Stargazing What's Happening in the Night Sky? Upcoming Astronomy Events to Look Out For!

[Borek]

Bump: Venus transit is on Wednesday.

 

[Drakkith]

Bump: Venus transit is on Wednesday.

Woohoo!

 

[dipole]

Tuesday for the United States.

 

[chemisttree]

Tuesday around 5:00 pm Central is first contact and it lasts just over 6 hours... well past sunset. That's Wednesday about midnight Central European Time. Sorry Borek. You should be able to follow it via GLORIA though.

 

[Borek]

If not for the weather it should be visible here around sunrise.

 

[turbo]

I just checked and I seem to have misplaced my welders' glass. May have to go buy another...

 

[davenn]

finally got my camera and solar filter mated to the scope, now all I need is for this contineous rain to disappear.

Transit starts, here in Sydney, at 08:09 eastern Australia time (local time) ~ 1 hour after sunrise and goes through to ~ 14:44 hrs local time


cheers
Dave

 

[chemisttree]

It's here! Just snapped a photo of it through my homemade Carton 60mm f16.7. I used a Scopetronix Maxview 40mm eyepiece equipped with a Baader Contrast Booster filter attached to my Sony F717. 1/1000 sec a f8 afocally with Baader Solar Film. Levels, resizing, unsharp mask using Photoshop 7.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5270/venustransit002.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Mark M]

Great. I've been looking forward to seeing this for the past week, but it began to rain before it got here, so I can't see it. Good thing I've got this.

 

[davenn]

nice pic chemistree

well done, its just coming to an end here in eastern Australia and I missed 3rd and 4th contacts the weather finally totally crapped out

Dave

 

[sas3]

I took some photos but put them in the Astrophotography thread, nice photo chemisttree.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I got some pictures last time around. Lucky because the viz was rubbish this morning. This time, everyone seems to have made much more of it. I guess it has more public relevance in the light of extra-solar planet hunting interest.

 

[Telmerk]

Hi, this is a photo from Hungary (Fényi Gyula Observatory, Miskolc), between the third and fourth contact of the Venus transit.
MEADE APO EMC 152/1370 with Baader solar filter + CANON EOS 1000D 1/1250 exposure time with ISO200.

It was quite cloudy, but finally we managed to see the end of the transit with the schoolboys here.

 

[davenn]

The annual perseids meteor shower is coming up real fast the weekend of the 11 and 12 of August. The shower is known for good high counts of meteors 60+ per hour and often leaving persistent several second and occassionally "smokey" trailscheers
Dave

 

[bertthebasher]

What is the right ascension of the Sun on September 21

 

[davenn]

Hi bertthebasher
welcome to PF

Download a planetarium program called stellarium and use it to work it out :)
its free and relatively easy to use

Dave

 

[davenn]

November is rushing up quickly ... gosh the year has flown by

Are any of the forum members, Aussies or from other countries heading to the Cairns area in northern Queensland state for the total eclipse of the sun in mid november 2012 ?

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2012Nov13T.GIF

Dave

 

[davenn]

well the Cairns total eclipse has been and gone this morning 14 Nov
some saw it some didnt. Being a tropics region of Australia, the weather on the day was always going to be the deciding factor. And as it turned out just being in the right spot at the right time paid off.

see the astro photo section for some of my pics

cheers
Dave

 

[davenn]

Comet chasing

Greetings all
Happy New Year

Dont know how many on here are into comet hunting and viewing in general


This site I found a few months back is awesome for keeping up with the latest visible comets
going from top of page downwards it list comets in ascending order of faintness ... ie. faintest ones at the bottom and it gives an indication of what instrument will be needed to see that particular comet.
It also gives a link to a section of a skymap finder chart for that comet

last nite I managed, for the first time, to spy C/2012 K5 (LINEAR): An evening comet visible in binoculars. it was ~ 20-30 deg above my nthrn horizon and just visible as a fuzzy blob in my 7x50 bino's. The sky was quite bright towards the horizon, the joys of doing astronomy in a large city.
Tonite I will get the scope out and have a better view :) It will be higher up as it moves through Taurus over the next few days.

