November 15, 2008

Hall Dome at Anderson Mesa

I decided to revisit a variety of older photos recently and try reprocessing them. In particular, I've had a really difficult time processing the noise out of my short, 30 second landscape & sky shots. After seeing some amazing sub-minute night photos by David Harvey, I was inspired to give mine another try.

Three years ago, I shot some photos while observing at Anderson Mesa. The reprocessed photos below shows the Hall 1.1 meter Ritchey-Chretien Dome. A bit of the Perkins dome can be seen to the right. The original processed version of that photo was very noisy and it only held up at a smaller size. The stars also had poor differentiation in magnitude and I can't stand greenish-yellow sky color. This still isn't a masterpiece, but it's giving me some ideas for future shots. The shot is a single (unstacked) 30 second exposure at f/3.5, ISO 1600 with my Canon EOS 300D.

Posted by Jeremy at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2008

NGC 1501

Observation Notes:

This planetary nebula was a nice detour after traveling along Kemble's Cascade and the sparkling splash of NGC 1502. It was readily evident as a soft disc at 48X. At 120X, it had a very slight aqua tint. I found it too faint to examine well at 240X, so I kept it to 120X. Averted vision revealed a thick, subtle annular shape. The southwest edge was brighter and the northeast edge seemed to have two brighter knots. The northwest side appeared somewhat flattened. I saw no evidence of a central star.

Object Information:

NGC 1501 was discovered by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel in 1787. The planetary lies roughly 5000 light years away and is about 1.4 light years in diameter. It possesses a 14.5 magnitude Wolfe-Rayet star at its heart. It is also cataloged as: PK144+6.1, H IV-53, GC 801, PN G144.5+06.5

Posted by Jeremy at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2008

NGC 7662

Observation Notes:

The 'Blue Snowball' nebula didn't disappoint, and shone with a subtle cyan-green color when I aimed the Dob at it. It was elongated roughly north-south and had an uneven appearance. The main shell was shaped like a soft, round-edged pentagon. The east side was brightest, while the northwest side opened up to allow a darker intrusion into the nebula's core. This brighter shell appeared to be surrounded by a slim, subtle halo. Although I could not see the central star, another neighboring star paired itself with the snowball, about 1 arc minute to the northeast. The nebula itself appeared to be about 30 arc seconds in diameter.

Object Information:

NGC 7662 was discovered by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel in 1784. It is also cataloged as: PK106-17.1, H IV-18, h 2241, GC 4964, PN G106.5-17.6

Posted by Jeremy at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

C/2006 OF2 (Broughton) - OCT 30 & 31, 2008

Move mouse over sketch above to view labels and different positions. Click image for larger version.

Observation Notes:

Two comets within the span of a week. It feels great to pull another one in. Comet 2006 OF2 was discovered by J. Broughton on July 17, 2006. It is currently making its way through Lynx at a very leisurely pace as it prepares to reverse course on November 15th and retrograde its way toward Auriga. So the next couple weeks are when it will be at its brightest. The Aerith.net site estimates a magnitude of 10.8, and it may brighten another couple-tenths of a magnitude over the next few days.

When I spotted it on the night of October 29th, it was a couple arc minutes north of a small triangle of 11th magnitude stars. At first glance, it appeared to have a stellar core and to be rather elongated. A closer examination showed that the comet was hovering next to a 12.7 magnitude USNO star. The presence of that star made it difficult to examine the extent of the coma, but I estimated a diameter of 1 arc minute comparing to the triangle asterism. It had a softly condensed core, and I couldn't verify any elongation. I checked on its position 3 hours later and noted it had moved eastward, but by a very small amount--perhaps 30 arc seconds or so.

I checked back in with the comet the following night and its new position was much easier to mark. It was still well within the boundaries of my original sketch field stop and appeared to have moved about 5-6 arc minutes to the east-northeast at a PA of about 70 degrees. Starry Night Pro showed a movement of 7.25 arc minutes at a PA of 63 degrees. This time it wasn't conjoined with a nearby star and I was able to estimate its appearance a little better. It appeared to be slightly elongated to the west with a size of about 1.5 x 2 arc minutes. The core still appeared to be softly concentrated.

Posted by Jeremy at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2008

C/2006 W3 (Christensen) - OCT 25, 2008

Move mouse over sketch above to view labels. Click image for larger version.

Observation Notes:

Comet 2006 W3 was discovered on November 18, 2006 by E. J. Christensen with the Catalina Sky Survey. It has been corkscrewing its way along the northern Milky Way since then, heading for a summer 2009 maximum that might bring it up to 8th magnitude.

