Observing January 24th 2014

I had the opportunity to get out on the night of January 24th, 2014 (a Friday) to get in an observing session. I arrived out at the Five Mile Pass area, well just southwest of that area and found that the roads were for the most part dry and very passable.  Some of our observing areas were not.  The first one was filled with mud, snow, and some dry patches. More importantly there were about 2000 nails scattered in the mud and dirt so I got lucky with no flat tire occurring, and opted for another site. I found that the road just across from that site was totally drive and usable and since neither myself or my friend Mat expected traffic out that far, I set up out there. I ended up deploying at set up the dew heaters and I am glad I did.  They were needed as the night bore on.

Here is the 14" set up on the road, some snow/ice on the side but the road was dry.  The mirror is cooling as I prepare to finish setting up. 

Below is the fourteen with the hint of snow/ice on the edge of the road. 

As I call it, magic time. Set up and waiting or Astronomical Twilight to fall. It is so peaceful, so calm as I transform from the cares of everyday life to the just focusing on the universe and what I observe in it. 

Caught a little glare it looks like to the right and flash activated on the iPhone5s but still a pretty picture of the evening in the winter, in the desert. 

More time in the desert. Snow/ice mix still there by the sage brush and mountains in the distance. The flatness of this area makes it a good observing spot. 

Well after getting set up, I got my bib's on for cold weather observing then my parka, my balaclava and I was set to go for the evening (oh yeah, the gloves count good also). Night fell and Mat showed up. He brought his 8 inch scope since his 16 inch now belongs to Richard who bought it.  Anyway, first object that night was SN2014J in Messier 82, the Cigar Galaxy.  This is a supernova, Type I, which exploded about a week before this observing session.  I made 4 sketches that night before dew took over and the paper began to roll up and I had to put the sketching material away and simply just observe.

1. Messier 82 in Ursa Major with SN2014J (Supernova Type I).  This was caused not by a giant star that had reached the end of its life,which is called a Type II Supernova, and had started to produce iron at its core causing a massive explosion of the star and ending its life.  It was caused by a white dwarf star, white dwarfs are what occur when at the end of a stars life that has a mass of 5 times or less than the Sun, when they throw off their outer shell as a planetary nebula (I sketched two of those this time) and their core's volume condenses down to about the size of the earth, while the mass remains that of about half of the Sun's.  See this article if you wish to learn more about white dwarfs.

      Anyway, white dwarf stars are common in the universe and as such they usually are very hot, taking billions of years to cool off before they become black dwarf stars.  In the case of SN2014J, a white dwarf caused the supernova explosion. There are several ways this can happen. It is important to realize that most stars in the universe exist with a companion star in what we call a binary system. One star goes through its life cycle quicker than the other and thus becomes a white dwarf, while its companion is still progressing through its life cycle. If the white dwarf is close enough to its companion star, it will steal mass from its companion star as shown in the top picture below. When the white dwarf approaches 1.4 solar masses (mass of our Sun), the heat and pressure becomes such that the white dwarf in seconds, transforms its carbon and oxygen into heavier elements, causing an explosion that is very bright and that rips the white dwarf apart.

The second way is when both binary stars in a system have become white dwarfs, orbit each other and because of gravity they eventually merge into each other. As they do this, again, the temperature and pressure becomes enough to cause the white dwarfs to explode in a very bright supernova explosion.

One of these two scenerios is what caused the Type Ia Supernova, SN2014J (the J means this is the 10th supernova found in 2014 since J is the 10th letter) to explode.  Here is my observation.

Messier 82 with SN2014J; January 14th,  2014.  7:55pm MST or 02:55 UT.  Near 5 Mile Pass UT; SQM: 21.52; 14" Dob with Type I Paracorr (white lettering); 7mm Pentax XW, 27mm TeleVue Panoptic as finder;  Antoniadi III; Cool, 21 degrees F;

I used the 27mm Panoptic as my finder and once on Messier 82, SN2014J stuck out really stuck out at 61x magnification, much like Chief Emerald L. would say, BAM! The SN was approaching the brightness of the 10th magnitude star to the southwest of the SN.  It did in my book just fall behind the 10.6 star which is the second one to the southwest of the SN in brightness.  So in this observation I would probably estimate the SN as a mag. 10.8 to 11.0.  It was discernible to me it seemed that the dust clouds in Messier 82 was impacted the luminosity of this supernova.  SN2014J appeared to be cloudy, or almost like a nebula was around it at times that seemed to dim it. This easily could have been my eyes though.  Messier 82 was its typical shape, with the dark lane in the middle observable with averted vision.  That dark division has 2 or 3 bright clumps behind it to the eastern side.  Fun observation.

