Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Mars and globular cluster M22 (28 Feb - 1 March, 2020)
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| Morning sky at 5:34 ACDST (90 minutes minutes before sunrise) facing east as seen from Adelaide on Saturday, February 29. Mars is at its closest to the globular cluster M22 at this time. The inset is the telescopic view through a 24 mm eyepiece of a 4" Newtonian. The nearby stars are labelled for orientation with the charts. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes minutes before sunrise). | Approximate binocular view of Mars and M22 (indicated by blue box) at 5:34 ACDST. |
Mars is currently near the "teapot" of Sagittarius, ravelling past the lid towards the Handle. During this time it travels though some binocular rich fields, in particular being within binocular range of the bright, magnitude 5.2 Globular cluster M22 from the 26th February to 3 March.
Between 28 February to 1 March Mars is within wide field telescopic eyepiece views of M22, and on the 29th, Mars and M22 are at their closest. The 29th is Saturday so you can go back for a sleep-in after.
This is a good opportunity for astrophotography. The Moon is in the evening sky and Mars and M22 are high before astronomical twilight, when the sky is fully dark. However, bright Mars may wash out M22 so a bit of fine tuning mat be required, and practising shots between 28 February to 1 March may help getting exposures right.
Labels: astrophotography, binocular, cluster, Mars, telescope
Friday, December 22, 2017
Seeing Comet C/2017 T1 Near the Beehive Cluster (December 25, 2017)
Location of Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze as seen at 3:45 am ACDST
at the latitude of Adelaide, looking north, when it is at transit. Click to embiggen.
Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze is currently near M44, the famous
Beehive Cluster, and will be closest to the cluster on Christmas. Although faint it is high
enough to be readily accessible telescopically from both Northern and southern hemispheres.
In Australia it is best for viewing from 1 am local time until astronomical
twilight in the morning, being highest at 3:45 am ACDST at the latitude of
Adelaide (and equivalent local times elsewhere in Australia).
Simulated telescopic view of Comet C/2016 R2 PanSTARRS as seen at
ACDST at the latitude of Adelaide, when it is at transit. The field of view is
approximately than of 10x50 binoculars.
Click to embiggen.
In Australia more Northern locations are favoured. However
for most locations the comet is over 39 degrees above the horizon at transit. As
with C/2016 R2 there are no really good guide stars, but for the 25th
it is roughly between gamma and theta Cancerii. Sadly, the comet is around
magnitude 11-12, much dimmer than the cluster and not accessible in binoculars. But still visible in modest telescopes.
Printable B&W charts showing the telescopic view of
Comet C/2016 R2 PanSTARRS as seen at 3:45 pm at the latitude of Adelaide, when
it is at transit. The large circle is the field of view of 10x50 binoculars
small circle is the field of view of a 32mm eyepiece on a 114mm Newtonian.
Click to embiggen and print.
You will need a good wide-field eyepiece to see the comet
and the cluster in the same field of view. Visually it will look like a fuzzy
blob, while not impressive, the Christmas coincidence is nice. For CCD imagers,
getting both the comet and the cluster will be a challenge.
The MPC one line ephemeris is:
CK17T010 2018 02
21.7136 0.580751 1.000503
96.9069 102.3228 96.8246
20170904 12.5 4.0
C/2017 T1 (Heinze)
Ephemeris of C/2017 T1 Heinze as seen from Adelaide (Pretty much the same for latitudes from Melbourne to Brisbane).
