Tonight Jim and I were delighted to accept an invitation from Les to come visit his roll-off observatory. Overlooking the Grand River, the shed offers dark skies and a welcome shelter to observe from.

Setting up his very fine 4″ refractor, Les showed us the Orion Nebula through a variety of eyepieces, with some pleasing and surprising results. It’s amazing how well the inexpensive eyepieces compared to the premium oculars! We continued our tour of the sky with some winter highlights, like the Pleiades, the double cluster and M35, as well as views of Mars with its polar cap and Saturn and its moons Titan, Rhea, Dione and Tethys. Algieba in Leo and Polaris provided some fine double star targets. Algieba showed a bright yellow primary with a more rusty companion star. Through a no-name eyepiece the colours seemed more pronounced than through a Pentax. The ISS also went right overhead to make the evening complete.

Les and his wife fed us with a great assortment of meats and vegetables (and some deliscious strawberries) to keep our strength up. Both Jim and I were very impressed with the clever and ingenious way Les has put together and runs his backyard observatory, and we were delighted to take advantage of his hospitality and dark skies. Thanks, Les!

Jim and Les inside the observatory.

The stars rise over the observatory.

Got out last night while the going was good. Light pollution and moonlight made seeing a little challenging so I looked for a few new bright things. Cancer was completley invisible so I used binos to find it and look at M67 for the first time. Also looked at several other things for the first time. The Eskimo planetary (small but bright), The triple star B Monoceros (separation 7 and 5 arc seconds) and the double star Algieba in Leo. Back on Feb 7, I looked at a very beautiful double (Almach in Andromeda) that looks like the Albireo double but closer together (10″). The colours are orange and blue/green. Nothing exotic I know, but it’s still nice to find and see things for the first time. Also had a nice view of saturn even though it was low in the sky. the shadow of the ring across the face of the planet was easy to see and 3 moons.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share with you my latest collaboration with Stef Cancelli. After a year of collecting frames in between spells of poor weather and getting over my slight fear of putting the pieces of this together. I’m finally able to share with you this HaRGB rendition of the nebula and cluster (aka Christmas tree cluster). With lots of help from Stef and a number of back and forths of the image file, checking on numerous monitors and making small tweaks here and there, I’m happy to say it’s finally complete 🙂

The details:

Stef contributed a 2 panel Hydrogen Alpha mosaic: 30 subs x 15 mins each with the ST10XME and Tak FS102 @ f6. I contributed a 2 panel RGB mosaic: 65 subs x 5min on the Cone and 57 subs x 5min on the Fox Fur with the QHY-8 and AT8RC @f6.4. A small RGB
contribution was made with frames taken from the c6 SCT last spring.
Total HaRGB exposure time was 17hrs 20min.

BTW All frames were acquired from the night lights of Toronto and Grimsby.

Hope you like it!

Take a peek at the large version to see the fox and cone:

http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=7578&g2_imageViewsIndex=3

KerryLH

From Michael Jefferson:

On January 19 and 20, LOFAR II SID detected 4 solar flares, respectively, in the C and M classes and a single M and C on February 06. The SID and GOES charts and event logs were on display on the back table of the February 12 general meeting. They were available for member inspection during the break and at the end of the meeting. If (as Bay Bloor Radio says in its sales ads) you missed it ? you missed it!

However, we are rapidly coming out of the deepest solar minimum in 100 years. Things should really start to get active from here on in. On the 13th , we had the biggest M-class flare since the new solar cyle began ~2 ½ years ago. WE MISSED IT %##$@!! because NAA (our 24 kHz transmitter) was down for a maintenance all day on Saturday. But, the best is yet to come. We will, of course, stay tuned!! There will be aurorae, radio blackouts, satellite ‘bakeouts’ and power failures, due to Sol, in the coming times. Be prepared!

Stanford Solar Physics says we have some of the cleanest data they have ever seen and have asked us to beta-test the new SuperSID receiver. In our possession, we have a ‘spare’ industrial IBM e-server to which the SuperSID will be connected. This apparatus will be BNC-T-connected to the LOFAR II radio antenna so that the antenna will feed both the SID and SuperSID receivers. This means we will run two radio-telescopes, the older doing narrow-band reception and the newer doing wideband. Chris Kubiak has agreed to help with the programming and setup, and The Computer Trade-In Post will help with hardware additions and installations.

The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomy (which has helped Stanford develop SuperSID) has asked us to become a member ($20.00/annum) of it, and Stanford is 100% behind this. I think HAA should do all of this. With or without HAA, I will go ahead with this project, myself, because it is very worthwhile and it gives us further international status. But, I would prefer to have the club in this as well as in the present apparatus setup. I trust that this will have full membership support ? it will not cost HAA one cent beyond the membership fee! I will be asking Council for full HAA-support for this endeavour at the council meeting on February 22.

The beauty of this equipment is that the results are so immediate, often not more than 8 minutes distant. On February 14, we apparently caught a coronal mass ejection as its progenitor sunspot (#1045) was disappearing over the solar horizon in a display of the Wilson Effect. The Stanford charts show us as the only station to capture this phenomenon.
-Mike Jefferson

Sunspot group 1045 has developed into one of the largest and most interesting sunspots in a long time (well, years!). It is currently centered in the sun’s northern hemisphere and is well worth looking at before it disappears. As always, be sure to use proper solar observing techniques and equipment, and always be safe when observing the sun. Check out today’s image from the SOHO satellite.

