Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Global-Rent-a-Scope becomes iTelescope
Global Rent a Scope, the remote telescope group that I subscribe to and also blog with, have now become iTelescope. This involves a significant upgrading and improvement of the site, scopes and systems (and an improved billing system), with the Australian scopes moving to the iconic Siding Springs Observatories (and some great new scopes joining them). You can read about the changes here.This is a very exciting time and I'm looking forward to my first images via iTelescope. My iTelescope Alerts blog will now be found here.
Labels: Global Rent-a-Scope, iTelescope
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Supernova 2011iv in NGC 1404 on Dec 11
Supernova 2011iv in NGC 1404 taken with GRAS-12 on December 11 2011, 5x60 second luminance exposures stacked and summed using ImageJ. Compare with images here and here. I'll have do do some astrometry, but it looks brighter than in Leonids images (click to embiggen).Labels: Global Rent-a-Scope, supernova
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Just a Reminder of Tonights Total Lunar Eclipse (10 December 2011)
Just a reminder of the Total Lunar Eclipse that starts tonight, Saturday 10 December 2011, Starting 23:15 ACDST, 23:46 AEDST and 20:46 AWST.
For more details, charts and hints on Astrophotography see here
For links to webcams if you are clouded out see here
For the All Sky Cam from the Global Rent-a-Scope site in officer Australia, see here.
For more details, charts and hints on Astrophotography see here
For links to webcams if you are clouded out see here
For the All Sky Cam from the Global Rent-a-Scope site in officer Australia, see here.
Labels: eclipse, Global Rent-a-Scope, Moon, webcam
Friday, December 09, 2011
Bright New Supernova in NGC 1404
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Comet C/2010 X1 Remnants Recovered.
Where comet Elenin should have been, the faint debris doesn't register of this stack of 5 x 2 minute exposures taken with GRAS-05. After intense searching for the remnants of comet C/2010 X1 Elenin, which began to disintegrate back in August, there finally appears to be confirmed images of a debris field (that the Moon has waned somewhat probably helps too) .
Images from Rolando Ligustri show a nebulosity stretching along the predicted position of Elenin. Similar nebulosities at the predicted location of Elenin, found at different times (ie the debris field is moving along Elenin's orbital path) are found in these images from Leonid Elein, Michael Jäger , Jakub Cerny and Juanjo González Díaz.
The remnants are very faint, for example Rolando needed to stack six x five minute exposures from a sensitive CCD camera (GRAS-20) together to show the dim cloud of material. Scientifically, this is very interesting, we have few examples where we can follow the debris trail of a disintegrated comet. How long amateurs can follow this faint patch of dust for is unknown, but it will probably continue to fade rapidly. Update: Rolando's latest image suggests that the remnants are fading fast.
The only people realy disappointed by this is the Doom-sayers, who will no loger be able to terrify people with laes of the scary comet Elenin.
Labels: astrophotography, comet, comets, Elenin, Global Rent-a-Scope
Monday, October 17, 2011
And the Ghost of Elenin Flys Past
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Well, comet Elenin's closest approach to Earth has come and gone with no doomsday events, or anything of note. I used this opportunity to try and image any remnants of Elenin. I saw nothing on stacked images from GARS05. As a control I imaged magnitude 10 comet C/2010 G2 Hill just before Elenin.
Comet Hill was higher above the horizon, but closer to the Moon than Elenin when this image was taken. It is quite clear, as are several faint galaxies (magnitudes 12-14). So any Elenin remnants must be fainter than a CCD magnitude 10. I'll leave off any further attempts to image Elenin until the Moon has waned somewhat.
Labels: comet, comets, Global Rent-a-Scope
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd - October 16, 2011
Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd imaged with the the Global-Rent-a-Scope GRAS-05 instrument on October 16. Image stretched with FITS liberator then despeckled with ImageJ. 1 x 120 second exposure.Labels: comet, comets, Global Rent-a-Scope
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Waiting for Comet Elenin
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Left Panel: Image from the STEREO H2A imager on 9 October showing Earth (bright object with long artefact spikes to the left of Centre), comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková (near centre with visible tail) and Neptune (far right), predicted position of Elenin shown as well. click to embiggen.
Right Panel: Image taken of predicted position of Elenin on 12 October. Image composed of a stack of 4 x 120 second luminance exposures in the Global-Rent-a-Scope GRAS-05 instrument (stacked in ImageJ), tracking on the predicted position of Elenin. Images taken between 20-5 minutes before astronomical twilight, but still lots of interfering Moonlight. No object appears near Elenin's predicted position (image centre), stars down to magnitude 14 visible, the spikes are imager artefacts (click to embiggen).
