Comet Hartley 2 and the Sun.

I have been asked by a friend, and member of my local astronomical society, Macc Astro Soc.
If I can post a couple of observing reports, together with a picture, taken recently of C2003P Hartley 2 and a drawing of the Sun. Drawn using a Coronado PST, by Mr Paul Canon.


Sun Sketching
20/10/10   10.49am
The Sun was very active  on Wednesday. There were four  sunspot regions in the disc. Each region was surrounded by a large plage. Two large broad filaments were in the north east quarter with a smattering of smaller ones scattered around the disc. South east there was a plage region with a large filaprom visible. Around the limb there were groups of prominences, but not on the south west limb that I could see. The largest prominences were along the south east limb. Two unusual ones were near the north pole, one hanging above the limb the other looking like a tree trunk with a single branch.

Comet 103P Hartley 2
12/10/10 12.10am
A go at Hartley through the murk  early Tuesday morning. 5 x 5min images stacked on the head and   processed in  Photoshop. The comets tail in this image is towards the north east off the central core. The  coma around the core is very large, but diffuse and requires processing to bring it out.

NGC7331 Galaxy in Pegasus

On Tuesday I had a major breakthrough with my astro-imaging. For years I have been struggling getting my guiding sorted out, I began to give UP as I wasn't really getting the results which I had hoped for, when I bought my Losmandy G11.

Then two weeks ago I decided that I would try again, only this time use my CCD, an Atik 16ic and drift align my already reasonably aligned mount. This I did, and I managed to take a series of one minute test exposures of NGC7331 in Pegasus. Everything was looking very good.

On Sunday I decided to dig out and restore, my fifteen years old 60mm finder scope, that has been modified and now has a rack and pinion focuser, to use as a guide scope.

The biggest advantage in using this scope is it's small light weight design, and whopping field of view, which will make finding guide stars easier.

On Tuesday during a spell of very sunny weather, I came home to a clear sky and started to get everything ready.
Shortly after sunset, I was happily slewing and synchronizing on Beta and then Epsilon Pegasi, then onto NGC7331. This galaxy was visible near the centre of the CCD chip, and it was only a matter of seconds before I had it in the middle.

The next test was the guide scope, and would it focus with my QHY5 guide camera!

I attached the camera and powered up the guiding software that I use, PHD.

I didn't have to worry, because I was able to focus on a faint guide star in the area, so I begin my calibration run to get the guiding ready.

I am happy to say that I can auto guide, and at the moment I can take guided exposures of 3 minutes with know trailing.

To prove this, here is an image of NGC7331 with  a cluster of m+14 background galaxies.

The exposure length is 1hr 45min guided with PHD and QHY5 and short focal-length 60mm guide scope, and imaged through my Orion Optics SPX 200-800 F4 with an Atik 16ic and IR block filter.

Western Veil, NGC6960 Super Nova Remnant in Cygnus.

Sunday night was once again clear. If I had a pound for every Sunday when the skies are clear. I would be rich by now.

The skies where I live were fantastic, with the Milky way faintly visible to the unaided eye, and together with that. You could also see the NAN, NGC7000, together with all of Aquarius, and the small and often over looked constellation of Equuleus. NLM was an estimated m+4.8

I looked firstly at C2003P Hartley, and noticed how much it had brightened since my last observation. I then moved over to some favourite dso's and started with M15, and then M2. Both were superb through my 24mm Panoptic and 10" Dobsonian (x50).

I then decided to have a look at the Western Veil; NGC6960. I could see 52 Cygni so I new that I could find it.

I used a wide field eyepiece, my 35mm Celestron Ultima, together with my Lumicon OIII. I centred the star, and found the Veil almost immediately.

The view at 35x magnification was just right, and I managed to make a drawing with out to much trouble.

Here attached is my drawing.



I packed UP shortly afterwards because I was tired, but happy.

M57

Last night after a day of very heavy rain, the skies where I live, finally cleared for an all to brief period. I was able to get out under a very damp sky and try my hand at drawing.

For many years now I have been using an Atik16ic for imaging and capturing deep sky object's to process and then store away on a DVD. At the end of the day all you have are a lot of pretty picture's that look nice, but at the end of the day that's all they are, picture's. And together with the problems involved with imaging, I was beginning to find it very stressful and it was slowly becoming less enjoyable with every session.

I've been looking at the work of members of the Webb Deep Sky Society, whom I am a member off, who are using video cameras and drawing what they see.

