Here’s the positions of Venus and Saturn, as they appeared at Thorpe Park in Burlington, ON, just around the corner from my place. Venus is the bright one below; Saturn is the dim one above. Note the change of positions from one night to the next.
June 30, 2007 10:13 pm:
July 1, 2007 10:12 pm:
I joined the Mullers for some observing last night at their “GEM’n I Dob-servatory”. What a nice night of stargazing and good conversation! I really enjoy observing with Glenn and Gail. Glenn always has a line up of pretty interesting objects to look at. Since the moon was up and very bright we spent some time looking mainly at brighter objects. We started out by observing Venus and Saturn in the same eyepiece of their 6in Dob. Afterwards we turned the scope south to Jupiter. It was absolutely stunning in their Pentax EP. I have never seen so many bands on this planet (surprising since it was so windy). The moon was nice but because it was almost full it lacked in interesting features but we still enjoyed observing many of the craters. The night ended with some observing of really pretty doubles in or near Lyra… oh of course we took a peek at the Ring nebula. All this while there was a nice fireworks display across the street.
KerryLH
JUNE 30 SATURN AND VENUS
The western horizon held a spectacular sight in the West: Venus less than one degree below Saturn. I imaged with a 135mm lens on the Digital Rebel at F/11 (putting spikes on Venus):
By taking very short exposures it was possible to obtain images of both planets that showed detail (the crescent of Venus and the disk and rings of Saturn), if I cut out most of the distance between them, thus:
This evening Saturn and Venus will be within 2/3 of a degree of each other in the western sky. This means they will easily fit in the FOV of low power eyepieces in your telescopes. The Full Moon shouldn’t affect the viewing of this bright pairing, too much, and while you’re at it why not swing over to the south for a look at Jupiter.
The forecast is for clear skies, mild temperatures, and few bugs, so why not invite your neighbours over for a look at this rare event 🙂
A number of observers showed up at the alternate site last night and stayed into the early hours of the morning (I was the first to leave at around 1:30am – I had to work today). While Mike, Kerry, and I imaged – others tried to determine just how much detail could be made out on various DSOs just looking through the scopes.
Clear skies, steady and calm after 10:30pm, no bugs, and a half dozen or so fellow observers – a good night.
The Omega (Swan) Nebula:
The moon (at 55.5% illumination):
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Update By KerryLH :
Was a great night out but got pretty chilly near the end. It was fun observing with everyone… we even had two non members join in with their scopes. It’s nice meeting new people that are into the hobby.
I spent most of my night photographing through my Sky-Watcher 80mm Equinox and using the c6-SCT as a guidescope.
M8 Lagoon Nebula By:Kerry
3x4min
M20 Trifid Nebula By:Kerry
3x3min
I’d have to say these are the best nebula shots that I have taken to date… thanks Tim for the motivation to get a couple more manually guided frames. I was a little disappointed in the chromatic aberration in some of the stars since I was using an APO but apparently I can easily get rid of it with processing. I guess not all APOs are equal.
FANTASTIC THURSDAY NIGHT, 21 JUNE
What a Moon:
After carefully monitoring the weather conditions and checking Kerry’s reports, we decided to open up Binbrook. On the way up, I was getting worried when I saw the sky covered in high level clouds. Fortunately I needn’t fret as the clouds disappated for a clear night.
When I arrived, Jackie had just packed up her 80mm Nexstar after spending several hours of solar observing, and was in the process of setting up the 80mm apo for the night session.
Eventually John G showed up with his 5″ Dob, Kerry brought her 6″ Schmidt, Tim H had his 80mm apo on a table mount (wasn’t it a little cool sitting on the ground?). Jim W arrived with his 8″ Celestron and of course I had my 7″ Mak. Around 10:30 Steve G appeared with his 4″ loaner Newtonian and his parallelogram binocular mount. (Surprisingly no one set up any imaging equipment – it was going to be strictly an observing night.) We had a great variety of scopes set up and we had clear skies. On the shortest night of the year, we were going to make the best of it.
Early we had a great view of Venus, Saturn, Regulus and the waxing cresent moon all lined up in a row. We really enjoyed looking at the terminator on the moon, especially with the various binoviewers that were present. Between breaks in some mild unsettled air near the horizon, we could see many bands and colours on Jupiter and its 4 moons lined up equally on both sides of the planet. Coincidentally, there was a star of about equal magnitude in perfect alignment with the moons and it looked like Jupiter had gained a 5th Galilean moon.