When I observed it this evening, It was a fairly easy catch in Cepheus. At low power, it appeared as a slightly out of focus star. Averted vision really helped pop the coma into visibility, and it looked much better at higher power (120X). Its brightness profile faded very quickly away from its stellar core. I estimated the visual extent of the coma to be 1 arc minute in diameter. Over the course of 2 hours, I estimated it moved about 3 arc minutes to the southwest at a PA of 230 degrees. Checking Starry Night Pro later revealed a movement of 2.5 arc minutes at 224 degrees PA during that time frame. The Aerith.net site estimates a magnitude of 10.3.

A nice double star marked one end of a line of stars near the comet. There was just a hint of color in the double with a pale yellow primary and dull gray-red secondary. The double appeared to have a PA of about 250 degrees and a separation of 10-15 arc seconds. I didn't bring out the astrometric eyepiece for this one. Measuring the separation of the two stars in Starry Night Pro yielded a measurement of 248 degrees and 17 arc seconds. I was not able to find the pair listed in the Vizier databases or in SIMBAD. It seems notable enough that it should be listed somewhere. The two stars are listed in the Tycho catalog as TYC 4485-536-1 and TYC 4485-832-1.

Posted by Jeremy at 7:11 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Broken Comments

OK. The comment feature was messed up again due to a 'fix' that broke more than it fixed. If you've tried to leave a comment over the last week or so, I fear that it was lost into the nothingness. Sorry about that. It appears to be working now. :)

Posted by Jeremy at 2:01 PM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

Astronomy Now Magazine - November 2008

I just received a copy of the November 2008 issue of Astronomy Now. The Focus section this month is dedicated to visual observing and sketching. I had the pleasure of preparing one of the articles, "How to Draw the Universe". Peter Grego wrote the article "Moonwalking". Neil Bone and Keith Cooper also discussed the benefits of sketching. With Martin Mobberley's articles "Tricks of the Eye" and "Ten Visual Treats" and a series of observing sections illustrated with sketches from several different observers, as well as a visual treatment for the section that I found really enjoyable, I thought the November issue was awesome. I am biased. But even if I didn't have an article in there, I'd still be excited about the content. Keith Cooper noted in his Forward article:

"There's a bizarre myth that we won't publish sketches because the aren't 'sexy' enough to sell the magazine. The reality is that we really don't get many submitted to the magazine for us to use. So I hope this issue will encourage some of you to begin making sketches and sending them in to us. We'd be delighted to publish the best of them in our Picture Gallery, which you can find on page 92. We would also be interested to hear your thoughts about the pros and cons of sketching in our letters pages."

So sketchers, send in those drawings: gallery2008@astronomynow.com.

While you're at it, why not send in a sketch or two (or more) to the Astronomy Sketch of the Day!

I've been impressed with Astronomy Now's use of sketches in every issue, and I've noticed that Sky and Telescope has also been increasingly conscious about using sketches regularly to illustrate articles too (thanks, Keith, Tony, Sue, et. al.).

Posted by Jeremy at 12:27 PM | Comments (2)

October 5, 2008

Iota Bootis (Struve 26)

Click image for larger version

Observation Notes:

I think Boötes is my favorite constellation for doubles. Iota Boötis is not one of the showstoppers, but it's still an enjoyable color tester. At low power, I saw the primary as yellow with a dull blue secondary. At high power, the colors swapped places on me from time to time. The primary is an A class star and the secondary is a K star. So the blue secondary is another nice little visual mystery. Other observers have perceived some interesting colors.

Jeff Burton noted Yellow/Blue

Observers at the 33 Doubles Observing Project noted--
Tim Leese: Off-White/Pale Yellow
Cor Berrevoets: Greenish-White/White
Mary Flanagan: Greenish-Yellow/Intense Blue
Jim Jones: Yellow primary

Jeff Verona saw Yellowish-White/Blue

I measured PA and separation at 32° and 38". The Washington Double Star measurements from 1820 listed 33° and 38.5". I was not looking for, nor did I notice the 12.6 magnitude C star.

Posted by Jeremy at 9:22 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2008

38 Lyncis (Struve 1334)

Click image for larger version

Observation Notes:

My first attempt at measuring this double star on April 10th was foiled by a sudden deterioration in seeing. So I hit it again on the 12th when I was able to enjoy the interesting color contrast of this close double under more stable air. The primary shone with a brilliant cyan hue while its companion buzzed with a dull orange color. I measured a PA of 226 degrees which compares to a 1995 value (Wycoff+, 2006) of 228 degrees. I came up with a separation of 3.4 arc seconds in the astrometric eyepiece, compared to a 1995 measurement of 3.14 arc seconds. I did not measure the widely separated C and D components, but catalogued values can be found below. The B star itself is a tight double with a 1988 WDS measurement of 83 degrees / 0.1 arc seconds.

