was amazed at how long this comet had remained fairly bright.  He indicated that the sustained brightness is a result of a rather large comet that did not approach the Sun very closely.  He remarked that had it come closer, it may have become a "Great Comet."

I last visited this comet in early February (see this post) and decided to have another look.  The comet is currently heading for a rendezvous with the Big Dipper asterism in Ursa Major and is well placed for observation much of the night. Below is a diagram of the comets orbit (courtesy JPL).

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Below is my sketch of Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd completed at 0420 UT on 3/15/2012 (9:20 PM MST 3/14/12).   At the time of my sketch, the comet was 1.301 AU from Earth and 1.91 AU from the Sun.

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As you can see, I was not disappointed in the mighty comet.  It is moving along at a stately pace of approximately 3.27 arcseconds per min and is currently sporting two diffuse tails.  The tail to the east appears much broader and more diffuse than the tail to the west.  I made this observation using my recently acquired TEC 8 inch f/20 Maksutov, with a 35mm Panoptic eyepiece yielding a magnification of 116x.  Current estimates place the comet at approximately magnitude 7.4.  I will be in Portal, AZ this coming weekend under magnitude 7+ skies and am very excited to have a look at Comet Garradd under truly dark skies.  Look for a follow up sketch next week.

Of course, the Lost Pleiad Observatory is a round the clock operation and until I invent a way to see the deep sky in the daytime (in visible light), I still observe our nearest star, the Sun every chance I get.  Below is a sketch I made of the Sun using my dedicated Hydrogen Alpha telescope on March 17th.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Mars - Still Curious

While NASA may be struggling to budget for future Mars exploration, as Astronomer-in-Chief of the Lost Pleiad Observatory, I remain curious.  In 154 days, on August 6th 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity, will touch down on the red planet and if all goes well begin to enthrall us with information and data.  While we wait for this exciting event, I continue to do what I can to keep an eye on Mars.

Last night I made my first decent sketch of Mars with my TEC 8 inch f/20 Maksutov Cassegrain.  I plan to write a review of this scope one day, but it is really a very specialized instrument that delivers excellent contrast, a large image scale, and sharp views.  It is well regarded as a high end planetary instrument.  The telescope is about 16 years old, and I believe that it is slightly out of collimation.  I do mean slightly, and I will likely wait until this summer when I am in Colorado to personally deliver the scope to TEC for a tune-up.  You can see from these pictures that despite its age, it is in good used shape.

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Even with a waxing gibbous moon, last nights seeing conditions were slightly above average, with reasonably stable skies allowing me to use a magnification of 253x.  My sketch was completed at 0447 UT on March 4th (9:47 PM MST, March 3rd), with Mars central meridian at 315.8 degrees.  Currently at Magnitude -1.2, Mars is .6739 AU from earth, or 5 minutes and 36 seconds in light time.  It subtends an angle of only 13.89 arcseconds, which is not very large when it comes to discerning dusky low contrast surface features.

This by the way, is the allure of observing Mars.  It is the only planet in our solar system where we can directly observe the surface.  Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune...these planets only show us their cloud tops.  It is fun while sitting and observing Mars through a telescope to think back to the times when Astronomers such as Percival Lowell were making detailed visual observations of Mars and speculating on canals, water and plant life.  Without the benefit of missions to Mars to see the Martian environment up-close we would still be wondering.  Who knows what secrets Mars has yet to share with us?  I, for one, remain curious.

Optimus Prime on space exploration

There is nothing to be said about this video...turn on your volume, watch it full screen and of course...

Autobots!  Transform...and Roll Out!

Back to the drawing board

My life has been super busy-  In addition to a new job, I have a new telescope(yipee) and next week is my sons Bar Mitzvah for which he has been studying for a year...but that is fodder for another post or three when I get the chance. This morning we have the clearest skies we have had in about a week and I decided that before I did any of the 100 things I need to get done today that I was going to make a sketch of the Sun.  I love solar observing and sketching what I see and somehow we are mid-way through February and I had only managed three solar sketches this year! Finally, I present number four!

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My sketch was completed at 1640 UT (9:40 MST) under clear skies, with average transparency.  There does seem to be a bit of humidity in the air as evidenced by the whitish color of our sky (typically our skies are a picturesque blue), as well as the water dripping off of the roof.  Regardless, the skies were still better than average and I was able to see much more detail that I could reasonably sketch.  Believe it or not, the infrequency of my sketching has also left me a bit out of practice...so this took a bit longer than usual and I am not quite as thrilled with the detail on paper.  The Sun was at an altitude of approximately 29 degrees, and an azimuth of approximately 129 degrees.

