I stepped out this morning before the sun came up (seriously, what was I thinking?) and there was the moon. I took a few shots, just handheld with my 70-200mm zoom lens, and cropped the best one.
The Taurids Meteor Shower is nearly here, and although it is a fairly weak shower, the meteors that you see are likely to be good ones. With two streams of meteoroids to pass through, we should see a peak on the night of November 4th and then again on the night of the 11th. Since they are faily broad streams that we are passsing through, you may see the shower as a very long but weak one lasting most of this week.
The Taurids are rather slow moving but large meteors, so they tend to look slow and bright in the sky. This shower produces a fairly high proportion of fireballs. You never know when you might see a meteor that will be the talk of the next meeting, so get out and observe the Taurids!
Later this week will see the peak of the Orionid meteor shower. Although you can see a meteor any night, meteor showers are caused when the Earth passes through the debris left behind after a comet passes. In the case of the Orionids, the source comet is Comet Halley. In a way, this is your chance to see Halley’s Comet!
This year a fairly weak showing is anticipated because we are expected to pass though a particularly thin part of the debris trail left by the comet, but take heart! Not only is there a fairly small moon for this year’s shower, meaning a fairly dark sky, but the Orionids are known for producing bright meteors, so the few that we get could be good ones! (and let’s face it; meteor showers are somewhat unpredictable, so even though we expect a weak show this year, that is not a guarantee. Anything could happen!)
Although the shower doesn’t hit its peak until Saturday night (October 20th) the Orionid shower is rather spread out, so you could see meteors any time this week or next. Enjoy!
Comet Hergenrother has unexpectedly brightened to about 9th magnitude and should be visible in small telescopes or large binocs. More information, including a finder chart and co-ordinates for the comet can be found here:
Update October 12 – took some unguided images of the comet tonight from the backyard using our 7″ refractor and a dslr. The image below is cropped from a single 1 minute exposure. The comet is small, dim and star-like. I could not see it at all in the binocs.
The cosmology group met last night, in the rec-room at my apt. bldg. 9 People showed up and we watched a ½ hr. DVD lecture on light elements created in the Big Bang. We then had a discussion on the video we where able to stay on topic for quite some time, before the conversation wandered of to Star Trek, Star Gate, and many unrelated subjects. We also talked about new equipment purchased by club members, and other club related subjects. I?m sure everyone enjoyed them self.
The next group meeting in the rec-room will be the Astro Photography group. This will be the fist meeting for this group, so we will be looking at what peoples concerns and problems are and the types of equipment they are using. Feel free to grab your gear and join us for more info e-mail me at jimwamsley7@sympatico.ca. See you there
Well, you can plan for lots of things and control many events around you, but darn it – weather isn’t one of them.
The skies ended up being clearer for most of the day than had been forecast. I was hopeful it would last into the evening for our Public Stargazing Event at Spencer Smith Park in Burlington. However a last minute check of the Clear Sky Chart before leaving home indicated it was going to be cloudy, but only for 3 hours – exactly during the time of our event. And wouldn’t you know it, it was exactly right.
I arrived early to try and get a decent parking spot since it’s often a busy location. On arrival, the skies were still clear. But on schedule, it started to cloud over just before 8. Undeterred, Bernie and I set up our scopes, followed a little later by Alec. We saw tantalizing glimpses of the Moon through some very temporary thinning, but nothing persistent. Other HAA members eventually joined us: David and Tanya, Steve, Ann, Mike – but wisely they didn’t bother with their scopes. Even with our small set up, we still drew about 20 curious people over to inquire about our activities and ask about astronomy. One family had come from as far as Pickering. Lots of good questions and information flowed, but sadly no eye-candy for our visitors.
By 10 the park was very quiet and it didn’t look like the sky was going to improve so we packed up early. While chatting about a coffee location, sure enough, it started to clear. And by 10:30 as we were pulling away, the skies completely opened up. Oh well, sometimes you just can’t win. But at least it was a fun night and those who did visit found it worthwhile.
The BFSP was packed with people and scopes and most prime spots on the field were taken by Thursday noon. Janice and I went down Thursday and met up with Les and Terry Webb, Don Pullen and Robert Smoke. Over the course of 3 nights, we got in a total of about 9 hours viewing. The sky had a lot of moisture in it and the dew was very heavy. Saturday night provided the best viewing (for us anyway). I spent my time in Capricorn, Aquarius, Andromeda and Pegasus. I was able to find lots of objects for the first time, including the Saturn nebula. A fellow by the name of Shawn was set up beside us with a `16″ SCT and asked us what we would like to see. I requested that we try for the moon Triton which orbits Neptune. We had to look long and hard for very brief moments of stillness in the atmosphere, but all 3 of us agreed that we could see a tiny dot almost touching the edge of Neptune. We got out the Astro software, adjusted for the view through his SCT and sure enough, Triton was right where we saw it! That was a first for all of us. I also saw Jupiter through a 25″ Obsession at about 3:30 am of the first night. Jupiter is huge in the eyepiece of a scope that big and the eclipse shadow we could see on one of the equatorial belts was inky black. All in all, a great time!
An amateur astronomer recorded an impact flash on Jupiter this morning. It will be interesting to see if the impact leaves a scar like those from the Shoemaker-Levy impacts of 1994.
I will be watching NASA TV
The HAA hosted a public stargazing night at T.B. McQuesten park in Hamilton on Sat 28 Jul 2012. We had great weather and clear skies to welcome a large crowd of interested and enthusiastic visitors. I didn’t take a count, but it looked like we had between 200 and 300 people in attendance which would have made it our most successful night at this location.
More than 20 telescopes were set up for the large crowd to enjoy. Views of the Moon and Saturn were the primary views, but some other fainter objects were also shown even with the city lights all around us. Many of the scopes were from non-members who wanted to join in on the fun and some who sought help on using their scope. We even had one family who had just purchased a nice 6″ SCT and it was seeing first light that night.
Jim had a table set up for people to see meteorites and get more info about the club. Alex and some of her friends were running around talking up the event to park patrons.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the event and those who attended. It appears everyone had a great time and we introduced the excitement of astronomy to a bunch of new people.