I would like to get back to basics and draw what I am looking at, using my Atik16ic and my 8" F4 Newtonian from home and my OD250 10" when away from home. The big advantage with using my CCD from home; it cuts through light pollution and acts as an electronic eye. And allows me to still look at deep sky objects.

One other advantage of doing this, you don't have to worry if you're stars are slightly elongated with each CCD image, due to a poorly miss aligned mount.

Last night as I said, the skies did eventually clear, and I got out and took the cover of my Losmandy G11, and soon had it fired UP and slewing, with my 8 inch f4 "AG" to the field where messier 57was.

It is remarkable how sensitive the CCD is over the human eye. With the exposure's set to 60 seconds, M57 was very clear and sharp with it's magnitude 13 central star  clearly visible. The camera is UN-filtered except  for a IR-block filter.

Despite the short exposures last night. I think that I was seeing stars between magnitude 13 and magnitude 14, whilst with the unaided  eye I was lucky to see magnitude 3.5.

Below is my drawing made at 19:07ut.

I found this way to be very relaxing and enjoyable night. And I certainly hope to do this again and again.

I would have made some more, but as is the norm, it clouded over shortly afterwards and I packed UP muttering to myself.

Macc Astro Jupiter Watch 2010

Last night members of my society, Macclesfield Astronomical Society hosted a "Jupiter" watch at Kerridge Cricket Club, Bollington. I am the society's observation co-ordinator, and decided last month it would be a good idea to get together in a public place to show members of the public, and our beginners to astronomy, Jupiter.

This event was, despite the annoying cloud, a success. We had a total of five telescope's set up ranging from my Orion (UK) 10" a 7.5" Mak-Newt a 6" SCT an 8" SCT and our chairman's Andrew Greenwood's 12" Meade Light Bridge.

Because of the slight haze in the sky, the seeing was for once superb. I estimated it to be Antoniardi (ANT) two. The Ant numbering is the scale used for judging the seeing conditions for the night. ANT 1 is excellent whilst 5 is very poor (why are you out side)

And because the seeing was very good, Jupiter was very sharp when viewed with a good high power eyepiece. At one time last night, I had the planet at x300 (4mm Vixen LV) but my best views of the planet were at x160 (7.5mm Plossl)

I said the planet was sharp, and what a view! When Jupiter came into view and rose higher in our sky the view's were simply stunning. I saw clearly the GRS which was very bright pink to my eye, together with the shadow of Io and various cloud features.

Later in the evening towards midnight. We were treated to a view of Io, that nobody could have predicted or have ever seen before. The moon was suddenly visible before it broke free of the planet, and we watched as Io slowly separated from Jupiter. The view is hard to describe; Io was a tiny disc that looked iridescent against the backdrop of Jupiter's invisible South equatorial belt, it really was an amazing sight through the telescope.

The evening was a great success and, with luck, I hope to be there again tonight for stage 2 of our Jupiter watch; sadly though the weather doesn't look fantastic for tonight, but you never know.



Here is a report from the Chairman of Macc Astro, Mr Andrew Greenwood.

Chairman's note: As Paul has mentioned, the event was extremely successful, it was very gratifying to be treated to some wonderful views. It has been a long, long time since Jupiter has looked so good through a telescope at our latitude.

The changing sky itself was quite dramatic. The veil of Cirrostratus produced a number of subtle optical effects. We saw a paraselene (moon-dog) and part of a 22 degree halo, upper tangent arc and upper and lower Moon pillar. All three are infrequent night-time displays. The most striking optical effect was telescopic. Looking at Jupiter it was clear to see a beautifully coloured, oval-shaped halo around the planet. As Paul has mentioned, the seeing was amazing. The GRS and inky-black shadow of the transiting moon was striking. It has been a long time since the GRS appeared so orange/red. I expect this is because of the absence of the SEB. A multitude of subtle details were visible within the polar regions of the planet, and even after the GRS had exited the disk, there was a large oval in the NEB, which to my eyes had a very defined dark area, much smaller than the transiting shadow.

After waves of thicker Cirrostratus came and went, something miraculous occurred. The sky became ultra-transparent. The Milky Way burst into view straddling Perseus, Cassiopeia and into Cygnus. No telescopes were required to see the Double cluster and the great Andromeda galaxy, M31 - or to just gaze at the countless majestic stars.

