Author Archives: Carol

Minkowski’s Butterfly

Posted on by July 21, 2021

PN Minkowski 2-9 in Ophiuchus

My heart was beating when I opened my missions this morning. The angels had been kind. PN M2-9 must count as one of the most exciting observations I’ve ever made. Look at that central system and hint of varying shades in the wings.

First I have to give huge thanks to Slooh astronomer member JeffreyP.2019 for booking a mission to this object.
The name Minkowski’s Butterfly immediately caught my attention while I was reserving missions to Comet C/2018 W2 (Africano). I got on board immediately and piggybacked two missions to PN M 2-9 expecting to see a clone of the magnificent Hubble image.
I scrutinised the images for hours but could not find a clear indication of a butterfly.

In some forums guys were reporting observations of being able to see this object through 12″ telescopes, some obviously trying OIII and other filters. Quite apprehensive and not wanting to make a fool of myself, I ran two of my own missions last night, one on T2 and one on T4.

For those who, like me, have never seen this bipolar planetary nebula: What we are seeing is the last gasp of a binary star system.
“The two stars at the heart of the nebula circle one another roughly every 100 years. This rotation not only creates the wings of the butterfly and the two jets, it also allows the white dwarf to strip gas from its larger companion, which then forms a large disc of material around the stars, extending out as far as 15 times the orbit of Pluto!” (so it says in Astronomy Now Aug 2015)

Obviously a bipolar system is much more complex and I will definitely be delving into the science behind PN M 2-9 and booking more missions on Slooh to spread the wings of this butterfly.

Alien Safari

Posted on by November 2, 2022

Yesterday was Mandela Day in South Africa. On this day people of the world are encouraged to  give just 67min of their time to support a worthy cause, as opposed to the 67 years that Nelson Mandela had fought for social justice.

I spent my 67 minutes at a book/dvd sale in aid of an orphanage.

I came across the National Geographic dvd, Alien Safari. It has been posted on YouTube as well, by far not the quality of my Mandela Day copy. Produced in 2009, Alien Safari does not have all the latest on space exploration but it delves into a big question.

Where should we be looking for extra-terrestrial life?

When talking about aliens we immediately think of creatures with similar features to us. We allow a bit of exaggeration where it comes to the size of eyes and ears but when it comes to stature we prefer them to be shorter 😉

Biologists obviously take a more scientific approach.  In searching for extra-terrestrial life they go to places with the harshest environments on Earth, where they have found the existence of extremophiles and thermophiles and where conditions could be comparable to those on some of our solar system’s planets and moons.

Where are these alien creatures lurking?

  • In the harsh environment of Antarctica there is a group of bacteria that can live off the chemicals in air alone. Another group can tolerate extremely high exposure to x-rays even though their natural habitat is 15 metres below the permafrost.
  • Extremophiles live in lava tubes outside Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Off the coast of Ecuador, in the deep darkness and under the mighty pressure of the Pacific Ocean, communities of worms, crabs and squid are feeding on bacteria that take energy from chemicals erupting from the sea floor.
  • The Yellowstone geysers are home to thermophiles feeding on chemicals dissolved in boiling water.
  • Colonies of 2½cm centipede-like worms were found in methane ice mounds in the Gulf of Mexico
  • Deep in a South African gold mine, organisms are living totally independent of the Sun
  • In the acidic drainage of an old copper mine in California, a microbe community is thriving. One of these groups is described as extremely small and weird.

Scientists believe that we should be searching beneath the surface of salty “puddles” or in lava tubes on Mars. Maybe bacteria are metabolizing the carbon dioxide in the cloud tops of Venus, producing sulfuric acid aerosols. Could Callisto’s icy crust be hiding an ocean, a scuba diver’s paradise? Are microbes skiing on the flowing glaciers of Ganymede? Does Europa have pressure vents similar to those off the coast of Ecuador? What’s breathing beneath the surface of Enceladus, causing carbon dioxide and methane in its plumes of vapour? Are there living creatures immune to cosmic radiation on Titan?

Bless all the scientists that are doing ongoing research. Their findings are intriguing. Although what we’ll find now may be very tiny, let’s not forget where it all began for us.