Date Distance Mag Ast Twi E Rise Transit Altitude Set Ast Twi B Geo R.A. Geo Dec 24 Dec 2017 0.4132 11.9 22:17:13 22:27:22 03:45:32 +39° 23' 51" 09:00:16 04:13:02 08h 39m 35.7s +15° 41' 55" 25 Dec 2017 0.3879 11.7 22:17:34 22:27:10 03:38:17 +37° 12' 37" 08:46:04 04:13:39 08h 36m 14.0s +17° 51' 46" 26 Dec 2017 0.3633 11.5 22:17:52 22:27:38 03:30:24 +34° 39' 56" 08:30:03 04:14:18 08h 32m 15.0s +20° 19' 24" 27 Dec 2017 0.3398 11.3 22:18:07 22:28:59 03:21:45 +31° 42' 30" 08:11:42 04:15:00 08h 27m 28.7s +23° 07' 41" 28 Dec 2017 0.3175 11.1 22:18:20 22:31:34 03:12:08 +28° 16' 37" 07:50:23 04:15:45 08h 21m 42.0s +26° 19' 41" 29 Dec 2017 0.2966 10.9 22:18:29 22:35:54 03:01:13 +24° 18' 17" 07:25:06 04:16:32 08h 14m 36.4s +29° 58' 34" 30 Dec 2017 0.2774 10.7 22:18:36 22:43:00 02:48:38 +19° 43' 35" 06:54:24 04:17:21 08h 05m 45.3s +34° 07' 04" 31 Dec 2017 0.2604 10.5 22:18:40 22:54:47 02:33:43 +14° 29' 22" 06:16:02 04:18:12 07h 54m 29.3s +38° 46' 40" 01 Jan 2018 0.2458 10.3 22:18:41 23:16:21 02:15:36 +08° 34' 45" 05:26:06 04:19:06 07h 39m 48.6s +43° 56' 14" 02 Jan 2018 0.2342 10.1 22:18:39 --:--:-- 01:52:52 +02° 08' 11" 04:16:36 04:20:02 07h 20m 10.0s +49° 29' 49"
Labels: cluster, comet, telescope
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Mars and M22 in Hydrogen Alpha Light (9 October 2016)
Labels: cluster, imageJ, iTelescope, Mars
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
Mars Amongst the Clusters of the Teapot
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| Evening sky on Thursday October 6 looking west as seen from Adelaide at 21:00 ACDST. Venus, Mars, Saturn, Antares and the Moon form a stunning trail in the sky. Mars is close to Kaus Boralis and is beginning its trek through the clusters in the lid of the celestial teapot. Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen). | A simulated binocular view of Mars near Kaus Borealis (the Lid of the Celestial Teapot) showing the globular clusters M28 and M22. (click to embiggen). |
In early October Mars is in the “Teapot” of Sagittarius. Sagittarius lies across the heart of our galaxy, so as Mars moves through the “lid” of the teapot, it comes close to several bright stars and several bright globular clusters.
On the 5th and 6th Mars is close to the magnitude 6 globular cluster M28, on the 7th it is closest (at just half a lunar diameter) from Kaus Borealis, the star that forms the lid of the Celestial teapot. This is best seen in binoculars.
On the 8th it is closest (almost on top of) to the 9th magnitude globular cluster NGC 6638 (best in telescopes) and on the 9th and 10th it is closest to the iconic magnitude 5 globular cluster M22. Although this is potentially visible to the unaided eye in dark sky sites, with the waxing Moon, binoculars or telescopes are best to see the pairing.
The clusters and Mars are high enough from Astronomical twilight in the evening (roughly an hour and a half after sunset) until around 11 pm local time for viewing (and astroimaging) before they become too low.
There will be several challenges imaging these clusters and Mars. Mars's brightness will prevent long exposures, and the waxing Moon is close by, a mere 6 degrees on the 9th, making even narrow-band imaging a challenge.
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, Mars
Saturday, September 10, 2016
The Lagooon Nebula with a Point and Shoot Camera (7 September 2016)
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| The Lagoon Nebula imaged with taken with a Canon IXUS mounted on 8" Newtonian with infinity to infinity focus, 25 mm eyepiece. 800 ASA, 10 x 15 seconds exposures stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. Click to embiggen | Moon taken with the same Canon IXUS, mounted on 8" Newtonian with infinity to infinity focus as before, 25 mm eyepiece, 400 ASA, single 1 second exposure. Click to embiggen. |
I am a bit of a planetary astronomy tragic. While I am happy to cast my eye and occasionally my telescope over galaxies and nebula, I am not so interested in photographing them, reserving my imaging efforts through my own scopes for eclipses and the bright planets, and my time on the iTelescopes for comets.