Well, September 27, when comet C/2010 X1 Elenin, Earth and the Sun were aligned, has come and gone without massive earthquakes (or any earthquakes at all really, there were no quakes of M 6+ around then), the Pacific Ring of Fire did not burst with with volcanic eruptions, andwell, not much of interest happened really. Just like we astronomers predicted.
Now we are waiting for Elenin's closest approach to Earth, on October 16 12:20 UT (that's about 11:20 pm in Australian Eastern daylight saving time. Elenin has been high enough above the morning horizon for scopes to pick up for a couple of days yet, however, bright Moonlight makes picking up dim objects not far above the horizon difficult.
Amateurs have been scanning the sky for any sign of the remnants of Elenin after it's disintegration, but so far no confirmed sightings. A couple of very experienced observers have reported a sighting of an object at magnitude 9-10, but many other experienced observers have found nothing down to much lower limiting magnitudes (see here and here). My images, taken with Global-Rent-a-Scope GRAS-05 instrument above, don't show anything and a magnitude 10 object should have shown up with stacking.
The last reported sighting of Elenin in STEREO was by Comet Al, in images from H2A on October 9. This was at the limit of detection, so this implies the comet remnants are around magnitude 10.5 or 11, pretty dim. My image from the STEREO H2A imager is above. I can't see anything where Elenin should be, but comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušákováand its tail are clearly visible, as is Neptune, so any remnant must be much dimmer than that. You can see an animation showing 45P's tail twisting in the solar wind here (warning 2 meg AVI file).
If comet Elenin hadn't disintegrated, it should have been between magnitude 6.5-7.5 by now, easily visible even under the conditions we have at the moment.
That hasn't stopped the conspiracy people though, after Elenin failed to do anything doomsdayish during it's alignment with the earth and Sun, they have no moved on to worrying about Elenin's "debris field" doing something bad at the time of closest approach. However, the remnants of Elenin will be nowhere near Earth.
So, astronomers will continue to observe , looking for Elenin. As the Moonlight wanes and the comet gets higher above the horizon, we may be able to pick up some of the debris of this comet.
Labels: comet, comets, Global Rent-a-Scope
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad, September 20 and 22
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Left Image: Comet 2009 P1 Garrad on 20/9/2011. Right Image: Comet Garrad on the 22/09/11. Click to embiggen. Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad imaged using the Global-Rent-a-Scope GRAS-05 instrument.
The left image was done from 120sec luminance RGB filers at 1x binning, the right luminance 120 sec 2x binning and RGB 60 secs with 2x binning. Images stretched with FITS-Liberator, aligned and cropped in ImageJ then luminance and RGB channels assembled in the GIMP, with a little contrast enhancement.
Not as good as Rolando Ligustri's image using the same exposure and binning on the GRAS-11 instrument. I still have a lot to learn about colour image processing.
Labels: astrophotography, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Monday, September 19, 2011
Comet C/20009 P1 Garrad Septmeber 18
Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad imaged using the GRAS-05 instrument (compare with this June 29 image from GRAS-05). Click to embiggen.1 x 120 sec red, green and blue filter exposures stretched with FITS liberator then assembled into an RGB composite using the GIMP (I usually use ImageJ, but I'm trying a different approach this time). This is illustrated with the image below:
My image from August 26 taken with the Global-Rent-a-Scope G-14 instrument (1 x 120 sec red, green and blue filter exposures stretched with FITS liberator then assembled into an RGB composite using the GIMP, click to embiggen) compare this with the same image stretched with FITS liberator then assembled into an RGB composite using ImageJ.Labels: astrophotography, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Supernova 2011fe in M101 Nearing or at Maximum Brightness
Supernova 2011fe imaged using Global-ret-a-scope GRAS_05 on August 30 (click to embiggen)Supernova 2011fe in M101 has been brightening considerably, and is nearing, or may be already at, it’s maximum brightness. If you have M101 reasonably high in your night sky, you should be able to see the supernova in binoculars. Sadly, this supernova can't be seen from most of Australia.
Labels: Global Rent-a-Scope, supernova
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Comet C/20009 P1 Garrad August 26 (Near M71) Part 2
This is my colour version of Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad near the globular cluster M71 on August 26. As before, click to embiggen, it's a large file, but worth it.
Image taken with the Global-Rent-a-Scope G-14 instrument, 1 x 120 sec red, green and blue filter exposures stretched with FITS liberator then assembled into an RGB composite using ImageJ.
Labels: astrophotography, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Comet C/20009 P1 Garrad August 26 (Near M71)
Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad near the globular cluster M71 on August 26. Click to embiggen, it's a large file, but worth it.
Image taken with the Global-Rent-a-Scope G-04 instrument, 1 x 120 sec luminance exposures stretched with FITS liberator.
