When I read, yesterday (Dec. 19th), that the Shuttle would undock from the ISS at 5:09pm EDT I wondered if we?d be lucky enough to see them, together. A quick check of www.heavens-above.com revealed they?d be right overhead at 6pm.

Sure enough, as Gail and I scanned the sky from our deck, a light as bright as Venus but with a yellow tint came out of the cloud bank over Lake Erie and headed toward us.

As it closed, we could see there were two lights, one close behind the other. 10×50 binoculars showed the separation to be about 10 arc minutes. I?d be interested to know the actual distance in metres (or kilometers?), at that time, between the two.

Another thing we noticed was how much larger and brighter the ISS appeared compared to our last sighting in the Spring. Also, the impression of speed was enhanced by seeing the two objects chase across the sky, as opposed to a single light. And, knowing there were nine people up there made it all the more impressive. Safe landing STS-116!

Finally! The sun has some activity. Readers of this website will know from Mike Spicer’s post about a flare that the sun spit out toward the Earth. Today was the first chance that I had to get my PST solar telescope out to have a look at the sun. I was pleased to see that there was something more interesting to see than a clear disk in Hydrogen alpha light.
Just outside of the centre of the sun’s disk is a large sunspot. It is certainly not the biggest spot that I have seen, but it was respectable, considering that there has been no activity there for weeks. In hydrogen alpha light, you can see the spot as a dark blotch surrounded by a very large irregularly shaped lighter area. Interestingly, I could tease out more details if I slightly de-tuned the filter. This brought out detail in the bright area around the sunspot.
The edge of the solar disk was not idle either. There were several very large flares that I could see that expanded out into space. In the past few weeks, there might have been only one or at most two flares. Now I could see lots! I wonder if this is the beginning of the sun starting its active cycle as it heads toward a maximum in the next 5 years or so.
The more that I use the PST, the better I get at seeing fine detail on the surface of the sun.Next, I have to consider imaging through the PST, however, the biggest problem is that I need my computer to capture and process the image. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see the screen of the telescope in bright sunlight. Talk about an ironic situation for an astronomer!
The PST is a great little telescope and it can be set up in seconds. It is the ultimate ‘grab-and-go’ telescope! I am glad I bought it.

WONDERING WHERE THE PLANETS ARE?

Alas, the chart below shows the positions of most of the planets very close to the Sun in December. Console yourself with evening views of Uranus and Neptune (if you can find them) and early morning views of glorious Saturn:

They are hiding close to the Sun this month

While Binbrook was fogged out, November 24th, Grimsby did not suffer the same fate. Interestingly, I recently acquired a set of three gauges that give my observatory readings on temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity.

When I started observing at 7pm that evening, the humidity was just over 70% and the limiting magnitude was about 4.5. By 9:30pm, the humidity was nearly 80% and only stars brighter than mag. 3 (and higher than 50 degrees) were visible to the naked eye. Between those two readings, however, I did manage to do some useful viewing.

I spent a little while pushing my 6″ reflector through Pegasus and Andromeda, but after checking my log realized I had no entries for Lacerta. Although Lacerta was barely visible to the naked eye, the area bordering Cepheus was easy to locate and the following objects were new finds for me:

IC 1434 – a fairly circular open cluster of about 3 dozen 10-12 mag. stars with about the same amount showing dimly among them. Near the centre of this cluster is a tiny binary that I only noticed with a barlow at 114X. Increasing the magnification to 171X allowed a clean but narrow separation.

IC 1442 – just over a degree NE of IC 1434, this open cluster of about 40 stars has an interesting rectangular shape to it. It also features a bright “waistband” of 3 stars reminiscent of Orion’s Belt.

NGC 7245 – with a 21mm eyepiece, this open cluster almost fits in the same 1 degree FOV with IC 1442. More compact, and richer with stars than 1442.

NGC 7235 – I crossed the border into Cepheus for this one. An elongated open cluster spanning at least 2 degrees, it features a tiny but very appealing carbon star in the middle of the “stream”. There is a whiter star that may catch your eye but tight focus will bring out the beauty in the carbon one.

HD213306 – AKA Delta Cephei. If you’re into pretty double stars then you should have this attractive yellow and blue pair on your list.

LATER THAT NIGHT: Finding myself awake at 5am I toyed with the idea of going out again for, after all, the Clear Sky Clock was reading near perfect conditions – Wrong. The fog had made it to Grimsby.

Clear skies and an opportunity to go to Binbrook for observing – but of course it couldn’t be that easy. Yes, the sky was quite clear, but down closer to the ground we had a slight fog/haze and the half dozen or so of us observing were overcome by dew in just over an hour – despite a wind that was somewhat stronger than forecast and making stars jump around at any higher power. I managed to get about 20 minutes of imaging in before my telephoto camera lens dewed over – and even my Tuthill heated dew shield on my main scope couldn’t keep the dew away. But the sky was clear.

