OBSERVING REPORT FOR JANUARY 12, 2016

Location:  Front Deck, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  January, 12, 2016 0500hrs-0730hrs

Weather:  A very cool -8C with a reported windchill of -16C.  No wind at 0500hrs, strong gusts started after 0530hrs then died off after about 15 minutes .  Mostly clear.

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80 ED/APO on Vixen Alt/Az mount with 19mm eyepiece.  Canon Rebel Xsi with 18-55mm and 75-300mm lens, all mounted on a tripod.

Attendance:  Myself.

Objective:  To view and image Comet Catalina which was reported to be in between Arcturus in Bootes and Alkaid in Ursa Major.

Highlights:

• Skies were very dark with no Moon, and the windchill made it a rather cold morning to be outside.
• The Comet was difficult to find, possibly because it was so high up in the sky.  Didn't show up right away in long exposure images, then after setting up telescope and pointing to where the Heaven-above.com star chart said it should be, still had a very hard time finding it.  After processing images, later, the Comet was in the middle of the field of view.  Not sure yet why it was so hard to locate in eyepiece field of view.  The Comet was never located in eyepiece, and was not visible to me naked eye.
• Jupiter shone very brightly in the SW during observing time.
• Corona Borealis and Hercules with its spectacular M13 globular cluster were low in the East during observing time.
• Corvus the Crow was observed in the SSW during observing time.
• Saturn and Venus could be seen through the trees on the SE horizon near the end of observing time.  Images were taken.
• No shooting stars and one satellite was observed with another one satellite captured in an image.
• There was much frost and dew on equipment afterwards.

Images:

A NEWS YEARS COMET

Location:  Front Deck in Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  January 2, 2016 0530-0620hrs

Weather:  Mostly clear, no wind and a very cool -4C

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80 ED/APO on an alt/az Vixen Mount.  Adapter for Canon Rebel Xsi.  19mm eyepiece.

Attendence:  Myself

Objective:  To view and image Comet Catalina C/2013 US10 which was reported to be above Arcturus according to Heavens-above.com

Highlights:

• The comet was easily located above Arturus in the viewscreen of the camera as it was attached to telescope.  Showed up as a faint fuzzy patch.  Images were taken that clearly showed the Comet to have a greenish hew with a bright center.
• At around 0600hrs, a very bright Venus popped over the trees in the SE.  Images were taken.  It was clearly in the Gibbous phase.
• A nearly half Moon was high in the South at the time and wasnt bright enough to wash out Comet.  Images of Moon were taken.
• After imaging, a 19mm eyepiece was inserted and the Comet was observed.  It showed up as a fuzzy slightly greenish, large fuzzball with a bright center.  With averted vision, a very faint, wide tail might have been seen going in the 3'oclock direction from the center.
• No Shooting stars and one satelite was seen as I was viewing the comet in the eyepiece.

Image:

Unprocessed image of Comet.

Processed image shows a faint fan tail going to the right.

Image of Orion Nebula taken evening before, just before clouds moved in.

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER 2015

Location:  Front of Big Shed Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  December 13, 2014  2100-2200hrs

Weather:  Mostly clear with some passing clouds.  Clouded over completely after about 2210hrs.  No wind 0C with a reported windchill of -4C.

Attendance:  Ed O., David M.

Equipment:  Canon Rebel Xsi with 18-55mm lens on tripod.

Objective:  To view and image as many shooting stars as possible.  This night was reported to be the peak of the 2015 Geminid Meteor Shower.

