We got out to our Burlington observing site Sunday evening (the 15th)with my 6 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain and Moe Chaput’s 10 inch reflector. Comfortable observing conditions, especially as compared to January! I re-acquainted myself with some targets from this time last year including the Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392) – very nice, could see some detail that hinted at the heart shape but to me it looked more roundish and irregular. I also looked at Tau Canis Majoris Cluster, an open star cluster, and a favourite of mine, as the bright blue-white star that shines from about the centre of the cluster burns with the brightness of 50,000 suns. Then I keyed in the specific RA and DEC to get to my next target, V Hya, a carbon star in Hydra, the part of the constellation near Crater, roughly RA 10 hrs 51 min and DEC -21 deg (sorry I don’t have exact coordinates right now – It is marked as a variable star “V” in the Sky & Tel Pocket Atlas on page 36 and it also appears in Sue French’s book). This is a very reddish looking star – I thought it looked brighter a year ago, maybe it is piling up carbon soot in its’ atmosphere and shining less brightly. Finally checked out Saturn: the seeing was still very nice on Sunday night. Wow! Saturn’s rings are really skinny! I could see subtle banding on the planet’s surface and that ever so slim shadow of the rings across the surface. Only saw three moons for sure: Titan, Tethys and Rhea – been more successful at moon-hunting on other nights. My observing partner, Maurice Chaput, bagged a couple of Messiers he was looking for: a couple of globulars, M68 and also M3, which was quite spectacular in his 10 inch hand-made reflector. I gave M63 (the Sunflower Galaxy) in Canes Venatici a shot, but I had no luck. I am really looking forward to spring-time observing!

I will keep my impressions of the night brief in hopes that others will add to it. With about 15 people on the hill there was so much going on that this will need to be a group effort.
With the sky clearing nicely I checked the collimation of our 12″ dob to make sure we’d make the best of it. Glad I did as it was way off. However, with a barlowed laser collimator and Gail calling out directions as I adjusted the primary screws, we got it perfectly aligned within minutes.
Pretty well anything we looked at was a delight. We cruised through the usual popular items, sharing some views with a Ukrainian family that Ann Tekatch had adopted at the gate.
For me, the best part of the night, though, happened just before midnight. I’d decided to look for the Eskimo Nebula, and after aiming the scope to the general area with the aid of a Rigel Quickfinder I fine-tuned the aim with a 9×50 finderscope. To my surprise, I could see the nebula in the finderscope. When I got to the eyepiece, however, the nebula looked very comet-like. Then it hit me – I’d stumbled across Comet Lulin making a close pass to the Eskimo Nebula. In fact they were about 1/3 of a degree apart making for a nice pairing in the same FOV.
But the best was yet to come. Just as the scope’s tube was getting a layer of frost on it, I turned it in the direction of Saturn and WOW!!! I have rarely, if ever, seen Saturn so well-defined. Although the rings are nearly edge-on, at 214x magnification I could easily make out the difference in shading between A and B. The ring shadow across the globe was a dark, razor-thin line, and the gap between the rings and the planet appeared large enough to drive a truck through. The North and South Equatorial bands were tan lines across a creamy background and the moons Titan, Dione, Iapetus, Rhea, and Enceladus were bright points of light – the latter two sitting together right on the edge of the rings. What a fantastic sight on a frosty night.

Glenn

At Approx. 9:20pm, the Space Shuttle Discovery will leave the launch pad for a mission to the ISS.

There are several links to NASA TV if you want to watch it live, online, here’s one:

http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1369080

mage: A nearly full Moon sets as the space shuttle Discovery sits atop Launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

UPDATE!
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The launch has been postponed. The next attempt will be Thursday at 8:54 p.m. EDT.
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UPDATE! UPDATE!

We’re now looking at Sunday March 15 ~ 7:43pm

Sorry I’m a little late with this… I finally got around to processing the images that I took of this comet back when it was at opposition. Since this is a relatively large target I should have imaged it with my 80mm scope but instead opted for the longer focal length 6in SCT since the camera was already hooked up to it. Anyway I hope you like this more zoomed in perspective.

KerryLH
Larger View
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=5070&g2_imageViewsIndex=3

This is an odd designation that I wasn’t aware of. From SpaceWeather.com’s website, here’s an interesting (if unromantic) moniker for the full moon (which we’re unlikely to see in the next day or two).

“Tonight’s full Moon has a special name–the Worm Moon. It signals the coming of northern spring, a thawing of the soil, and the first stirrings of earthworms in long-dormant gardens. Step outside tonight and behold the wakening landscape. “Worm moonlight” is prettier than it sounds.”

Our own John Gauvreau had one of his photos posted on SpaceWeather.com recently. It’s a beautiful shot of Venus being reflected off the ice at Binbrook. Here’s the link to the image:
http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=John-Gauvreau-IMG_1747dsmall_1236570782.jpg

Kudos John.

AP Reuters – Greenwich:

Emboldened by their success in declaring Pluto not a planet, the International Astronomical Union determined this week by a close vote that February is too short to be considered a true month. It has, however, been granted the newly created status of “dwarf month.” It shares this dubious distinction with several other calendar time spans, including Labor Day Weekend, Christmas Vacation, and the Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You Actually Did.