There are not many active regions on the face with AR 11420 quite near the meridian and containing a dark spot.  Just above this AR 11419 contains two smaller spots and is somewhat brighter.  To the east of these regions is a bright plage region that may be developing as evidenced by a strong dark filament within.  11418 near the SW limb is unremarkable.  Perhaps the most interesting feature of the day is the beautiful "filaprom" on the SE limb.  I do not know if this is the technical name, but this feature was very much 3D in my telescope as the filament and prominence were very clearly connected.

Below is a comparison image from the Big Bear Solar Observatory from 1659 UT, about 20 minutes following my sketch.  Big Bear maintains a very nice webpage of recent images.

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SDO does it again

No time for a lengthy post, but I had to share this video released from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.  Incidentally, today marks the second anniversary of the SDO launch....Just think, it is only over the past year and a half that humans have been able to observe the dynamic behavior of our star in high definition!



According to SDO: "As if it could not make up its mind . . . darker, cooler plasma slid and shifted back and forth above the Sun's surface seen here for 30 hours (Feb. 7-8, 2012) in extreme ultraviolet light. An active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop to the gyrating streams of plasma. The particles are being pulled this way and that by competing magnetic forces. They are tracking along strands of magnetic field lines. This kind of detailed solar observation with high-resolution frames and a four-minute cadence was not possible until SDO, which launched two years ago on Feb. 11, 2010."

Re-visiting Comet Garradd

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Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd is back.  Not that it really went anywhere, of course, but I had stopped following this comet when it was no longer visible in the evening/night sky due to its location in the constellation of Hercules.  Recently I had heard that despite the passing of a few months, the comet was still fairly bright and even visible in binoculars.  With Hercules now up in the early morning sky, I had been considering taking a look at it during one of my morning Mars observing sessions.  Yesterday I learned that the comet would be within 1 degree of the globular cluster M 92 this morning, so set my alarm for 4 AM to observe this conjunction.

I was not disappointed!  As can be seen in my sketch at left, the comet is quite bright, at approximately magnitude 7.  It contains a bright nucleus, and while difficult to detect, there appear to be two tails. (These are hard to bring out in the scan of my sketch).   It is unusual to see a bright comet in the same field of view as a globular cluster, and it was well worth the lack of sleep.  I also made a sketch and observation of Mars, but the seeing conditions were poor and the drawing is surely not as exciting as the event depicted at left.

Update:  The picture below was captured from New Mexico the morning following my observation and sketch, when the comet was within .5 degree of M92.

Mars update

Ares(Roman), god of war

As January winds down, Mars is becoming increasingly convenient to observe.  By about 11:00 PM local time, Mars is high enough for decent views, and it remains in the sky all night...meaning that if I miss the opportunity for the late night observation I can always get up an hour before sunrise to make an observation.  In addition, as Mars moves towards close approach, its apparent size is now increasing rapidly.  Closest approach will occur at 1701 UT (10:01 AM MST) on March 05, 2012 with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 13.9' arcseconds.  Mars will be at a distance of 0.673678350248 astronomical units (AU) or 62,622,315 miles (100,780,847 km).

Mars, as most of you know, was the Greek mythological god of war. In 1877 astronomer Asaph Hall discovered two very small moons and named them “Phobos” and “Deimos.” These were appropriate names as in reality, war is accompanied by "fear" and "terror."







I have made two sketches of Mars over the past week.  The first sketch, on January 20th was made in the early morning hours and was completed at 1325 UT (6:25 AM local time).  The Sketch was made using my TEC 140mm APO at 196 power.  Seeing conditions were excellent, with only occasional seconds of unsteady seeing.  Dominating the view is the North Polar Cap (NPC)  at top.

Central meridian:     111.7 degrees
Diameter:                10.7 arceseconds
Magnitude:              -0.3
Distance:                .875 AU (7.3 light minutes)







I made another observation on January 27th at 0552 UT (10:52 PM MST on Jan. 26th), using the same telescope and magnification.  The sketch at left is the more interesting side of Mars.  In addition to the NPC, Syrits Major is nearing the central meridian.  To the lower left, I believe, is Mare Tyrrhenum, and the dark streak on the lower right is, I believe, Sinus Sabaeus.


Central meridian:     297.74 degrees
Diameter:                11.35 arceseconds
Magnitude:              -0.4
Distance:                .82.48 AU (6.8 light minutes)