Friday, March 18, 2011
SAINT PATRICKS DAY OBSERVING REPORT
Place: Prince of Wales, NB
Date: March 17/11 1950-2115hrs
Weather: 5 degrees Celsius, partly cloudy, no wind.
Equipment: Olympus fe-47 digital camera mounted to 6" reflector telescope with a 32 mm eyepiece. Cannon camcorder mounted to a tripod.
Attendance: Alexis, Bradley, Myself.
Report: Weather was excellent, not too warm not too cold, and no wind. There was a fair amount of high level clouds that affected some of my videos but other than that the viewing conditions were excellent.
Planets observed and photographed: Jupiter and Mercury low in the west were visible just after sunset which happened around 1930hrs.
Constellations observed: Big Dipper stood on end in the NNE. Cassiopia in the NNW. Leo in the SE. Lupus, and Orion in the SW. Taurus in the SWW.
Explained and pointed out to Alexis and Bradley M45 which is also called Peleides and The Seven Sisters. Told them how this star cluster was used for thousands of years to tell farmers when to plant crops in the spring and when to harvest in the fall. The farmers did this by observing when M45 disappeared in the spring and reappeared in the fall. Also, it is called Subaru by the Japanese and if you look at the car logo, it has stars in it which is Peleides. This is by far my favorite star cluster, for these reasons and the fact that it is extremely beautiful when viewed through binoculars. It resembles diamonds on black velvet.
The Moon was 93% Full on this evening. There were high level clouds that seemed to go over that area of the sky for most of the observing time. Obtained a video and many pictures of the Moon. While capturing the video, at the 15 second mark, at approximately 2050hrs, a spec raced across the face of the moon so fast that it could not be confirmed what it was. Upon reviewing the video later, it was determined that it was a satellite. Of course, this is not confirmed officially...Just an educated guess.
Obtained about 45 minuites of video of the sky in the direction of Sirius and Orion. This was done to capture footage of a shooting star. Have not reviewed footage yet...will update.
Date: March 17/11 1950-2115hrs
Weather: 5 degrees Celsius, partly cloudy, no wind.
Equipment: Olympus fe-47 digital camera mounted to 6" reflector telescope with a 32 mm eyepiece. Cannon camcorder mounted to a tripod.
Attendance: Alexis, Bradley, Myself.
Report: Weather was excellent, not too warm not too cold, and no wind. There was a fair amount of high level clouds that affected some of my videos but other than that the viewing conditions were excellent.
Planets observed and photographed: Jupiter and Mercury low in the west were visible just after sunset which happened around 1930hrs.
Constellations observed: Big Dipper stood on end in the NNE. Cassiopia in the NNW. Leo in the SE. Lupus, and Orion in the SW. Taurus in the SWW.
Explained and pointed out to Alexis and Bradley M45 which is also called Peleides and The Seven Sisters. Told them how this star cluster was used for thousands of years to tell farmers when to plant crops in the spring and when to harvest in the fall. The farmers did this by observing when M45 disappeared in the spring and reappeared in the fall. Also, it is called Subaru by the Japanese and if you look at the car logo, it has stars in it which is Peleides. This is by far my favorite star cluster, for these reasons and the fact that it is extremely beautiful when viewed through binoculars. It resembles diamonds on black velvet.
The Moon was 93% Full on this evening. There were high level clouds that seemed to go over that area of the sky for most of the observing time. Obtained a video and many pictures of the Moon. While capturing the video, at the 15 second mark, at approximately 2050hrs, a spec raced across the face of the moon so fast that it could not be confirmed what it was. Upon reviewing the video later, it was determined that it was a satellite. Of course, this is not confirmed officially...Just an educated guess.
Obtained about 45 minuites of video of the sky in the direction of Sirius and Orion. This was done to capture footage of a shooting star. Have not reviewed footage yet...will update.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Sunspots 1164 & 1166
Sunspots 1164 & 1166 from Saint John NB March 4/11@ 1530hrs using the club PST with a 9mm eyepiece and my C190 Kodak digital camera attached.
Weather -10 degrees Celsius partly cloudy. Cloud covered over at 1610hrs preventing me from getting good photos.
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