Labels: astrophotography, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Comet C/20009 P1 Garrad August 25 (Near M71)
Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad near the globular cluster M71 on August 25. Click to embiggen, it's a large file, but worth it.
The comet is pretty close to the cluster tonight, so if you have a small telescope go have a look. A chart showing C/2009 P1's location is here.
Image taken with the Global-Rent-a-Scope G-14 instrument, 3 x 120 sec luminance exposures stretched with FITS liberator and stacked in Image J.
Labels: astrophotography, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad and M15, August 2
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad imaged near the globular cluster M15 with the GRAS 16 instrument (Nepio, Spain) at Global Rent a Scope with 1 x 120 sec clear filter. The image was stretched with FITS-Liberator using the Arcsinx transform and scaled to 1000x600 px using Image J .Definitely click to embiggen, it will be worth it. Compare it to the July 31st image.
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad is currently magnitude 8 and in the constellation Pegasus, ideally located for northern hemisphere viewers. It will pass lots of interesting clusters and galaxies as it goes by.
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad and M15, July 31
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad imaged near the globular cluster M15 with the GRAS 14 instrument at Global Rent a Scope with 1 x 120 sec Red filter FITS image, 1 x 120 sec Green filter FITS image and 1 x 120 sec Blue filter FITS image. Images stacked and contrast enhanced using Image J then assembled into a RGB composite.Definitely click to embiggen, it will be worth it.
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad is currently magnitude 8 and in the constellation Pegasus, ideally located for northern hemisphere viewers. It will pass lots of interesting clusters and galaxies as it goes by. On August 1 and 2 it will be quite lose to the globular cluster M15.
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
Friday, July 01, 2011
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad, June 29
My image of comet 2009 P1 Garrad taken with GRAS-05 on June 29. Click to embiggen.This is a colour image created form 1x red, green and blue exposure. Each exposure of 120 seconds duration.
Labels: comets, Global Rent-a-Scope
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
I Saw 2011 MD (and I've Got The Pictures To Prove It)
I managed to successfully image the speeding rock 2011 MD which came within the orbit of geostationary satellites (12,000 kilometers from Earth) in the early hours of this morning. WOOT!
Left image, 2011 MD at 22:46 (local time), when it was moving at 408.78"/min (120 sec exposure with GRAS-12). Right Image, 2011 MD at 23:30 local time, when it was moving at 611.15"/min (120 sec exposure with GRAS-12). The asteroid seems to fade out but its brightness fluctuated probably due to rotation.
Well, some of you might be saying, "so what, all you had to do was put coordinates into a robot telescope, where's the challenge in that?" and there is a degree of truth in that. Mind you, given my inherent fumble-fingeredness, even that can be a challenge. The last time I tried to image a rapidly moving asteroid I neglected to correct for daylight saving time and imaged a patch of empty space. Repeatedly.
But in this case it was more complicated. When I put the MPEC elements into my favourite planetarium programs, SkyMap and Stellarium, the tracks I got back were just rubbish. Peter Lake had actually got some images, and I asked him for help. It turns out that the MPEC generate their ephemeris to a standard epoch, sufficiently far into the future that it messes up with plotting the asteroids track in most planetarium programs (it wasn't me just being dim-witted).
So I went back to the MPEC, and this time I generated an ephemeris using the Global-rent-a-Scope observatory number for GRAS-12 (E03), set the Epoch to 27 June, and generated an ephemeris with positions ever 10 minutes. This was a bunch of numbers, but I could cut and paste the RA/DEC directly into the GRAS system. There was still some uncertainty. The error estimates of the location of the asteroid were quite large, so even the best ephemeris position could be out, and the asteroid was moving so quickly across the sky (even though it was moving slowly with respect to earth) that the time to position the scope could be a factor in catching the speeding blighter (this is why I chose GRAS-12, with a wide field of view).
But it worked! I was rewarded with two streaks as the tiny asteroid streaked across the sky. Although relatively bright (about magnitude 12), it was moving too fast to build up a decent exposure. I would have liked to get another shot, but to my (and the others using GRAS-12 to image 2011 MD) dissapointment , the clouds rolled over cutting us short. Thanks again to Peter Lake and Pete Poulos of Global-Rent-a-Scope for helping me get these shots.
For a nice animation see Dave Herald's video, and Efrain Morales has some nice images. Other images and animations are here. Stunning animation here.
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Left image, 2011 MD at 22:46 (local time), when it was moving at 408.78"/min (120 sec exposure with GRAS-12). Right Image, 2011 MD at 23:30 local time, when it was moving at 611.15"/min (120 sec exposure with GRAS-12). The asteroid seems to fade out but its brightness fluctuated probably due to rotation.