However, when I was trying to image Mars close to the globular cluster M19, I decided to set up my point and shoot camera on the Don the 8" Newtonian, with the motor drive. Because Don weights a ton, and is a pain to move further tan from the garage to my back yard. I typically reserve it for planetary imaging with the CCD cam. I use the 4" with the "point and shoot" because I can literally toss it in the nback of the care at a moment notiice zoom off and set it up anywhere, and move it at the drop of a hat if the tarhet stars to go behind a tree or roof line (so many eclipses have done that).
Taking astrophotographs of bright planetary bodies such as the Moon and bright planets can be as simple as holding a mobile phonesor cameras up to a telescope eyepiece. I use a special adapter that holds my camera in place. There are also adapters for iPhones (not, it seems for android phones). These are a bit pricey (nearly $100 for astro-optical stores), but I use mine so often it has repaid my investment. I typically use the adaptor for eclipse photography. I show the setup for my 4" Newtonian without time drive below, but the principle for a time drive telescope is the same.
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| Point and shoot camera, telescope adapter and 20mm telescope lens. Low power lenses are best for eclipse photography | Lens inserted in telescope, tightened in (important, having the lens-camera fall out can ruin your camera) and adapter attached to lens. | camera screwed onto platform, some adjusting is needed to centre the image. |
The setup for the camera adapter is a tad complex, as you need to juggle the lens to get it aligned with the telescope lens, all while the Moon (or whatever object you want to set up on) is drifting out of the telescope field of view if you are using an a scope without a motor dive. Once aligned you will need to constantly adjust the telescope position to keep the Moon centred for a non-motor drive scope, although if you are using a low power eyepiece this is not that often.
For lunar and solar eclipses, bright star or planet occultations etc this is not a problem, the occasional adjustment is a mild annoyance. But for faint fuzzies you definitely need a motor drive.
Anyway, the Mars M19 conjunction turned out so well with a single 15 second exposure, thar I decide to try out the lagoon nebula. This is not as easy as it souunds as the caurs and fine controls on Don were designed by a sadist , but I finally got a chunk of the nebula into the field of view and did a run of 10 15 second exposures at 800 ASA. 15 seconds is the longest I can do with the Canon IXUS, I could have done multiple runs but it was getting late and I had had to get ready for work the next.
The results are far from spectacular, but not bad for a first go. The main nebula is not centred, the camera is not properly aligned with the lens, so there is weird brightness variations, and the edge stars are distorted, but with a bit of practise (and better focus), I can do a bit of bright nebula cluster photography that I thought I would never be able to do, all with quite low cost eqipment.
Labels: astrophotography, cluster
Thursday, September 08, 2016
My Images of Mars close to M19 (7 September 2016)
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| Mars (Obvious overexposed blob) and M19 (labelled fuzzy patch) taken with the Canon IXUS 400 ASA, 3 x Zoom, 15 seconds exposure. Click to embiggen. | Mars (Obvious overexposed blob on far right) and M19 (obvious fuzzy patch) taken with the Canon IXUS mounted on 8" Newtonian inifinty ot infinity focus, 25 mm eyepiece. 800 ASA, 15 seconds exposure. Image rotated to match simple camera image Click to embiggen |
After a beautifully clear day it looked like cloud would ruin the close approach of Mars and M19. I got Don the 8"Newtonian out and assembled it anyway and cooled it down while organising tea.
After dinner I set up the camera on the scope, ran some test shots on the Moon, then a couple of test shots on Saturn (next time I check the focus properly) then finally went for Mars and M19.
I had to juggle the alignment to get both Mars and M19 in the picture (as you can see) and because I didn't get the camera-eyepeice alignment exactly right there is some weird brightness variations across the field of view, but otherwise it worked ot pretty well. Remember this is a simple point and shoot camera basically just stuck up to the lens of the telescope (with an adaptor to be sure, but nothing particularly fancy).
While taking images I alos checked out the view in binoculars, in 10x50 binoculars, with a waxing Moon in the sky M19 was clearly visible near Mars.