The following (drastically reduced) image of the Pleiades (M45) was taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi using an f/5.6 400mm apo telephoto lens piggy-backed on my main scope. A combination of 2x2min, 2x4min, and 2x6min at ISO800.

Today was a great day of astronomy for me. I started the day with my Coronado PST with some sun watching early this morning. As has been the case for the last while, the sun is a very dull place with no sunspots, however, there was a great solar flare on the edge of the sun’s disk. After spending about a half an hour gazing at the sun in Hydrogen Alpha light, I put things away and waited for dark.
According to the weather reports, there will be several days of clear sky at night! As you all know, that has been very rare recently. I am sure someone must have gotten a new telescope as it is well known that the purchase of a new scope will cause weeks of cloudy skies. OK, fess up, who bought a new scope?
Well, tonight, I hauled out the LXD-750 mount for a night of stargazing in my backyard. Jackie Fulton came over to join me with her little 80 mm Nexstar scope. She even had a charged battery in her car to make sure she did not run out of juice. She was well-prepared for every eventuality… except, she forgot her telescope on the balcony in Hamilton.
Since she had let me use her scope in the past, I decided that fair was fair and I shared mine. Of course, I only had my 6 inch refractor for her to use, not her usual scope.
After a quick alignment, we started seeing objects in the cold clear skies. Mike Spicer’s Skychart in the Event Horizon came in very handy to pick objects for our tour of the night sky. Very quickly we found M42, M45, M35, M37, M36, M31, M103, and M38.
I was especially impressed with the clear view of M42. The Trapezium was clear and the nebulosity was very evident in the views we got. I have left the mount set up for my observing sessions tomorrow night and I plan to do some imaging with both my ToCam Pro and my DSI. I might even try my hand at getting my autoguider to work so I can take some long exposures.
What a great night. I can’t wait for tomorrow evening’s session. I hope to get started early enough to get some good views of Uranus and Neptune.

MERCURY TRANSIT WEATHER REPORT

The entire province and neighbouring states seem socked in with thick rainclouds for Wednesday, 8 November. You are likely wondering if you have an umbrella for your solar filter….

…. take heart! With 11 hours to go, the weatherman says the sky over Fort Erie will be reasonably blue from 2 pm, and the clearing will improve as time (and the transit of Mercury) progresses. Fort Erie! Only an hour away by excellent highway! Of course, it’s best to check the weather reports close to noon Wednesday – weather is changeable and we offer no warranties. Here is that weathermap for you:

COMET SWAN AS IT APPROACHES ALTAIR IN NOVEMBER:

The comet was magnitude 4 a week ago and may brighten further (you never know with comets) although it is moving away from the sun now, low in the West in the evening as it appears to approach the bright star Altair. The pronounced green colour of the comet is noticeable even in small telescopes.

The clear skies predicted for tonight let us down some what. As I approached the main gate at Binbrook, Mike Spicer passed by and Tim Harpur was just leaving. Mike had been imaging earlier. But by the time Tim arrived, he felt it was getting too hazy to bother setting up. After a quick check at the alternate site to verify no one else was there, I went back to our primary location and met up with a couple of other observers.

I had high hopes for this evening since it was going to represent first light for my new SkyWatcher Pro 180mm Maksutov. I was determined to break the new scope curse. I did set up, but between the haze and the intermitent clouds, it was tough finding good objects to look at.

After doing a rough polar alignment, sorting out the finder and waiting a little for the scope to thermally stabilize, I decided to make M31 my first target since some of the others were also looking at this object. With the clouds, it was hard to locate Andromeda, but peeking between them, there it was high overhead. Despite the conditions, the bright center of the galaxy was quite visible (sometimes) and I could make out a fair amount of the “fuzz” around it.

Since M44 was fairly bright and an easy target, I decided to give it a try. With the 20mm EP and the narrow field of view with the f/15 Mak, I could only center a few of the main stars, but many smaller stars came into view amazingly clear that I hadn’t been able to see previously with my small refractor or the 6″ Newtonian.

As we were discussing various night sky objects, someone suggested the Ring Nebula. Lyra was still reasonably high so I swung around and quickly found M57. I was surprised how easily it stood out considering the difficulties I had in previous scopes. I added a narrow band filter and the contrast improved, but conditions were still not good enough to make out colours.

By this time, it was after 11 and some of the others were starting to suffer dew problems, so they packed up. Since I couldn’t stay too late anyways, I decided to join them. While it wasn’t what I hoped for in the way of a viewing night, it did allow the new scope to see first light and I was very satisfied with the results. It’s given me high expectations for what I will see in the years to come.