2. NGC 2392 Eskimos Nebula a Planetary Nebula in Gemni.  January 14th 2014; 08:37pm MST or 03:37 UT;  SQM 21.53; Near Five Mile Pass Utah; 14" Dob; Paracorr Type I; 7mm & 5mm Pentax XW; Antoniadi II; Clear, cool 19 degrees F; Ultrablock NB and OIII filters.

I spent some time with the Eskimo and I did make a quick sketch of it above. The Eskimo was showing its outer ring with fringes on it and bright patches.  The inner nebulosity was uneven but spread out.  The central star was easily seen.  Filters increased the contrast and details.  At first I did not see color here but the PN eventually gave a slight grayish teal color.

 3. IC 418 was the last object I sketches.  Planetary nebula in Lepus.  January 14th, 2014; Near 5 Mile Pass, Utah; 14" dob; 7mm & 5mm Pentax XW; Paracorr Type I; Antoniadi II; Ultrablock and OIII filters;

I made a boo bo on this sketch. I included a star above the central star on accident and didn't realize it until I had looked at the sketch to post it here. It wasn't seen, and it is there as I went to redo the sketch and that was going to be the original central star. Appears as a roundish or oval planetary nebula, with the central star visible. I did not see the rose color this night.

4. IC 443 SNR in Gemni. January 14th, 2014; 9:20pm MST or 04:20 UT; Near Five Mile Pass Utah; SQM 21.53; clear, cool, 17 degrees F; 14" dob, 27mm Panoptic, 30mm ES 82 degree; 35mm Panoptic; OIII filter and Ultrablock NB filter.

This is a very faint SNR in Gemni near Eta G. and I could detect this night slightly with no filter. The OIII brought it out the best and it  is brighter on the eastern side. I observed it as a   "   so to speak with two lines running down and a slight hook on the bottom (top in the sketch).  Three stars are evident and bright to me with three more evident near them.  I like this sketch much better than the one I did several years ago and feel this one is more accurate. I still have work to do on this one.

I also observed the follow objects visually this night: M44, M42, M43; M32 and NGC 2158; I got a glimpse of B33 or the Horsehead though it was very faint with the H-Alpha filter.  I also observed a couple of galaxies in Eridanus and then called it night.  Overall a fun and enjoyable evening observing and talking with my friend Mat.

An Update of Observing Sites

Well, I haven't had time to do much with Astronomy for the last month.  I am getting out on my back porch with my 4 inch refractor and am going to try to get some sketching time in as I think that may be the best I can do. Seems to be clear around full moon, and cloudy at new moon. We'll see how this works this weekend for the first of two new moon periods.

I did get out and take some pictures of what the current observing sites look like in the West Desert.  Here are these pictures.

All comments go to the picture above them: This is the Faust/Pony Express Road that was graveled over. Nice and clear. I drove 55mph on it easily in my Subaru Outback. 

Stopped on the Faust/Pony Express Road. No mud, nice and dry and able to go 55mph to 65mph. 

Another shot of the road and the mountains in the distance. Smog wasn't too bad out here on Friday afternoon. 

Just showing the clarity towards the North-West

Snow on the side, about 3 to 5 inches that is melting. Muddy off the main road. 

Open area to the south right off the Faust/Pony Express Road and yep, snow still not melted there. 

Smog towards the Sheeprocks. 

This is PR 3 or the road that you take up to Pit n Pole. Just at the top the road is covered with snow. Weird, someone had put a rope across the entryway looking like at one point they had roped off the entrance. Kinda of dangerous if an ATVer comes by. 

The road up heading toward the railroad crossing. Nice and dry. 

Same as above. 

Coming into Vernon

Vernon above. 

More of Vernon. 

Sheeprock Mountains in the distance; Vernon Ranch up front. 

Entrance to the Vernon Reservoir and FR006 Site 1 Owl's Roost. It was very snowy, very muddy. I didn't go down FR006 as I had the Outback not the Pathfinder. It was rather wet from the melting snow. 

May have to change the name to Eagle's Roost . . . . Yep a bald eagle on the fence. 

Sheeprock Mountains from one of the cattle guards. 

Sheeprock Mountains as I am leaving. 

Mount Timpanogos in the distance from 5 Mile Pass. 

Mount Timpanogas zoomed in from 5 Mile Pass. 

Not sure on location; either to Pit n Pole or 5 Mile Pass. 

Same as above; closer in. 

PR 3 leading to Pit n Pole location. 

