RIP Comet ISON....but is it really dead 11/28/13????

Well folks the moment of truth came and went. Comet ISON managed to hold together to make it to perihelion at 10.40am PST. The last few images we have of ISON show it dimming, indicating that the comet has indeed disrupted and as of now, 12.30pm PST, SOHO is not detecting any oxygen coming from the comet (which it should by now if it slingshot around the sun) which means the comet is probably dead and dissipated. This is kinda sad seeing I never got to see it due to crummy weather....oh well......

Sky and Telescope reports at 4.10pm EST: 
The LASCO C2 coronagraph saw only a sparse, headless debris trail come out from behind its Sun-occulting disk after perihelion. http://media.skyandtelescope.com/images/11106507235_ec20b425d7_o.gif

BUT BUT It seems like Comet ISON loves to keep us guessing...is it really dead? That is the current story. As the comet, or pieces of it moves away from the sun, a coma seems to have formed, along with a new tail. Does this mean there is still a sizeable chunk on nucleus left? We may yet get ourselves a nice Christmas Comet , ala Comet Lovejoy 2011. Here is the report from CIOC entitled Schrodinger's Comet.

Latest breaking news here: Something did survive, however ISON is not expected to put on a fantastic naked eye show. As I type this, the comet has faded to +5 magnitude.

30th of November: ISON continues to fade as reported by Sky and Telescope. 
Jacob Czerny quotes on Sky and Telescope that the comet remnant is fading at the rate expected of a simple, inactive debris cloud moving farther from the Sun's illumination.

1st of December: Updates from Sky and Telescope: Goodbye from SOHO, and a CBET summary. The Ghost of ISON continues to dim and has departed from SOHO's LASCO C3 field of view early today. There will be a 2 to 4 day blind period now that ISON has left the spacecraft views. The dim diffused remnants of Comet ISON is expected to be diffcult to detect in the morning twilight, and who knows if it would have dissipated by then...goodbye ISON and thanks for putting on a show for us, even though it was not what we expected.....

 

"Comet ISON's last few images. Note the dimming of the head prior to perihelion. Courtesy of ESA/NASA"

"All that remains of Comet ISON...a dim dusty trail of debries coming out of its fiery perihelion encounter with our sun Courtesy of NASA/ESA/SOHO"

 "Or is it the end? The Comet seems to be brightening again in this latest image from , forming a new coma and tail as it pulls away from the sun.....ISON keeps us guessing and it is going to go down as the weirdest comet of them all. Courtesy NASA/ESA/SOHO"

"Goodbye ISON. Last spacecraft views of the cometary remnants before it exits the FOV. Images courtesy of NASA/ESA/SOHO"

Waiting for ISON...and getting over the flu, and bad weather.....

Comet ISON, dubbed comet of the century, has been playing coy with us till about a week ago when it suddenly burst to life. it is now following a brightness trend that was predicted in February.  No the comet is not going to hit a brightness magnitude equaling the moon, but bright enough to be a rather nice naked eye object, similar or probably brighter to Comet Panstarrs in March. The weekend I observed Comet Lovejoy, it was still languishing at close to magnitude 8. What a difference a few days make. Two outburst and ISON is now clearly a naked eye object low in the predawn skies from dark sky sites. In fact as of today, ISON might be a big challenge to see since this is the first time it does not rise before twilight happens. I have been unlucky in that I have been down with the flu for a week now (and it sucks...the whole fam is sick!)...so here's hoping that the comet keeps it together when it whips around the sun on the 28th of November and become a spectacular silver dagger gracing out morning skies in December as it begins its trek back into deep space. Experts are predicting it probably will seeing how it is not breaking apart at the moment. But comets do whatever they want so we will just have to wait and see. Stay tuned......

Comet Lovejoy 2013 R1 Shooting from the suburbs 14th of November 2013

Here are a couple of shots of the near naked eye (from my light drenched suburb anyways) Comet Lovejoy 2013/R1 which has been putting on a rather pleasing show for northern hemisphere folks as it passed the beehive cluster in Cancer and is slowly trekking its way across Leo. It showed Comet ISON up till yesterday when ISON had an upsurge in brightness. Both are about the same magnitude at the moment but Lovejoy is heaps easier to see as it is higher in the sky. Looks like we will be getting a decent show from ISON after all as ISON races towards perihelion on November 28. Lovejoy's rendezvous with the sun occurs on the 22nd of December. I had two comet viewing session, once visually on Sunday night (10th of Nov) with my Celestron/ Vixen C6 (will have to scan my sketch), and this imaging session. I waited for the comet to be high enough in the night sky (which mean staying up till 3am). Could not detect any hint of a tail but its nucleus was starlike with a nice big hazy coma. All shots taken with my Celestron NexStar 102GT and Meade DSI C equipped with a Orion 0.5x focal reducer and Orion SkyGlow broadband filter.