M19 and Mars taken with iTelescope T12. M19 is at the top. Mars (near
the bottom) is grossly over exposed in this 10 second exposure. Click to
embiggenLabels: binocular, cluster, iTelescope, Mars, telescope
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
Mars close to globular cluster M19 (7 September 2016)
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| Mars as seen from Adelaide at 22:00 ACST on 7 September, simiar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. Click to embiggen. | Simulated binocular view of M19 and Mars. you will need to click to embiggen to see M19. M19 is faint and fuzzy under suburban skies in binoculars, so this is an accurate simulation. |
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| Black and white printable chart suitable for use with binoculars or telescopes. The large circle is the field of view of 10x50 binoculars, the small circle the FOV of a 30 mm eyepiece with a 114mm reflector. Click to embiggen and print (use with redlight torches so as to not destroy your night vision) | M19 and Mars taken with iTelescope T12. M19 is at the top. Mars (near the bottom) is grossly over exposed in this 10 second exposure. Click to embiggen |
For the next seven days Mars will be within a binocular field of the magnitude 6.8 globular cluster M19. This will look rather nice, even tonight, under suburban skies struggling with cloud, M19 was clearly visible as a fuzzy patch in binoculars near Mars. Of course over the next few days the waxing moonlight will make it harder to see the globular cluster.
However, on the night of the 7th Mars and M19 will be less than a degree apart, an will fit easily into a low power eyepiece of a telescope. while they should be fine to the unaided eye, photographing them will be a bit of a juggling act as the brightness of Mars will overwhelm the dimmer globular cluster (see the itelescope image above).
Mars will be a little over 1 degree away on the 8th, but will still fit in many low power telescope eyepieces.Well worth having a look.
on the 11th and 12th Mars wil be around a degree from the yellow orange binary 36 Ophiuchi (36 on the black and white map) a rather nice view in small telescopes)
Labels: binocular, cluster, iTelescope, Mars, telescope
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Two Bright Planets, Two Clusters (11 April, 2015)
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| Evening sky on Saturday April 11 looking west as seen from Adelaide at 19:00 (7:00 pm) ACST in South Australia. Venus is obvious in the early evening sky and is close to the Pleiades. Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (click to embiggen). | Evening sky on Saturday April 11 looking north-west as seen from Adelaide at 22:00 ACST showing Jupiter. The right inset shows Jupiter's Moons at this time.The Left inset shows the Beehive cluster. Jupiter is the brightest object above the north-western horizon once Venus has set. (click to embiggen). |
This weekend, ifwe are not clouded out, there will be a rather nice conjunction of bright plantes and star clusters.
On Saturday 11 April, Venus is at its closest to the beautiful Pleiades cluster. Venus has been edging closer to this iconic open cluster for some days now, and will be close for a few more after Saturday, but Saturday is when it is at its best. Even under suburban skies the cluster is easily visible to the unaided eye, and will look neat with Venus nearby in binoculars.
Venus is visible from around Sunset, but the Pleiades and Venus will be best around an hour after Sunset. This is a balance between the darkness of the sky and the height above the horizon (the Pleaides will be around a hand-span above the western-horizon at this time.
Over to the north-west is Jupiter, the brightest object in the sky after Venus, it is close to another iconic open cluster, the Beehive. The Beehive is fainter and less obvious than the Pleiades, and may be difficut to see with the unaided eye in suburban settings, but Jupiter and the Beehive will look good in binocuars together.
Unlike Venus and the Pleiades, Jupiter stays within binocular range of the Beehive for a couple of weeks.
So this weekend is a great time to see a rather unusual and beautiful sights, tow bright planets near two iconic (mostly) unaided eye visible open clusters.
