Here is my video of the Lunar Eclipse of December 10th 2011. There was patchy cloud for the first part of the partial phase, and then it completely clouded over shortly before totality. However, about 15 minutes after the start of totality, the cloud cleared and I had a great view of the rest of the eclipse.
The eclipse images were shot with a Sony video camera and a Nikon SLR camera with a 300mm lens.
Peter Nosworthy
Just to remind those of you who might have forgot, this coming Saturday night the 10th there is a total lunar eclipse visible from Eastern Australia. It starts at 10:45 PM and is at totallity about midnight. Hopefully the weather will be better on the night. The Society will not run any program for this, as it is so late at night.
I’ll take this opportunity to remind you of the events for December. Next Tuesday the 13th will be the Theory Group at 7:45, and on Tuesday the 20th we will have the Society Christmas Party, which will revert back to the old format of “bring a dish”. I’ll get back to you with more details later. All meetings are at Regis Hall, as usual.
Bob Roeth will continue his series of lectures on astronomy and mathematics next Tuesday the 29th at Regis Hall, 7:30 PM. Subjects include:
Co-orbital moons of Saturn and their swapping inside running to outside running – a case of the process predicted by Charles Darwin’s son , George
Apparent horse-shoe orbits
The inter-planetary highway involving Lagrangian points L1 and L2
A simplified look at the Roche Limit – a limit to close approach without fracture – a tidal effect.
Isaac Newton’s simple geometric derivation of a somewhat generalised form of Kepler’s Area Law – generalised to shapes other than ellipses – all being examples of ‘central force’.
A successful observing night was held on Friday 18th November at North Turramurra. We had four members with scopes in attendance and two visitors who had found us through our web site. The scopes were 16, 12, 6, and 4 inches.
Before it got dark, we spotted Venus and Mercury a couple of degrees apart, low in the west. However they were too low to see in our scopes.
We then turned our attention to Jupiter which was already quite high. Only three moons were visible, but we could clearly see a black spot on the planet’s surface. A check with my Sky Safari software revealed that Io was in transit and we were seeing its shadow on the planet’s surface. In fact the shadow was right next to the Great Red Spot! Jupiter is just past opposition and is also close to perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) meaning that the planet appears at almost its largest possible angular size (currently 49 arcseconds). This, and an unusually stable atmosphere, made for a magnificent view of the planet even at very high power.
At about 9.40pm, we watched as Io emerged from the transit and appeared as a pimple on Jupiter’s limb. Here is a picture I took through the eyepiece showing Io emerging with Ganymede nearby.
Jupiter with Io on the limb and Ganymede nearby
Some of the other objects we observed during the night…
47 Tucanae – globular
Tarantula nebula
M31 – The Andromeda Galaxy
NGC6752 – globular in Pavo
NGC7009 – The Saturn Nebula (a tiny blue elongated object)
M42 – The Orion Nebula (magnificent through an Ultra High Contrast Filter)
M79 – globula in Lepus (very small and faint)
M41 – open cluster in Canis Major
M77 – spiral galaxy in Cetus
The evening also produced some dew which caused us some problems. Since our last dew-filled observing session (on August 26th) I had installed dew heaters on my scope and this was the first time I was able to try them in dewey conditions. The result was good. All the optical surfaces were cleared of dew soon after switching on the power and remained clear the whole night.
At about 10.15pm some thin cloud began appearing overhead. We then had intermittent periods of cloud for the remainder of the evening. We were able to view a few more objects in the clear patches, but by 11pm the sky was almost fully covered with thin cloud so we packed up for the night.
Peter Nosworthy
The weather forecast is looking good, so observing tonight (Friday November 18th) is ON.
The location is North Turramurra Golf Club. Here is a map:
http://nsas.org.au/contact/north-turramurra-golf-club/
Sunset is at 7.39pm.
There will be no moon.
The gates should be open by 7.30pm.
Peter Nosworthy
ph: 0403 071303
Next Tuesday the 15th is the NSAS November GM. If you haven’t been making it to the GMs, maybe you want to make an exception for this one, as David Malin, the man who invented modern three-colour astrophotography while a scientist-photographer at the AAO, is our guest speaker. Those of you who have heard him speak before know that he is a very entertaining and knowledgeable speaker, and will have points of interest for anyone who is an amateur astronomer. David will be speaking to NSAS on the history of astrophotography, and I recommend everyone in the Society who can get to Regis Hall next Tuesday to make it for this exceptional event. As usual, visitors are welcome, and the GM starts at 7:30 PM. See the home page of our website for directions if you haven’t been before.
NSAS this November will have the Theory Group on Tuesday the 8th at the new time of 7:45. The Nov General Meeting will be Tuesday the 15th at 7:30, and the speaker is David Malin, the famour AAO astrophotographer. If you ever make it a GM, you should make it to this, as David is a fascinating speaker who will talk on the history of astrophotography. All meetings are at Regis Hall, St. Ignatius. Observing this month is Friday the 18th, and would have been on the 25th, however the Field Trip to Coonabarabran will likely take our Observing Officers away, but there could be Observing if someone is available. Finally, the second Field Trip of the year will take a group to Coonabarbran for a tour of the AAO, followed by dark-sky observing with either own scopes or at a commercial observatory. It’s not too late to join up, so just let me know.
Another successful observing night was held at North Turramurra on Friday October 21st. The forecast showed mostly clear with ‘passing clouds’, and this proved to be accurate. This was the first observing night since the start of daylight saving and the later start made for less traffic on the drive to NTGC.
We had a good turnout – four members with scopes (16″, 12″, 10″ and 6″), one without a scope, and one visitor who brought his 120mm (4.5inch) refractor and declared his intention to become a member.
While it was still quite bright we observed the first object of the night – Venus very low in the west which appeared as a tiny disc in Tim’s 6 inch scope.
A couple of times our observing was interrupted by cloud – sometimes covering the whole sky, and at about 10pm we were considering packing up. But then it suddenly cleared again producing the best conditions of the night and we continued on until after midnight.
I recorded the following list of objects observed:
I think there were more, but I probably forgot to write them down.
Peter Nosworthy
|
|
|
|
Sydney Star Gazers
This is a site setup by one of our members consisting of weather forecasts for Sydney which are great for planning observing nights.The site also is divided into other areas which are Universe Watch, Asteroid Watch, and Comet Watch which are updated frequently. |
Comments