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Observation reports - Kerridge ...
Reading about other people's experiences at the eyepiece of a telescope
often inspires us to view the glory of the night sky. Go forth and explore
...!
Remember, don't forget to send your observing reports to observations@maccastro.com.
27/06/05
- Three worlds in one
Binoculars - 7x50
I had set out to observe and image the extremely close pairing of Venus
and Mercury from White Nancy on Kerridge Ridge. As I approached the foot
of the Ridge I stopped, took a little detour and took out my binoculars
- there was Venus with fleeting Mercury by her side, about 5 minutes of
arc away.
I returned to the footpath and climbed the hill. I was pleased with my
timing for this observation, Venus was still quite high above the horizon,
which would give me plenty of time to relax and enjoy the view.
On reaching White Nancy the view was beautiful. The sky merged from a
lovely mid-chalky blue to yellow-orange and fiery red. I noticed that
the visibility and transparency was particularly good. Only a hint of
wispy haze could be seen hugging the horizon.
I set my camera up and started bracketing exposures, framing the celestial
subjects with the landscape. Both Mercury and Venus were easily seen through
my 7x50 binoculars. I did mean to try to spot the former with my naked
eye, but didn't give myself enough time to do so between swapping lenses
on my camera and adjusting my shutter speeds.
I had a cursory look for Saturn with the binoculars too, but with no luck
- it is only just visible on my images. It's amazing how much difference
less than 0.3 of a magnitude makes to the visibility of objects in a twilight
sky.
For the last time, at 2251, I swapped my lenses. I decided to set up the
camera to take a picture every 2 minutes to capture both planets setting.
Now I could sit down and enjoy the remainder of the show...
In the 12 minutes that followed I saw Venus and Mercury sink slowly to
the horizon. When the pair were only about 1 degree in elevation, things
started to happen. Venus had been scintillating before, but now it began
to pulse slowly turning from yellow to blood red to bright blue-green.
Mercury too, now considerably fainter than before was pulsating, sometimes
almost disappearing from view. The position angle between each object
was much shallower now as they passed through the most dense portions
of the atmosphere. I began to think that Venus' colour-shifts were becoming
more green and I wondered if I might see a Venusian Green Flash. I watched
Mercury move ever-closer to setting and just before it did its brightness
pulsated so I was able to follow the planet right to the horizon. Now
I could solely concentrate on Venus. It began to flare considerably when
its colour became deep red, and looked almost like the flower of a Hibiscus.
I was concentrating hard, but was being tormented by midges on my left
arm. I brushed them away as quick as I could!
So close to Venus-set now and all of a sudden the planet turned into a
blood red triangle, which was closely followed by the upper tip detaching
and turning a silvery green, quickly reducing in size to a pin-prick before
disappearing. A Venusian Green Flash! But not just once, in amazement
I watched as this happened 12 times. I couldn't believe my luck. Then,
I was completely taken aback by the image of the planet breaking into
three very distinct, equidistant, perfectly round red disks, stacked vertically
on the horizon - twice - before the planet disappeared. I let out a gasp
I was so astonished. What I saw looked almost artificial because the image
was so perfectly presented.
What a privilege. I stood up shaking my head and thought 'People just
have no idea what's happening around them, if only they knew about the
wonderful sights they could behold ... '
I packed my equipment away and walked down the hill. I couldn't possibly
go home to bed. I just had to write down what I'd been fortunate enough
to see!
Andrew Greenwood
27/06/05
- Daytime observation of Jupiter and Venus
It was a lovely afternoon - I had a careful mooch around the daytime sky
using my 80mm William Optics refractor to locate Venus and Jupiter from
about 1700 (in broad daylight!).
The latter was pretty faint, but I could see the equatorial banding. It
was a very appealing sight actually - I could get both planets in my eyepiece
at the same time using my 31mm Nagler. Of course it was only a line of
sight effect, in actuality they were separated by approximately 750 million
kilometres in space! How fantastic is that? Jupiter easily showed a large-ish
disk, whilst Venus' gibbous phase was very small. Just goes to show how
big Jupiter really is!
Andrew Greenwood
14/01/06
- Conjunction of Venus and the Sun
This is an interesting observation. Venus was in conjunction with the
Sun, but due to the relative positions in our orbits our sister planet
was about 5 degrees above the plane of the Solar System, so it passed
'over the top' of the Sun. I waited for the Sun to set and then offset
5 degrees West and 5 degrees North - and there it was. The planet sported
a very thin crescent (but not as thin as I thought it was going to be
given its position reletive to us). As the planet was so low in the sky
the seeing was making it slowly churn and gloop like as if it was in syrup.
I've never seen a crescent look so strange and contorted ...
I took an image and some video, so if anyone wishes to view the footage
please let me know.
Andrew Greenwood
18/11/06 -
ISS transit of the Sun
Report coming soon ...
To view two frames of the movie click
here.
Andrew Greenwood
28/11/06
- Warm astronomy
Here's a nice observation I made on a Sunday evening ... During the day
I'd been busy in the garden tidying for the winter. It was a lovely sunny
day.
When I had finished it was getting dark-ish. I had noticed the Moon low
in the South so I thought I'd take a look. Rebecca asked if I wanted a
hot chocolate with a dash of Cointreau so I said 'Yes please!' Because
of this I broke the golden observing rule - and used my telescope indoors.
Shock horror!
Well I have to say it was brilliant and turned out to be quite memorable.
The Moon was lovely and displayed Earthshine. Rebecca spotted a star very
close to the dark, advancing limb. So we watched it get ever closer and
suddenly 'pop' out it went as it disappeared behind the Moon. A nice occultation.
I then decided to find out what the star was so I opened StarryNight.
It was in Capricornus, and I noticed at that Neptune and Uranus would
be in the same area of the sky. The hunt was on ... Using my Megrez 80
refractor I star-hopped from the Moon using bright stars to find Neptune.
And there it was - from *inside* the house! I couldn't discern a disc
because of the magnification I was using, but it was right where StarryNight
said it would be. It was a lucky observation because cloud was rolling
in very fast and soon covered that area of the sky. Rebecca did get chance
to see the planet and I think she was rather impressed, saying 'Now, this
is the kind of astronomy I like!'
On to Uranus. Again using StarryNight I found it's location. I was really
surprised - it was a lot higher than I expected. I couldn't use the 'scope
as I couldn't get it close enough to the window so I used binoculars.
It was a really easy target after star hopping in its direction. It was
brighter than I recall, when I last observed it - obviously my memory
has faded!
Andrew Greenwood
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 July and August updates ...
The bright twilight nights are slowly giving way to darker skies and the prospect of revealing a little-known nightly sight. Away from the towns and cities, the Milky Way will soon be glimpsed meandering through the constellation of Cygnus. This river of stars was worshipped by the ancient Egyptians ... Nowadays, especially when we approach the end of Summer, it's astronomers that turn their gaze skyward and praise the sight of a myriad of stars arching high above them.
The following sections have been updated: This month's night sky and observations.
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