I should’ve blogged about this a bit earlier, but what can I say? I blame a combination of general slackness, and being totally addicted to Mass Effect 2. Anyway, on with the show!
Last Friday night, an event occurred that I’ve been looking forward to ever since the day I bought my telescope — Mars came in to opposition. In simple terms, that’s the point at which Mars and Earth come closest to each other in their respective orbits, which means that Mars is far bigger and brighter to look at than at other times. Oppositions with Mars happen only every 26 months or so, but it was definitely worth waiting for!
Even though this was a fairly bad opposition (some oppositions bring Mars and Earth closer together than others), I got a far better view of Mars than I’ve ever had before. Usually it’s just a very small, fuzzy, red disc — clearly not a pin-point star, but too small to see any detail on. On Friday, though, I could clearly see one of the polar ice-caps, a small bit of dark red banding below the cap, and larger areas of dark banding across the rest of the otherwise bright red surface.
The next opposition, in 2012, won’t bring Mars any closer than this one did, but a few after that, in 2018, Mars will be almost twice as close as it was this time. I’ll have to make sure I’m ready for it!
Posted in Astronomy
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Tagged mars, opposition
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Conditions were perfect for watching last night’s overhead pass of the ISS, and I got a great view of it through my telescope. I think it could’ve been better, though — I used my 13mm Nagler eyepiece, so the magnification was perhaps a little high, which made tracking the ISS as it (very quickly) moved through the field of view very difficult. Even when I did get it in view and keep it there for a bit, it was still moving so fast across the field that it was all a bit of a blur. Next time, I think I’ll stick with my less powerful 21mm Stratus eyepiece, which should make it easier to both track the ISS, and to hold it still long enough to make out some good detail.
Speaking of next time, there’s actually another really good pass tomorrow night (the 4th), starting about 9:08pm. Here’s hoping today’s clouds have disappeared by then!
Posted in Astronomy
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Tagged iss, telescope
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It’s a beautifully clear day outside today, and if it stays that way, I’ll be watching the ISS pass overhead tonight. The ISS passes overhead fairly often, but tonight’s showing is going to be particularly good, since it’s at a nice, easy viewing time (around 10pm), and it’ll be riding very high up in the sky, so it’ll be a great sight.
If you’re in Melbourne, and you want to check it out, head outside at 9:58PM and look north-west — you should very soon see a bright dot, climbing steadily up in to the sky, and growing brighter as it does. It’ll reach its highest point in the sky at 10:01, in the south-west, and then head back down to set in the south-east at 10:04. If you have a small telescope, or even binoculars, you should be able to make out some structure. Tracking it in a telescope will require quick movements, though!
If you miss tonight’s pass, you can get a list of other upcoming passes at Heavens Above.
The world is going Apollo-mad with the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the moon, and there’s no better way to celebrate than with some fresh images of those pioneering missions. Last month, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnassance Orbiter, or LRO, which will map the moon in greater detail than ever before. It’s the first lunar mapping mission with the resolution needed to photograph the equipment left behind by the Apollo missions, and just a few days ago, that’s exactly what it did.
This shot of the Apollo 14 landing site is definitely the best of the lot so far — you can see not just the base of the Lunar Module, but also the science payload set up a short distance away, and the path the astronauts walked to deliver it:
There are more images on the LRO website. The best news is that LRO still isn’t in its final mapping orbit, so it should be sending back even better photos of these historic sites in the future.
I didn’t believe the BOM on Wednesday when it said that the miserable morning we were having was going to give way to a clear night, but they were spot on, and after getting back from NIN around midnight it was the perfect time to track down Comet Lulin. It’s moving across the sky pretty quickly at the moment (a good few degrees per day), but I knew it’d still be fairly close to Saturn, so I found that in my binoculars and then just started panning around from there.
It took a little while, but eventually, I found Lulin in my binoculars. It wasn’t exactly a spectacular sight — little more than a faint, roundish smudge, really — but after studying it for a little while I thought I could just make out the bright central spot of the comet’s nucleus. After checking the star charts for any fixed objects in that location (just as Charles Messier would have nearly 250 years ago) and finding nothing, I’m sure that what I saw was indeed Comet Lulin.