PR 3 leading to Pit n Pole Site, Zoomed. 

Mount Timpanogos from PR 3 entrance, zoomed. 

Faust/Pony Express Road with Mt. Timp and very wet and muddy off road. 

Here is the road leading to the 5 Mile Pass Site. It was muddy, wet, and my AWD did kick in several times. 

Here is the road leading to the 5 Mile Pass Site. It was muddy, wet, and my AWD did kick in several times. 

Here is the road leading to the 5 Mile Pass Site. It was muddy, wet, and my AWD did kick in several times. 

5 Mile Pass Road to Observing site. 

5 Mile Pass road to observing site. 

Mount Timpanogos again. 

My take away from my little drive and it was necessary for a business transaction is that I wouldn't go off road out there right now unless you have AWD, high clearance and/or 4wd.   So that may mean I may look at going up by Solider Hollow to observe or Tribble Creek Reservoir.  We'll see. I will have to see what conditions are like and weather of course.  I wish the snow was gone in the desert!

Observing and Sketching Focus November 26th and November 29th, 2013

Sometimes I find I have to take advantage of cool fall nights where the temperature here in Utah is not in the single digits to low teens at night. Such was the night of Tuesday, November 26th 2013 and Friday, November 29th, 2013.  The skies were clear, the temperature was mild, in the low 40's and though no one could go with me, I loaded up the Outback and headed out to the West Desert.  I set up with the sun still up, though heading toward sunset.  The coyote packs came out and howled several times, and yipped.  On the 26th of November I played a podcast from Richard Pogge while observing to keep me company.  It was a wonderful night on on this night I went after a few galaxies in Perseus and a couple of other fainter objects.  Seeing was wonderful that night, with not a lot of twinkling in the stars at zenith, and only a slight twinkle down below 30 degrees.  Here is what I did on November 26th, 2013.

1. NGC 1491 Emission Nebula in Perseus; November 26th, 2013; 10:45p.m. MDT/04:45 UT; FR006, Antoniadi II; 14" Dob; 10mm & 14mm Pentax XW;  OIII and Ultrablock NB Filter.

Wonderful bright emission nebula, roundish in shape, and the OIII shows the best view with a varying surface brightness.  It seems that the mag 10.5 to 11 mag star is illuminating the nebula.  It is diffused on the edges and there seems to be a dark area or node surrounding the star somewhat, though it is not complete. A very fun object to observe and to sketch.

2. NGC 1579 Northern Trifed; Reflection Nebula;  November 26th, 2013; FR 006; Antoniadi II; 14" Dob, 10mm, 14mm Pentax XW; OIII & Ultrablock NB Filter.

A rather bright and rather small nebula.  Filters bring out a contrast that shows some structure and a hint of dark lanes. Nebula appears brighter on the edge.

3. NGC 1579 Reflection Nebula ie Northern Trifed in Perseus.  November 16th, 2013, FR006; Antoniadi II; Malicam; 14" with 5mm and 3.5mm Pentax XW.

This magnification brought out about a 5-6' in diameter with elongated central region.  The outer haze is irregular in shape. Nebulosity extends W-SW of central mass.  Very faint piece to the south and dark lanes are easily evident.

4. NTC 210 Spiral Galaxy in Cetus; 11/29/2013;  09:30pm MST; Antoniadi II; FR006 Site 1; 14" Dob; 5mm & 7mm Pentax XW;

Fairly bright and small spiral galaxy.  Very bright inner core with a stellar nucleus with a mag 11 star near the W-SW from the core.  Slight hint of structure in it so I included that in the sketch.

5. Messier 31 & 32, Spiral Galaxies in Andromeda. Sketch was done on the nights of November 26th and November 29th, 2013; FR 006 Sites 1 & 2.  Antoniadi II; 14" Dob with 17.3mm Delos; 20mm Pentax XW and 27mm Panoptic;  Total Time: 4 hours at the eyepiece.

I have wanted to resketch Messier 31 as I find it a hard object to capture because of its size. I am not totally happy with this sketch as I find it too wide and the core didn't come off like I wanted (the ink from the pen spread out for the stellar core).  I do like the dark lanes and the HII region and some of the globulars I captured. I need to make a label for this sketch. Overall, a worthy start though it is still on my list to do another one.

6. Abell Galaxy Cluster 426 in Perseus; November 29th, 2013; Antoniadi II; 2 hours of sketching time at the eyepiece from 10:15pm to 12:15am MDT or 04:15 to 06:15 UT;  14" Dob, 20mm Pentax XW; ES 24mm 68 degree; 30mm ES 82 degree;

This galaxy cluster is centered around NGC 1275, 1272, 1277, 1278, 1279, 1270, 1269 and several more NGC and IC galaxies.  This is my favorite sketch of the ones I have done and I felt I captured it extremely well.  Again, this is one I need to do a label on the sketch and include it and perhaps I'll have time for that over the winter break.

