Astronomy Observing Reports

Friday, January 15, 2016

CATALINA NOW EVENING TARGET

Location: Front Porch, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time: January 14, 2016, 2245hrs-2330hrs

Weather: Mostly clear, breezy at times, -17C with reported windchill of -23C.

Attendance: Myself.

Equipment: Canadian Telescopes 80 ED/APO on Vixen Alt/Az mount with 19mm eyepiece. Canon Rebel Xsi with adapter.

Objective: To view and image comet Catalina which was reported to be next to Alkaid in Ursa Major.

Highlights:

As observing time began, a crescent Moon was sinking low in the west.
Comet Catalina was instantly found next to Alkaid in Ursa Major and imaged. The Big Dipper was hanging halfway up in the sky, standing on its handle. Comet appeared in the eyepiece as a very large wispy, dark cloud with a star like center. A faint fan like shape on one side.
Jupiter was located, viewed and imaged. It was low in the East and rising during observing time. In the eyepiece, the four big moons were all on one side during observing with one very close to the Gas Giant. No storm cloud detail could be seen on Jupiter's disk. Maybe because of its low position in the sky. This doesn't help observing due to all Earths' atmosphere light has to travel though to reach your eye.
A quick search for M101 was done to no avail. It has been reported that Catalina will be passing close to M101 soon. The comet is traveling very quickly across the sky at 2 degrees per day!
Sirius was high in the south at 2315hrs. It is the brightest and closest star we can see from NB with the naked eye. In the eyepiece, it shines brilliantly white almost bluish. It does have a companion star, but requires a much larger telescope to split.
M42 and M43 were very impressive in the eyepiece. Very large, taking up most of the field of view with reds and blues showing up nicely with lots of structure and forms to marvel at! Amazing sight to see!
A search for diffuse nebula M78 was done, over Alnitak in Orion the Hunter. In the eyepiece, it appeared as an almost squarish, very bright white object. It was easy to find in between Betelgeuse and Alnitak, closer to Alnitak. According to William Henry Smyth in his 1881 'A Cycle of Celestial Objects', "Two stars in a "wispy" nebula, just above Orion's left hip; where a ray from B carried between the center and the last stars of the belt , and extended 2 degrees farther picks it up."
No shooting stars or satellites were seen.

Images:

ISO 1600, 1x8sec, processed on arcsoftmediaimpressions.

ISO 400, 1x1/8sec, processed on arcsoftmediaimpressions.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

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:

Saturday, January 2, 2016

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.

Monday, December 14, 2015

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:

Sunday, December 6, 2015

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:

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

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.