Moon Dance

Last night I went out to the observatory and really had no plan other than to use my TEC 140 to observe Saturn and the Moon.  I decided to check out Saturn first and inserted an 8mm eyepiece.  The seeing conditions (atmospheric stability) were incredible, and I decided to go for broke immediately.  I inserted my Pentax XW 3.5mm eyepiece for a magnification of 280x and was rewarded with no image breakdown.  I was so impressed with being able to easily discern the delicate inner C ring around Saturn that I ran inside to bring Ian out to take a look.  He was pretty impressed as well and thought that we should try and take some pictures of Saturn and the Moon.  Of course, I am not an imager, so we grabbed our little Canon point and shoot camera (The Elph!) and held it up to the eyepiece.  It was hard to hold the camera steady for Saturn as you can see at right, but even with the blurry image, you can see the C ring just inside the main rings.  It helps to click on the image to see it full size.

The main show was the moon- Ian's favorite target.  We had a bit more success taking hand-held shots of the moon through the telescope...actually, pretty impressive if I must say so myself!  Click the images to enlarge them.

Finally, this morning I was outside cutting up some tree branches and noticed two rather large lizards playing a game of tag...the game went on for well over an hour as I worked, and clearly the lizards were so engrossed in the game, that they really did not care about me or the noisy chainsaw I was using.  Finally the chase ended in the oldest of all moon dances...

See Spot(s) on the Sun

Today is a very exciting day at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter as we will be formally dedicating the 32-inch Schulman Telescope later this afternoon.  The weather today is stunningly clear and warm and fortunately I had enough free time this morning to make a sketch of the Sun in white light.

Using my 102mm doublet achromatic refractor with a focal length of 1100mm (f/11), a Lunt Solar System Herschel Prism, and a 16mm eyepiece I observed the sun for about 30 minutes, completing my sketch at exactly 1600 UT (9 AM local MST).  To the right of my sketch is an image captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory this morning not long after my sketch.

North is up and west is to the left.  For those of you who may not know, the Sun rotates from east to west.  In other words, the large dark spot just inside the southeast limb (which is as of yet an unnumbered region) has just rotated into view.  Besides the complex spot regions, the facula surrounding departing region 11465 in the southwest was quite bright.

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Another incredible ISS video

Just imagining I was captain of this ship...

Mars Drawing

Today was a strange day at work...too many people not getting along with each other; a colleague who had a death in the family; and our department saddened by the suicide of a student.  It was one of those days where I felt that "I'd like to buy the world a coke"...Maybe I am showing my age with that little jingle, but certainly everyone needs to take a deep breath and look up at the night sky we are so fortunate to have here in Arizona.

And, while I never thought I would say something like this, a big shout out to the Governor of AZ for vetoing the electronic billboard legislation!  Our legislature quickly passed this asinine bill at the urging of Clear Channel Communications, and fortunately the Governor had a rare moment of clarity and realized that not only was the multi-million dollar astronomy related industry threatened, but these electronic billboards are safety hazards as well.  But I digress...back to the night skies...

While it is nearly full moon, I opened up my observatory and spent a little time observing Mars again this evening.  Using my 12" LX200 SCT I was treated to a night of exceptionally good seeing.  Using an 8mm eyepiece I was observing Mars at a magnification of 380X without any image breakdown.  I did try a 5mm eyepiece (608X), however, there was nothing visible at that power that I could not see much sharper at 380X.  Below left is my sketch, and at right a simulated view courtesy of CalSky.

Mars is currently 12.11 arcseconds in diameter and still shining at magnitude -0.6.  Mars is .773 astronomical units from Earth, or 6 minutes 25.6 seconds in light time.  My sketch was completed this evening at 8:44 PM MST (0344 UT, April 6th).  At the top is the North Polar Cap, and there was quite a bit of haze in the southern polar region.

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!