Great Orion Nebula...again...

I have two telescopes that I use at the Lost Pleiad Observatory: a 140mm apochromatic triplet refractor (my 40th birthday present to myself), and a 12 inch Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (SCT).  The refractor is hands down the better instrument, as it excels in all aspects of visual and photographic astronomy.  It delivers top of the line contrast, sharpness, and by design has an unobstructed light path.  Having a central obstruction as well as two mirrors that must be collimated and that take a couple hours to reach ambient temperature, the SCT is a compromise of sorts.  The image quality is not as perfect as the refractor,  but it does gather a tremendous amount of light- making it much better for hunting down faint fuzzy galaxies and planetary nebula.  You can read more about my equipment by clicking the equipment link at the top of the page.

As I only have one pier in the observatory  I tend to leave one telescope mounted for about a month or so, and then switch to the other telescope for a month or so...this gives me opportunities to use both during each season.  I have had the refractor mounted for the past two months, so tonight I made the switch and moved the 12 inch SCT onto the mount.  I spent about 2 hours enjoying the crisp, clear night air and decided to snap an image of the Great Orion Nebula through the 12 inch.  The image below is a single 20 second exposure, taken with my Canon T2i at ISO 1600, and acquired using the program BackyardEOS.  In case you are curious, the telescope has a focal length of 3045mm and is f/10.  The only processing I did in Photoshop was to slightly sharpen the image, and to adjust the levels slightly.  Despite not checking the collimation of the telescope and  not polar aligning the mount, the result is pretty cool...and also reflective of the time and desire that I have to spend taking astrophotos.  Call me old fashioned, but I still enjoy looking through the eyepiece.

Science Matters - Solar goosebumps

Does science matter?  What is our place in the Universe?  Are we all made of stardust?

Watch the incredible video below and once the goosebumps go away see how many questions you have...

(Watch it in HD with the volume on)

The Bee's Knees

Since may grandmother passed away in mid-January, I have been busy with work and life and have not really taken enough time to do the personal things that I enjoy, such as spending time in my backyard observatory.  Last weekend, while watching the Superbowl (about the only pro football game I watch in its entirety all season) Beth pointed out our front window and said "look at all those flies out there."  I looked up and realized that from our distance, we would not see flies that well...what we were seeing was a swarm of bees coming into our yard from the east.  I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped the image below from inside our house, looking through the front window.  Not the best way to take a picture mind you, but it came out well.  Partly a testament to the camera sensor, but also a testament to the new Canon 40 mm f/2.8 pancake lens that I recently purchased.  I am not a lens reviewer but what I can say is that it takes very sharp images at a nice image scale.  Anyway, back to the bees.  Click the image to enlarge it and you can see the outline of some of the bees.

My suspicion is that when I took this picture that more than half the swarm had already passed and settled into the palo verde tree on the right of the frame.  As the Superbowl was not totally capturing my attention, I started to search the internet for information on bee swarms, having heard that most of the bees in this area are Africanized (as the media would call them "Killer Bees").  Given the importance of bees as pollinators and key facilitators in our ecosystem, there is no shortage of information online about bees- and if it is on the internet, it must be true!  Most of the information I found quickly indicated that a swarm, if undisturbed, would likely move along in 2-3 days to their new hive location.  The swarm is a subset of bees from a hive, that set off with a queen bee to establish a new hive.  Swarming is essentially part of the bees reproductive cycle- and as the bees are not protecting young or food stores, they are believed to be somewhat docile in the swarming phase, as long as you do not disturb them.  Below is a picture that my son Ian took of the swarm hanging off the tree on the third day of residence.

Given the detail in the picture above, I was curious if I could find information that would assist me in identifying whether these bees were Africanized or not.  As it turns out, it is extremely difficult to tell if a bee is Africanized as they appear virtually identical to non-Africanized bees.  Generally, Africanized bees are slightly smaller, have shorter forewing length and femurs (yes, the bee's knees!) and weigh slightly less.  If you are scientifically curious, you can read this article on identification.  The chart at left is from Texas A & M University and is a nice visual that shows just how similar the size of the bees are.

While most of the information on the internet indicated that the bees would likely move on after 2-3 days, I have since spoken with about a half dozen friends and co-workers who have had swarms in their yards and they all have indicated that the swarms only moved on after 7-10 days! So we are patiently waiting and enjoying this natural process in our front yard.  I am a bit concerned as the temperatures this weekend are predicted to drop just below freezing for three nights in a row- and that could spell problems for the several thousand bees in the swarm.

200th Blog Post - in loving memory

Bess Falkow ~ Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother

August 13, 1918 ~ January 15, 2013

Naked eye sunspot ~ AR 11654

Today is a good day to get out the solar glasses if you own them and take a look at the Sun.  Sunspot region 11654 is large enough to be seen without magnification.  It goes without saying that you MUST have specially manufactured solar glasses or film to try this...do not look at the Sun otherwise.

