Naked-eye planets

There's been a bit of stuff even in mainstream media about four planets being visible in the morning sky at the moment. I didn't think I had a chance of seeing them, because Melbourne has well and truly turned on winter. However, we were up at 6am this morning for a different reason, and there was one big break in the clouds:

Venus, very bright white;

Mercury, faint but not as faint as I expected up to the right of Venus;

Jupiter, looking faintly yellow and about as bright as Venus;

and Mars, definitely red, just above the tops of the houses.

This has made my week! I can't believe I've now seen Mercury with my own eyes; and it was a seriously beautiful sight as a whole.

The Warrumbungles, #1

When we left Lostock and the Ice in Space camp, we headed west to Coonabarabran. The point was to visit the Australian Astronomical Observatory, and maybe get some viewing in. The AAO is cool to see - I especially liked the world's-largest solar system replica: the dome of the AAO is the sun, and the rest of the planets are spaced out, at appropriate distances (over 100km), along the main routes into town. The visitor's centre is a bit... um... tired.

We stayed at the Warrumbungle Mountain Motel, which is for sale if you're interested. I think our motel room was bigger than our house. And we were the only ones there the first night, so when the clouds finally cleared - hurrah! - we dragged the scopes out onto their golf course (!) and settled in for a couple of hours. We'd even been sensible and prepared a thermos of tea in advance.

The moon was out at as a little crescent, which was really lovely to see - especially as it got darker and the whole disk was lit up by earth-shine. It formed a picturesque triangle with Venus and Mars, both naked-eye visible; Mars was very red to the naked eye, and in my 6mm, although it was a bit hazy. Jupiter, on the other hand, was looking spectacular; I could clearly see a white band of cloud in a roughly similar position to the dark band in the opposite hemisphere. And, excitingly, we saw Neptune! - definitely through J's scope, and I think through mine. Hard to see through J's, for me, because it was near the zenith - so I was on tiptoes to reach the eyepiece.

J had a good night of chasing Messiers and galaxies. I had a good look at NGC247 and 253, both of which were (to me) surprisingly large, and bright, although they did both still look basically like cigars.

I was pleased to be able to hunt down a couple of doubles in Capricornus, and M30, a globular cluster which looked bizarrely like a molar. The first double I spied was epsilon Cap, with a bright white primary and a very faint companion. The second was an absolute highlight: alpha 1-2 CAP, so called because alpha 1 and 2 are a binary (I'm pretty sure), both beautiful yellow stars, and they both have a separate companion. I found one companion, but not the other - it's only 7" away from its primary, and it wasn't great seeing, so that's not a huge surprise.

I finished up the night hunting down M4, near Antares, because the rest of the sky got cloudy... that was around 10.30pm. I'm very proud that I now know Capricornus.

Clear skies are here again

It's been a while. Tonight, for the first time in a while, we had both clear skies and the energy to do something with them. Here's hoping Melbourne gives more of the same! - after the rain that's forecast for the end of this week, in any case.

Anyway, given the skies and the fact that even when the sun was barely down I had a good view of crescent Venus, I messaged some friends just down the road that they should bring their kids over for a look - I'd been meaning to do so for ages. They promptly arrived with two in tow, the eldest being sensible and staying home, feeling sick. We trooped out the back and had a good look at Venus, and Mars - just a blob these days - and had a chat about planets. Then, because the stars were coming out and they were enthusiastic, J decided to show off and show them the Jewel Box; I met that with Alpha Centauri, which split beautifully and particularly excited the youngest. All of which was very pleasing.

We went back out a few hours later, because it amazingly remained clear. Sagittarius and Scorpio are back to being high in the sky - it's like seeing old friends! It wasn't particularly dark, but J hopped around some clusters in the two - M4, M6, and M7; M20 and M21 - the Triffid, looking pretty awesome even with the light pollution. Right when we thought we were ready to pack it in, J had a last look all round the sky. And there, my friends, at -2.5 mag, was dear old Jupiter! I can't tell you how ridiculously exciting it was to see it hanging there so brilliant. Io, Europa and Callisto were nice and obvious, as was the one dark band of clouds that it has left. J thought he might have caught sight of the Red Spot, but I am unconvinced. I stared at that disk for quite a while before achey eyes drove me inside.

Planets for kids

A friend came over this evening, with his two sons. They were a bit bored, and I'd just noticed that Venus was incredibly bright, so I thought I'd take them out to see the planets. I found Venus - looking gibbous - and then what I thought was going to be Mars, but turned out to be Saturn, and a moon. (J found Mars later - I hadn't tracked far enough, because my rigel is dead.)