ISON: Peek a Boo Edit: The Experts Got it Right Basically

Well as an educator I have been fascinated by Comet ISON. Countless websites and astronomy magazines have proclaimed "much ado about nothing" stating it could be or would be the "Comet of the Century" as these websites show:

The Great Comet of 2013 LINK

June 2013 Assessment of Comet ISON LINK

Photos of Comet ISON Potentially a Great Comet LINK

Comet Ison: daylight sighting of 'once in a lifetime' event possible LINK

Most of those writing about ISON admit that it could have been a great comet or a dud or something in between. Why? Because comets are like cats and just do there own thing even when we as humans think they are predictable. I like the analogy of comets being like teenagers having raised two, they are just unpredictable. Just when you think you figure out what is going on they surprise you!

Well yesterday, Comet ISON approached perihelion, which is the point an object comes closet to the Sun.  As ISON approached the Sun, it seemingly disappeared. At that point many of the professional astronomers proclaimed that ISON had broken up and was no longer a comet. I was following this on NASA's Google Hangout and even posted such on a couple of message boards. While just like that teenager, or perhaps more like Fawke's, Dumbledore's phoenix by late yesterday afternoon early evening, ISON had come back to life!

Now, the experts are letting us know that basically they are not sure what happen to Comet ISON. Karl Battams, one of the leading astrophysicists on Comet ISON has a wonderful blog entry that explains what has happen so far.  It can be found at this link. Karl on his twitter feed Sungrazer Comets has shared the following on Comet ISON. These are from his latest to oldest:

"Seems maybe something is still producing dust but whether it's a coherent nucleus or a dust ball, we don't know."

"One thing we can be certain of is that #ISON's nucleus (if there is one) will be significantly smaller now. Lot of mass will have been lost!"

"Comet #ISON's orbit will NOT have changed appreciably during perihelion. Perhaps a *tiny* nudge but absolutely nothing to worry about."

"For those asking, we really are not comfortable in speculating on naked eye visibility or not. Just give us a few more days! We're on it..."

Some may ask why scientists who know so much about comets and how they work could declare ISON dead, then a few hours latter, that something was left of it due to the images SOHO was providing? SOHO is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory launched in 1995 to observe the Sun. Anyway, SOHO has a great observation of ISON going into perihelion and out of it. Here is a movie of that. However before I do that, one thing I have to say for Comet ISON. Whether we see it visually or not, whether it is considered just another comet, it has provided amateurs and those who followed it a wonderful opportunity to see how science works in action. That science is a quest for knowledge and as new things come up, scientists respond by trying to gather new information and make new knowledge based on more evidence. As astronomer and PhD Andy Puckett stated in a tweet, "Science is a process, and it takes time and effort to achieve accurate results."  So lets enjoy the ride of Comet ISON, what we have to learn from it scientifically and personally, and if the opportunity presents itself again, to have a visual or telescopic view of it.  Here is the link to that movie.

Here is ISON going in. The white circle is the sun, the darker blue smaller circle is another telescope.

Here is what is left of ISON emerging 

Here is ISON remnants and a new tail developing.  

Edit:

Well Comet ISON did NOT survive perihelion and broke up. In the images above your seeing the dust cloud intensify and follow the gravitational path of the what had been the comet. To surmise what happen it is probably best to use these posts from the Yahoo Group on Comet's Mailing List found at this link:
Hello all,

to who is interested in science here without access to CBET telegrams,
here is a latest CBET 3731 about comet ISON.

Best regards,
Jakub Cerny

Electronic Telegram No. 3731
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
CBAT Director: Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard University;
20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA 02138; U.S.A.
e-mail:cbatiau@... (alternatecbat@...)
URLhttp://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html
Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


The comet's nucleus apparently disrupted near perihelion, with the
comet's head fading from perhaps a peak brightness of visual mag -2 some
hours before perihelion to well below mag +1 before perihelion. M.
Knight, Lowell Observatory, finds that the comet peaked around visual
mag -2.0 around Nov. 28.1 UT, adding that the brightest feature in the
coma of the comet faded steadily after perihelion from about mag 3.1 in
a 95"-radius aperture when the comet first appeared from behind the SOHO
coronagraph occulting disk on Nov. 28.92 to about mag 6.5 on Nov.
29.98. K. Battams, Naval Research Laboratory, writes that, based on the
most recent LASCO C3 images (Nov. 30.912 UT), there is no visible
nucleus or central condensation; what remains is very diffuse, largely
transparent to background stars, and fading; it appears that basically a
cloud of dust remains from the nucleus. S. Nakano, Sumoto, Japan,
writes that he measured the comet's total magnitude in a 27' photometric
aperture from the SOHO C3 camera images to be as follows: Nov. 29.383,
0.5; 29.755, 1.4; 30.013, 2.0; 30.496, 3.0; 30.883, 5.4.