Cheers
Dave

 

[sophiecentaur]

Cheers Dave. It's great for us 'fringe' astronomers to be made aware of this stuff. One day, when the viz is OK and you tell me something, I'll be able to see it and be 'right chuffed'
BTW, HNY 2U2

 

[davenn]

you're welcome :)

I am plannig a trip to the USA for the 2017 total eclipse :) you should definitely be able to see that event ;)

Dave

 

[Borek]

Still almost a year, but Autumn can be interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2012_S1

 

[davenn]

wow mag 18.8 when discovered, a really faint little sucker LOL

will be interesting to keep an eye on the SOHO images around the time it rounds the sun
with any luck it will show up on a few of those images, as a lot of sungrazers do

Dave

 

[davenn]

...last nite I managed, for the first time, to spy C/2012 K5 (LINEAR): An evening comet visible in binoculars. it was ~ 20-30 deg above my nthrn horizon and just visible as a fuzzy blob in my 7x50 bino's. The sky was quite bright towards the horizon, the joys of doing astronomy in a large city.
Tonite I will get the scope out and have a better view :) It will be higher up as it moves through Taurus over the next few days.

Cheers
Dave

After taking the telescope out the following nite, fri 4th Jan, I discovered that I hadnt seen the comet in the binoculars, rather, the fuzzy blob I saw was M37 a faint compact open star cluster ( that almost sounds a contradiction huh ?!)
the cluster was easily resolvable in the scope but not in the 7x50 bino's.
After a couple of hours of searching I finally found the fuzzy blob that is the comet abd the star map confirned that there are no other fuzzies in that area YES Success!

The comet is NOT visible in the binoculars and I would have estimated its magnitude to be ~ 9 - 10th

cheers
Dave

 

[Astronuc]

Asteroid makes pass at Earth on Feb. 15: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will safely fly by Earth at a distance of 17,200 miles (27,700 km).

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news174.html

It's speed is ~7.8 kilometers/second (17,400 miles/hour)
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news177.html

 

[sbrothy]

What is the probability of DA14 hitting Earth? Some sources, i.e: www.inquisitr.com says the risk is as high as 2.7%, but I'm told that this is exaggerated and the number is closer to 0.0000036%, and that number is even for 2080. I was given this NASA impact assessment but 2013 doesn't seem to figure. Can anyone tell me?

TIA.

EDIT: Oh it actually says 0% chance in that article in the previous post. Never mind :)
EDIT: And it DOES figure: 3.6e-08%! Well that is as close to 0 as makes no difference! :)

Got confused there! :)

 

[Redbelly98]

Comet Pan-STARRS C/2011 L4 should soon be visible in the Northern hemisphere, around or shortly after sunset. Perihelion is tomorrow, March 10.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/08/naked-eye-comet-pan-starrs-at-its-brightest-this-weekend/

 

[chemisttree]

Comet Pan-STARRS C/2011 L4 should soon be visible in the Northern hemisphere, around or shortly after sunset. Perihelion is tomorrow, March 10.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/08/naked-eye-comet-pan-starrs-at-its-brightest-this-weekend/

I saw it briefly from the observation deck of a tall bldg last night (3-13-13). Very difficult to find in the deepening twilight but obvious through 10X50 binoculars. Unimpressive when viewed from near downtown Houston.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

April 21, 22 - Lyrids Meteor Shower. The Lyrids is an average shower, usually producing about 20 meteors per hour at its peak. It is produced by dust particles left behind by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which was discovered in 1861. The shower runs annually from April 16-25. It peaks this year on the night of the night of the 21st and morning of the 22nd. These meteors can sometimes produce bright dust trails that last for several seconds. The nearly full moon will be a problem this year, blocking out all but the brightest meteors. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Lyra, but can appear anywhere in the sky.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

April 25 - Partial Lunar Eclipse. A partial lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth's partial shadow, or penumbra, and only a portion of it passes through the darkest shadow, or umbra. During this type of eclipse a part of the Moon will darken as it moves through the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will be visible throughout most of Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.