And the wonders continue...

Did you ever have one of those practically perfect days, that seem to start well and just continue to get even better as the day continues into the night, a day that will not be forgotten in some time, well that day was Saturday, October 17, 2009 and it was an amazing day. I woke up to go to a class I am taking at CNM, that was a very good and productive class for me then, I then went to work for a few hours that were very productive making me wish I had more time to spend there but I needed to get ready to head out to the observatory for what I was hoping would continue to be a great evening.

I arrived at GNTO and began to set up my telescope and look over my sky maps to see what I was going to be looking for that evening as the sun set and the sky darkened more and more people began to arrive filling the observing field to capacity. The night did not disappoint, it turned out to be a wonderful evening with some very clear good skies for observing the wonders of the universe. I saw a couple of things that I had never seen before and some of my favorites I spent some time staring at through the eyepiece. M13, M57, M31 are all regulars for me when observing but 'WOW' this time observing they were all much more spectacular than I had ever seen them before, I think with a little more magnification on M57 I might have seen the central star. Jupiter was putting on quite a show this night looking spectacular even at low power and holding its own at higher powers, at about 10:30pm I looked at it again with a 6mm eyepiece and was very clearly able to see the 'Great Red Spot' and some detail in the edges of the bands around the planet. I also saw Neptune in Kevin's scope and was very impressed with the turquoise colored disk of the planet evident in his scope, I tried finding it in my scope but after spending only about 10 minutes looking went on to other things.

I also took a look at M27 and M15, both have been seen before but not as regularly as the others and they looked amazing last night the 'Dumbbell' very clearly showed the structure that gave it its name. I also saw the 'Saturn Nebula' NGC 7009 for the first time and it was spectacular, a very small object but it definitely looked like Saturn with its rings (in this case not rings) and the bluish color was amazing. Another first for me was Epsilon Lyra 'Double Double' I was not able to split the second double but was clearly able to see the 1st double and the bright (in the eyepiece) pair of blueish stars were quite spectacular against the background of stars.

All in all, it was quite a good day ending in a very good night. I look foreword to the next spectacular evening of observing and only hope that it will begin with a spectacular day to start.

The image above is a couple pages from my sketch and observing log, I actually took the time to sketch and note all that I saw this night.

The Road to GNTO...

I went out to GNTO last night to take advantage of the spectacular skies we seem to be having the last couple of nights, I decided to take the more scenic route driving through Isleta, Los Lunas and Belen and I am very glad that I did. The trees along the bosque are turning colors now and it is spectacular, what an amazing place we live in that we have this wonder of nature just outside our back doors. I have lived in New Mexico my entire life and it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful our little piece of the world is and how wonderful it is that we are blessed with the changing seasons and the cycles of life seen each season. I am not sure that the picture above gets even close to the amazing colors I was seeing on my drive out to GNTO, but what a wonderful way to begin an evening that would prove to be absolutely spectacular.

The Moon After...

Just kidding with the previous post, I really did not see anything either (NASA please do not start calling me and asking for my negatives or something).

This was an image I took early on in the evening (October 8th) as the moon was rising prior to the LCROSS mission, but trust me the moon looked the same when I put my telescope away at 6:00am on Friday. I was out at GNTO with 5 others and we had 3 telescopes equipped with video cameras, a 16" Dob with my camera attached to the eyepiece (5mm) set up in video mode recording and I was looking through the eyepiece of my 13" trying to see something with my own eyes, but to no avail. It may have been a somewhat disappointing event but I did have a lot of fun with the people there and look foreword to the next time we decide to throw something at the moon, I will be there with my scope to look again (I just hope the moon does not decide to throw something back).

Mushroom Moon...

As you may have heard, early Friday morning, NASA crashed a probe into the Moon to try and detect water on the moon. Several large telescopes and hundreds of small amateur telescopes were pointed at the Moon at 5:30am to try and catch a glimpse of something, hopefully the dust kicked up by the impact. While it was a lot of fun no one seemed to have seen anything, big sad, but what the heck, it was a chance we had to take.

As I was looking over some of the images I had taken during this event I found this one and what do you know I think I see some dust being kicked up, maybe I need to call NASA and let them know what I found, what do you think?

The Moon Before...

This is practice for the LCROSS mission this coming Friday. I am thinking that I am going to try and photograph the impact onto the moon. I am now trying to identify the area of the moon where the impact will take place. Once I have identified the location I will try and magnify the area as much as possible and will try and see how much of the event I can actually photograph. I am really hoping that this works because if I am photographing it I may not be able to see it so I will dependent on the camera catching the event for me to see afterwords.

Wish me luck, this is happening on Friday morning at 5:30am so it will hopefully be a good event, to make it worth getting up so early and standing in the chill to see something that may never happen again.

Nikon CoolPix S210, f5.9 1/17sec, ISO-400

Nikon CoolPix S210, f3.5 1/202 sec, ISO-64

Jumpin' Jupiter...

This image of Jupiter was taken at UNM Campus Observatory in my 13" Scope with the camera held (by adapter) at the eyepiece. It is slightly out of focus but you can easily see the banding on the planet but none of the moons showed up. This was the first time I have tried to take a picture of anything other than the Moon this way so I think it was a pretty cool picture.

Here is a photo taken a few moments later with Jupiter and 4 of its moons. The motion of the (earth) is evident when you zoom into the photo and you notice that none of the objects are circles they are all elongated because of the motion through the eyepiece.

Both images - Nikon CoolPix S210, f5.9, 1/2 sec, ISO-400