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.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
SOLAR OBSERVING
Location: Feb 7 - Lower West Side Saint John, NB
Feb 11 - Lowell Arena parking lot Saint John, NB
Date: February 7 from 1000 to 1045 and Feb 11, 2011 from 1500 to 1630
Weather: Clear no wind and -15 for Feb 7
Partly cloudy windy -10 for Feb 11
Equipment: SJAC club scope. Coronado PST 40 with EQ1 mount with 25mm 15mm 12mm and 9mm eyepieces.
Report: On Monday February 7 a sunspot was observed on the lower left. It looked like a white spot against darker red, whereas the sunspots showed as black spots in my scope. This is due to the Hydrogen Alpha filter in the club scope. The viewing was very good with many granular formations visible across the face of the sun. Many pics were taken with my Olympus digital camera, although they did not pick up the sunspots or the granulars that showed up clearly when viewed through the scope.
On Friday February 11 a prominence was observed on the lower right limb at about the 430 position if the sun were a clock. Viewed and confirmed with all four eyepieces. The granulars did not show up as well on this day and the sunspot that was on the sun, according to spaceweather.com, did not show up when viewed through the scope. Many pictures and a few videos were taken with the Olympus camera and they did not pick up any detail.
Feb 11 - Lowell Arena parking lot Saint John, NB
Date: February 7 from 1000 to 1045 and Feb 11, 2011 from 1500 to 1630
Weather: Clear no wind and -15 for Feb 7
Partly cloudy windy -10 for Feb 11
Equipment: SJAC club scope. Coronado PST 40 with EQ1 mount with 25mm 15mm 12mm and 9mm eyepieces.
Report: On Monday February 7 a sunspot was observed on the lower left. It looked like a white spot against darker red, whereas the sunspots showed as black spots in my scope. This is due to the Hydrogen Alpha filter in the club scope. The viewing was very good with many granular formations visible across the face of the sun. Many pics were taken with my Olympus digital camera, although they did not pick up the sunspots or the granulars that showed up clearly when viewed through the scope.
On Friday February 11 a prominence was observed on the lower right limb at about the 430 position if the sun were a clock. Viewed and confirmed with all four eyepieces. The granulars did not show up as well on this day and the sunspot that was on the sun, according to spaceweather.com, did not show up when viewed through the scope. Many pictures and a few videos were taken with the Olympus camera and they did not pick up any detail.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Random Pictures
Here are some random pictures from the last couple of weeks: The scenery pics are of the Saint Laurence River, west of Riviere du Loup, QC on the morning of Jan 15/11. There is a picture of our frog kermit with crickets all around and on top of him. There is a picture of Orion over our house on the evening of Jan17/11 and there is one picture of Venus on the morning of Jan17/11 over a radio tower at Peterville Hill, NB.
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