They weren't really as impressed as I had expected? hoped? grown used to? I don't know whether this was because it's Friday night and they were a bit hyper, or whether they're just totally disinterested, or what. They seemed more interested in fiddling with the focus, to make the blob of light get bigger or smaller! Which is interesting enough, I guess, when you're under 10.

It got me thinking about why I expect children to be interested in astronomy, or at least hope they will be. I don't remember when I first got interested in astronomy. I know I'd never looked through a telescope before about the age of 15; I was dead keen on the planets etc well before that, though. It seems trite and a bit like an excuse to say that kids these days have access to things ranging from awesome docos about the planets, including footage from the Cassini missions and so on, right through to simulations on computers - so why should they be interested in seeing things 'for real' when in some ways, that doesn't compare to what they've seen through other means? There are going to be some people who infinitely prefer the computer versions, or the up-close versions on docos, and I guess I have to accept that that's ok; I'd much rather see Mt Everest on the screen than in real life, at least up close. But I do hope that seeing 'mediated' versions will inspire at least a few kids to want to see things personally, because realising that you can see the rings of Saturn and the Galilean moons of Jupiter with your own eyes is a most amazing experience. And not just for the astronomy of it.

Their dad was way keen, though - had never seen Saturn in a telescope, and said he hadn't realised you could. So that was gratifying.

Mansfield nights

New moon weekend, and we managed to get away from Melbourne again, hurrah! The week had been cloudy and rainy in true Melbourne-autumn style, but we clung desperately to the forecast that the weekend would be sunny - and that Mansfield is on the other side of the Divide, so they get different weather. It looked incredibly unpromising as we drove away from Melbourne - no break in the clouds to be seen - but then, as we went over some hills, an amazing thing happened. The clouds were left behind, and the sky was a glorious blue. Joy!

I had me a list of double in Centaurus that I want to chase, so that's what I mostly did, over two nights.

Friday

Firstly, we saw Venus! on our way to dinner, but it's the first time in ages I've seen it after sunset - so bright!

Began by finding omega Centauri, the globular cluster, just for kicks and because it was naked-eye visible it was that dark. Also Mars, in order to get the Rigil in line; it's not nearly as interesting as it was a few months ago.

As for doubles, started off with Rigil Kent (alpha Centauri), which I managed to split although only just. When I then moved on to Hadar, the other Pointer, I realised that I had been somewhat optimistic: it's got a separation of just 0.9 arcseconds, which is really close. I reckon on really good nights I'll be able to split maybe 8 arcseconds? So no dice with Hadar, and I realised looking at my list that there were a good few of separations I simply wouldn't manage. Oh well; I found (what I think were) the stars anyway, for fun.

Also? I think I will have to learn the Greek alphabet since, according to J, referring to the stars' reference as 'the squiggly one with a bit on top'? Not so impressive.

The next attempt was on gamma Centaurus; also 0.9 arcseconds, also no luck. Alpha Circinus, however - score! 16 arcseconds. And yes, not in Centaurus, but just below so it totally counts. Gamma Circinus was another no-go, at 0.8 arcseconds, but I did find an unlisted double near it, so that's fine.

At about this point, the owners of the place where we were staying came out - I'd told them they should - so I found Saturn, and it looked awesome. In mine, I could see Titan a fair way out; a faint star close in on both sides, and another faint one on the opposite side. It turns out, through J's telescope, that those two close-in moons were actually both pairs! (Stellarium tells me they were Rhea/Enceladus, and Dione/Tethys, with Iapetus a long way out.) They were suitably impressed both with that, the telescopes, and the fact that we were outside at all - did I mention it was freezing? I was wearing multiple layers, although no beanie, which J thought was crazy but taking the glasses on and off with a beanie on is more trouble than it was worth.

I finished the night somewhat ambivalently. I found DUN159 and 133, but failed with I424 and R213 - imaginative names, aren't they? Then, having been outside for a bit more than 2 hours, we scurried inside to warm out near-frostbitten tootsies. Also, my scope was having a bit of a dew problem. J had rigged up a dew system for his, what with the mirror being bigger and all; he'd wondered whether mine would require it too. Having to wipe off the Rigil in order to see through it, and ditto the eyepieces? And discovering the front element had a fine mist of dew over the whole thing? yeh, that would be me requiring a gadget to act basically as a hot water blanket to my scope.

Just a quick observation

... since last night we had Other Things to do, and given it's Easter the moon came up like a spotlight when it wasn't very late (but my goodness it was cold).