“It only seems fair,” said IAU President Ron Eckers. “February reaches a peak size of 29 days, averaging only 28 days for 75 percent of the time. Recent research has shown that other periods, such as the Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You Actually Did, often exceed this meager time frame. In fact, this erratic behavior only strengthens our case that February does not belong in the same classification as the eleven ‘true’ months.”

Eckers also warned that the crop of 30-day “so-called” months should be careful to maintain their number of days. “They’re already cutting it pretty close in my book.”

(Written by Michael Haber)

Gail and I arrived at the gate at 7:20pm and I was switching the locks when Mike Griswald drove up. ?I?m not a member,? he kindly informed me. ?Not a problem,? I replied. ?You soon will be!?
Down by the boat launch we found the parking lot surprisingly dry and firm for this time of year so decided to set up there. Mike assembled a nice Stellarview Nighthawk 80mm refractor, with an 18mm Televue Radian, on a quick and easy alt-az mount, and we had brought our 6? dob and binoviewer set-up. As we were aligning finderscopes Ann Tekatch pulled in. From her collection she?d brought her ?scope of the week?, a Meade 80mm f11 refractor, also on an alt-az mount. Within minutes we were all aiming at our first target ? the Moon.
Gail found an interesting crater beside the terminator, near the South Pole. Using the Virtual Moon software she identified it as Newton. One of the older craters, Newton is about 82km wide and 8000m from rim to floor. Mike and I came across the crater Clavius almost at the same time. Clavius contains an interesting subset of craters, evenly spaced in an arc, and graduated large to small like a set of measuring cups. Inside the arc is a dome-like feature that is an eroded massif (mountainous region).
Ann then went hunting for the Davey crater chain, and after referring to Ruckl?s Atlas of the Moon, and Charles Wood?s Modern Moon, soon found it and showed us a thin bright line across the floor of the crater Davey. Bumping the power in our binoviewers to 210x, we were just able to distinguish the line of small craters as a linear series of bright dots.
Humidity was fairly high, yet the clouds that had covered our drive to the park had gone East and the sky steadily improved. The wind had died down considerably from earlier in the day and the record-setting temperatures of the afternoon were still a few degrees above freezing.
Mike?s scope gave us a nice wide field view of the Pleiades, and after Ann had finished her sketch of the crater chain she switched ep?s and gave us a sharp view of Saturn. We were spoiled by the all of the fine optics on hand and soon found 4 of Saturn?s moons despite the low altitude of the planet and the fair to middling transparency.
Even with the bright Moon, you can?t ignore the Orion Nebula and we were soon comparing views of the Trapezium. But at this point, the air over the park reached the dew point and within moments all surfaces were wet. It was time to pack up.
After a long cold winter with all too infrequent observing opportunities, it was nice to share some photons with friends. Thanks Ann. Thanks Mike. We had a good night.

Glenn

A group of astronomy students from Mohawk College were out at Binbrook Conservation Area, for a night of observing. A beautiful but cold night offered good viewing, and several club members were at the park that night as well.

Venus showed a beautiful, thin crescent, and not to be outdone, Saturn showed some equally thin rings. Not surprisingly, the views of Saturn actually elicited gasps and exclamations from the first-time observers! Jim W. showed some clusters and asterisms through his fine 8″ scope and Andrew B. offered up some excellent deep sky views through his 12″ Lightbridge. Don brought along his refractor and Jackie made everyone feel at home. My refractor offered up some wide field views as well, and before the night was through they (and we) had seen M81 and 82, the Double Cluster, The Pleiades, the Beehive, M42 and a smattering of other objects. Of particular interest was a view of the minor ‘dwarferoid’ planet Ceres, and all 6 stars in the Trapezium! Ann called in her contribution on her cell phone and pointed out the Lunar X on the first quarter moon. It was a beatiful sight and we all enjoyed finding it (I almost called this blog entry an ‘X File’).

One student brought her own scope and another brought a pair of big binoculars. All brought a great deal of enthusiasm that was certainly matched by the HAA members present. The mixing of these two great groups made for a really fun night for everyone.

Recently, while reading some forum posts on the website, Our Dark Skies, I learned of an upcoming opportunity to view an optical feature on the moon called the Lunar “X”. During a narrow window around 1st. quarter moon, sunlight illuminates some of the crater ridges near the craters Werner, Purbach, Blanchinus & La Caille, forming the letter “X”. I’ve never seen or heard of this feature and I was curious to see if I could view it. Using an 80 mm f/11 refractor with a 24mm eyepiece (about 38x), I was able to spot the white “X” about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the moon along the terminator. It was small but obvious. I made a sketch of the view.

The Lunar “X”

For more information on the Lunar “X”, check Wikipedia: http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Lunar+X

Ann T.

UPDATE

Here is a picture of the Lunar X that I took tonight, after Ann brought it to our attention, and you can see how closely it matches Ann’s drawing. Thanks Ann, it was really worth seeing.

John G.

The Lunar X

Great photo, John! I’m so glad you were able to photograph it. The “X” is only visible for about 4 hours at 1st. quarter. Its appearance began at about 2230 UT (5:30 EST) last night, so you caught it just before it disappeared.

Ann T.