I thought I'd post information for local iridium flares. These flares are the phenomenon caused by the satellites reflecting sunlight towards the Earth, and appear as a bright "flare". They're just one more neat object you can see as you look up at night.
Tonight, June 2nd, at 8:58:26 PM the Iridium 18 satellite will appear be about magnitude -2 with the flare brightening to approx -8. Location should be about 67° Alt 77° Az (ENE).
What do those coordinates mean? Well, Alt means altitude, or vertical. Your fist at arms length is about 10°, so from the horizon, about 6.5 fists will get you to around 67°. Az is Azimuth, or horizontal. This is the direction you'll face. North is 0°. East is 90°. 77° will be ENE above Pegasus.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Planetary Objects In June
I'm pretty excited about June. 7 of our planets will be visible, and I plan on catching them all. There are only 2 that I haven't seen yet, Uranus and Neptune.
- Mercury will be best viewed during twilight before sunrise on June 10th.
- Venus, the Evening Star will continue to shine brightly in the evening after sunset. At magnitude -4 it will be the first object to appear after sunset. Look up and be dazzled.
- Mars was at opposition on January 29 this year, but it's still around for you to see. The planet will appear as a red star to the naked eye, or red disc in a scope. Look for it in the constellation Leo.
- Both Jupiter and Uranus can be seen near each other this month. They will rise in the early AM to start, but as the month progresses will rise earlier. Look for them in Pisces to the East.
- Saturn will stay well in view as she sits in Virgo to the SW, but if you don't catch the planet this month, you'll probably have to wait until November.
- Neptune will rise ahead of Jupiter and Uranus in Aquarius around midnight mid-month.
Hello, Saturn.
I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend. The weather was beautiful in the northeast. I had an opportunity to do some viewing with my brother on Sunday night. The sky was quite clear, and the warm evening air was quite pleasant.
I love being able to share the night sky with others, and my brother and I had been waiting for a suitable evening for several weeks now. I was also excited to finally have a chance to use my new Siebert Barlow and Nikon binoculars.
I set my equipment out about 30 minutes before my brother arrived, and was forced to drape the grill cover over the railings on our deck to shield us from my neighbors incredibly intrusive street lamp. I also ran extension cords out to the yard to keep a large fan on us - warm weather astronomy is great, but mosquitoes aren't.
So, the trouble with showing DSO's to inexperienced stargazers is finding objects that won't disappoint. Basically, a faint fuzzy galaxy that appears as a grey smudge might be thrilling for me to look at, but I'm sure it would be rather anti-climactic for a first-timer. Planetary objects, stars, and clusters are great objects to show off because they are relatively bright, easy to see and less impacted by light pollution and atmospheric conditions than nebula and galaxies.
I started us off with a view of Saturn. By 10:00 PM Saturn is pretty well overhead, but not as bright as it was a while ago. At 48x you can see the golden globe and her rings, which look more like a line running across, but which is an impressive sight nonetheless. My brother's reaction to his first glimpse of Saturn was gratifying, "Oh Sh*t..I had no idea...you could see that much".
I then swapped in my 8mm Stratus, the atmosphere seemed still enough to go to 150x. At this magnification I can count 5 moons, see the distinct shadow and 3d effect of the rings, and slight coloration changes on the planet. Beautiful. I couldn't wait to attach the Barlow, which would bring my magnification to 300x - pretty high on any night, but the atmosphere was clear and still. I was not disappointed. Viewing Saturn at 300x yielded a breathtaking view. At this point, nearly the entire field of view comprised of Saturn and a visible 5 moons. Although focusing at 300x is a little tricky, I could see distinct banding on the planet, and can only imagine how amazing those rings will look in a few years as they tilt away from the current edge-on position.
Next on the list was the Great Cluster in Hercules, M13. This one is an easy find, situated near Hercules's hip. In a dark sky this cluster is visible with the naked eye. Not the case for me, but through the scope it's a real beauty.
Just below Hercules is the constellation Lyra. This was a good night to try for M57, the Ring Nebula. Wow, for a magnitude 9 object, the visibility of this nebula is really good. The doughnut shape is easy to identify, and I was able to make out shading in the gas. I'm sure with more studying I would be able to see surrounding stars and perhaps more detail.