Noting how large the spot complex was, I attempted to take a few pictures of the Sun in white light using my TEC 140 refractor, a Lunt Solar Systems Herschel Prism, and my Canon T2i.  Despite passing clouds and a very unstable atmosphere, I ended up with three usable images- one of the whole Sun, one with a 2x Barlow lens to double the magnification, and one with the Barlow attached directly to the camera (without its normal extension) which results in something like a magnification factor of 1.6.  To acquire the images, I used the software program BackyardEOS.  For reference at left, is today's image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory labeled with the active spot region numbers.  Click the images below to enlarge them.

Full Disc

Approx. 1.6x Barlow

2x Barlow

Comet 2012 K5 (Linear)

Comets are engaging objects to observe, particularly as the come through the inner solar system nearer the Earth and Sun. They can be quite rewarding to the observer who, following them from night to night, will see subtle changes in brightness and shape along with the occasional outbursts and dramatic changes. I enjoy reading the blog of Carl Hergenrother, The Transient Sky, as he regularly observes comets as part of his professional and personal work as an astronomer. In December and again this month Carl wrote about comet 2012 K5 (Linear) noting that 2012 K5 "is a long-period comet discovered by the LINEAR near-Earth asteroid survey program on May 25, 2012. At the time the comet was around magnitude 17-18. Though it passed through perihelion on Nov. 28 at a distance of 1.14 AU, the comet reached its brightest last month as it rapidly approached Earth. Close approach occurred at the very end of December at a distance of 0.29 AU (27 million miles or 44 million km).  Recent visual observations place the comet around magnitude ~8.6 at the end of December. Since the comet is now moving away from the Earth and Sun this month, it should rapidly fade to magnitude ~11.4 by the end of the month. The comet is now an evening object as it moves from Auriga through Taurus into Eridanus."

Last night was the clearest night we have had in about a week at the observatory, and I took advantage of the moonless sky to take a look at this outbound comet while it is still bright enough to appreciate. Using the Minor Planet Ephemeris and Comet Service I generated coordinates for the comet and directed the telescope to the specified location. (Note that this comet is moving rather quickly to the southwest, at a rate of 11.38 arcseconds per minute last night, so it is important that if you plan to observe this comet that you generate ephemerides for very close to the time you will be observing.) Currently, the comet is in Taurus and during the time of my observation was approximately .326 AU from Earth, which is about 2.7 light minutes.  The comet was immediately visible in an 8mm eyepiece (122X) using my TEC 140mm refractor. Below is my sketch of the comet from approximately 0440 UT on the 5th of January.

I have a difficult time estimating the brightness of diffuse objects, yet I would suspect that the comet is somewhere between magnitude 10 and 10.5. The nucleus is somewhat condensed and the coma fades quickly. There did appear to be a brighter section of a tail stretching out to the northeast, as I tried to capture in the sketch. This "brighter" ray was best seen with averted vision, but was not a difficult feature to note.

While I enjoy the conveniences of using the internet to generate precise coordinates as well as a "go-to" mount, if you are the type that enjoys the hunt, there is a detailed .pdf finder chart here that shows the comets path through late January. Whichever method you prefer, I encourage you to observe this interloper while you can!

Lost Pleiad Blog - 3 years and counting!

Happy New Year!  Today is a day of celebration at the Lost Pleiad Observatory.  Not only is it the New Year, but it is the third birthday of this blog, and Beth and I are happily celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary!  (No wonder I can hardly remember watching the Rose Bowl over the last 17 years... fortunately, Arizona has never played in that "granddaddy of them all"...).

As is my tradition, I like to observe the Sun on holidays- see this post from last year. Today I made a white light sketch of the Sun, complimented by an image of the Sun, taken using the Canon T2i DSLR camera I acquired earlier this year to photograph the Transit of Venus.

They make a nice pair, although looking at the image from the camera is nowhere near as satisfying as the eyeball view I had.  The image was taken first, at 11:58 AM (1858 UT) through my TEC 140 and a Lunt Solar Systems Herschel Prism.  There was a bit of high cirrus which helped to steady the image, yet there was also a lot of sunlight being diffused by the clouds...thanks to Photoshop  that diffuse light is no longer an issue!  Click to enlarge:

After taking the above image, I made a sketch using a 17mm Delos eyepiece and a single polarizing filter.  Again, the high level cirrus helped the seeing and I was able to see many spots in the active regions.  According to spaceweather.com today's sunspot number is 87.  You will quickly notice that the sketch is reversed horizontally from the image-  I flipped the image as just about any image of the Sun you look at will have north at the top and west to the right.  The sketch below represents the eyepiece view with west to the left. Click to enlarge:



The sketch was completed at 12:15 PM local time (1915 UT) and it a fairly accurate representation of the spot regions...other than I have drawn them a little too large and slightly out of place.  No surprise, considering I am slightly out of practice!.  While I made between 75 and 100 sketches of the Sun in 2010 and again in 2011, I only made about 30 sketches in 2012.  This is a result of working more, and also of acquiring the camera.  While it is quick and easy to take a solar picture, I was reminded today how much more I see when I spend the time observing and sketching.  I guess if I was the type to make New Year resolutions, one of mine would be to spend more time doing astronomical sketching in the coming year....and that is certainly easier and more rewarding than trying to drop the 5 pounds that seem to have shown up in my early 40's!