Thanks to the October edition of Sky and Telescope and the good people over at Cloudy Nights, Comet 103P/Hartley 2 had been on my radar screen for sometime.  Weather permitting, a view of it on October 9th looked to provide a rare conjunction of itself and the famous double cluster in Perseus. Thankfully, that is exactly what happened and the views did not disappoint.

By themselves, the double cluster in Perseus are two of the most magnificent objects to view in the night sky.  Without a telescope, they appear as nothing more than small faint cloud regions to a well dark adapted eye.  Put a telescope to them and they resolve into fine points of various colored stars that appear as though they have been sprinkled onto the background of the night.  Comet Hartley 2 is a periodic comet whose orbit brings it through the solar system once every 6 and a half years.  My first viewing of Hartley 2 occurred a couple nights earlier on the 7th and proved to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. I just could not get myself oriented and had a hard time finding the constellation Perseus.  Tonight, proved to be much simpler, with Hartley 2 so close to the double cluster that finding them meant finding the comet.  While I had hoped to make out a distinct tail on Hartley 2 my expectations were too high as it appeared very similar to comet Lulin from February of 2009, showing up as a grayish “blurball” that could easily be mistaken for a globular cluster or nebula if one did not know what they were looking for.  None the less, viewing a comet is a rare treat, especially one as bright as Hartley 2, even if I was hoping for a more distinctive coma.

Viewing the comet and double cluster at 48X magnification made me wish for a lower power eyepiece in my arsenal.  While I was able to get good views of the comet and double cluster separately, I was only able to get the nearest of the two clusters in the same field of view as the comet.  Being able to view deep sky objects, particularly nebulae and open star clusters with a wider field of view and lower magnification would also give me that “lost in space” feeling.  The problem is, lower power eyepieces tend to be more expensive.  After tonight’s viewing, I’m fairly convinced that a low power eyepiece will be a purchase worth making sometime in the near future.

The title for this post comes from one of the best episodes of the Simpsons “Marge vs. the Monorail”.  Why is this a favorite episode, you may ask?  Well, it was written by Conan O’brien, has a song performed by Phil Hartman and the above mentioned quote comes from none other than a very famous passenger on the monorail, Mr. Leonard Nimoy!  Aside from all that “awesomeness,” it also is a great way to describe the celestial occurrence witnessed just a few nights ago.  The transit of Jupiter and one of her moons!

On September 20th of this year, Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth in decades.  The following night, I decided to take the scope out after a long days work to take a peak.  While it was hard to discern any change in size from its closeness, the views of Jupiter rarely disappoint and when they do it is because of the turbulent atmosphere distorting the image, similar to a haze of heat rising from a roof on a hot summer day.  Putting in the 25mm eyepiece revealed the great Galilean moons of Jupiter with one in-particular being very close, nearly on top of the gaseous giant planet.

After going in and coming back out a half hour or so later, I pushed the magnification up to 120X and took another look at Jupiter.  The view was very sharp, with brief seconds of near perfect viewing here and there.  Something was different about Jupiter this time, however.  At first, I thought I was viewing a very dark cloud on its surface until it hit me: the moon that was previously near the very edge of Jupiter had moved in front of her and was now casting a very small nearly pen dot black circle on the surface of the planet.  The moon, which I later found out was Europa, looked as though someone had cut a very small hole on Jupiter’s surface.  I came out about a half hour after the inital sighting and the small hole had moved to a new location, showing how fast Jupiter and her moons orbit each other creating the incredible transits.

Star Log: September 21, 2010

On a near freezing February night at college, I decided to hunt down my first comet using only my handy dandy duct taped Meade 114mm reflector and some good ole fashion star charts.  Going out, I quickly realized that this would have to be a fast find due to the cold weather.  Not having any winter gloves, I decided that wearing socks on my hands would be the best way to keep warm.  Yes that’s right, socks!  Imagine what the students walking by must have thought seeing a man wearing long socks on his hands looking through a telescope trying to find a comet (seems kind of strange doesn’t it).

At first, I was unable to finding Lulin and had to go back in to double check the star charts (you’d think I would have thought to print them off, but you can’t expect to much from someone wearing socks for gloves).  After 15 to 20 minutes of searching, I finally came upon it, the dim smudge in space that was Comet Lulin.  The funny thing about astronomy for me, is that no matter how faint and unspectacular an object is, finding something by only using star charts makes the discovery seem so much more amazing.  I called Lauren who came out and said something to the effect of “wow nice blur, see you inside”.