"Comet Lovejoy 2013/R1: Best balance of sharpness and brightness at 6x20 sec. All dark subtracted"

Bringing back the FUN in observing...as in visual observing.....and other random comet hunting news 11th Nov 2013

Stargazing should be a fun and relaxing activity and should not be a chore that one had to labour through. I have seen my fair share of ups and downs in my hobby. I have gone through bouts of frenzied activity where I burned myself out, whilst trying to challenge myself to see fainter and fainter fare. This happened really early when I returned to the hobby in the early 2000's. Every trip to the dark sky site meant making long list of objects to hunt down and sketch, arranging and re-arranging star maps that I had printed out from Tirion's Sky Atlas 2000, and kept in waterproof binders for field use. I also spent many hours in solitude, all on my own, sketching away as I tried to "bag" as many DSO's as I could, alienating all my observing buddies. Lately my obsession with astro-imaging with my NexStar GOTO and Meade DSI C has kept me busy everytime I head to dark skies. So it was refreshing to just get out and gaze at the heavens with no defined plans, other than to drink in the views...and maybe see a comet or two, seeing how it is now predawn comet season.

I had one such refreshing session last night, right from my light drenched observing playground in Culver City. Just me, the skies and two good old fashion manual scopes. I had not used my Celestron/Vixen C6 newtonian in a while now. This was my most used scope whilst back in Brisbane, and also when I came over here to Los Angeles. Its still my favourite scope in my scope armoury, despite owning larger scopes, such as my now sold 10" GS dob, which hardly got used due to its size, and the effort it took to just get it out to take a look, or the C8, which is a great scope, but still a little on the heavy side for nights when you don't want to have to deal with hauling scopes out. The C6 has just the right combination in terms of light gathering and portability. And now that I am a proud owner of an Astroscan, I can just carry the C6 on Vixen Porta and sling the Astroscan over my other shoulder. So nice to just have scopes, and to not have to carry my camping chair, laptop, imaging gear, etc etc. No set up time. Just plop the scopes down and away you go. And if you need to move the scope to a better location, as I did tonight to get a better view of the comet, all you had to do was pick the scope up and move.

And boy did I have a fun session, just casually perusing what the heaven's have to offer. This time of the year is great as the skies are more transparent, due to falling temperatures. Also the constellations of winter are up, later in the night. Good old friend abound like Orion the hunter, and his trusty dogs, Canis Major and Minor. Andromeda is off to the west, with Perseus not far behind. Even later in the night mighty Leo, the lion rises from the east. The coming of winter also brings nice bright DSO's that punch through the veil of light pollution, M42, the great nebula in Orion; M45, the seven sisters; and a myriad of open clusters stretching from Perseus and its double cluster, to the many Messier clusters in Auriga, the charioteer and Gemini, the twins. Throw in a planetary nebula (The Eskimo Nebula) and some bright galaxies (M31 and M32 in Andromeda) and you got yourself a rollicking good time. Jupiter, the king of planets is also currently on display, residing close to the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini. Plus an added incentive is the presence of four comets in the early morning sky (Comet ISON, Comet Lovejoy, Comet Encke and LINEAR)! The first two are brighter and will reach naked eye limit by the end of November.

Anyways, since it was a free and easy session, I hit every single one of those DSO's and gazed at them at different magnifications to find the optimal magnification for the best and most detailed look. There was no rush so I took my time with each single one of them. The highlight of the night for me was Jupiter and Comet Lovejoy C2013 R1. Seeing was superb and Jupiter was razor sharp in the C6, showing all sorts of detail in its belts. I also observed one of the moons cross Jupiter's disk and re emerge on the other side as its tiny disc slowly moved off Jupiter's creamy surface.

And I bagged my second comet of the year, Comet Lovejoy! The comet is currently moving through the starfield's of Cancer and Leo, and it is pretty bright (last night it was at magnitude 6.5...so much brighter than the "Comet of the century" ISON, currently languishing at about magnitude 8). Did not see any tail, but the nucleus was star-like and it had a nice big coma. Will have to try and image this comet before the moon enters the morning sky after the 15th of November. If I can get up, I will also try for ISON, which is sinking lower and lower each day as it speeds towards its destiny with our sun....stay tuned for more...

