Members of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers will be sharing an evening of Astronomy, telescope equipment demonstrations, and viewing of Jupiter, the Moon, and other celestial objects.

The Burlington Burloak Park has an excellent dark southern horizon, and not too much interference from the city lights, so it’s sure to be an enjoyable evening with interesting things to see.

We will be setting up in Burlington on October 3rd, with a rain/cloud date of October 4th, at 8 PM, and will remain until about 11 PM. Check back here on September 25th to see which date has been chosen. Note that daytime clouds often dissipate as evening approaches, so we will be checking the weather predictions carefully.

Here’s a map of the location:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.367916,-79.727719&spn=0.002683,0.006003&t=h&z=18

Come early to see what it takes to assemble and set up a telescope, or come on time and get a good look through those same telescopes.

If you have a telescope, bring it along: we can help set it up and point it at Saturn for you.
If you have binoculars, by all means bring them too. Binoculars are an excellent and easy to use way to get more from the sky.

As part of the International Year of Astronomy, we will also have some handouts to interest
children and adults.

I hope you had a chance to see the conjunction of Venus & the Moon tonight. It was spectacular! I snapped a quick photo hoping to record this beautiful pairing but my photo doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

Venus & The Moon

A lovely view through a scope! Ann’s drawing is impressive for its accuracy; check how the stars match up perfectly to Bob’s photo. My photo, taken a little after 3am, is nowhere near the quality of Bob’s, but I include it here so you can compare the comet’s change in position over the 4 hours between Bob’s photo and mine. Visually, I agree with Ann; the comet definitely appeared elongated, and gave the impression that you were seeing the tail. What a treat we had tonight!

Saturn and Comet Lulin

This is a single-frame image of Saturn and Comet Lulin I took at my brother’s place in Mountsberg, on February 23, 2009, at approximately 10:53pm. Equipment: Canon Digital Rebel 300D; Tamron 300mm f/2.8 lens set at f/4. ISO 1600; 63 second exposure. Colour balanced and gamma-corrected.

— Bob Christmas

Saturn and Comet Lulin, by Bob Christmas

Here is a quick sketch I made at 11:03 tonight of Comet Lulin as it passes by Saturn. I used a 4.25″ Astroscan telescope at about 50x for the sketch. The comet appeared as a dim, oval- shaped patch oriented roughly east-west. The little scope was bouncing in the breeze and I couldn’t detect any detail in the comet. It appeared uniform in brightness to me.

Ann T.

Sketch of Comet Lulin & Saturn

Here is a puzzle for you all, and I hope it is one that you can solve, since I really want to know the answer!

A few minutes ago I was outside, binocular viewing from here at my Hamilton home. I had some nice views of the usual suspects like M42 and the Pleiades, but I was really there to have a look at Venus and see if I could see the crescent phase of Venus through both my 10x60s and my 15x70s (the answer was ‘yes’ in both).

Casting my eye around the sky I noticed a bright star in the east and pondered for a moment, since there is no star that bright in that part of the sky. Sure enough it was movng and certainly a satellite, as it was moving at a steady pace and direction and showed nothing more than a snigle, steady light. It brightened considerably until it was about mag -2 or -3 (brighter than Sirius but not quite as bright as Venus). I was certain that it was the ISS, since only the space station could appear that bright, but it seemed to be moving rather slow for the station. I checked on the Heavens-Above web site (http://www.heavens-above.com/?lat=43.250&lng=-79.833&alt=92&loc=Hamilton&TZ=EST), and no ISS passes were scheduled at that time. In fact, nothing that bright was scheduled and nothing following the path I obseved this object on was was scheduled either. There was one satellite that matches the times perfectly, but not the orbital path (http://www.heavens-above.com/PassDetails.asp?Size=600&SatID=16182&lat=43.250&lng=-79.833&alt=92&loc=Hamilton&TZ=EST&Date=39867.0031120895)

So here’s what I know:

-Visible at 7:00 to 7:03pm (at it highest), Feb 22
-moving east to northwest ( from the head of Leo to just above the bowl of the Big Dipper then past the Little Dipper then fading)
-mag -3 (but fading as it moved past north)
-moving slower than the ISS usually seems to (which indicates a higher orbit)
-even through my binoclars it appeared as a single, steady point of light

Good luck, team! Let me know what you think.

I’ve just finished checking out Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3). It’s 4:43am, -5C in the backyard but feels colder. The Sky Quality Meter has just given a reading of 19.65 which is the highest “score” I’ve had at the dobservatory, to-date. That’s a theoretical naked eye limiting magnitude of 5.3 but without checking a chart I dispute that rating because, despite a slight breeze, the transparency isn’t so great.
I located Lulin first with 10×50 binoculars – it appeared as a fairly substantial, gray, hazy patch, not terribly bright yet a fairly easy catch.
The 12″ dob revealed it as a small globular-like entity with a bright core and distinct halo within which was star TYC 4939-278-1. The star and the core appeared to be close in brightness. The star is listed as mag. 7.8 but I expect that would be slightly dimmed by the comet halo in front of it. And the apparent magnitude of both items would of course be affected by the less than great transparency.
That’s the extent of my comet sighting but I couldn’t pack up without a look at Saturn. Even with the rings practically “closed’, it is still an amazing sight.
At high power (214x) I struggled see a fragment of Cassini’s Division. Did I, didn’t I, was it my imagination, an artifact of the seeing? I can’t say for sure but I was able to make out the thinnest ring shadow line across the planet and both North and South Equatorial belts along with Titan, Dionne and Rhea off the one flank.
End of report – I’m going back to bed.

Glenn – out.

UPDATE: 9:40am On checking out a simulation of Saturn it would appear that the gap between the rings and the planet is much more pronounced at this time than any part of Cassini’s Division that would still be visible. Since I definitely did not notice the larger gap I would have to say that I also didn’t see C.D. Perhaps a dark coloured filter to cut some glare would help.

Glenn

This one was a late image. I took it during the ‘Night Sky Live in Binbrook’ last month. It was a great night and despite the cold, we all had fun. I imaged this the same way that I did the Scenic milkyway shot. I thought it looked cool to include the frame with the car lights shining on the base of the tree trunks. Hope you all like it!

KerryLH

Larger version:
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=5065&g2_imageViewsIndex=3

Sunday night while driving home I saw this really interesting view of a double iridescent halo around the moon when it was shining through cirrocumuls clouds. I checked the weather observations at Hamilton Airport and they reported these clouds to be around 20,000 ft high. I took several images of this when I got home and layered in some shorter exposures of the moon to represent the scene as I saw it. The dark column below the halo I realized came from a passing high altitude jet.

Wideview taken with the Sigma 17-70mm.

CLose up taken with a Canon 100mm lens

KerryLH

Hopefully the skies will clear and the temperature will moderate somewhat so that we can view Comet Lulin as it increases in brightness (possibly to magnitude 5) this month.

Comet Lulin is presently in Libra, rising into view by about 2:00 a.m.. According to Sky & Telescope?s website, the comet will be within 2 degrees of Saturn on Feb. 23 ? a great photo opportunity for our astrophotographers! (hint, hint)

Here is a link to the article on Sky & Tel?s website: www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/35992534.html

You can also google “Comet Lulin” and enjoy surfing through the results while we wait for a break in the dreary winter weather to get a chance to observe this new addition to our night sky.

Ann Tekatch

The comet’s position is marked for each night starting at the bottom left with February 17th. Dates are also printed for February 20th, 23rd, 26th and finally March 1st.