Using star charts for the first time to find an object really made me more appreciative of what I had found, even it was just a gray blur in space.  This was the first comet I had viewed since Hale Bop back in 1997, when I was 10.  I vaguely remember observing it with some some neighbors who came by to view it through my 70mm refractor telescope.  Even though the weather was cold and my hands were numb, taking the time to hunt down Lulin made for an exciting evening that helped to get me back into Astronomy, which I am enjoying immensely now!

Star Log: February 25, 2009

Perseid Meteor Shower
One of the best light shows of the year will be going on tonight, August 12.  Go out around 11:00 p.m. and face the North East.  This will reveal the Perseus Constellation which is where the meteors will appear to be coming from.  As with all astronomy nights, but particularly meteor showers, the darker the skies the better the views, so try to get away from city and even neighborhood lights.

What is a Meteor Shower?
Meteor showers occur when the Earth’s orbit passes through the remnants of a comet that has long since traveled through our part of the solar system.  The small ice and dirt particles left by its tail hit the Earth’s atmosphere and get super heated as they streak across the sky creating “shooting stars”.

How big are “shooting stars”?
Most shooting stars are the size of a particle of sand or dust.  They are moving so fast when they hit the atmosphere that they appear very bright even though they are so small.  Some shooting stars can be the size of your hand or even a basketball, with these typically being the ones that appear to break apart as they shoot overhead.  Occasionally, but very rarely meteors will be the size of a small car, these have the best chance of making it to the ground (Fear not though, no one has ever been confirmed to have died from a meteorite strike to the head, although that would be quite a way to go, don’t you think?)

What’s the difference between a Meteor, Meteoroid and Meteorite?
When the objects that make up a shooting star are in space
they are known as meteors.
Once they hit the atmosphere they become meteoroids.
If they are large enough to hit the ground (which rarely happens)
they become meteorites.

(Image from Astronomy.com)

(Update)
We Just got in from observing the meteor shower.  It was a really nice show, Lauren and I watched from 12:30 to 1:30 at Sailor’s Creek State Park, an old Civil War Battle Field away from city lights giving us a great view of the Milky Way and dim shooting stars.  We saw between 50 to 60 meteors, putting the shower for that time at a little less than 1 per minute.

At 3:40am, a noticeable blob peaked its way into view moving across Jupiter’s surface.  Located where the missing southern cloud belt should have been, it became apparent very quickly that this was something I had wanted to view since childhood.  The location and size left no doubt that this was the Great Red Spot (GRS) of Jupiter.

Earlier views of Jupiter around 3:00am had shown the basic cloud belts, but its fast 10 hour rotation (Jupiter day) brought about new features quickly.  With a size between two and three times that of Earth, it is the largest storm in the solar system.  Over the past couple hundred years the GRS has varied in size and faded in and out but has constantly remained one of the most interesting features to view in the solar system.  To help with observing, I found putting half of a polarizing filter on my eyepiece cut down on the glare (I’ve also found that a full polarizing filter works as well and can be adjusted to best effect).  This reduction in brightness, brought much needed contrast that allowed another smaller blob to pop into view just to the lower left of the more massive GRS.  I’m not sure if this was Red Junior (GRS’ little son) or just a random cloud system near by.  Another first, came from noticing the inconsistencies of the cloud belts.  What had appeared as straight lines in the past revealed themselves to be imperfect clouds with wrinkles and folds.  Finely tuned optics, enough cool down time and waiting for pristine moments of atmospheric conditions will help to reveal details such as these .  Excited at seeing this type of detail at 120x magnification, I went inside and brought out a notepad to sketch the features I could make out.

Not every night do I get to view something that I have wanted to see since childhood.  Reading books and seeing videos of the Great Red Spot when I was a kid always made me want to view it.  Even if it does appear smaller with less detail and color, nothing can replace the feeling of excitement in knowing that you have viewed the largest storm in the solar system with your own eyes.

Star Log: July 15, 2010

Here is a visual of the size of the Great Red Spot compared to Earth and a  representation of what I saw through my telescope.

Over the past two days I have had two people ask me about an e-mail they recently received dealing with Mars.  The message said that a once in a lifetime event was about to occur, where Mars was going to be a thousand times bigger than it normally is and appear as large as the Moon, this August.  It seems that around this time every year the e-mail is forwarded around in preparation for the big August event.