John G had come prepared and notified us of the scheduled passing of the ISS and shuttle. Right on time they went by and we all had a chance to watch the two of them fly by, separated by about 35 degrees. While we couldn’t track with the scopes, we trained the binoculars we had on them. Regrettably we couldn’t make out much detail due to the low angle of their passing. But it was still a nice treat.
With all the equipment present, we spent a fair amount of time swapping pieces to see what we liked. Jackie had her Celestron binoviewer, I had my Antares and Kerry was trying out some Lomo’s she had borrowed. Everyone agreed that viewing with BV’s was a real joy. We trained them on the moon, globulars and nebulaes. The images were slightly less bright than with a single eyepiece, but the comfort of using 2 eyes and the increased perceived depth perception made up for the lack of brightness. After attempting to do a careful evaluation of trying each on different scopes and using the same eyepieces, I think the consensus was that the Celestrons and Antares were nearly identical. The surprise was the Lomo’s. Most felt they weren’t quite as bright or crisp as the other two. They were nice, but just not quite as appealing as the others. This was quite baffling since they have a very good reputation. Several hypotheses were debated, but we agreed we didn’t have enough knowledge to explain the difference.
In addition to trying out the various BV’s, we also swapped eyepieces around. Without exception, everyone agreed the best was John G’s Pentax WX EP’s. They were amazingly brighter and crisper than any of the stock eyepieces that most of us were using. Even on his 5″ Dob, M13 was as bright and clear (when we could get the scope to stay on the cluster) as on my 7″ Mak with a regular eyepiece. While great eyepieces, they were a little heavy for his small Dob. The rest of us were drooling and green with envy. (I think I know what I want for Christmas.)
Just as Kerry predicted, the clouds started to roll in around 1am so we decided to pack it in which was just as well. Since some of us had to work in the morning and if the good conditions had persisted, we might have stayed all night. A few of us stopped off at Tim’s afterwards for a nightcap.
It was an excellent night. We hit a lot of objects, each of us calling them out so others could come take a look. We had a lot of fun trying out equipment and enjoying each others company. What a great way to spend a summer evening with a bunch of active and enthusiastic HAA club members. Can’t wait to do it again. (How’s the weather this weekend Kerry?) And again our thanks to Binbrook Conservation Area for letting us make use of such a great location for our observing.
A LITTLE OBSERVING, A LITTLE IMAGING, JUNE 17-8
The predicted morning rain failed to develop, but the CSC prediction for the evening changed from blue to grey. Steve K and I shelved our plans to image at Binbrook. As evening fell the sky didn’t look too bad. I was shooting the crescent Moon below Venus when Steve dropped by (Monday night the Moon will be between Venus and Saturn):
The air was heavy with moisture and the seeing was only 4 or 5 arc-seconds (components of Epsilon Lyrae scintillated badly and planetary nebulas didn’t show detail). We looked at a number of objects but decided to image Io’s transit of Jupiter starting about 1:30 am when the moon’s dark shadow, closely trailing the moon, was just on the planet’s limb:
The seeing never really improved but by 1:45 am it was possible to see both Io (transiting against the NEB) and its shadow against the planet’s disk:
Monday night is looking better for observing and imaging. Steve K and I plan to go to Binbrook; email me if you are interested in joining us!
By: KerryLH
After checking the satellite and a few forecast profiles for YHM (hamilton airport) I figured that there would be a brief clear break in the late evening before the cloud from the approaching front arrives. Because I wasn’t expecting prolonged stargazing conditions I set my c6 up on the camera tripod (These kind of nights I wish I had a dob on wheels) for some quick viewing. The plan was to check out the binoviewers that Mike loaned me. After the initial set up I was a little disappointed because I couldn’t reach focus with them but then realized if I took the focal reducer off the C6 I might have better luck. Sure enough I did and spent a good hour touring the night sky with no star charts, no finder and two eyes. I managed to stumble across many open clusters… what beautiful sites. The stars weren’t as sharp as I was hoping but that could have been due to the shake from the tripod and the high upper winds. Overall though it was extremely comfortable and enjoyable to view with them. On my next clear night I will have to do further testing but on my steady cg5 mount.
Side note: I couldn’t believe that I completely ran into M57 by just scanning the sky… unfortunately the binoviewers weren’t on at the time. Anyway that’s it for me….
The next several days offer excellent chances to view passes of the International Space Station. It should be particularly bright since the Space Shuttle is currently docked with it.
For a schedule, go to the Heavens Above website at:
http://www.heavens-above.com
The last time Gail and I saw the ISS, the Shuttle had just undocked and we could see them both racing across the sky together – well worth the effort to catch!
