In the April S&T (p49) I saw that Vesta and Ceres were both near opposition tonight. The last few nights have been spectacularly clear although the sky has been a bit turbulent, so I've been wanting to haul out the 8" and see what I could see. Tonight was another clear night but storms are predicted for the near future so I thought this had better be it before the moon comes back around for another visit. Vesta was an old friend as I had spotted it by accident several years ago. I've also seen Ceres on at least one other occasion, but tonight they were in the same FOV of my 9x50 finder so that was a big plus. When I consulted my SkySafari Pro iPad app I noticed that (2) Pallas was also in the vicinity so I decided to try for all three in one night. I wasn't disappointed. Pallas was already high so I went after it first. It was conveniently placed just West of Regulus in Leo and easy to find. At mag 8.2 it was easily visible in my 9x50s. Nearby Omicron Leonis was even visible unaided which made it even easier to find. Next I went after my old friend Vesta and her neighbor Ceres. Both were near bright Mars and easily visible Zeta Virginis in Virgo. Both were nice and bright and easy to see even in my 9x50 finder. I polished off the night with a glimpse at good old familiar Jupiter (all four moons were easy to spot), and super bright Mars. I saw two storm bands on Jupiter but have never been able to see any kind of marking on Mars. Tonight was no exception.
It was a wonderful night to be out though, just warm enough to be comfortable with a cap and sweatshirt, a bit breezy but not bad, and very very dark.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Total Lunar Eclipse April 2014
Talk about a long dry spell. This was a very bad year for astronomy in the valley. It was cloudy nearly every Saturday when I was able to do outreach in the park! One Saturday was possibly ok but we were on our way back from Padre Island running late so I called that one off. We are back in Missouri now and the weather finally cooperated very well for a change. It has been miserable wet and overcast the past several days but last night it cleared off perfectly by 9:00 or so and was just right (although quite cold) for the big total eclipse of the moon of the year. I grabbed a couple hours of shuteye and set the alarm for 12:30.
At 00:52 (according to WWV) Spica was just to right (sw) of the Moon about 1.5 moon widths, not visible unaided but visible in 7x50 binocs. At 00:56 the partial has started on eastern limb. At 01:39 the moon was half lit and spica barely visible unaided. At 01:56 spica was clearly visible, moon looking reddish. At 02:31 the moon was fairly dark. It was hard to see features with either my 8" dob or 7x50s. I saw mars and saturn which were both nice. I had not seen either in quite awhile. Jupiter had set. I took no timings. Temp was about 27F no wind.
From the images I took, Spica is much brighter than the full eclipse. Spica is magnitude 1.0. Spica appears in most of my pictures, but not in IMG_0950 which was shot at 1:46:40 according to the camera clock which is about 1min fast. This was just after midpoint of partial. Midpoint of partial was my first shot at 1:36:57 by the camera. My last partial was shot at 2:01:40, first total shot was at 2:10:35.
The picture on the right shows the moon at total eclipse just after the beginning of totality at 02:14 CDT from my backyard observatory in Rolla Missouri. It was shot with a Canon Powershot SX150 IS on a tripod with self timer. Exposure time was 1/2s at f/5.6 60mm focal length ISO 80. Spica is clearly visible at lower right and appears to be illuminating the Moon!
I quit shortly after this picture was taken as it was just too darn cold. It was nice while it lasted though and the stars were brighter than I had seen them in a long time with the full moon out of the way. My 'sign' (scorpius) was rising in the east and good old familiar Corvus was hanging low in the south. Ursa major was high overhead.
At 00:52 (according to WWV) Spica was just to right (sw) of the Moon about 1.5 moon widths, not visible unaided but visible in 7x50 binocs. At 00:56 the partial has started on eastern limb. At 01:39 the moon was half lit and spica barely visible unaided. At 01:56 spica was clearly visible, moon looking reddish. At 02:31 the moon was fairly dark. It was hard to see features with either my 8" dob or 7x50s. I saw mars and saturn which were both nice. I had not seen either in quite awhile. Jupiter had set. I took no timings. Temp was about 27F no wind.
From the images I took, Spica is much brighter than the full eclipse. Spica is magnitude 1.0. Spica appears in most of my pictures, but not in IMG_0950 which was shot at 1:46:40 according to the camera clock which is about 1min fast. This was just after midpoint of partial. Midpoint of partial was my first shot at 1:36:57 by the camera. My last partial was shot at 2:01:40, first total shot was at 2:10:35.
 |
| Bloodmoon and Spica |
I quit shortly after this picture was taken as it was just too darn cold. It was nice while it lasted though and the stars were brighter than I had seen them in a long time with the full moon out of the way. My 'sign' (scorpius) was rising in the east and good old familiar Corvus was hanging low in the south. Ursa major was high overhead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)