As Jim said, it was a great night at Binbrook and I hope everyone there had as good a time as I did. Here are a couple of images that I came away with. I took a few of the sunset before setting up for the night, and after everyone was done I got a camera and tripod shot of Mars and Spica over the trees.
We had a large group show up at the park last night, I counted 16 cars. the conditions where good even if the dew was heavy . Great views of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, as well as many deep space objects. All attending said they enjoyed themselves. Two people sent me some photos to post here. It was fun to get back out to the park after such a long stretch of bad weather, lets hope we can get the park opened more often in the future.
Photos from Astronomy Day.
More photos from Astronomy Day.
Astronomy Day was a complete success! In the afternoon session there were at least 4 solar PST scopes and 6 or so scopes with solar filters. Many members turned out with and with out scopes to enjoy the day time observing of our personal star Sol. Even though the cloud cover threatened to blank us out it did clear off by 1:30 or so for a very enjoyable afternoon.
The evening session was fabulous there where many club members there with their scopes (too many to count). I had the club 8″shimt setup with the video camera and TV, and was so busy with the public that I didn’t get much chance to get around to visit all the other members with scopes. I did bring my camera but was so busy with people I didn’t get it out of it’s bag, so I encourage anyone that took photos to post them here.
If the weather permits we will be observing at Binbrook at our normal viewing site on the hill. In an effort to entertain the fishermen that will be coming out for a early start for the Sunday morning derby . If you can attend identify yourself at the gate as an H.A.A member and drive to the hill location. Hopefully we will get a good sky I hope to see you there.
A couple weekends ago we were treated to what feels like an unprecedented couple nights in a row of clear sky. Not able to pass up the opportunity I setup my scope in the backyard to take advantage of three planets currently visible in the evening sky. First up, just after sunset Jupiter is visible in the Western sky trailing the Sun. After a little polar aligning and calibration of my scope I slewed over to Jupiter in order to capture a few frames of video. Next up was Mars which is visible rising to the East. With April nights still cool and damp dew was starting to settle on the objective so I slapped on my dew buster, let things clear and started capturing video of Mars. As the evening wore on Saturn began to rise just after midnight. At this point the seeing was starting to get a little undesirable as Saturn could be seen jumping wildly around on my laptop screen. Nevertheless I proceed to capture video of Saturn. After some software stacking and a little tinkering here are the results of that nights observations.
Here’s an interesting upcoming Astronomical event you may wish to try to take in. In the early hours of Thu 20 March 2014, an asteroid will pass in front of the bright star Regulus (mag 1.2). This is called an occultation when one object pass in front of another (we also use the term “eclipse” for things like the Moon or Sun).
The cool thing is that this is going to happen fairly close to us in the Hamilton area. Of course this is dependent upon whether the skies are going to be clear or not.
At any time of year spectacular solar and lunar halos may appear in the sky, but this time of year is particularly good. No special equipment is needed to observe these beautiful sights, but care must be taken as solar halos appear around the sun. Remember to always use proper precautions when observing near the sun.
This image was taken a couple of days ago in front of my house. I have exaggerated the contrast of the image to better show the detail in the sky, however these phenomena are easily seen with the unaided eye. Keep an eye out for halos, sun and moon dogs, arcs and other atmospheric phenomena during the upcoming season.
Hi, just saw news of a mag 11 nova in m82. Could get as bright as mag 8 over the next few days. I know its darn cold outside, but if anyone can image it, I would be happy to show it to the club next month.
Matthew