Well, some of you might be saying, "so what, all you had to do was put coordinates into a robot telescope, where's the challenge in that?" and there is a degree of truth in that. Mind you, given my inherent fumble-fingeredness, even that can be a challenge. The last time I tried to image a rapidly moving asteroid I neglected to correct for daylight saving time and imaged a patch of empty space. Repeatedly.
But in this case it was more complicated. When I put the MPEC elements into my favourite planetarium programs, SkyMap and Stellarium, the tracks I got back were just rubbish. Peter Lake had actually got some images, and I asked him for help. It turns out that the MPEC generate their ephemeris to a standard epoch, sufficiently far into the future that it messes up with plotting the asteroids track in most planetarium programs (it wasn't me just being dim-witted).
So I went back to the MPEC, and this time I generated an ephemeris using the Global-rent-a-Scope observatory number for GRAS-12 (E03), set the Epoch to 27 June, and generated an ephemeris with positions ever 10 minutes. This was a bunch of numbers, but I could cut and paste the RA/DEC directly into the GRAS system. There was still some uncertainty. The error estimates of the location of the asteroid were quite large, so even the best ephemeris position could be out, and the asteroid was moving so quickly across the sky (even though it was moving slowly with respect to earth) that the time to position the scope could be a factor in catching the speeding blighter (this is why I chose GRAS-12, with a wide field of view).
But it worked! I was rewarded with two streaks as the tiny asteroid streaked across the sky. Although relatively bright (about magnitude 12), it was moving too fast to build up a decent exposure. I would have liked to get another shot, but to my (and the others using GRAS-12 to image 2011 MD) dissapointment , the clouds rolled over cutting us short. Thanks again to Peter Lake and Pete Poulos of Global-Rent-a-Scope for helping me get these shots.
For a nice animation see Dave Herald's video, and Efrain Morales has some nice images. Other images and animations are here. Stunning animation here.
Labels: asteroids, astrophotography, Global Rent-a-Scope
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Supernova sn2011dh in M51 is brightening!
Supernova sn2011dh in M51 imaged with the GRAS-05 instrument. Left image 4 June, right image 10 June. Both are 120 sec exposures using the luminance filter. The 10 June supernova image is visibly brighter than the June 4 image (click to embiggen).Most of you following this blog, or astronomy news in general, will be aware of the “bright” supernova in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51).
I’ve been following the supernova over the past week (and encouraging others who are doing this to submit their images for crowd sourcing). After the first two images I tried my hand at photometry, to estimate the brightness of the supernova.
My estimated supernova magnitudes, with 95% confidence intervals.My first two images were from 4 June and 6 June (due to this thing called weather). I used spot densities from the calibrated (but otherwise untouched) FITS files derived using ImageJ. I used the densities from the supernova and 6 reference stars spanning the range of M13 to M15.1.
To my surprise, the supernova hadn't faded according to my data, but actually brightened. Given the accuracy of my measurements though, it could have just not have dimmed much.
So when I looked at my next image from the 8th, it looked as bright as the nearby reference star, and my photometry confirmed this.
Then the image of the 10th the supernova was definitely brighter than the reference star (see image above). My photometry showed it to be M12.7.So how good was my photometry. I didn't have many reference stars between M14 and M13 (mostly because when I designated my reference stars I was expecting the supernova to dim, and partly because they
were what I had magnitudes for) and I'm using spot densities rather than areas as is standard.I was only moderately confident in the accuracy of the magnitudes. So I checked the sn2011dh webpage, and to my surprise found that my magnitudes fitted very closely with the magnitudes reported by others. The supernova's magnitude has now plateaued around M 12.8 (which is pretty typical of Type II-P supernova, although how typical the upward bump is I don't know).
This is definitely a supernova worth continued following (now I find I should have been doing exposures with BVR filters). Again I urge people to submit their images (details here). Calibrated but otherwise unmodifed FITS images are best, but all images are welcome. Of course, with the Moon almsot full imaging will have to take a break for a while, but when we have some less Moon-haunted skies it will be interesting to see what this supernova will be doing.
Labels: Global Rent-a-Scope, supernova
Monday, June 13, 2011
Comet 2009 P1 Garrad, June 10
Comet C/2009 P1 imaged on June 10 with GRAS-05. Image 3x120 second exposures stacked with ImageJ (click to embiggen).While many of the general public are focused on comet Eleinin, there is another relatively bright comet in the sky.
Comet C/2009 P1 Garrad is already magnitude 10, and is heading for magnitude 6, possibly 5. It will make a very nice binocular comet from September this year to May 2012.
In the image you can already see a small, fan shaped tail, and this comet will be very interesting to follow over the coming months. Another good image of the comet is here.
Labels: comet, Global Rent-a-Scope
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