Highlights:

• My wife Carla and I both seen a shooting star on our drive home, about 30 minutes before observing time.
• Ed set his lawn chair so that he could watch to the North in the direction of the Big Dipper, Cepheus and Cassiopeia.  I set my lawn chair up and the camera so that Orion and Taurus area was covered.
• Over the hour, Ed and I counted 22 Geminids and 2 Sparadics.  We agreed that the Geminids were slow moving but disagreed on the color.  Ed thought they looked greenish where I thought they looked more dark orange/yellowish.  They were notably slow moving with at least a couple looking like they changed direction.
• Ed noticed that most of the ones he seen went in a sort of lane-way between Cepheus and Cassiopeia.
• Most of the Geminds I seen were to the lower left and lower right of Orion, with one pass right through the bottom part of the great hunter.  Of course, they all came from the direction of Gemini.
• I witnessed two sparadics which came from high over head to the East straight down almost at Gemini.  Both were much faster shooting stars and one was a very bright blue.
• Over the course of the observing hour, imaged the whole hour in 25 second images.  Stitched the images together in PIPP program to make this 1 minuite video of the hour.  Only one Geminid was captured by video and it was faint.
• One Satellite was captured in the images.

Images:

COMET CATALINA C/2013 US10

Location:  Front Porch Little Lepreau, NB

Date Time:  December 6, 2015 0500-0700hrs AT

Weather:  Frosty -5C, clear with no wind.

Equipment:  Tripod mounted 20x80 binoculars, Canadian Telescopes 80 ed/apo with Rigel red circle finder and 2" 32mm eyepiece, a DSLR camera adapter all mounted on a Vixen Alt Az Mount.  Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR camera.

Attendance:  Myself

Objective:  To locate and image Comet Catalina which was suppose to be located in Virgo, next to Venus on this morning, before first light.

Highlights:

• Found the comet after a brief search very close to where it was reported to be on heaven-above.com
• Comet showed up as a faint gray fuzzball with a hint of tail in binos and in eyepiece of telescope.
• Lots to look at: Venus, the Moon, Mars and Spica were close together, low in the East.  Jupiter was high overhead to the SE.
• The Moon viewed very nicely in telescope with Earthshine illuminating Mare Chrism on the darken part of the Moon!  Many craters seen near terminator.   Atmosphere appeared very still in eyepiece when observing Moon.
• Three of Jupiter's moons could be seen in eyepiece, but after processing image, it could be seen that two of the moons were very close to one another.
• Mars disk is getting larger now that the Earth is catching it as we circle the Sun.  We will be much closer to Mars next spring.
• Orion was observed low in the West during observing time.
• No Satellites or shooting stars were seen.

Images:

OBSERVING REPORT FOR NOVEMBER 16, 2015

Location:  Side yard in Little Lepreau, NB

Date Time: November 16, 2015  1730-2200hrs

Weather:  Mostly cloudy early to mostly clear by 1900hrs, a very cold 2C with a windchill -4C,, some light breeze to no wind.  Looked like rain was possible early on.  Snowed earlier on through the day a little.

Attendance:  Brandon H, David M.

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80ED/APO on Vixen Alt Az mount with 2" 32mm eyepiece.  Samsung Nexus  4 cellphone camera with Ioptron cellphone adapter with 15mm eyepiece and a Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR camera with adapter to connect to telescope.

Objective:  To image and view the Crescent Moon.

Highlights:

• Brandon and I had a nice view of a Crescent Moon which was fairly high up, inbetween clouds early in the evening.  Many craters could be seen as well as Earthshine.  Brandon noted that stars could be seen next to the Moon in the eyepiece field of view.  Many images of Moon were taken with cellphone camera and DSLR camera.
• We also had a very nice view of M45.  Brandon noted the shape of this star cluster and the tightness of the grouping.  A couple of images were taken with cellphone camera.
• Searched for M13, but it was too low, behind some trees in the NW.
• Searched around for M15 but couldn't find it.
• As we were playing 21 basketball game, Brandon seen two shooting stars.  Might have seen one out of the corner of my eye.
• No satellites were seen.

Images:

M45 with cellphone camera attached to telescope.

TAURID METEOR SHOWER

Location:  Stevens' House, Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  November 9, 2015  2100-0000hrs

Weather:  Cool 8C feels like 6C, dew point 2C no dew, no wind, clear very dark skies.

Equipment:  Stevens' 20' Dobsonion with 22mm 2" eyepiece and a stepladder to reach eyepiece!  My Canon Rebel XSi with 18-55mm and 75-300mm lenses and Samsung Nexus 4 cellphone camera.

