Hi Wescott,

Pretty overcast last night in my backyard for the eclipse.  It thinned out a little, for about 3 minutes, during totality.  It was enough to get 3 shots in.  This one was the best of the 3.  Could you put it on our club blog for me?  I got it with the 6" f/4 reflector on an EQ mount and the Canon 20D set at 1600 iso and 10 seconds. Thanks, Ron

Craters Pics

The first pic is of galaxy NGC-3077 that you spotted, Wescott, in your scope at Craters, Friday night.  NGC-3077 is an irregular galaxy, at 10.6 magnitude, belonging to the M-81, M-82 group.  They are all gravitationally interacting with each other, making one revolution as a group, every 100 million years.  NGC 3077 sits about 70 degrees above M-81 at about the same separation as 81 appears to be from 82.  All 3 are roughly 12 million LY from earth.  The photo was with a Canon 20D set at 3200 iso for 30 seconds. It was at prime focus on a Celestron GPS 11 SCT at f/10.

The second pic is of M-45 Pleiades.  It was also with a Canon 20D at 1600 iso and exposed for 5 minutes.  The camera was at prime focus on a 6" f/4 newtonian on an EQ mount.  The guiding was done visually through a 3" f/7 refractor running at 150X.

-- Ron Pugh

Nova in Sagittarius + MORE!

Westcott,

I got an email alert on my ipod from Sky and Telescope, while we were on vacation in California 2 weeks ago, to the fact a new nova had been discovered by an amateur astronomer in Australia on March 15.  It was reported at 6.0 magnitude at that time.  A week later it was at 4.3.  I couldn't see it with the lights of Stockton blazing away.  When we got home a week later it was reported to have dimmed to 5.2.  I copied Sagittarius from one of my large star charts (down to 8th mag.) and marked the nova's position, from a photo online, in red on it.  The nova was then reported to be brightening again.  On March 30, our sky was finally clear in the AM so I went out at 5:30am and was surprised it was actually visible to the naked eye.  I took several shots at different ISO's.  I'm sending you the one shot at 6 sec 1600 iso with a Canon 20D and 55mm lens at 2.8.  It was on a fixed tripod.  I compared It with other close star with the same brightness and they were at 4.65 magnitude.  If you look at the teapot's triangular top, draw a straight line between the 2 stars marking the base of the lid.  The nova is the obvious star half way between the 2 stars and a little below the imaginary line.

If the other club members were not aware of the nova they can google it at sgr-2 nova 2015.  It is the second nova in Sag this year.  The first one only got to 8th mag.  You can see what the present magnitude is at http://www.aavso.org/apps/webobs/results/?star=PNV+J18365700-2855420  .

The other 3 pictures I'm sending are ones I took it the back yard earlier in March.  I wanted to get them before they swung over into the I.F. lights.

M-42 Orion Nebula,    M-1 Crab nebula,    and the triplet galaxies M-65, 66, and NGC 3628 in Leo.

I still haven't figured out how to put them on our club blog.  If you could, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks, Ron Pugh

Comet Lovejoy Q2

12-23-2014:
Observed Lovejoy Q2 this morning using 10x50 binoculars and my 114 mm reflector (450 mm FL, 18 mm eyepiece).  Head of comet was very visible, but I couldn't see the tail.  Observation was about 12:15 am this morning.

Nolan Olson

12-31-2014:

Hi Wescott,

Happy New Year.  I've been looking for Comet Lovejoy for a while now and got excited to read that Nolan had spotted it.  Last night I went out again with my 11X80 binoculars and found it right where the chart said it would be.  It is not hard to miss, if you're looking in the right place for it.  It has quite a large coma but no tail showing.  Articles from my Sky and Telescope app showed that it has been loosing its tail lately due to solar wind turbulence.  Anyway, I thought it would be a good New Years Eve activity to get a photo of it.  So despite a moon, 4 days from full, about 10 degrees away from the comet's position and -10 degrees air temperature, I bundled up and spent 1 hour in our back yard.

Attached is the picture.  I shot it with a Canon 20D DSLR at prime focus thru my 8" Newtonian reflector.  I set it at 3200 ISO for 10 seconds.  I tried to get on the IFAS blog but still couldn't get it to work for me.  It seems that computers are this old dinosaurs' worst enemy.  Maybe you can do it . 

Thanks.       Ron Pugh

1-1-2015:

Hi Wescott,  I went out last night and found the comet quickly with binoculars than looked at it with a 4 inch reflector.  Nice coma on the comet.

Jim E

Observed it again about 10 minutes ago.  Between the Moon and my neighbor's deck light it was a challenge, but I saw it in both 10x50 binos and 114 mm reflector.  I'm using Sky Safari to locate the position.  I'm also looking out my bedroom window - its cold out there and I'm not going out!!  No tail visible.
Nolan Olson

I just saw the comet too with my 20x60 binoculars. I didn't see a tail either. It's kind of nestled in a parallelogram of relatively bright stars. I just took Rigel down - catty-corner southwest-ish and spotted it. It's brighter than I thought it would be and I thought I saw some coma...but I do not see a tail.
Wescott F.


1-7-2015:
Got a good view of the comet before the clouds rolled in...despite it being above a street lamp. It is a Blurry blob with a bright central core. Subtle V-like structure. I swear I saw a small streaming tail with averted vision...off and on. The v-like structure lends to what appears to be a diffuse v-like tail that follows behind it. At one point a satellite zoomed by the comet in the eyepiece. It was very small in size compared to the comet (about the size of the comet's central core). That gave me perspective on the size of the comet. It's far away, but it must be very large.
By the way, I was viewing the comet with a 10 inch Dob and 18mm and 35mm eyepieces.
Happy Viewing!
Wescott F.

I just looked at it about a half hour ago and saw pretty much what you saw.  I too believe that with averted vision I could see tail.
Nolan Olson