Posted by Jeremy at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2008

A Few Site Problems

If you tried to access my site over the last couple weeks, you've probably had trouble loading pages, especially from the 11th to 14th of September. It turns out the commenting script for my site was suddenly getting hammered really, REALLY bad by comment spammers--100 or more separate spams at any given moment apparently. My weblog software filters and hides the vast majority of this nasty stuff from me, so I didn't realize how bad it was getting. And by bad, I mean it was actually killing the server that hosts my site--until they finally shut me down last week. For some reason, Google likes me, so I guess the spammers decided I really needed to get notched up the persecution list. This is particularly frustrating, because I would have disabled the commenting script right away if I had known this was happening.

The thing that clinched the problem is that the company hosting my site has run into some sort of trouble and no longer responds promptly to support issues. So I didn't realize my own comment spam was the root of the growing problem until I finally got a response from them Sunday--by which time my site and email had been dead for nearly three days. In the meantime, I had already signed up with a different hosting company (ICDSoft) with excellent support rankings; and that's where we are today. A few things may be glitchy--it's not point-n-click to move a weblog database from one server to another unfortunately. And I've disabled commenting, so my site doesn't get assassinated again.

I still hope to get & post comments (I'm needy that way :-), but for the time being, I'll need to get them via email and post them manually. (see the email listed in the heading above). Thanks for being patient with all of this.

Posted by Jeremy at 12:59 PM | Comments (3)

August 31, 2008

Northern Arizona Storm - August 30, 2008

The monsoon keeps on trucking. And that means no telescope time over the new moon weekend. But it did mean a mini storm-chase for me today.

Another one of those 'early season' troughs yanked loads of moisture up and promised to breathe life into some nice storms. A look at the sky in the early afternoon showed looming darkness to the west, trying to hide behind clusters of low-lying cumulus that were scattered everywhere. The NOAA satellite page showed a couple hefty storms blooming near Williams.

I pulled up some geocache sites on the west of town to coax the kids into going with me, and we hopped on I-40. The clouds looked plump and dark, but not very organized in the immediate vicinity of Parks, AZ. So we tagged a geocache on a quiet, crumbling section of old Route 66 and then grabbed some lunch at the Bellemont truck stop. By the time we were done, things looked really interesting. So we drove west on an access road for a good view, and saw some nice structure building. The storm was heading away from us (west-northwest), heavy rain was falling on its west and southwest flanks and a strong, captivating inflow column was gushing on the northeast side of the cell. If you take the basic mesocyclone model and rotate it 120 degrees counterclockwise, that's pretty much how this storm was behaving. Which is to say, goofy Arizona monsoon style.

So I set up the camera and tripod and started shooting some photos.

Click above for larger image.

I also got to work on a time-lapse series. After shooting about 25 minutes of frames, it was getting far enough away and looking bland enough that I decided to stop. About two minutes after that, a fantastic bell-shaped skirt of cloud formed right beneath the inflow column and connected to it. It was down to the treeline from our vantage, and was holding steady. I just needed to find a clearer, closer view of it. I'm kicking myself for not shooting a quick photo of it while I had the chance, but I figured I'd just have to drive a little way down the road. That was not so easy. We had to drive about ten miles further west through blinding rain before we found a spot that wasn't crowded by hills and towering ponderosas.

At the new location just a little west of Williams, I was able to spot the ragged appendage drifting westward. It had lost its skirt, but a beautifully thin and graceful arc of cloud peeled away from it like a calligrapher's flourish (possibly a tail cloud?). It was dissipating quickly, but you can see some of it in the photo below.

Click above for larger image.

I've uploaded the time-lapse to youtube, and the series shows some fascinating motion. The link below will take you to the high-res version of the video. From the first location, the movement starts out fairly haphazard, but by the end of that series it was starting to consolidate its circulation. I wish I had been able to tell that at the time and had kept shooting. At the second location, you can also see some counterclockwise movement as it hurries off to the west.

AUG 30, 2008 Storm Time Lapse

[Edit September 2, 2008]:
The Arizona Daily Sun published the first photo on the back page today. Being newsprint, it was a bit soft, but it does show up better at their website.

Posted by Jeremy at 4:18 AM | Comments (0)