Malibu Strikes Back....yet again part deux (November the 1st 2013)

 "Getting set up. Photo courtesy of Terry Nakazono"

Its my b day month...its my b day month. And what better way to kick off the month of November with a bang. Dark sky weekend is upon us yet again. Weather patterns have been all over the place. Last weekend we were down at Escondido,CA at the Welk Resort. Had my StarSeeker II 130mm f/5 OTA on Porta Mount as the skies there are pretty amazing. My plans for some casual stargazing did not come to fruition however. As soon as the skies got dark, a thick marine layer rolled in...bummer. This past week has been pretty iffy too. We had heavy dark clouds and rains even on Monday and Tuesday........but it has been nice, transparent and clear the last two nights. Accu-weather and the Weather Channel predict clear skies for Malibu on Friday. Friday rolled around and YES gorgeous blue skies in the daytime and dark transparent skies at night. So yes time to pack the car up and head out to Malibu.

This time my aims were to image in wide field using the Celestron Travelscope 70 on the NexStar alt az GOTO mount, seeing how I recently acquired a dinky lil 5x24 finder for my littlest baby scope. Targets for the night include some objects that I have imaged in the past, but with the longer focal length 102GT OTA. Objects include; the Veil Nebula in Cygnus (FOV too narrow in the longer focal length scope); the Helix Nebula in Aquarius; M33, the Great Triangulum Spiral; M77, the Cetus Galaxy; NGC 246, the Cetus planetary bubble; M74, dim face on in Pisces, and if time permits and my laptop battery does not die M31, the great galaxy in Andromeda and its companions; M42, the great nebula in Orion, the double cluster in Perseus and M1, the Crab Nebula in Taurus. Also have plans to use my C8 for a bit to test out my new/old 2" SCT diagonal to see if it is as good as my Orion 1.25" dielectric diagonal.

Solstice Canyon here we come!

Left the house pretty early and got there at about 9.30pm. When we got out of the car, we were surprised at how warm it was over at our observing spot. The Santa Ana winds sometimes cause this  and we get warm gust of wind. It was pretty windy when we got there too (almost Pinos like but warmer). Seeing how the bulk of my night was allotted to imaging, I was kinda bummed. Terry reassured me that the winds usually die down at about midnight so that kept my hopes up.

"The perks of seated big scope visual stargazing. Photo courtesy of Terry Nakazono"

First order of the night.....visual observing through my C8. That was the first scope I set up. Easy enough to just slip on the 8x50 dovetail finder into its shoe, extend the aluminum legs on the Vixen Porta and slide the Vixen dovetail on the C8's OTA into the dovetail slot on the Porta. Since I only brought my super uber portable Travelscope 70, my Orion bag had room for both the tripods. I carried the C8 OTA with my other free hand. Its funny how I use the Losmandy dovetail plate as a handle when hauling out the C8 OTA. Guess I won't be getting rid of it anytime soon since it is just so convenient to carry using this. One thing I do need to do though is to move the finder dovetail bracket. Its annoying as the slow mo knobs clash with my finder and therefore I have to attach it at a very inconvenient angle. Something to get sorted before my next observing run.

Anyways started off the night with some easy and bright objects. Summertime objects were fast sinking into the western horizon. Took quick peeks at M57 and M27. Views were awesome in C8, but I could not push the magnification very far. Views were very wavy, even for DSO's. I decided that the OTA was not sufficiently cooled so I left it on the Porta Mount and setup my imaging rig. That did not take very long as well since the NexStar is pretty easy to alight. Just extend the tripod legs, level the tripod using the built in level bubble, slide on the OTA (super lightweight light cup, my Celestron Travelscope 70!), plug in the battery pack and the NexStar hand controller, plug in the time, date, daylight/ non daylight saving's time, set the time zone you are in, then chose you method of alignment (two star align is the best one and it works everytime). Alignment worked with Deneb in Cygnus and Mirfak in Perseus. Tested the GOTO on a couple of objects to make sure everything was working fine. As it turns out, the GOTO worked brilliantly the whole night, placing most of the objects either dead center or off to the bottom left of the center.

"NGC 253,  Silver Coin Galaxy in Sculptor 6 x 1 min. Lower image dark frame subtracted"

I went back and forth between both scopes, prior to imaging to see if the C8 had sufficiently cooled off. Turns out the night's seeing was not the best. Jupiter looked dreadful as it rose over the hills. The views got better later in the night, but even then views were not super. So as usual I started my night imaging, even though I had planned to do more visual observing this time round. Went through my list of objects to image and started off with NGC253 in Sculptor. I had the galaxy in both scopes, and naturally the C8 showed it heaps better, with mottling indicating its spiral arms. The wide field image turned out really nice. It showed more breath, but I felt the image I had previously taken showed more in the way of details.