Saturn was my first object of interest, and it was great showing it to J's parents; they were quite impressed. And so was I - I could definitely see Titan, and I thought I could see another moon, quite close to the disk on the other side from Titan. Through J's telescope, turns out I was right, and I could see another as well: according to Stellarium, they were Dione and Tethys. If I'm lucky, tonight we should be able to see Rhea too! (Saturn's moons are named after the Titans, the generation before the Olympian gods in Greek mythology).

Swung around then to Mars - quite red, and quite small. Since I was quite tired, and knew we weren't going to get much observing in, I then had a look at each of the stars of the Southern Cross - split Gamma Crucis (and Alpha Centauri too while I was at it). Since I was using a fairly wide eyepiece, I also managed to find the Jewel Box by accident when I was trying to remember if Mimosa Crucis is a double (if it is, not such that I can split in my telescope!).

J also looked at Saturn, and a few other objects, including the nebula in Eta Carina, which he let me look at. I was someone dismayed that we've basically lost Orion for the year.

Combing Puppis

It worked well for J having a list of Messier objects he wanted to look for, so he could mark them off. Just having the book to look at with Crux hadn't worked as well, so I chose a new constellation to check out - Puppis - and made myself a List. I ended up working on it both Friday and Saturday nights.

Puppis as a constellation was, or is, a part of a huge constellation: Argo Navis. Puppis is the stern - Carina is the keel, Vela the sails. Puppis was directly overhead on Friday and Saturday, which in theory was good because it's the best seeing but in practice made it bloody hard both to find things and then to look at them properly. It also didn't help that it's not an especially distinguished constellation; I had to keep reorienting myself with regard to Sirius and the rest of Canis Major, because I just couldn't figure it out otherwise.

I'll say up front that I didn't find everything I wanted to. Partly that was a tiredness issue - because we were doing a lot of other things, as well as observing, we weren't nearly as fresh as is optimal come dark. It was also an issue of navigation. I'm still finding this quite difficult. That most of our maps are designed for the northern hemisphere does not help; nor does the fact that the maps have different scales - often it's different for different maps in the same book - so, when you're starting out spatially challenged, it's an added degree of difficulty. Nonetheless, I did have fun, with the odd moment of frustration.

Puppis, for a scope the size of Ptolemy, is all about the double stars. So, I found and split k Puppis; 5 Puppis (a nice reddish tinge) and 2 Puppis. I don't think I found R65, which was disappointing because it's a triple. I think I found Sigma Puppis, but I'm not convinced - I saw a reddish star with what looked like a faint companion, but I'm not sure it was the right spot.

Other than those, I also found M46 and M47 all by myself (and didn't that just get a victory dance from yours truly), and another open cluster in M93. NGC2451 is yet another fairly diffuse open cluster; NGC2477, however, is a very cool, fairly faint, kind-of teardrop shaped cluster which I really liked. And found all by myself.

Again, we had friends out with us both nights; D and K, and also A&G. So we had to turn on a good show: Mars, Saturn, Orion Nebula, the Jewel Box, (I looked at all of these both nights, I think - old reliables!) and just to show off I showed what Acrux looks like as a binary. Which was fun.

J was chasing Messiers again. It was dark enough that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were quite obvious to the naked eye when it wasn't even what I would call especially dark, so he aimed at the Tarantula Nebula which was awesome. He found the totally amazing Leo Triplet, too - a set of three galaxies that can be seen in the same field. And we looked at the Beehive through the binoculars. Well, I tried anyway; I really am not good at holding them in place. Glasses don't help.

Again, it was an awesome weekend of viewing. We didn't stay up as late as we would if it had been a dedicated astro weekend - don't think we saw midnight either Friday or Saturday, although we did hear all of Mark Seymour's gig on Saturday! But given it was mixed with riding, and lots of food, and lots of people, I think we did well.

Dinner, and a show

My darling was in a prolonged bike race in Mansfield this past weekend, so because it was also almost a new moon weekend we took the telescope(s) up with us, for a long weekend.

Wednesday night: cloudy. Bit sad, but not too much. Meant we could sleep well after our outing to the Mansfield Pub.

Thursday: was clear. Very clear. Firstly, though, we had to go and eat our way through DB's voucher for $400 at a local restaurant, won through this event last year. An entertaining night indeed. And then, out to discover just how dark it actually gets in Mansfield. Happily, we were about 1km from the main street - which was actually annoying most of the time, but did mean we were away from most of its (admittedly minimal) glow.

We'd set up the scopes before we left. To explain that plural: I have no picture yet, but J has decided that sharing with me was going to be just too annoying. Therefore he recently bought himself one: a 16" Dobsonian. If he's lucky a picture of it will appear on here at some stage. Because it's newer, and fancier, I decided it ought to be christened Copernicus...