Polarissima Borealis – home to St Nicholas

Posted on by July 20, 2021

My reasons for going with online robotic telescopes, were the limitations of my own backyard set-up and wanting to see beyond the horison of the southern celestial hemisphere.

I discovered that travelling to outer space to explore the northern celestial hemisphere was not that complicated after all. I made travel arrangements (by means of membership) with Slooh and each night I hop on one of the seven robotic telescopes to wherever I want to go

 

 

 

Travelling to these distant places takes some preparation. What kind of experience am I hoping for on a given night? Do I want the extreme thrills of seeing galaxies being ripped apart or would I prefer going slowly, gliding over the stars of delicate open clusters? Some prefer big and bright. I do love the “wow” factor of beautiful celestial wonders but mostly I tend to wander off the beaten celestial track.

It’s not close to Xmas yet but recently I reserved a mission to Polaris. At least I had to get aquainted with the north pole star. As I tried to determine which of the stars in the field of view could be Polaris, I discovered a very faint object close to the star almost central in the image. Not only had I found Polaris, but I also learnt that the faint object close by was in fact a galaxy, Polarissima Borealis (NGC 3172)

Trying to find all I could about this galaxy, I stumbled upon a delightful story on DeepSkyForum about NGC 3172. It took some intensive searching to reach the author. (Mark – thanks for giving me permission to share this)

Original post: DeepSkyForum Object of the Week (http://www.deepskyforum.com/)
December 29th, 2016 07:03 PM
Mark S Friedman, Wheaton, IL USA
Amateur Astronomer, observer of visual deep sky , visual solar (Ha) and chasing total solar eclipses.
The Author also takes part in a sport called Curling

Mark Friedman had become a grandfather just before Xmas and thought it would probably be a good idea to brush up on tales about jolly old Saint Nicholas.
Conjuring up memories of his youth, he recalled that Santa and his team of elves lived and worked in a place called the North Pole. Googling he found many locations claiming to be the home of Santa and the elves. Taking into account the billions of kids who qualified for presents, he calculated that such a location needed huge infrastructure for all the homes, sheds for the sleighs and to house the workshops. None of the locations that Google suggested seemed suitable for such a massive concern.
Suddenly it struck him – there must have been an omission in the old folk legends. The word “celestial” was never mentioned!
Out came his telescope. Locating Polaris, the north pole star, was easy but as it goes with astronomers, he scanned the nearby sky as well and there he spotted the very faint galaxy Polarissima Borealis. No more doubts, all this while a galaxy has been home to jolly Old Saint Nicholas and his elves!
I bet Mark can’t wait for his grandchild to be old enough to share his discovery.

NGC 3172 was discovered by John Herschel in 1831and added it to the Slough catalogue as JH 250 (Slough being his home observatory in Slough, Berkshire, England)
John Dreyer later catalogued the galaxy as NGC 3172
There is another very faint smudge close to Polarissima Borealis catalogued in the Principal Galaxy Catalog as PGC 36268.

A solar prominence called Rosebud

Posted on by November 15, 2022

To call a prominence Rosebud is far from a scientific description. Before joining Slooh, I never really paid much attention to the Sun except during eclipses and transits (obviously) During periods of hightened sunspot activity, I also gave sunspots more flowery names than Active Region 12192 (AR 2192). King Kong of 2014 was no Hollywood special effect. It produced 6 X-class flares. An X3.1-class flare erupted from the lower half of the sun on 24 Oct 2014.

So what is it with me that I always look for familiar patterns in the sky? I can hear myself telling an audience that these perceptions of the vast universe started way back in antiquity when there was little entertainment other than looking at the sky. Knowledge of celestial objects was limited. Every evening a huge crocodile lurked in the west, waiting for the Sun. The crocodile swallowed the Sun, carried it through the night and every morning he released it in the east. Oh yes, we inherited this unscientific balderdash from our ancestors, but was it all balderdash?

What initially makes us want to look at the night sky. Is it HD 37128, HD 37742, HD 36486 or rather the Three Kings with the added touch of drama, the mighty hunter and his sword? Would I remember what AR2192 looked like for years to come if I had not nicknamed it King Kong?

To see the unknown, I look at the obvious
and make it my own.
I saw a rosebud and watched it unfold
to reveal, layer by layer, what this story told