Z. Sekanina, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports that, from the
position of the northeastern boundary of the comet's fan-shaped tail in
three images taken with the C3 coronagraph onboard the SOHO spacecraft
between 0.7 and 1.9 days after perihelion (Nov. 29.46 to 30.66 UT), he
finds that the comet's production of dust terminated about 3 hours
before perihelion. Although this result is preliminary, it is unlikely
to be significantly in error, because the position angles of a
perihelion emission are off in the three images by 14-22 deg, and those
of post-perihelion emissions still more. The peak radiation-pressure
accelerations derived from the tail boundary's angular lengths
(estimated at 1.8-2.5 deg) are about 0.1-0.2 the solar gravitational
acceleration, implying the presence of micron-sized particles. The
estimated time of terminated activity is consistent with the absence of
any feature that could be interpreted as a condensation around an active
nucleus in the 20 or so images taken with the C2 coronagraph on Nov.
28.8-29.0 UT (0.8 to 5.4 hr after perihelion) and with the appearance of
a very sharp tip (replacing a rounded head) at the comet's sunward end
in the C2 images starting about 4 hr before perihelion and continuing
until its disappearance behind the occulting disc around Nov. 28.74 UT
(or some 50 minutes before perihelion). The time of terminated activity
is here interpreted as the end of nuclear fragmentation, a process that
is likely to have begun shortly before a sudden surge of brightness that
peaked nearly 12 hr prior to perihelion. Fine dust particles released
before perihelion moved in hyperbolic orbits with perihelion distances
greater than is the comet's, thus helping some of them survive. The
post-perihelion tail's southern, sunward-pointing boundary consists of
dust ejected during the pre-perihelion brightening. However, the
streamer of massive grains ejected at extremely large heliocentric
distances, so prominently seen trailing the nucleus along the orbit
before perihelion (cf.CBET 3722), completely disappeared. The dust
located inside the fan, between both boundaries, was released in
intervening times, mostly during the last two days before perihelion.
The strong forward-scattering effect (phase angles near 120-130 deg) has
tempered the rate of post-perihelion fading of the comet, but the
merciless inverse-square power law of increasing heliocentric distance
is necessarily the dominant factor in the comet's forthcoming gradual
disappearance.

H. Boehnhardt, J. B. Vincent, C. Chifu, B. Inhester, N. Oklay, B.
Podlipnik, C. Snodgrass, and C. Tubiana, Max Planck Institute for Solar
System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, reports that two diffuse tail
structures were analyzed in post-perihelion images obtained by the
LASCO-C3 corongraph onboard the SOHO spacecraft between Nov. 29.60 and
29.81 UT. The southward tail extended toward p.a. about 167 deg to
about 0.4 deg distance from the central brightness peak. The eastward
tail had an approximate position angle of 68 deg and extended to at
least 1.2 deg distance. By Finson-Probstein simulations, the eastward
tail can best be interpretated as being caused by a dust release about 1
hr around perihelion. The maximum beta value in the eastward tail
reaches values up to 1.5, typical for graphite or metallic grains of
about 0.1 micron radius. No indications are found for a continuation of
the release of similar dust after 2 hr post-perihelion. The shorter
southward tail may be a relict of heavier grains released about 1-2 days
before perihelion passage. Diffuse cometary material is noticeable in
the p.a. range covered by the two dust tails. The match of the
synchrone pattern for the eastward tail is not optimal, which may
indicate secondary effects to the dust grains involved.

NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes
superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

Betelgeuse explosion From West Desert

I was out observing and was messing around with my DSLR taking images of the constellations when Betelgeuse went Supernova, and I captures it! Just incredible. IF you haven't seen it get out and take a look, Orion will never be the same as a constellation. Ruined the rest of the observing trip but what wonderful observations of the new supernova were had.

   

In truth I found this fun animation on YouTube, posted by the maker rytsm, and though I haven't seen a supernova go, and don't expect to see a visual one in my life, I thought this was a fun way to share this work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.