Simply put, the e-mail is a hoax, but with all rumors and conspiracy theories, there was a slimmer of truth back when it was first written that keeps it popping up in people’s in-boxes today.  The message began as a hoax back in 2003, when in August, Mars made its closest pass to Earth in nearly 60,000 years.  The thing is, that even at this “close” distance, Mars still just appeared as a dot in the sky, all be it a much brighter dot, but still no bigger or brighter than the brightest star in the night time sky.  To capitalize on this event, the e-mail hoax began of Mars being literally as big as the Moon in the night sky every August.

In reality, every two years, Mars and Earth are at opposition, meaning that they are at their closest point to each other in their orbit around the Sun.  This past January and February, Mars and Earth were in opposition, giving some spectacular views of the land features and continents of the planet. (February Mars Report)  Even at this close approach and at 240X magnification, Mars still didn’t appear any bigger than the tip of your pinky finger held away from you at arms length.

Well, I hope this clears up some of the confusion about the e-mail, if any of you receive it.  Until next time, thanks for reading and no matter what your going through in life, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!
Michael

We all have prejudices in one form or another.  One of mine happens to be my preference of open clusters over globular clusters.  While this may be true, tonight I take a slightly different position.  For I have viewed the king of the globs and it’s elegance made me question my own beliefs and gave me hope that I could move beyond my mindset concerning the faint balls of fuzz known as globular clusters.

The Hercules Star Cluster
M13, otherwise known as the globular cluster Hercules, is quiet a sight to be seen.  One of the reasons I have always preferred open clusters to globular clusters is that the individual beacons of light in an open cluster makes them look as though someone spilled a bag of fine jewels onto a black table.  Hercules seemed to give the best of both worlds as its soft fuzzy core revealed pinpoint stars moving out from its center.  Looking at it in different ways and focusing it slightly different appeared to reveal different details in various areas.  Moving from 48 to 120X magnification helped to bring some finer detail to the core of it, all be it at the expense of brightness.  I would have to rate this globular cluster as one the most impressive I have viewed to date, even exceeding M3.

The Rise of the Milky Way
As the night progressed, the Milky Way parked itself right overhead and its brightness and dense patches of stars proved why ancient people thought of it as a milky and dense mess.  I have read where people have viewed it rising from the horizon and wondered if clouds were coming in to spoil the views of the night.  Knowing that when we look into the Milky Way, in the summer night sky, we are taking a rare peak into the center of our own galaxy is one of the things that puts me in awe of our small little home on the outer bands of the Milky Way Galaxy.

The night ended with Lauren and I lying on the trampoline and talking.  As we looked for shooting stars, I noticed a couple of satellites passing over, sailing smoothly through the nighttime sky.  It was a very peaceful end to a good day until a bat began swooping down near us.  It startled us at first (well, mainly just me) and as it came down for another pass, I jumped up yelling and ran off the trampoline falling off of the chair that helps us to get down and staggered off towards the house.  All the while Lauren remained laying on the Trampoline (this really helps to explain the dynamics of our relationship)!

Star Log: June 5, 2010

You would think that after a few months of putting the telescope in the same place every night, I would have thought to move it to reveal a different part of the sky.  Trees generally block my view of the far South, but tonight I switched things up and moved the telescope next to my parents new 2010 Dodge Minivan (this thing is like the space shuttle, it has awesome features).

Finding Pluto…Yeah Right
The initial goal for the evening was to hunt down Pluto, located to the South a little bit above Messier 24, the great Sagittarius Star Cloud.  That was until I viewed M24 and realized how dense it was with stars.  I might have actually viewed Pluto tonight, but it would be near impossible to know which of the thousands of stars I was looking at was everyone’s favorite dwarf planet.  Talk about finding a needle in a hay stack, this picture of the star cloud to the right shows how difficult a task it was.

The Messier Bunch
While planning the night, I noticed that Pluto was near a few Messier objects I had never viewed.  This would be a perfect opportunity to check off some more objects for my ultimate messier hunt.  Located to the South West of Sagittarius were the Eagle Nebula, Swan Nebula, Sagittarius Star Cloud, Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula.  All were a treat to view, with the exception of the Eagle Nebula, which I had a particularly hard time making out for some reason.

