Vesta and Ceres

After suffering through the heat and humidity of earlier August and a full moon to boot, tonight was finally great seeing. Temperature was in high 60's, no moon, clear and sharp skies. The milky way was visible all the way to Casseopia. I decided to check on Vesta which I've been watching before the moon got too bright, and also see if I could snag Ceres who is also in the neighborhood. Vesta was still pretty bright and has now moved over next to Psi Cap and it makes a nice group with Omega Cap although not nearly as bright as those two. It's about a magnitude 6 now.
Ceres was another matter. It's fairly dim and in an area I'm not that familiar with: Cetus. It's not far from Beta Cetus or Diphda the second frog. Now I wonder what is the 'first frog'? Diphda was easily visible peeking out from behind an oak tree but I decided to hop from Fomalhout instead since the stars seemed a bit brighter in that area. From Alpha PsA I went 'up' to a group of 3 stars about 2 binocular widths: 86, 89, and 88 PsA. From there, east about a half binocular width to 98, 99, 101 PsA and then over about a binocular width to a group of five stars making what I call 'the snake'. It looked like the head of a snake poking up out of the grass: 103, 104, 106, 107, 108 PsA. That was all pretty easy. Now it got a bit trickier. The snake is about a half field width in my 7x50's. If I center 108, 2Cet pops into view making about a 120 degree angle with the snake. If I center 2 Cet, 6 Cet pops into view almost in a direct line from 108 PsA. If I center 6 Cet, I get a little arc of three dim mag 7 stars with Ceres just below the arc. It's a bit dimmer at almost mag 8. 6 Cet, the little arc and a dim little three star 'hocky stick' form a line with Ceres just below the middle of the line about as far as the size of the arc.
I finished off the night by checking out Jupiter which was rising in the east. I could sometimes make out Ganeymede in the glare if I held the binocs against a post.

Sunspots are back!

I read yesterday that sunspots are back after a several year hiatus, so this morning I set up the ETX-70 with its solar filter and got a look at my first sunspot in quite awhile. It was tiny with a tail, like a tadpole. I believe this is sunspot 1263 that has been in the news the last few days and has caused some nice aurora activity in northern Minnesota and other northern states. It's at about 11:00 in the image shown here. I shot this with my Sony point-and-shoot held up to the eyepiece so the spot is a bit fuzzy. I was pleased to be able to see it at all! It was a good thing I looked when I did because a few minutes later, a big cloud covered the sun for most of the rest of the day.
The past few nights with the exception of last night, have been pretty good and I've enjoyed watching Vesta march its way across Capricorn. The moon is about at 1st quarter tonight and there were clouds by Capricorn. If conditions are right when the moon leaves us again, I'll have to check out Vesta and Ceres which is supposed to be in the neighborhood as well.

A Vesta Fiesta

The last few nights have been wonderful. We've had a record heat wave during the daytime but the nights have cooled off into the low 80's and with a light breeze and low humidity have been wonderful for viewing. Last night the milky way was gorgeous, and again tonight. I decided to try for Vesta since it is near opposition and bright. Capricorn was up nicely in the SE although it took a lot of back and forth with my pocket sky atlas and 7x50 binoculars to convince myself it was really Capricorn. By midnight, my eyes had become dark adapted enough to clearly make out the bat-wing shape of Capricornus without binoculars. Earlier, I had updated my asteroid elements and had plotted the position of Vesta with Ciel. Armed with that information and my pocket sky atlas I began to look for something that wasn't supposed to be there. Right now, the stars from Zet and 34 Cap to Eta Cap form a kind of upside down ice cream cone, with a single scoop formed from 33 and 35 on one side with three non-descript stars on the other. The apex of the cone is Zet Cap with one side formed by 27 and Phi Cap, and the other by Chi Cap and Vesta. The clincher was a small group of 4 stars in the atlas that look like an L, 7, or a checkmark. These are all mag 7 with no mag 5 or 6 stars nearby. Bright Vesta is right next to the middle star of the leg of the L (SAO190147), a mag 7 star that stands out nicely from brighter Vesta.
Vesta is the brightest asteroid and large with a diameter of 330 miles. The Dawn spacecraft began orbiting Vesta on July 16, 2011 and is sending back images. It will continue taking data around Vesta until July 2012 when it will leave orbit and head for the dwarf planet Ceres.