Attendance:  Matthew W., Steven T, Ed O, and David M.

Objective:  To view Comet Panstarrs C/2013 X1 which was said to be in Perseus with Stevens huge telescope.

Highlights:

• This might have been the last time we have access to Stevens big telescope due to circumstances, so we tried to see as many celestial objects as we could with limited time.
• With Eds help, we found 17 Messier objects including 57, 13, 92, 27, 31, 45, 71, 15, 74, 1, 42, 43, 78, 33, 32, 110, and 77.
• M15 was a first time for me.  Curt talked about it at the last Saint John Astronomy Club meeting and it was goal of mine.  According to William Henry Smyth in his 'Cycle of Celestial Objects', "Although this noble cluster is rated globular, it is not exactly round and under the best circumstances is seen as in the diagram, with stragglers branching from a Central blaze."  We all noted how bright the center of the globular appeared.
• M78 was also a first for me.  Two close stars in a faint cloud.
• My first view of M1.  A very ghostly, small cloud that seemed to have dimension to it.
• M33 we all viewed faint spiral arms.
• M42 and M43 were simply spectacular!  Two huge 'arms' of clouds with definite dimension and depth and a well defined head (M43)!  Ed and I agreed that this was the best we have ever seen this Nebula.  I have never seen it like this before!
• Ed and I did an extensive search for Comet C/2013 X1, in Perseus to no avail.  We later found out that we were looking too far to the East.
• Comet C/2014 S2 Panstarrs, in Ursa Minor was below the tree line during observing time.
• The tail end of Pegasus star named Enif was used to find M15.  We all observed this star in Stephens' 20" Dobsonion and all agreed on how brilliantly yellow it was.
• Rigel was split...barely.  The fainter companion was very close to main star in the 910 o'clock position.  A first time for me splitting this difficult double star.
• The Taurid Meteor Shower was underway and put on a great show!  Matthew seen 6 Taurids and 2 others.  Ed and Steven seen several and I seen 10 Taurids, 3 others including 1 huge fireball that left a smoke trail.  Most that I seen were either in NW or almost straight up to the south.  The ones high up were faint and rather short while the ones to the NW were longer and brighter.  One Satellite was seen.

Images:

Orion over Stevens house with Canon and 18-55mm lens.

Area Comet Panstars was supose to be in Perseus with Canon and 75-300mm lens.

M42 with cellphone camera.  

Rigel with Cellphone camera

The next morning, Ed went out to check out the Conjunction and spotted this thin Crescent Moon!  I went out with the Canon and imaged it.

COMET PANSTARRS C/2014 S2

Location:  Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  November 2, 2015 2115-2145hrs

Weather:  Clouds along the horizon to the North and East, no wind, and a cool 5C.

Equipment:  20x80 binoculars, Canon Rebel Xsi with 18-55mm and 75-300mm lenses, both mounted on tripod.

Attendance:  David M

Objectives:  To view and image Comet PanStarrs C/2014 S2, which was near one of the Little Dippers(Ursa Minors') asterism stars.  Also, to watch for Auroras where were predicted to appear by spaceweather.com and to keep an eye out for Taurid Meteors, as the Taurid Meteor shower is still underway.

Highlights:

• After an extensive search with binoculars, could not confirm a sighting of the faint magnitude 10 Comet.  Comet was suppose to be just West of Anwar during this time, according to this star chart at Heavensabove.com
• Took images of Ursa Minor with both lenses, 15 second exposure images with 300mm lens, and 20 second exposure images with the smaller lens.  Didn't find the comet until the images were downloaded onto my computer, then processed with ArcsoftMediaImressions.
• Two Taurids sighted.
• One bright, medium speed, yellowish shooting star on a straight line from Pleiades starting in the NNE going NW.  Pleiades was fairly low in the East during observing time.
• Second shooting star was same color and speed as the first, but came straight down from high over-head almost straight through the Little Dipper, as I was imaging it.  Didn't capture it in the image though.
• No Auroras or satellites were observed.

Images: