The Meteor Gallery Album of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association

Transcription

1 The Meteor Gallery Album of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association VOLUME XL Numbers 6-8 June-August 2015 Dewey Barker captures a nice set of prominences Taken at a stargaze on May 23 rd, this fine prominence shot was taken by Gaze Coordinator Dewey Barker through his PST. More and more members are joining the ranks of those appreciating the solar activity with hydrogen alpha scopes in the club and at daytime gazes. Get to the next gaze a little early, and set up your solar scope before sunset and let the public shoot the sun with smartphones!

2 Mackenzie Mosley captures solar activity Taken on June 21 st, her shot through the Coronado 60 at Pensacola State, using her smartphone and the 12mm ioptron adapter eyepiece, shows some activity around the central sunspot, and nice prominences all around the solar limb.

3 Dalton LaFlamme captures a prominence This nice prominence on the western limb was captured by nine year Dalton LaFlamme, using a Sumsung Galaxy phone and the Lunt 60 with 12mm Plossl and ioptron adapter. Photo taken June 16, 2015 at 3 PM. Genevieve Leonard shoots AR 2381 New student member Genevieve Leonard took this shot of large sunspots with her iphone 6 and the Coronado 60 and ioptron adapter. Photo taken about 11 AM on July 7, 2015 at Pensacola State College. The spots were easily visible in her new 10x25 Tasco binocs with Baader filters as well. She found disk detail showed up better when she did not center the sun.

4 Justin Herrington uses Galaxy S-4 Nice detail on limb and disk both here on July 8 th with Coronado 60 and ioptron. Note that AR 2381 has split in two between these two photos. The Sun is constantly changing sky show! For more on solar activity, be sure to visit the site maintained by former Niceville student Dr. Tony Phillips of Jet Propulsion Lab. Many of our members also have posted their own photos to the gallery there, so be sure to check out the links at: Also post your own photos there for EC level points as well!

5 Alex Forrest captures nice granulation around AR 2350 This shot on June 2 nd does not have any great spots or prominences, but good seeing allowed the Coronado and his iphone 6 to capture a lot of granulation and magnetic detail on the disk, particularly around AR 2350 just below center here.

6 Huge AR 2371 Naked eye spot group (Look, Ma, no telescope even) Visible with X-ray film to all students when the naked eyes, huge 2371 spot group was easily split with 10x25 binocs by my astronomy students on June 22, This reminds us that $1000 Hydrogen alpha telescopes are not needed to see a lot of solar activity. This shot was made with a 1 Draco Baader filter in front of my Canon digital camera at 12X zoom, using a tripod to steady the sun.

7 Myron Almond Captures June 19 th Conjunction Taken from his home in Cantonment on the evening of June 19 th, about 9 PM, we have the crescent moon with nice earthshine at bottom center, then brilliant Venus to top center, and much fainter Jupiter to the upper left. Compare this with his photo the following evening to note the moon s 12 degrees per day eastward revolution.

8 And now for June 20 th Now Myron shows the larger crescent has passed both Venus and Jupiter. At our stargaze at the Pensacola Beach Pavilion that evening, John Arnold captures the trio against a familiar site.

9 Ron McCuiston shows trio above his home on June 20th Ron McCuiston shows that even a smartphone can capture nice conjunctions with the moon and brightest planets nicely. You never know until you try. Many of the new smartphones have incredible contrast, sensitivity, and exposure range, and also they can also be adapted with several new special aps for controlling exposures, apertures, contrast, etc. We need to have a presentation comparing the various programs and how well they work for a variety of astronomy photos. Please let me know what you are using, and pass along examples of how well it works for various types of astrophotos!

10 Jacque Strand captures the great conjunction On the evenings of June 30 and July 1, 2015, Venus lay only about.3 degrees south of Jupiter, the tightest conjunction of the two brightest planets in our life times. Smartphone photo showed them well.

11 Myron Almond shares two telescopic views In his longer exposure to left, Venus is overexposed, but you can spot the four moons of Jupiter alongside it in the same low power field of view. The shorter exposure to the right shows the 40% sunlit crescent Venus, and only the disk of Jupiter. By great coincidence, both were 41 of arc across that evening, but of course Jupiter is really 10X larger than Venus, so also it must be 10X more distant here. I loved sharing the view with my PSC students that evening as well, and hope others have great memories of this historic grouping.

12 Malone Calvert tests his new Skyris camera In his photo from May 23 rd, Malone used the new Celestron Skyris camera with his 12 Celestron SCT to capture fine lunar detail. He also used it for good shots of the planets later in this issue as well.

13 Great detail on Moon with Malone s Skyris If you want to learn more about these fine lunar and planetary imagers, talk to Malone or link to this site: Even found a gallery of Skyris images on Facebook at: /keywords_top

14 Alex Forrest Captures the ISS Using the special aps mentioned, Alex Forrest used his smartphone for this 15 exposure of the ISS passing Venus on June 15, Tracie Leatherman captured a nice flare off the ISS on June 19 th, but got so excited she bumped her tripod, hence the smudges

15 Here PSC student astronomy club president Dave Cochran sets up his 70mm refractor for the June 19 th Pavilion gaze, with EAAA president Ed Magowan in the background. George Oedesma and Jon Ellard set up George s nice 10 meade SCT for imaging and planetary viewing at the June 19 th gaze.

16 Jupiter with Great Red Spot by Malone Calvert Rumors of its demise are premature, as Malone s Skyris shows us in this fine photo with his 10? SCT on June 22, Malone captures Saturn at Opposition. Saturn looks good with the same setup and night by Malone as well. Note both Cassini s and Encke s division in the rings great seeing here!

17 Ron Fairbanks Saturn Ron took this fine shot on June 4 th. Again, look at the detail here! Ed Magowan s Saturn This fine Saturn shot was taken by EAAA president Ed Magowan with just his C-8. Again, check out Encke s division and the wealth of disk detail.

18 Lyen McAbee s 12 Celestron highlights Pavilion Viewing If you want a memorable eyepiece view of Saturn s Lyen s giant delivers! Here he sets up at the Pavilion Gaze on June 19 th.

19 Catching the Conjunction Here Jacque Falzone captures the nice grouping of the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus at the same Pavilion gaze. We had over 300 folks drop by then! Here Thor Garber sets up for sunspot viewing with the 114mm EduScience Nova 500 reflector, a great value for beginners. Available at Toys R Us for $103 on sale; maybe we should get some for loaners. More at

20 Tom Reiderer shows off his Quantum 6 Once owned by Warren Jarvis, this Super Questar 6 Maksutov features some of the finest optics every produced in the US, and finds new life mounted on this ioptron equatorial mount. It produced fine close ups of the moon when used with the ioptron Smartphone adapters. While the original Quantum mount clock drive is not repairable, Wayne Wooten finds it handy to mount smaller scopes, like the Orion Eon 72 and Lunt 60, so folks can make full disk shots of the moon and Sun with their smartphones; dozens of folks got fine shots at the pavilion gaze with this rig.

21 Sagittarius Rising by Chris and Gina Gomez Taken on June 5 th, this 30 second time exposure with wide angle lens shows fast moving clouds in foreground, while the center of the galaxy rises to lower left, and Saturn sits just above the claws of the Scorpion in center. M-4 lies just to lower right of Antares. This telescopic view with their 8 astrograph shows the closest globular cluster nicely.

22 Milky Way without clouds Here Chris and Gina capture the Sagittarius core without the clouds. Farther North, in Cygnus Here is the Great Rift in Cygnus, with Deneb at left of center, and the famed North American Nebula to the lower left of it. Note the complex nebulae around Gamma Cygni.

23 The Summer Triangle by Myron Almond The three brightest stars of the northern summer Milky Way are a great guide to many of summer s best binocular and deep sky objects. Access fine sky maps for free in.pdf fomat at: and download the current northern hemisphere set.

24 Gomez Globular Gallery M-5 in Ophiuchus is faint with naked eyes M-10 is another fine binocular target for summer viewing. M-12 also is just about naked eye visibility. Now is globular season!

25 Stellar Nurseries M-8 and M-20 by Chris and Gina Gomez The famed Trifid (M-20) up top needs binoculars, but the brighter Lagoon (M-8) below is easily seen with the naked eyes, just above the pour spot of the teapot of Sagittarius.

26 The Lagoon and More Friends From M-8 at left, we have IC 1775, IC 4685, and NGC 6559 in this 8 astrograph shot. The Lagoon up Close Here Chris and Gina use the astrograph to capture summer s finest stellar nursery, with many dark Bok globules from protostars still forming in their stellar cocoons.

27 Birds of the Summer Milky Way Here Chris and Gina capture the Eagle (M-16) up top, and the Swan (M-17) Nebulae below, in the Milky Way just north of Sagittarius. Both are easy binocular objects.

28 The Eagle and the Pillars of Creation The HST images made the dark nebulae in the center a cosmic showpiece. The Swan swims upside down The Swan s head is in center here, and it is looking to upper right as it swims across the Milky Way in this 8 astrograph shot by Chris and Gina.

29 The Colorful Trifid Messier 20 is a combination of a brighter emission nebula, glowing hydrogen alpha red up top, with a fainter bluish reflection nebula, with the blue starlight scattered by tiny dust particles, the same process that makes our sky blue. The Elephant s Trunk IC 1396 is a neat dark nebula, silhouetted against a faint H-II region, that is striking in the Gomez 8 astrograph.

30 M-52 and the Bubble Nebula While M-52 in Cassiopeia is an easily seen open cluster in binoculars, the much more elusive Bubble Nebula, NGC 7635, requires long time exposure with the Gomez 8 astrograph. It is associated with a rapidly evolving giant star near end of its life. Plaentary Nebula M-27 by Chris and Gina Gomez The brightest of these stellar strip teases, the Dumb Bell is easy to see with binoculars.