I was hoping to get a glimpse of Comet Lulin last night, but unfortunately, the weather didn’t co-operate. Lulin was closest to Earth on the 24th, but for at least the next week or so it should be quite bright, as comets go — visible to the naked eye, if only just, in a clear, dark sky, and relatively easy to spot in binoculars from suburbia. At about 9:30, things were looking good last night, with just a few clouds visible, so I thought I’d get the telescope out to try to track down M1. By the time I was set up and had found where to look, though, more clouds had rolled in, and I had to give up the hunt. By midnight, which was when Lulin should have been coming in to the field of view from my front yard, the sky was just a blanket of clouds.
Ah well, such is this hobby of mine! It looks like we’re heading in to a stormy weekend, so I’m hoping that either tonight (though it’s not looking good so far) or tomorrow night will deliver the goods.
Saturday was another clear night, so I took the telescope out in search of one of the brigtest galaxies in the southern skies, the Sculptor Galaxy. Unfortunately, like my earlier experience with Centaurus A, I didn’t end up spotting it; I got it lined up as far as I could tell, star-hopping along in the finderscope based on nearby stars, but I couldn’t actually see it in the end.
I know how to find it now at least, so when I do get out in to some nice dark skies, I should have no trouble tracking it down.
The weather is back to shitty today, but last night, barring the odd cloud, it was actually clear, so I got a chance to put my new eyepieces through their paces. The moon was the main target — a big bright gibbous moon, with lots of craters jumping out along the terminator — and it looked sensational in both the Nagler and the Stratus. The Nagler gave very impressive views, with the extra maginification bringing out more detail while the wide field kept the entire moon in view. Taking in the whole moon at once was more comfortable with the Stratus, though, thanks to its lower magnification and larger true field of view, and it still showed plenty of detail as well.
The problem with having the moon high in the sky is that it light blots out views of faint objects, but I still tried the Nagler on Omega Centauri, a massive globular cluster, and on the Lagoon Nebula quickly with the UHC filter. I’ll have to wait for a clear, moonless night to really see what it do, though.
For a laugh, I threw one of my older eyepieces in while looking at the moon, and the difference was chalk and cheese — the bundled eyepieces aren’t terrible, but they’re definitely not as sharp and have less contrast, and the higher magnification pieces are nowhere near as nice to use thanks to their narrow fields of view. The fancy-pants glass is definitely worth it.
I have to apologise for the rain — buying new astronomy gear always brings bad weather, to ruin any plans of using it straight away, and the clouds started rolling over as soon as I was on my way home from the shop yesterday. I picked up a 13mm Tele Vue Nagler eyepiece which, along with the 21mm Orion Stratus eyepiece Kat got me for my birthday, should replace all of the cheap, basic eyepieces that came with the telescope.
The 21mm Stratus is a great low-power eyepiece for large nebulas and star clusters, while the medium-power 13mm Nagler is more for the smaller faint fuzzy things and the planets. The bundled eyepieces have an apparent field of view of about 50 degrees, and don’t perform well at the edges, but the Stratus as a 68 degree field and is sharp right to the edge, and the Nagler is 82 and should be just as sharp. The extra field of view will make observing much easier, since I won’t have to readjust the telescope so often to track the sky’s movement, especially at high magnification, which is a must for the planets. High magnification can help with small, faint things like galaxies, too, since it boosts contrast.
Of course, the bad weather curse has kept my Nagler inside since its purchase, but I’ve used the Stratus a couple of times, and it’s awesome — having a quality eyepiece really makes all the difference. With the UHC-E filter fitted, I got some great views of the Lagoon Nebula, and even though it’s not meant for planetary work, Jupiter was amazingly sharp. I’m very well set up now, so roll on the warm, clear spring nights!
I got my UHC filter on the weekend, but I also picked up two more things: a laser collimator, which is used to align all of the optics in the telescope (they slowly drift out of whack, or more quickly if you’re not careful with it), and a pair of binoculars. Binoculars might seem a bit redundant, but they’re actually really handy — because they’re low magnification (7X, compared to a low of 46X in the telescope at the moment), you can take in a lot of sky at once, which makes them handy for spotting objects before hunting them down in the telescope.
They’re also perfect for taking a quick look at something, without having to drag the telescope outside. You might not think you’d be able to see much, but the moon looks great, you can spot the moons of Jupiter, open clusters, and the brigher globular clusters too, even if the latter just look like fuzzy smudges.
Unfortunately, the weather has been crap, so I haven’t really had a chance to play much — I tried the UHC filter briefly and was able to spot the Triffid Nebula for the first time, and I’ve checked a few things in the binoculars, but I’m yet to have a good play with either yet. Bring on the clear skies!