A Binbrook Report – Friday, March 3/06

I don’t remember inviting the clouds but they rolled into Binbrook about the same time we did. The forecast 30kmh winds blew them over the park in batches, forcing us to shelter by the picnic pavillion and make do with targets of opportunity.
Tim Harpur arrived just as Gail and I had set-up, and he wasted no time putting his nice new 10″ Schmidt-Newtonian on the also nice, also new Atlas mount. What a good-looking combination!
While I took advantage of the my dobsonian’s fast slewing capability, Tim took images of the Moon, Pleiades, and Orion Nebula. A new object for my log was NGC 2158, a small open cluster that is usually overlooked because it is rather faint and nearby M35 isn’t.
Out of the wind, the sub-zero temps didn’t seem too bad and by 9:15pm, the sky had pretty much cleared. We continued observing and imaging for about another hour; Tim taking several exposures of galaxies M65 & M66, and M1 the Crab Nebula while Gail & I checked out the likes of M96, M79, M44, M48. When the the cold began to creep through boot soles we finished off with a look at Saturn then packed up to a coyote serenade.
Not a bad night at all!

Gail and I are hoping to end the Binbrook observing drought this Friday night. If the promised clear sky materializes, we’ll open the gate about 7:30pm.
Check back for confirmation – I’ll post by 6pm, Friday.

Check out this Blue moon image added by Hal Mueller.

M37 M38 and Saturn. Click link above to go directly to the images.

The weather was beautiful last night – I hope you didn’t miss out. By 9:00pm the wind had cut down and the sky was almost cloudless – I was still viewing from a light polluted area though. The temperature seemed rather warm – more so than expected, and I was out until 11:30pm imaging. After setting up my 10″ Meade Schmidt Newtonian OTA on an LXD75 GoTo mount and letting it cool down I checked the collimation with my new laser collimator and found it to be accurate and unaffected by the car ride over (I had used the laser collimator to collimate the scope before heading out). A quick polar alignment and I was good to go. I planned on spending most of my time imaging so after a quick view of Orion through the eyepiece I removed the 1.25″ focuser tube and replaced with my new T ring adapter for my camera – what a difference a collimated scope and imaging parfocal makes! I took some new shots of Orion that far exceeded anything I had taken previously – I don’t mean to be over exposing the Orion Nebula (just kidding) but I’m using it as my baseline for learning astro-photography – and you should still check out these new images as they are that much superior to previous attempts. Then I turned my attention on a few star clusters – the Pleiades, M37, and M38. Saturn was sharp but small in the fast wide field optics of the SN – looks like a good 2″ barlow is required for decent planetary pictures. I will be adding the images mentioned as I get them processed.

The first of many images to come are the Orion set:

Orion Nebula Feb. 25, 2006
Meade 10″ Schmidt Newtonian
with Canon Digital Rebel XT mounted parfocal.

19 images x 15s @ ISO 1600, 4 images x 15s @ ISO 800

processed with Registax and Corel Photopaint 10

By Tim Harpur

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Trying to observe, last night, was a lot like trying to cross a busy street. Though the low level winds had subsided, the upper level continued to push through batches of clouds that had me swinging the scope all over the sky.
Despite that, the transparency over Grimsby was quite good and the sight of Saturn sitting adjacent to a pretty combination of stars and moons made the effort worthwhile.
The sucker holes also afforded me brief glimpses of Nebulae M42, M43, M78, NGC2071, and open clusters NGC2244, NGC2112, and NGC2232.
A nice comparison, right now, is Aldebaran and Mars. Exhibiting nearly the same colour and brightness, if you observe Aldebaran first, the roundness of Mars is a good example of what to look for when identifying Uranus and Neptune among their neighbouring stars.
I just had time for a quick visit with M81 and M82 before the “busy street” turned into a parking lot but it was nice to finally do some observing.

See these new astro-images of Orion and Saturn by Tim Harpur.

I have received an update to the recent outburst of RS Ophiuchi to naked eye levels (mag 4.8). This recurrent nova has not outburst to naked eye levels since 1985. If it dims according to past observations, it should lose about 0.1 magnitudes a day for about a month, returning to normal in about 110 days.

For those that may want to look the star up with planetarium software, Starry Night Pro does not list RS Oph in its variable database. However a similar star in the vicinity with the same J2000 co-ordinates is TYC5094-550-1.

According to the AAVSO ?A? level chart (1744-06A), RS Oph is almost midway on an imaginary line between the globular cluster M14 and M16, the Eagle Nebula. It should be possible to frame M14 with RS Oph in a pair of 7×35 binoculars!

The original Special Notice #6 concerning RS Oph is listed at this link:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/specialnotice/6.shtml

The update was released as Alert Notice #335 and is available at this link:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/alerts/alert335.shtml

Charts for this recurrent nova are available at this link:

http://www.aavso.org/cgi-bin/searchcharts3.pl?name=rs%20oph

Variable star observing is a fun and rewarding aspect of amateur astronomy and is one of the many ways that amateurs can contribute to real science. Unlike supernova hunts or astro-imaging, it does not require a great deal of hardware to start; a pair of binoculars or small telescope will do just fine.

With no Moon, and good seeing and transparency, last night was a rare one, of late, for backyard astronomers. Gail and I set up our 6″ reflector and immediately went to M42. As soon as we saw the Trapezium, sitting like 4 diamond chips, at low power (57x) we knew we were in for a good session.
The nebula, itself, looked like a hawk with outstretched wings, the southern portion extending right out of the 1 degree FOV.
As I looked up to get my bearings, a short, bright, meteor flamed down from Kappa Orionis and burst into fragments close to Mu Leporis.
Saturn was a real joy with Titan, Rhea, Tethys, and Dione. We also checked out galaxies M81/M82, M1 the Crab Nebula, M44, M45, and Polaris and it’s companion.
I finished the night by tracking down M79, a small glob below Lepus. Anytime I can see this from Grimsby, I know I’ve had a decent session. Hope you had a good one too!

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Although it was a promisingly clear night, members of the HAA “working group on planetary definition, and other related stuff” (HAAWGOPD,AORS) gathered at Teamster’s Hall for a thoroughly entertaining discussion.
Many informed and interesting opinions were expressed, and some general consensi were reached.
For a synopsis of our conclusions be sure to attend the February 10th meeting and pick up a copy of Event Horizon.