Recently in Astronomy Category

The Astronomy Festival last week created a little havoc with my work schedule and I went seven straight days without a day off. By the end of all that, I was tired. The fact that 4 of those 7 days were during the festival and I never hit the sack before 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. - way past my normal bedtime - helped with wearing me out. I can take those late nights here and there, but 4 in a row was tough and then we had small post-festival night sky party on Sunday night for a few members of staff only. Skies were mixed during the festival: Two were pretty cloudy, the other two were clear but with a lot of moisture in the air (especially Saturday).

Sunday the air was dry without a single cloud. Just above the southern horizon we used binoculars to look at Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest of the globular clusters that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy. We looked at a lot of different objects once the evening twilight disappeared, but the real highlight for me was peering into a portion of the Virgo (galaxy) Cluster. The section we were looking at contained two Messier objects, galaxies M84 and M86, the two brightest in that particular region of the cluster. But there were another SIX in the same field of view. M86 is about 52 million light years away, while M84 is about 60 million. All in all it was a fantastic evening, seeing galaxies and nebulae with far greater detail than I have ever seen before (it doesn't hurt that some of the staff and volunteers have huge telescopes I can only dream of owning . . . ).

Today I'm packing a lunch, loading up Roxy, and going to roam out in the forest looking for birds, butterflies, and wildflowers. I'll let you know if we find anything of interest.

Here's my attempt at a pic of Comet Lulin. Not very impressive, but the best I could do without equipment better suited for astrophotography. There's some trailing (something to do with the ol' Earth doing that 825 mph rotation thing at this latitude) caused by the 25 second long exposure. The brightest object in the scene is Saturn and the little green smudge with the yellow arrow pointing to it is the comet. You can find better photos with a Google image search. Still pretty cool to see it - and hey, I got to listen to the hoots of a Great-horned Owl in the process . . . 

Last was the closest approach of the comet that has been making the news over the past several days and I didn't think I'd get to see it. However the clouds parted and the amazing Bryce night sky lived up to its reputation. Truth be told, in binoculars it was just a fuzzy green spot, but still cool considering this will be the only time Comet Lulin will be passing us by before leaving the inner solar system for good. It will still visible for the next several nights, so if you can find some dark skies take your binoculars and have a look. Sky and Telescope magazine has a chart showing where to look over the next several nights. I might try to get a photo tonight if it is clear.

Today is the "beginning" of Winter, that day of the year when the peculiarities of the Earth and its orbit 'round the Sun gives those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere the fewest hours of daylight. Due to the fact Earth is tilted on its axis 23.44°, those of us in the north are leaning away from the Sun. If you were standing at the Arctic Circle, you'd probably be really cold, and the Sun would not appear over the horizon today. At roughly noon today In the rest of the hemisphere the Sun will be at its lowest point above the horizon; from here on out it will rise higher each day until the Summer Solstice, at which point it will start going the other way.

By the way, if you were standing on Antarctic Circle, the Sun would not set today - it is the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere - the Austral Summer begins today.

I kind of like what the Bad Astronomer had to say about winter celebrations:

Anyway, the Winter Solstice has always been a time of celebration, because ancient people -- more closely tied with the skies due to agriculture and no light pollution -- knew that it meant the Sun was coming back up, and spring was coming. We celebrate it in modern times by going into debt. We're far more sophisticated these days.

Don't know about where you are, but I won't be seeing any sun today if the forecast is correct - more snow coming tomorrow and it is all socked in this morning.

Did you get to see it last night? The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter forming a nice little triangle in the evening sky. Unfortunately there were some high, wispy clouds here that the moon's light was causing to glow - more noticeable in the photo than to the naked eye. All in all, still pretty cool. Using a zoom lens set at 135mm, there is just enough magnification to be able to see that Venus (bottom center) and Jupiter (far right) are "disks" and not just points of light as they appear to the naked eye (a star, no matter much magnification will always be just a point).

In hindsight, I should have gone out a little earlier - before it was completely dark - because I might have been able to get an exposure that would have held some lunar detail. By the time I remembered this was going to happen and got outside, the only way I could get a long enough exposure for the two planets was to overexpose the Moon. Oh well, next time . . .