The final target for the night was 2.5 billion miles away from where we were standing. It was Uranus. The pale green, glimmering disk of the distant planet was clear to see. All the more amazing was its line-of-sight proximity to Jupiter - it was only 0.5 of a degree from the giant planet, but separated by two billion miles ... Wonderful!

Upon returning home, I took one last lingering look at the Milky Way, hopefully anticipating the brief appearance of a meteor. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Still, I felt very happy with the wonders I had witnessed.

Congratulations to Paul for organizing a very successful observing evening. I very much hope there will be many more.

Observations from Hardraw, Wensleydale, Yorkshire Dales.

A small select group from Macc Astro use an old school in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire for week-end observing trips, and I was very fortunate to be able to join Malc and the team for two night's, Friday and Saturday observing. I arrived on Friday afternoon to find the sky clearing, and with the prospect of doing some deep-sky with my 10" Dob, I was eager to set up and await for sunset.

Sunset at this time of the year is around 19:55hrs, which means that for astronomy, we now have almost nine hours dark sky observing, which is brilliant.

The sky's here are truly dark m+6.2. The milky way was very bright, with the NAN (NGC7000) together with the Cygnus rift very bright and clear.

I made an observing list, but unfortunately I didn't make any note's. I'll start doing this from now on!

61 Cygni.

Easy to split, and looks very similar to Albireo.

NGC6946.

This is a difficult galaxy which requires averted vision to see clearly. X50 the galaxy is visible against a starry background. Higher power x120 (10mm plossl) NGC6946 appears as a faint smudge of grey light. This galaxy is difficult.

M13.

Very clear and resolved at all magnification's used, x50 and x120.

I then took a break, and began looking at Jupiter, which was by now visible above the house. I then had a look at Uranus which was looking rather good despite the planets huge distance.

NGC884-869

X34 the double cluster looked magnificent. I have never seen so many stars in this cluster as I did tonight.

I can't really remember the objects I looked at afterwards. In future, I will record my observations.

Fernilee observing session

Last night was just one of those night's, when we were supposed to have clear skies all night. So myself and one of my observing buddies, decided at 20:00 to GO for it and head over to our adopted observing site.

The skies where I live in Macclesfield, and where Paul lives in Hazel Grove, where clearing, or so we thought!

I arrived after a very leisurely and relaxing drive to find the sky was almost, but not quite clear. I could see Vega (alpha Lyrae) over head and soon had my 10" OD250s f4.8 set up and collimated. What a joy it is to use a Dobsonian!

Below is a short account of my observations.

Observing site
Fernilee reservoir

Seeing A2 Transparency 5 Naked eye limiting magnitude +5.4
Telescope 10" OD250S f4.8 Deluxe

M15.
Very easy to find and resolve. x120 (10mm Plossl) very bright core, with granulation. x150 (Vixen lv zoom) granulation is now stellar with hundreds of faint stars visible, more stars are visible with averted vision. M15 is very small when compared with M13 and M92.

NGC6960.
I had difficulty finding this with cloud passing over head, but eventually I was successful. 51 Cyg is a faint m5.4 star that is easily visible to the unaided eye from this observing sight.
NGC6960 bisects 51 Cyg and is there for, very easy to observe, when the skies are clear!

At x34 with a Baader UHC filter, the Witches broom nebula as it is called, is very faint against a very rich milky way star field.
Using my 24mm Panoptic with a OIII filter, greatly enhances the view. NGC6960 is a bright luminous grey streak, with the southern portion brightest. I will study this region of space again on a better night.

Whilst hunting down NGC6960, I was lucky to spy some of the other bright parts of the Veil supernova remnant which I shall return to,when we are next UP there and the skies are more transparent.

M31.
I never tire of looking at the Andromeda galaxy so tonight was know exception. M31 was just on the fringes of naked eye visibility, so I was able to hone in on it with out any trouble.
For the best views of M31 I use a low power eyepiece, as this allows me to see all the galaxy.


x34 (Celestron Ultima) Bright nucleus with fainter spiral arms visible, this is a glorious sight to behold. M32 is also visible in the same eyepiece field.

Jupiter.
x120, North equatorial belt, very dark, and brown in colour. South equatorial still absent.

Unfortunately, we were clouded out after 00:45hrs despite the forecast of clear skies for most of the night. Paul's power supply was miss behaving, so we agreed to called it a night hoping for a decent break, for the peak of the Perseids on Thursday night.