Astronomy and Space

[Gfamily]

Just out looking at Venus and Mercury

Had to take 3 images (using camera directly attached to the telescope) to get both of them in this stitched photo

V&M.jpg (95.07 KiB) Viewed 34020 times

[Gfamily]

UK people may be able to see the just launched Dragon Crew mission on Wednesday evening about 15 minutes after its launch scheduled for 21:33 BST.

The ISS (its destination) makes a pass just before 11pm

[Martin Y]

Gosh. Nice photo. How far apart were they? I mean, what's the angle of view in that photo, roughly?

[Gfamily]

Gosh. Nice photo. How far apart were they? I mean, what's the angle of view in that photo, roughly?

Thanks, at the time they were about 1 1/4 degrees apart - equivalent to 2.5 times the width of the full moon.
Physically, Venus was about 44,300,000 km and Mercury about 161,000,000km away.

[Gfamily]

If you're up late (or early) and have a low horizon to the North and East, have a look for a naked eye Comet (C/2020 F3 Neowise )
Our friend took this photo just before 3am this morning

JH Comet Neowise.jpg (32.02 KiB) Viewed 33748 times

Below it are some noctilucent clouds

[shpalman]

Up at 04:30 for this

rps20200712_100401.jpg (125.24 KiB) Viewed 33685 times

Zoom in of the relevant bit:

IMG_20200712_093728_276.jpg (244.74 KiB) Viewed 33685 times

[Gfamily]

Very nice - is that Mars and the Moon off to the right?

We're down in London to set our daughter this weekend so have missed the best nights (mornings) so far for this apparition.

We went out on Richmond Bridge at about 11:30 on Friday night, but it was too early and the comet too low.

We were able to point out Jupiter and Saturn to a couple of passers by though, which was worthwhile.

[shpalman]

The horizon is very high around here and I don't really have much of a view to the west at all so I thought the early morning would be my best chance. That's Venus over on the right but Aldebaran was visible next to it. Maybe instead a few days* it will be easier to see it in the evenings.

LG phone cameras are pretty impressive, not least because they give you a manual mode in which you can set the ISO and ask for very long exposures. My cheap tripod is a bit wobbly though.

[shpalman]

The view should have been more or less this, with the comet in Auriga.

Screenshot_20200712-102449.png (588.13 KiB) Viewed 33680 times

[basementer]

Up at 04:30 for this
rps20200712_100401.jpg

Zoom in of the relevant bit:

IMG_20200712_093728_276.jpg

Lovely.
Someone on an astro forum that I used to frequent said of comet Hale-Bopp "I'm going to miss it - it somehow makes the night sky complete". One only gets a handful of naked eye comets in a lifetime - I saw Kohoutek, Halley, and Hale-Bopp, but I might well miss this one altogether through my accident of geography. Suffering hemisphere envy.

[jaap]

We went out at about 0:30-01:00 last night to see the Neowise comet. We drove out to a nearby field to get a low horizon away from the street lights. It was only just visible with the naked eye, but with binoculars it looked great.

[johnathan]

Thanks. You helped me with my homework.

[lpm]

How to see Neo, the one, during July. In a few days it'll be up in the north near the saucepan, the saucepan being the best known constellation.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-to-se ... t-in-years

[shpalman]

The uphelpful thing is that (a) it's not on the Sky Map app but (b) you'll probably need the app to show you where to look because for the moment it's probably going to go below the horizon before the sky is dark enough to see any recognisable constellations.

Well, most of you are probably a lot further north than I am, does that help?

It's too cloudy here to have any hope of seeing it this evening so getting out of bed at 4:30 am on Sunday was totally worth it.

[basementer]

Here's a link to the Heavens Above page (set it for your own location and time zone using the link at the top right of the page)

https://www.heavens-above.com/comet.asp ... =0&tz=NZST

[Gfamily]

The uphelpful thing is that (a) it's not on the Sky Map app but (b) you'll probably need the app to show you where to look because for the moment it's probably going to go below the horizon before the sky is dark enough to see any recognisable constellations.

Well, most of you are probably a lot further north than I am, does that help?

It's too cloudy here to have any hope of seeing it this evening so getting out of bed at 4:30 am on Sunday was totally worth it.

The free version of Sky Safari (Android definitely: Apple probably) shows the comet.
There's a couple of apps by that name, look for the one by simulation curriculum.

[Gfamily]

Our Astronomy Club members had a busy few days over the weekend

I've collated their images into our Club website's picture gallery
It can take a few seconds to load
https://www.midcheshireastro.co.uk/gallery

[Gfamily]

The Royal Astronomical Society are livestreaming a transit of Ganymede across the disc of Jupiter today (between 11am and 4pm UKT)

They're using the Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amlUJd2 ... e=youtu.be

[shpalman]

rps20200718_233641.jpg (69.67 KiB) Viewed 33380 times

[Martin Y]

Ooh. Nice.

[shpalman]

I could at best only barely see a hint of it by naked eye though.

On the plus side you can do amazing things with a phone and a tripod these days. Exposures around 3 seconds with 400 ISO seemed to work best. Instagram for post-processing. I don't actually know how the photo really looks since all my screens are in night mode right now.

[shpalman]

The free version of Sky Safari (Android definitely: Apple probably) shows the comet.
There's a couple of apps by that name, look for the one by simulation curriculum.

Yes I am indeed using this app now, so thanks for the suggestion. The alerts for ISS are also useful, so I've watched it go over the past two nights.

Of course you have to disable the app's do-not-disturb feature or else it doesn't give you alerts during the night. Also, phone compasses are never that accurate, but then the comet won't be visible each night until some recognisable stars are visible.

Last night the air in the straight-up direction was relatively clear, but looking towards the horizon there's all sorts of haze and gunk and scattered light from the recently-set sun. So the comet was just about visible when it got dark enough to see stars but before it had gotten too low. I only found it because I was taking long-exposure photos in roughly the right direction and then looking at those. It should get easier to see as it moves up in the sky over the next week or two, and it's getting closer to the Earth but further from the sun so on balance it's getting fainter.

It looks like tonight might be clear too, and maybe there's be less shite in the atmosphere, so I'll be out on the balcony again.

[shpalman]

rps20200719_231355.jpg (103.79 KiB) Viewed 33310 times

ISS photobomb

[Bird on a Fire]

That is super cool.

[shpalman]

I put a sequence on my Instagram.