The sun on February 7th, with large sunspot group.

Here is a link to the trailer for the IMAX movie about the last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, due out in May.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO4ZWJlROwE&feature=youtube_gdata&autoplay=1

There’s been lots of talk about Mars at our meetings and in the blog since opposition is occurring tonight. But there is another interesting thing in the sky keeping Mars company tonight. The Moon will be full on Sat 30 Jan and it also will be at perigee. Like all orbits, the Moon’s is elliptical and gets closer or further away from the Earth throughout it’s orbit.

Link to larger image

As it turns out, this full Moon (Also known as the Wolf Full Moon), will be coinciding with its closest approach. This means it will be larger than usual (both actually and apparently). Try to catch the full Moon rise in the East just after sunset. Combined with the atmospheric effects, this full Moon should appear a lot larger than normal.

And as a bonus, tonight the Moon will be within 6 degrees of Mars (conjunction) – also at its closest to Earth for the next few years. Both are in the constellation Cancer. So you have a double treat. Here’s a chart to help you find them. These both could fit into the field of view of low power binoculars.

Link to larger chart

The forecast is calling for a fair amount of clouds over the next few days, but there should also be some good breaks. So keep an eye on the sky and get out when it opens up. Be sure to let us know about your observing activities.
(images and charts from SpaceWeather.com)

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is by our upcoming guest speaker, Alan Friedman. Alan will be visiting us in April and is sure to give a fascinating talk. Be sure to see his spectacular Mars image on the APOD website by clicking on the link below, and then go out and observe Mars yourself!
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Opposition
Today (Jan 27, 2010) marks Mars closest approach to Earth for the next 26 months or so. Today we are about 99 million km from Mars (in Aug 2003, we were about 58 million km), but on Friday Jan 29 we’ll be at opposition (exact opposite direction from us and the Sun.) The difference is explained by orbital mechanics. In simplified terms, our orbits are not parallel with respect to each other so Earth is pulling away from the Sun while Mars is getting closer to both the Sun and Earth, but not at the same rate. As a result, closest approach and opposition do not fall at the same time (but are generally close to each other).

This weekend is calling for some clear skies so get out if you can to see Mars at it’s best for the next 2 years. Even so, Mars won’t be much more than 14 arc-seconds in size. But at the Burlington Public Night last week, I was able to make out the polar cap and some of the larger surface features in my 5″ refractor without a lot of magnification.

Spirit
As I reported at the Jan HAA meeting, the Mars rover Spirit has been stuck in one place since April of 2009. NASA, JPL and APL engineers have been trying to figure out ways to free Spirit from its location.

Last tracks that will ever be made by Spirit

Regrettably now it’s official (as of Jan 26) that they have given up and they will no longer try to free Spirit from its current position.
Spirit

Instead Spirit will now enter a new phase of life as a stationary science platform doing additional chemical analysis and try to determine more info about the nature of the planetary core.

How long it will last will be dependent upon surviving the winter. It is now mid-fall on Mars and the tilt of the solar panels (which provides power to the heaters, electronics and radios) is getting less and less energy each day. If it can’t get enough energy to keep warm enough through the winter, then it may not survive. If it does, then it could last for many more months or years in this final location.

The good news is that the other rover, Opportunity is still going strong.

Phoenix
In a related note about Mars exploration, you may remember the Phoenix lander from 2008. It landed in the far Martian north in June and was supposed to last to Sept, but got another 2 months after confirming water ice under the polar cap. Its last transmission was Nov 2008 when the winter had advanced and solar energy dropped to a level incapable of sustaining Phoenix.
Phoenix Wake-up call

Now that spring is approaching and the sun is getting higher(more energy for the solar panels and batteries), NASA has planned a series of calls to Phoenix to see if it survived the winter. While it appears to be unlikely, there is a slim chance. The first calls went out on Jan 18 and will be repeated several times over the next few months. Orbiting satellite Odyssey will be positioned to listen for any weak signal and relay it to Earth. So far there hasn’t been a reply, but it’s still early and potentially lots of frost on the panels. Conditions may improve over the next few months.

Our public star party at the Nelson Rec Centre in Burlington was very well attended by both members of the HAA and the public. The skies stayed crystal clear for the entire evening and there were many telescopes and binoculars on hand for everyone to get their fill of photons.

Here are a few photos of the event. I hope others add to/edit this report with their comments.

Burlington Public Star Party – Jan. 22, 2010 – Jim W.

Burlington Public Star Party – GWS

Burlington Public Star Party- Don P.

Update and photos from Don Pullen

As mentioned by Ann and commented by Jim, this was definitely one of our best attended public night. We had about 200 people come by, either because of the ringette and hockey at the arena, or had seen our promotion in some of the local papers. But whatever it was that brought them out, they left with a new sense of awe and appreciation for the HAA and astronomy.

As expected, the afternoon skies cleared and we had good seeing (a little unsteady, but not bad considering we were in a parking lot).

About a dozen scopes were set up with a mix of refractors, reflectors and SCT’s. People were amazed with views of the Moon, Mars and some nebulas and clusters.

True to forecast, the clouds started to roll in a little after 10pm and things were starting to wind down, so we packed up and we crowded out the staff at a nearby Tim’s for comaraderie and reminiscing on the event.

A great night and thanks to all of our members for coming out on a chilly, but pleasant night and providing a wonderful show for the people of Burlington and area.