Anyway. It was a great night for viewing. I had planned to find my way around Crux, because it's in a good spot at the moment and southwards-viewing really sucks at our place. I split Alpha Centauri for a start, which is always very satisfying. I also found the Jewel Box by myself, which is also satisfying - and is something I'm having to do all of sudden, what with J off playing with his own telescope. I split a few other doubles, too: Acrux, although I don't think I made out the triple; Gamma Crucis, and Mu Crucis. I also found the clusters NGC 4103 and 4349, and I might have found 4052 but I'm not entirely positive.

I got sick of finding brand new things after a while and swung over to the old reliable, Orion, which is sadly beginning to set awfully early these days! I split Rigel and had a look at the Nebula. Most exciting, though, was finding Mars - getting smaller - AND Saturn! Which looked totally incredible, with the rings directly across the face of the disk so it just looked like the pictures. And we think we saw Titan, too, and possibly another moon even! It was terribly exciting.

J went hunting Messier objects. Found Omega Centauri, M46 and M47 - which do look cool in the same field of view, because the former is a fuzzy blob and the latter is a loose, dense conglomeration; M50, M78, and M79 as well.

We stayed up until about midnight. We'd shared the night with D and K, for a while - they piked a lot earlier than us, but made lots of appreciative noises, especially over Saturn.

Last week's observing

We had a mighty fine time last week! A whole string of clear nights; we took the 'scope out the backyard and decided to work our way around Orion and Canis Major (and a couple of other fine things).

47 Tuc, and it really was beautiful.

In Orion, I checked out Rigel - which it turns out is a double star, and I could indeed see the very faint blue companion star. I also looked at the other three corners of Orion - Betelgeuse, which was really red, and I forget the names of the other two corners. Then there's Eta Orionis, which is really a triple but only the AB pair are visible, and even then very close: they look to be touching. The Trapezium, of course, is glorious; and the nebula of M42, even from the light-polluted backyard, is always a happy-Alex-making sight.

I enjoyed looking around Canis Major. Of course, there's Sirius - almost bright enough to be blinding in the scope. The delightful H3945 is an orange and blue double, pretty widely spaced apart. But even more awesome - and perhaps my new favourite object - is Beta 324: two pairs of doubles, perpendicular to each other. They just look amazing. Then there's M41, an open cluster; c121, another cluster; NGC2362, a tight cluster with a single very bright star in the center (Tau Canis Majoris); and yet another open cluster in NGC2360.

Mars is particularly marvellous at the moment. It's still getting up a little too late for easy casual viewing, but it's getting there. It's far enough north that when we were out and looking, we had to drag Ptolemy through the entire house (the courtyard looks south) to check it out. But it was worth it: a great big red disc. Glorious.

I think that basically covers it. I was pretty out of it the first night, despite J's attempts at jollying me into it. The next few nights I got more into it, which was great.

New moon weekend 1/12

NB: yes, this is several days after the weekend. Whatever. Also, I'm quite smug that I'm writing this based on notes that I wrote in the front of my Pocket Sky Atlas - the first few in the pitch black, then the others with the aid of our red light. (Have I mentioned this before? We found a red light! It looks an awful lot like a bike's rear light.)

We're hoping to make good use of the new moon weekends this year, and we decided to start by going to Forrest - a bit more than two hours from Melbourne, it's close-ish to the coast and fairly far from big urban sprawls. And hey, how convenient! There are mountain bike trails for during the day!

Friday

...had us alternately groaning and gleeful, as we drove down, because the clouds built up and then disappeared several times. Early in the evening it looked like the clouds had come in... but then, by the time it was properly dark (except for the glow on the western horizon which stayed there, and so was presumably Geelong rather than the sunset) the clouds had gone and voila! for the first time in a really long time, there was the Milky Way. It was dark enough to see the Coal Sack quite clearly, next to Crux; and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were totally obvious. Lack of light pollution makes the most stunning amount of difference.

First, because it was there, we tried looking at Mars. Sadly, although it's at its closest for years, it was quite a small disk. Distinctly red, though. For something a bit different, we swung over to Omega Centuari: the largest globular cluster in the southern sky, I think? Pretty impressive, anyway, although I actually think not quite as good as 47Tuc, because it didn't seem to have the tendrils reaching out.

(Pause for collimation...)