By midnight the Moon crashed the party. It was just full on Friday, so the light it was throwing off into the sky made it entirely futile to find some nice galaxies for my brother to see - M81 and M82 would have been nice targets, but alas, the Moon and a large tree and a skunk made it difficult.
All in all it was a nice night. I was able to show my brother something new, I saw the Ring Nebula for the first time, and am pleased with my new views of Saturn. Hopefully in the coming week I'll be able to show him more wondrous views of our universe.
I love being able to share the night sky with others, and my brother and I had been waiting for a suitable evening for several weeks now. I was also excited to finally have a chance to use my new Siebert Barlow and Nikon binoculars.
I set my equipment out about 30 minutes before my brother arrived, and was forced to drape the grill cover over the railings on our deck to shield us from my neighbors incredibly intrusive street lamp. I also ran extension cords out to the yard to keep a large fan on us - warm weather astronomy is great, but mosquitoes aren't.
So, the trouble with showing DSO's to inexperienced stargazers is finding objects that won't disappoint. Basically, a faint fuzzy galaxy that appears as a grey smudge might be thrilling for me to look at, but I'm sure it would be rather anti-climactic for a first-timer. Planetary objects, stars, and clusters are great objects to show off because they are relatively bright, easy to see and less impacted by light pollution and atmospheric conditions than nebula and galaxies.
I started us off with a view of Saturn. By 10:00 PM Saturn is pretty well overhead, but not as bright as it was a while ago. At 48x you can see the golden globe and her rings, which look more like a line running across, but which is an impressive sight nonetheless. My brother's reaction to his first glimpse of Saturn was gratifying, "Oh Sh*t..I had no idea...you could see that much".
I then swapped in my 8mm Stratus, the atmosphere seemed still enough to go to 150x. At this magnification I can count 5 moons, see the distinct shadow and 3d effect of the rings, and slight coloration changes on the planet. Beautiful. I couldn't wait to attach the Barlow, which would bring my magnification to 300x - pretty high on any night, but the atmosphere was clear and still. I was not disappointed. Viewing Saturn at 300x yielded a breathtaking view. At this point, nearly the entire field of view comprised of Saturn and a visible 5 moons. Although focusing at 300x is a little tricky, I could see distinct banding on the planet, and can only imagine how amazing those rings will look in a few years as they tilt away from the current edge-on position.
Next on the list was the Great Cluster in Hercules, M13. This one is an easy find, situated near Hercules's hip. In a dark sky this cluster is visible with the naked eye. Not the case for me, but through the scope it's a real beauty.
Just below Hercules is the constellation Lyra. This was a good night to try for M57, the Ring Nebula. Wow, for a magnitude 9 object, the visibility of this nebula is really good. The doughnut shape is easy to identify, and I was able to make out shading in the gas. I'm sure with more studying I would be able to see surrounding stars and perhaps more detail.
By midnight the Moon crashed the party. It was just full on Friday, so the light it was throwing off into the sky made it entirely futile to find some nice galaxies for my brother to see - M81 and M82 would have been nice targets, but alas, the Moon and a large tree and a skunk made it difficult.
All in all it was a nice night. I was able to show my brother something new, I saw the Ring Nebula for the first time, and am pleased with my new views of Saturn. Hopefully in the coming week I'll be able to show him more wondrous views of our universe.
My approximate views of Saturn, M13 and M57
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Time-Lapse of Discovery
I just saw this amazing time-lapse video of Discovery, and had to share it. This was taken by photographers Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman, and Philip Scott Andrews, and is comprised of 6 weeks and thousands of images. You can see how the vehicle is prepped for launch and rolled out to the launch pad, and finally lift-off. Enjoy.
original post: airspacemag.com
original post: airspacemag.com
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Venus and the Crescent Moon
While on my way out the door last night I spotted a scene so beautiful I had to double back and photograph it. Looking westward, there hung a brilliant Venus just above the crescent Moon.
