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Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
There are many things to be thankful for. How about cheaper gas for starters. Hope you are enjoying your
Turkey Day.
I guess I should be posting 3 pictures since it's Turkey Day (tip of the hat to you bowling fans).
There is an updated Saturn and Venus picture on the home page - they haven't changed much from the last pictures.
There's my first photo of the Orion Nebula on the Milky Way/Nebula page. Since my camera chip is small and my telescope's
resolution is high, you'll see different looks of the Nebula from me. Most will show smaller areas of the
nebula but at a higher magnification/detail level. The first picture is at my lowest magnification.
Added to Milky Way/Open Clusters is the brightest star in Plaides, the Seven Sisters. I will need lots of
pictures to capture the whole cluster!
To the Minor Planets page, 9 Metis was added. I didn't try to capture any angular size since it's so small.
It's in a star field instead.
To the Universe page, a pic with a galaxy cluster in Aries. They are very faint and small but you can still
make them out. Also added is a relatively close spiral galaxy, called the Silver Dollar galaxy (NGC 253).
Finally an Inner Planets page was added. I retired the first picture of Venus to that page.
Now there is some bounty!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Forgot I had this
I was clearing off movies from my harddrive and realized that I never made the animation of Io crossing Jupiter on 7/21.
There was also another moon nearby but it's brightness varied so it didn't look as good. It's on the Jupiter page.
Enjoy.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
More new stuff
Saturn is still quite a ways from its closest pass to us but it is starting to get pretty high up in the sky before dawn
now. New pic on home page (it's also published on www.spaceweather.com).
Also added two globular clusters from 10/28. They aren't the biggest, but each one seems to have something unique
and interesting. Check them out under Milky Way (M2 and M15).
Lastly, added M77 - a special spiral galaxy known as a Seyfert Galaxy. See Universe link (Beyond the Milky Way)
for more details.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Added 4 Vesta to minor planets page
Now that Mercury is gone again, the only new bright object out there is 4 Vesta. It is the second biggest asteroid
in the asteroid belt (and was discovered fourth). There's not much to see but there is a little bit of size to it.
In dark skies, you can barely see it if you know where to look. Binoculars help a lot.
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You can submit comments below. Let me know if you want to see more. Thanks.
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| WIS, Europa, Ganymede, RGB f29 08/01/09 |
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| The Wesley Impact Site has elongated, two moons and the GRS near the limb |
| Jupiter with Wesley Impact Site, RGB, f29 |
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| The southern pole region shows a black impact mark discovered by Austrailian Anthony Wesley. 072309 |
| Neptune and Triton, RGB, 09/06/09, near opposition |
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| Combined two images. Neptune taken at f29 and Triton, its largest moon, at f10 (then enlarged). |
| It's getting farther, week from closest pass, f/29 |
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| RGB image of Saturn on 3/16, good seeing but fog was rolling in, storms visible |
| It's getting closer, Venus URGB, f10, 3/5/09 |
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| Can see crescent with binos easily, try with naked eye to test your vision |
| Mercury is always around - RGB 200% f/29 10/21/08 |
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| But usually is too close to Sun - it was about 15 deg from horizon in morning (east) - poor seeing |
| It's getting farther, Uranus RGB 9/6/08, 200% f29 |
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| Same image scale as Neptune. A lot of green when imaging, less blue but boosted blue. 6th from Sun |
| Near Mars' closest distance to Earth for 2007 |
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| (It's getting farther too) |
This is an LRGB photo of Mars made on 12/21/07 05:52 GMT. It's centered near Eden but Syrtis Major is still
visible. I have an 11" SCT and used a monochrome Imaging Source USB 60 fps camera at f/25. I used Registax,
Photoshop and Maxim DL during processing. Thanks for visiting!
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