Hygeia verified

After a week of rain, lightning, and clouds of doom, we finally had a clear day today. Tonight was perfect with temp in the 70's, cloudless, moonless, and enough wind to keep the bugs away. It was a bit gusty at times but not bad. Saturn was particularly clear and well out of Leo now. I could clearly see Titan and Rhea and was so flabbergasted to see ANY moon of Saturn I didn't notice little Dione on the other side of Saturn. I'm not sure why I've never noticed Titan before except that perhaps it has always been hidden by Saturn's glare. It was very noticeable with my 10x ep. The goal of tonight though was to verify that I really did see Hygeia last Sunday. I looked at my former position and sure enough there was a missing 'star'. It was a bit harder to find this time since the power was off and CdC wasn't available. I used the finder in S&T and noticed that there seemed to be an extra 9th magnitude 'star' in the field near N28, a bright double between Alpha and Sigma Libra. It seemed to form an isosceles triangle with SAO183113 and SAO183119 with the former being the other base and the latter being the apex. CdC put it's position a bit further west but the orbital elements are a bit old.

Hygiea in Libra

Hygiea is a big black carbonaceous asteroid, currently in Libra. It's the fourth largest but has a very low albedo of 7% which means it only reflects 7 percent of the light from the sun. It currently in a favorable opposition and is about mag 9.2. I found it (I think) with my 8" dob just about 3° north of Sig Lib. At least there was a 9.2 mag object that shouldn't be near HR5620 according to CdC. If that is the case, Hygiea is a bit east of the position predicted by CdC, which is not unusual. In order to verify it, I'll have to take another look next time the sky is clear to see if anything has moved. That may take awhile. I think we've only had two clear nights this year! Today was a rare sunny day and we drove to St. Louis for some C1, C2 action with Daryl Lipscomb. Zigzags had 2 squares of C2 and three of C1 and Daryl called a fine dance.

Some ETX doubles in UMa

I can't believe it's been several months since my last observing session! Actually I've been out a couple of times since returning to Rolla in April. Once with the 8" dob to check out Saturn that is nice and high in the evening now, another time earlier this week to check out the four planets at dawn (I only saw two, Jupiter and Venus peeking through the murk before sunup), and once with my ETX70, only to find that the trip up from TX managed to break my focus knob 'fix' loose. I had to use some epoxy to re-glue the washer I used to patch the broken plastic. It worked nicely tonight and I re-acquainted myself with the procedure for entering custom objects. I selected a few binocular doubles from May's S&T. There was an almost half moon, clear, and about 78F, dry with no dew, and a bit windy. The moon cast enough light that the dimmer stars were washed out but I was able to see Polaris easily. I even managed to spot a dim 7.6 mag star between Mizar and its companion Alcor in UMa. A bright satellite passed by Mizar about 10:00pm. It was the first of three that were to pass through my FOV tonight. It's always nice to spot a satellite this way. D1 or Gamma and 11 UMi were the first stop after alignment. I thought they looked a lot like Mizar and Alcor. Next on my list was TT and 8 UMi. These are mag 6.8 stars that were barely visible in my 7x50's but clear in the ETX. I found this pair by GOTO Kocab. The pair I called D2 (lambda and 2 Draconis) looked blue and orange to me. The group I called D3 was a nice string of four stars that I thought all looked blue-white. The 'crouton' in UMa was too large for the ETX but I saw it easily in 7x50's. All in all, it was a pretty successful night.

M43 with a narrowband filter

I recently ordered an Orion narrowband filter which arrived during the waxing moon and clouds. Tonight was nice and clear so I had a chance to really try it out. I set up the ETX and centered M43 in Orion's sword and focused my 27mm EP. I next attached the filter and refocused. Voila! The sky was darker and the nebula was easier to see with higher contrast. The two bright stars embedded in the nebula were somewhat dimmed. Other than having to refocus the ETX which is a pain, the nebula filter looks like it will be very useful.