Labels: binocular, cluster, Jupiter, Pleiades, unaided eye, Venus
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Comet Lovejoy and the Beehive, 6 November 2013
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| Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy captured on 6 November with iTelescope T14 at around 4:00 am local time in New Mexico, USA. The image is a stack of 3 x 60 second Luminance exposures. Images stacked then SUMMED using ImageJ, then contrast enhancement applied. click to embiggen. | Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy captured on 6 November with iTelescope T14 at around 4:00 am local time in New Mexico, USA. The image is a stack of 10 x 60 second Luminance exposures. Images stacked then MEDIAN stacked using ImageJ, then contrast enhancement applied. The faint tail comes out nicely, and the Beehive cluster is preserved. click to embiggen. |
Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy is quite the unexpected delight of the year. Already reported as 6th magnitude, it may get as bright as magnitude 5 before it is lost from southern skies, and brighter in the northern hemisphere. Currently near the iconic Beehive cluster in Cancer, it is putting on a very good show, easily making up for ISON. With careful stacking a very nice, narrow tail can be seen.You really need to embiggen the images to see them at their best
T14 is a 0.10-m f/5.0 astrograph with SBIG STL-11000M and 3.5 arc-secs/pixel
Animation made from all 10 images. Contrast enhanced to see the comet tail better. Image orientation: north is to the right, east to the top.
Labels: C/2013 R1, cluster, comet, iTelescope
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy in the Beehive (7-8 November 2013)
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| Morning sky on Thursday November 7 looking north north-east as seen from Adelaide at 4:30 am ACST (an hour and a half before Sunrise) in South Australia. Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy is to the right of Jupiter, just above the Beehive cluster (Paresepe). Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (click to embiggen). | Simulated binocular view showing the location of C/2013 R1 Lovejoy on the 7th and 8th. The chart us in the same orientation as the spotters chart at the same time (click to embiggen). |
Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy is easily visible in binoculars in the constellation of Cancer. On the 7th and 8th of November it is very close to the beautiful Beehive cluster.
You will need to get up before Astronomical twilight, an hour and a half before local sunrise, to see it before twilight makes them too hard to see, best around 2 hours before sunrise.
A printable PDF chart is here.
Labels: C/2013 R1, cluster, comet
Sunday, November 03, 2013
Venus in the Heart of the Galaxy
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| Venus near the heart of the galaxy. Image is a stack of 10x60 second exposures at ASA 400 with my Canon IXUS. Stacked in DeepSky Stacker. Click to embiggen (WARNING 7 Mb file, but it's worth it) | Close-up showing Venus near the Triffid Nebula and M7. Image is a stack of 10x60 second exposures at ASA 400 with my Canon IXUS at 3x Zoom. Stacked in DeepSky Stacker. Click to embiggen (WARNING 7 Mb file, but it's worth it) |
Venus has several close encounters with various beautiful clusters and bright stars in Sagittarius this month.
On the 2nd Venus was two finger-widths from the galactic centre, and now it passes into the star clouds of Sagittarius.
Venus passes within binocular distance of the beautiful cluster M21 and the Lagoon and Triffid nebulas between the 3rd-6th (see images above).
On November 11 Venus and the bright star Kaus Borealis are less than 2 finger-widths apart. The dim globular cluster M28 is clse as well.
On November 11 Venus and the bright globular cluster M22 are within binocular distance of each other.
On the 16th Venus is a finger-width from the bright star phi Sagittarii. On the 19th Venus is much less than a finger-width from the bright star Nunki, they may be hard to tell apart with the unaided eye.
Labels: binoculars, cluster, unaided eye, Venus
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
Venus and the Beehive, 3-4 July 2013
On the 3rd and 4th of July Venus is close to the Beehive cluster (Praesepe).
However, there is only a short time in the twilight when it is dark enough to see the cluster in binoculars or a small telescope, and when the cluster is too close to the horizon to see through the murk (unless you have super eyesight, the cluster will be too faint to see in the twilight with the unaided eyes).
You should probably start looking around an hour after sunset. Although astronomical twilight, when the sky is totally dark, is an hour and a half after sunset Venus will be less than a handspan from the horzion, and the faint stars of the Beehive will be difficult to see due to horizon grunge.
Worth having a look though.
Labels: binoculars, cluster, telescope, Venus
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules
Luminance images were stacked in ImageJ then the red, green, blue and stacked luminance images assembled using the Merge Channels tool. Click to embiggen.