1" exposure at f/2.8
Friday, May 14, 2010
Live Eyjafjallajökull Stream
Wile not exactly in the category of amateur astronomy, I found this too cool not to share. There is now a live video stream of the volcano with an accompanying infrared view as well. It's a really neat perspective over the satellite imagery we've seen.
Two screen shots I took this morning. Above is the infrared image. Currently clouds are blocking the direct view of the volcano.
Monday, April 12, 2010
DSOs On A Clear Spring Evening
I managed to step outside for a while the Saturday night - which happened to be one of the clearest nights we've had this spring. Although the warmer nights are more enjoyable, the clouds that have been forming in the evening are less than desirable.
I've kinda been on a cluster streak lately and I was in the mood to see a new galaxy or nebula. I began with M3. This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, oldest and is made up of around 500,000 stars. I can tell that this would be a beautiful dense cluster in a larger scope, but with my 8" and my skies it was mostly dim and washed out. I could make out the texture and individual stars - it just wasn't very sharp.
Next up was M63, the Sunflower Galaxy, then M51. M63 was just a gray smudge with a bright core, and M51 had eluded me in the past (poor seeing) so I was happy to finally catch it on this clear night. As faint as it was, I was actually able to tell it was spiraled. Darker skies and more aperture will bring out the spiral structure and core in this galaxy. I then spotted M101 and M109 - M101 being the absolute faintest object of the night. I was only able to detect it after about a minute of staring and using averted vision - it was like trying to see a ghost. M108 was actually more distinguishable than M63, but still very faint.
After moving away from M108, I changed my mind and decided to go back for another look. I'm really starting to dislike my [6x30 no cross-hair] finder scope, and finding my way back just wasn't as easy as it could be. While searching for 108 again, I found another object which surprised and thrilled me. It wasn't on the map I had with me, so I had no idea what I was looking at, but it was a very large round cloud. I eventually realized that I could put this object and M108 in the same FOV, which was beautiful and exciting. After I got back inside and had a chance to look it up, I found out I had spotted the Owl Nebula (Messier 97). How very cool! All in all, very satisfying for me. The best find though was M81 and 82 (Bode's Nebula/Galaxy) side by side. These were the most distinct objects I found, and were a great pleasure to see. Everything I saw was best viewed at 48x with my 25mm Plossl. I have a Barlow coming in this week, and am looking forward to using it. 150x was just too much for the galaxies except for M51 and 63.
I've kinda been on a cluster streak lately and I was in the mood to see a new galaxy or nebula. I began with M3. This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, oldest and is made up of around 500,000 stars. I can tell that this would be a beautiful dense cluster in a larger scope, but with my 8" and my skies it was mostly dim and washed out. I could make out the texture and individual stars - it just wasn't very sharp.
Next up was M63, the Sunflower Galaxy, then M51. M63 was just a gray smudge with a bright core, and M51 had eluded me in the past (poor seeing) so I was happy to finally catch it on this clear night. As faint as it was, I was actually able to tell it was spiraled. Darker skies and more aperture will bring out the spiral structure and core in this galaxy. I then spotted M101 and M109 - M101 being the absolute faintest object of the night. I was only able to detect it after about a minute of staring and using averted vision - it was like trying to see a ghost. M108 was actually more distinguishable than M63, but still very faint.
After moving away from M108, I changed my mind and decided to go back for another look. I'm really starting to dislike my [6x30 no cross-hair] finder scope, and finding my way back just wasn't as easy as it could be. While searching for 108 again, I found another object which surprised and thrilled me. It wasn't on the map I had with me, so I had no idea what I was looking at, but it was a very large round cloud. I eventually realized that I could put this object and M108 in the same FOV, which was beautiful and exciting. After I got back inside and had a chance to look it up, I found out I had spotted the Owl Nebula (Messier 97). How very cool! All in all, very satisfying for me. The best find though was M81 and 82 (Bode's Nebula/Galaxy) side by side. These were the most distinct objects I found, and were a great pleasure to see. Everything I saw was best viewed at 48x with my 25mm Plossl. I have a Barlow coming in this week, and am looking forward to using it. 150x was just too much for the galaxies except for M51 and 63.
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