The Lord of the Ring

Nothing tonight compared to the spectacular view received by viewing Messier 57, the Ring Nebula, for the first time.  It appeared as a very defined circular cloud of smoke with a gray hue in the center.  Viewing at 120X magnification revealed it’s circular definition even further (A good example of what I viewed can be found to the left).  Its defining shape comes from a star, very similar to our own sun, that has used up all of its hydrogen and is shooting gasses out into space as it dies and becomes a red giant.  While, most nebula’s have the same faint cloud like shape, the Ring Nebula is something truly unique that seems as though it was stamped onto the sky.

Star Log: July 10, 2010

Hubble Space Telescope Image of the Ring Nebula
(Just a little better than what I saw….a little)

Warning:
The following views expressed are made by an overly cautious person.
They do not represent the management or staff of Late Night Astronomy.

A few weeks ago, I was shopping in our local Dollar Tree and noticed a telescope for sale.  For the most part, it was your regular twenty dollar department store scope, but something was a little different about this one.

You see, when department store telescopes are packaged they tend to come with elaborate pictures of the moon, planets or galaxies signifying to the buyer that you can see this through the telescope.  The problem is you can’t.  Those pictures were taken by the Hubble or some other high dollar telescope, which leaves most people confused and frustrated that they can’t see the quality that is displayed on the box (I’ve fallen for this before, with a scope I got from Wal-Mart).

However, something was even worse about this telescope’s packaging.  This box had a picture of a nebula, a close up of a satellite and a picture of the Sun.  That’s right, the Sun!  I laughed at how ridiculous it was to put a picture of the sun on it as an object that could be viewed and then I got a little concerned.  I started to think about “little Jimmy” who comes into the store and gets his parents to buy him the telescope that has a nice big picture of the Sun on it and decides to go out and do some viewing during the day (This is how my mind works).

So, I decided to write an email to Vivitar, the company who sold the telescope.  Seriously, I wrote them an e-mail, this isn’t a joke!

I noticed in a store today that your telescope has a picture of the sun on the box.  I thought this might send the message to some kids and adults that it would be fine to look at the Sun through the telescope.  If a person were to do this it could lead to serious eye damage or blindness as I’m sure other warnings in the instructions inform the buyer.  I don’t mean to ridicule your product and I’m sure your company meant nothing by this picture being added, I just thought I would point out that it might not be a good idea to put a picture of the sun on a telescope box for people as they might think this makes it an object that can be viewed by the telescope.

Have a nice day,

Michael Martin

Yep, its hard to tell how many thousands of children’s eyes I saved with that e-mail.  All in a days work I suppose, all in a days work!

The culprit!!!

Hanging out with Lauren at four o’clock in the morning can only mean one thing…telescope time.  Before you pass judgment on my late night priorities, let me mention that on this night Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune could all be viewed in the night time sky.  See, I knew you would understand!

Jupiter
Looking to the east, right over top of our trees revealed the very bright, Jupiter.  I have viewed the king of planets once before with the XT8i, but the conditions were so cold and windy that I saw nothing but a hazy blur.  Tonight, the view was drastically improved.  The interesting thing about viewing Jupiter right now is that one of its cloud belts is missing (more about that, in this CNN Article)

Only viewing one cloud belt instead of the typical two, made Jupiter look oddly alien (pun intended).  Little fine detail could be picked up because of Jupiter’s low level in the sky, which created poor atmospheric conditions and because my scope hadn’t had proper time to cool to the outside air.

Uranus & Neptune
Having never observed these two, I was eager to complete my list of planets viewed in our solar system (My apologies to Pluto Lovers).  Uranus, no laughs please, was just to the upper right of Jupiter.  Finding it was easy and the light blue star, while a bit unspectacular was nonetheless exciting.  At 120X magnification, I wasn’t sure if I could make out a small sphere or not.  Neptune proved to be much more of a challenge to find.  Using Distant Suns Lite (the best free iPod Touch astronomy app) I was able to star hop from the constellation Capricornus to Acquarius, which led me to our outer most gas giant.  Neptune appeared nothing more than a somewhat bright medium range star.  However, the hunt to track it down and knowing that I had now viewed all planets in the solar system made it a much more exciting object to view.

Calling it a Night
With our lack of sleep catching up to us and a really creepy person walking in the road with no flashlight at 4:30 in the morning brought our night to an end.  As we were heading in, I noticed a dim light coming from the distance, I asked Lauren what she thought it was and she said “probably the Sun”.  Right she was, as the rays were beginning to illuminate the night sky with the hope of a new day at the dawn of the new light.

Star Log: June 20, 2010 (4:00am-4:30am)