It's official, I suck at colour astrophotography. :-(
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, imageJ, iTelescope
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Comet C/2011 L4 Panstarrs
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Rather nice little picture if I say so myself.Taken with iTelecope T14. Stack of 4 images, stretched in FITS liberator, summed in ImageJ and then stacked and despeckled.
Labels: cluster, comet, comets, iTelescope
Friday, February 03, 2012
Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd near M92 - February 3, 2012
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These are just the preview images taken with iTelescope T4 and T 20 respectively. I've been remiss in blogging this fantastic comet/cluster pairing, but I've been organising graduate student lectures instead (missed out on two days of imaging because I was distracted by lecture preparation and didn't press the button to launch my observing run :-(.
Exhausted now, heading to bed, I'll do proper analysis on the FITS images tomorrow, after a long sleep.
Labels: C/2009 P1 Garradd, cluster, comet, comets, iTelescope
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, February 11, 2011
Venus Near M22 and M25 On Saturday 12 Feb, 2011
Left hand image: Venus in Sagittarius at 5:00 am, local daylight saving time, above the eastern horizon. Right hand image: Approximate binocular view showing Venus near M22 and M25 (the stars are not going to be that bright, unless you are well away from city lights, have dark adapted your eyes for some time and have really good binoculars). Click on images to embiggen.
Just a reminder that on the morning of Saturday February 12 Venus passes between the globular cluster M22 and the open cluster M25. This will look very nice in binoculars in the early morning before twilight starts. If you look around 5:00 am (local daylight saving time), this will be before astronomical twilight, when the sky is quite dark, and Venus and the clusters should be high enough that horizon murk will not interfere as much. Do remember to take some time to dark adapt your eyes.
I was able to pick up (weakly) M22 on a 15 second exposure at ASA 400 using my Canon IXUS, so you might be able to get decent shots of this
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, Venus
Friday, February 04, 2011
Venus Amongst the Clusters (Saturday February 5th)
Morning sky looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:30 am daylight saving time on Saturday February 5 showing Venus, Mercury and the bright star Antares. Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time. Click to embiggen.Venus has some very interesting encounters over the next few days.
First off and quite beautiful, tomorrow morning on Saturday the 5th, Venus is between the open cluster M23 and the Triffid nebula M20. This event is best seen with binoculars. However, because of the glare of Venus, you will probably need to move Venus out of the field of view to see M20 and M23 at their best.
You will need to look between 5:00 am and 5:30 am local Australian daylight saving time when Venus and the clusters are high enough above the horizon but it is still dark enough fro the clusters not to be drowned out by the twilight.
On the 7th and 8th Venus is very close to mu Sagittarii, the lid of the "teapot" of Sagittarius.
On the 9th, Venus is very close to the Asteroid Vesta (see printable PDF map here). Vesta is quite faint (magnitude 7), so you need binoculars and may need to watch over a number of nights to make sure you are seeing it (and the same considerations for the clusters apply to Vesta).
Venus has more encounters coming up. So keep an eye out (and watch out for NanoSail-D)
Labels: 4 Vesta, binocular, cluster, Venus
Friday, February 05, 2010
Mars and the Beehive, February 2010
The evening sky facing north-east in Australia on February 6 at 10:00 pm AEDST (9:00 pm AEST) showing the Mars and the Beehive Cluster (click to embiggen) .Mars has been within a binocular field of the Beehive Cluster (M44, Praesepe) for most of this week, and will continue to be close for another week, however, between now and 7 February Mars will be closest to the Beehive.
The Beehive cluster is a beautiful , large, open cluster that is just visible to the unaided eye. Naturally it is much better under dark sky conditions. While you can see this with the uniaded eye, binoculars will give a better view. Through binoculars red Mars floats below a delicate scattering of jewels.
Mars as seen in 10x50 binoculars on February 6, near the Beehive Cluster (top).Mars will be even closer to the Beehive in April, but not as bright.
Labels: binocular, cluster, Mars, Observational Astronomy, Opposition, unaided eye
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