31 Planetary Nebula M-27 by Ed Magowan Ed Magowan used his C-8 to capture this famed star demise, the Dumb Bell Nebula, M-27, in Vulpecula. The central star is collapsing into a white dwarf no larger than our Earth, and a million times the density of normal matter. This expanding shell will dissipate into the interstellar medium in a few thousand years, like supernovae explosions a vital method for stellar death and decay to recycle the heavier complex elements of life back into the stellar nurseries of the future.

32 Edge On Spiral Galaxy M-108 in Ursa major This barred spiral is probably similar to our own Milky Way, viewed from perhaps 20 million light years distant. So we close this edition of the Gallery with this fine astrograph image by the team Gomez, taking us up and away from the Milky Way. Keep looking up! --Wayne Wooten, Editor, the Meteor

33 On The Brightness Of Venus By Ethan Siegel Throughout the past few months, Venus and Jupiter have been consistently the brightest two objects visible in the night sky (besides the moon) appearing in the west shortly after sunset. Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet in the solar system, yet Venus is the planet that comes closest to our world. On June 30th, Venus and Jupiter made their closest approach to one another as seen from Earth a conjunction coming within just 0.4 of one another, making this the closest conjunction of these two worlds in over 2,000 years. And yet throughout all this time, and especially notable near its closest approach, Venus far outshines Jupiter by 2.7 astronomical magnitudes, or a factor of 12 in apparent brightness. You might initially think that Venus s proximity to Earth would explain this, as a cursory check would seem to show. On June 30th Venus was 0.5 astronomical units (AU) away from Earth, while Jupiter was six AU away. This appears to be exactly the factor of 12 that you need. Only this doesn't explain things at all! Brightness falls off as the inverse square of the distance, meaning that if all things were equal, Venus ought to seem not 12 but 144 times brighter than Jupiter. There are three factors in play that set things back on the right path: size, albedo, and illumination. Jupiter is 11.6 times the diameter of Venus, meaning that despite the great difference in distance, the two worlds spanned almost exactly the same angular diameter in the sky on the date of the conjunction. Moreover, while Venus is covered in thick, sulfuric acid clouds, Jupiter is a reflective, cloudy world, too. All told, Venus possesses only a somewhat greater visual geometric albedo (or amount of reflected visible light) than Jupiter: 67 percent and 52 percent, respectively. Finally, while Venus and Jupiter both reflect sunlight toward Earth, Jupiter is always in the full (or almost full) phase, while Venus (on June 30th) appeared as a thick crescent. All told, it's a combination of these four factors distance, size, albedo, and the phasedetermined illuminated area that determine how bright a planet appears to us, and all four need to be taken into account to explain our observations. Don't fret if you missed the Venus-Jupiter conjunction; three more big, bright, close ones are coming up later this year in the eastern pre-dawn sky: Mars-Jupiter on October 17, Venus-Jupiter on October 26, and Venus-Mars on November 3. Keep watching the skies, and enjoy the spectacular dance of the planets!

34 Image credit: E. Siegel, using the free software Stellarium (L); Wikimedia Commons user TimothyBoocock, under a c.c.-share alike 3.0 license (R). The June 30th conjunction (L) saw Venus and Jupiter pass within 0.4 of one another, yet Venus always appears much brighter (R), as it did in this image from an earlier conjunction.

35 Join us for a Fun Night Under the Stars! The Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association Will Hold Free Public Star Gazes on the following dates: Big Lagoon State Park Star Gazes for 2015 are scheduled for Saturdays; March 14, April 11, May 9, June 6, July 11, August 8, September 5, October 10 The gaze is free, but normal park entry fees will still apply. Participants must enter park before sunset, the gate is locked at that time. Fort Pickens Star Gazes at Battery Worth for 2015 are scheduled for Fridays; April 17, May 15, June 12, July 17, August 14, September 11, October 9 The gaze is free, but normal park entry fees of $8.00 will still apply. Gulfside Performance Pavilion Star Gazes for 2015 are scheduled for both; March 27 & 28, April 24 & 25, May 22 & 23, June 19 & 20, July 24 & 25, August 21 & 22, September 18 & 19, Oct 16 & 17 Free parking is available in the Casino Beach parking lot, near the Beach Ball Water Tower. Members Telescopes and Binoculars will be set up for views of: the Moon, Planets and other Celestial Objects. Clear skies permitting, Members will begin setting up their Telescopes for these events just before sunset. The Astronomy Club meets on the first Friday of each month at 7:00 PM, building 17, room 1775 at Pensacola State College. For more information about the Astronomy Club, or for scheduling a star gaze for a school, scouting, or other social event at your location; Contact Dewey Barker after 4:00 PM at (850) for any questions. Please be sure to visit our website at or go to: to view our calendar of events and club members Astro - Photos