On to the Carina constellation - which I still can't quite figure out, the Pocket Atlas isn't so good for that - and checked out the Eta Carina Nebula, which is enormous and has really cool dust lanes in it. The whole area around that nebula is pretty cool - heaps of stars, of course, because it's bang in the Milky Way. Then off to the Southern Pleiades, an open cluster... and I just don't find open clusters that interesting. They just look like a bunch of stars. Yes, sometimes they're in a pretty formation - I like the normal Pleiades - but... anyway. Also in this area is another, tighter cluster - IC2581. And it was more impressive, I think because the stars are closer together and there are more of them that are obviously part of the gang.

Moving on, we decided to get a bit ambitious and have another look at the Large Magellanic Cloud. I probably didn't actually spend enough time looking at it, to allow my eyes to adjust enough to pick out interesting aspects; there was too much else to look at. But I'm quite sure that the fuzzy blob - in the same place as when we looked at it in Ballarat - is the Tarantula Nebula. It's pretty awesome to have found an object in another galaxy.

Finally, to finish Friday night (by this time Saturday morning), we had a look at Alpha Centuari - split it easily (I think I'd like to start collecting double stars...), and of course it wouldn't be a complete viewing night at the moment without checking out Orion, which looked breathtakingly awesome. Of course. A final look at Eta Carina, and 12.30 on a Friday night was definitely bedtime.

Also, we saw numerous satellites.

Saturday

... was another very off&on again day, cloud-wise. We really thought we were going to get screwed over, but come 10.30 or so (and a little snooze) it had cleared enough that we bothered dragging Ptolemy onto the balcony. (Did I mention that? Observing from the balcony. None of this whole going-a-long-distance-from-the-house-or-car business for me.) We had a quick look at Eta Carina again (and aren't we glad the Atlas comes with a Greek alphabet guide, since it's a long time since I did esoteric maths), but frankly the most interesting thing about the sky was watching the clouds and general murk come... and go... and come again. I think we only stayed out for half an hour or so, because then a sky-covering cloud came in and ruined our fun. There was certainly no Mars viewing.

The one thing I was sad about? No Saturn. Rising too late, meant that it was in the murk both nights. Hopefully we get to see it over winter.

Hard. Core. With frog chorus

We had planned to go camping this weekend: take the scope out to some dark site, stay up really late, it'd be awesome! Yes, well, then we realised that it's a full moon this weekend. Great. Also, the weather forecast just got worse and worse.... So we decided to visit the parentals in Ballarat, because that is at least a bit darker than Melbourne, and if the weather was bad it wouldn't be a disaster.

So we came up yesterday, on a scorching afternoon - where were those thunderstorms? - in time to have dinner with some good friends of J's parents. As they were leaving (after there had been lightning, and a short but violent rain storm), the clouds had cleared somewhat so we dragged the telescope out to show them (and especially their two young kids) the moon - enormous and very bright - and Jupiter, which was a real highlight. Could only see two cloud bands, the brief time I looked, and at first it looked like there were only three moons visible. On closer inspection, the fourth was there, really close to Jupiter itself. Which at least one of the kids could definitely see and was very excited about.

The hard core aspect of this weekend was the setting of the alarm for 4am this morning. And that we actually got up when it went off. Admittedly, I hadn't slept that well because it was hot. We crept outside - trying very hard not to disturb other sleepers - and set Ptolemy up on the side away from the moon, which was only just disappearing into the trees (it was very yellow indeed).

Our first target was M45 - the Pleiades. It was obvious naked-eye, and quite pretty (could count seven stars). It was pretty cool through the scope, although I didn't know what to expect so I wasn't entirely sure I was seeing it all. I look forward to seeing it at a really dark site.

Next we swung up to Orion, which I haven't seen in ages! It will be nice to look at it in winter. J found the Orion Nebula in the sword - M42 - which was just amazing. I think it was heaps more impressive than the Lagoon, to be honest. Its shape was quite distinct, and the Trapezium Cluster of stars in the middle was very obvious and added a beautiful highlight. It was very, very exciting. Additionally, I thought I could see some nebulosity around a star very close to the nebula - turns out this was M43. Go me.

Finally, we moved the scope so that we could Mars above the trees. I couldn't focus on it very well, mostly because it wasn't very high above the trees and there was some haziness, but it was still a very obvious red disc. It was much bigger than I had expected, and that's when it's a very long way away; I can't wait for when it's closer and we'll be able to see some detail. Of course, that won't be for a few years....

We stayed outside for about 40 minutes. Clouds were coming through fairly frequently, and by the end of that time it was pretty much entirely clouded over. I did get another good look at M42, which pretty much made my night (day?). So I think it was worth getting up at that time, although I doubt we will make a habit of it.