 "M77, Seyfert Galaxy in Cetus 6 x 1min"

Next up was M77 in Cetus. The galaxy itself appeared small in the 70mm visually. This galaxy however has very high surface brightness, and this showed up in the CCD image I took. The central nucleus was blazingly bright. The C8 showed its core very well. After imaging the brighter galaxies, I decided to try for M74 in Pisces. This one eluded me for some strange reason. I could see it visually in the 70mm. Not sure what the problem was so I moved on to M33, the Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum. The galaxy was easy in the 70mm, with its wide field. What showed up on screen was just the nucleus after a 45 second to 1 minute sub (yes the longer wider FOV of the Travelscope allowed me to push the subs for way longer before trailing occurs). I was doing the same 6x subs, but this time with exposures between 30 seconds to 1 minute. Processing using PS with curves allowed me to pull up the spiral arms. Don't you just love post image processing?

 "M33, Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum, 6 x 1 min. Top image dark frame subtracted"

I also shot for the Veil Nebula. Visually, the nebula was visible faintly with the NPB filter and the 24.5mm Meade SWA eyepiece. However the CCD image did not reveal the smoke like wisps. After processing the image, I though I could make out hints of the bridal veil, but maybe this one requires the use of UHC filters. Will try for that the next time if Cygnus is high enough.

 "M31, the Great Andromeda Galaxy in Andromeda 6 x 1 min"

I also re-imaged some of the other sprawling objects, as planned. I hit M31, which did not appear very different in the processed imaged other than the fact that it was framed a little better with the galaxy not taking up the entire frame. I though the dust lanes could be made out easier. I still could not fit M31 and its close companion M32 in one field!

 "M42, the Great Orion Nebula in Orion, 6 x 1 min"

M42, the great nebula in Orion was just a revelation. Images appearing on the screen as I was imaging only showed its central nebulosity. Post image processing brought out its outer wings. This is one object I never get tired of looking at (The C8 threw up fantastic views of its outer wings visually.....appearing as it does in my 10". Again I found the views sans the NPB filter more aestatically pleasing. The E and F component were not doeable tonight due to the extremely bad seeing!)

 "M1, Crab Nebula supernova remnant in Taurus, 6 x 1 min"

Since I did not convincingly image M1 the last time I was here in Malibu a year ago, I decided to re-image this supernova remnant. Again M1 was easy visually, appearing as a featureless S shaped blob in the 70mm. Images appearing in real time also showed this featureless blob. Again post processing was required to bring out definition in the object. The background was however too bright and I will probably need to re-image this again at some stage. I think the 102 would give a better view as the crab appeared too small in the image taken with the 70mm Travelscope.

 "M45, Pleiades Seven Sisters in Taurus, 3 x 15 sec"

Last two objects I imaged were open clusters. They are a pain to sketch, but are superb objects for imaging, especially the richer clusters. I could only fit the dipper portion of M45, the Pleiades in the FOV of the DSI chip, and just barely! Next time I will try to center Merope and see if I can snag the reflection nebula around it! I was happy with what I got with M45!

 "Double Cluster in Perseus, 3 x 15 sec"

The double cluster in Perseus, however was a revelation. This rich cluster is just one object that screams to be imaged. It is just so choke full of stars. The dimmer members are easily brought out with post processing using curves in PS, as with faint nebulosity and spiral arms in galaxies. The last image I took of this was from my light polluted site in Culver City, so this time I got the whole diamond dust on black velvet effect in my shots....niceeee.

So all in all, I had a very productive night. I hit every object I planned to hit, missing out on only M74 in Pisces, the Cetus Planetary Bubble NGC 246 and the Helix Nebula in Aquarius. The GOTO performed flawlessly this time round. The laptop battery lasted longer than usual as well, which was strange. Well I did allow it to power down midway between imaging sessions. The C8 threw up visually pleasing views of the popular objects and the 2" Orion SCT diagonal performed flawlessly. One thing I really miss was seeing everything in wide field, as all my scopes have been short focal length scopes till now. Maybe I will use the focal reducer the next time we are out here in a months time...or maybe I might just use my old C6. Have not had my old faithful out for a while now. So till we meet again........here are some nice CCD images to tide you over.

 "Imager hard at work. Celestron Travelscope 70OTA on NexStar alt az GOTO mount with Meade DSI I color imager. Photo courtesy of Terry Nakazono"