Tag Archives: online telescopes

SUPERmoon

Posted on by July 20, 2021

Another Supermoon! – The third for 2019. Jan Feb March..no, not April May June July.. and NO to all, according to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

To set the record straight: Niel deGrasse Tyson is thé American astrophysicist, author and science communicator who is not related to Michael Gerard Tyson, an American former professional boxer as was suggested in  the “Mike Tyson Mysteries”, which is an American adult animated television series, produced by Warner Bros

Niel deGrasse Tyson has been trying desperately to negate all supermoons  by tweeting: “Supermoons are an insult to Superman or supernovas, if a 16.1 inch pizza is ‘super’ to you, compared with a 16.0 inch pizza, then we have an issue of vocabulary”

Those who are really into Astonomy, professionally or as amateurs, understand why the fullmoon appears bigger on the horizon during certain months of a year. The Moon’s orbit is not circular taking it closer or further away from Earth. This is stuff most people do not think about from day to day. The media has actually done us a huge favour by “superfying” the Moon. The hype surrounding these events has added terms like perigee, apogee, perigee-syzygy! to the vocabulary of a much wider audience  while the Moon is getting the attention it deserves.

Fullmoon at perigee. Lights off!..cameras..cellphones..action.. The excitement usually starts two weeks before fullmoon when the first slither of a crescent becomes visible. Social media becomes abuzz with moon images and supermoon challenges. The frenzy is contagious and this is what we want, is it not? The whole aim is to get as many people as possible involved, inspiring them to learn more about our Moon, the workings of our solar system and our place in the universe. Three or four times a year there is this window of opportunity to reach out, especially to the younger generation, to become involved in astronomy, science, engineering or any technology that will get the human race on voyages into space. Three or four times a year writers, poets, lyricists or painters are made acutely aware of the beauty of our universe.

I beg to differ from Niel deGrasse Tyson. I will not get on his snobbish band wagon just to show that I know a bit more than meets the (Supermoon) eye. On every one of these enchanted evenings I will be outside, online or paging through a book about the Moon  if the weather is unfavourable. I hope I will never become blasé and ignore a Supermoon.

Recently the online observatory, Slooh, proposed a Supermoon Challenge. The idea for my entry was sparked by watching my grandchildren at play. The brief was that we should use the online telescopes to take images of the Moon from crescent, waxing to fullmoon. Due to weather conditions in the Canary Islands, I could only capture the images that I used in the “film strip” line up at the bottom of my image. The images of the Moon that my grandchildren are playing with are my own. The backdrop is an image taken on route to a little town, Leipoldtville, in South Africa.  Submissions had to be in before the special livecast which was on 20 Feb 2019

Three submissions had merit. Slooh could not decide on a definite winner. I felt greatly honoured when my submission was named joint winner.

This Supermoon Challenge went deeper than just a winning image. Every evening I took images of the Moon and thought of my four grandchildren as I remembered a song my mom used to sing to me, Que Sera Sera. I thought of my friend who invited me to Leipoldtville to witness the sodiacal light. This image became a reflection of life. Dream..catch..hold.. appreciate.. Tomorrow life may be just a slither of what it is today.

Perigee: the point in the orbit of the moon at which it is nearest to the earth
Apogee: the point in the orbit of the moon at which it is furthest from the earth
Syzygy:  a (roughly) straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system
Perigee- syzygy:  The technical name of a Supermoon is  a perigee syzygy (of the Earth–Moon–Sun system)
Apogee syzygy: The technical name of a micromoon is  apogee- syzygy (of Earth-Moon-Sun system)

The Twin Quasar

Posted on by July 20, 2021

I followed an online mission to the Twin (Double) Quasar and took an image. I was not quite sure which of the bright dots represented the quasar. Fellow Slooh members introduced me to Aladin, the interactive sky atlas and I could identify the object easily.

“The Twin Quasar was discovered in 1979 and was the first identified gravitationally lensed object. It appears as two images, a result from gravitational lensing caused by the galaxy YGKOW G1 that is located in the line of sight between Earth and the quasar” – Wikipedia

The quasar lies about 14 billion light years from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major. The huge elliptical galaxy YGKOW G1 lies directly between Earth and the quasar at 4 billion light-years away and acts as a gravitational lens. Its mass is so great that it can bend the light from objects lying behind it.

I so enjoyed a course Intro to Astro on Slooh by Dr Paige Godfrey where one of the topics was gravitational lensing. Now I have a practical example to add to my notes.

 

 

NGC 3293 (Gem Cluster)

Posted on by January 17, 2020

When I started deep sky observing, our deep sky director advised that I only sketch and describe what I see. He was not interested in how Google sees an object. The equipment used, sky conditions, limiting mag, date of observation and your own observing capabilities came into account and determined whether your obs would earn a certificate come end of term. This was the best advise ever. I started seeing all kinds of patterns in the sky!

 

I do research on objects after I’ve reduced my logs. Sketching and writing by faint red light does not always produce an artwork.
My submissions were brutally honest. When I observed NGC 3293 for the first time, I had no idea that I was observing the famous Gem Cluster (so christened by the Australian astronomer Henry Chamberlain Russell) I saw this cluster as a hubbly-bubbly pipe ( it was very fashionable to smoke those in student pubs at the time – no, my student days were long gone but I thought the designs were quite pretty!) I did not even know that I needed real dark skies to observe this specific cluster properly.
When my 12″ Dob came along, I decided to follow up on all my objects previously observed through an 8″ Dob. Most of my observations have been done from my holiday home in Betty’s Bay where we have no street lights and it is nice and dark.
My obsevation of NGC 3293 caused great excitement. Our deep sky director contacted me. According to my sketch there was nebulosity surrounding the cluster. Oh dear what had I done wrong now? Well, I sketched it at the eyepiece. I sketched what I saw at the time, so there must have been something there. Yeah! – another certificate, a gift book and a mention on page 63 of Perlen Des Sudhimmels. “Möglicherweise angeregt durch diesen nebligen Hintergrund meinte die südafrikanische Beobachterin Carol Botha die Umrisse einer Wasserpfeife in der Anordnung der sterne des Haufens zu erkennen”
I immediately bought an English – German dictionary!
A year later and with the English translation of the book to Pearls of the Southern Skies, pages 63, 101, 133 were regularly shoved under the noses of those who hinted at my mere ‘housewife’ status!
Now I’ve started a new chapter: online observing. My skies are even darker, ‘my’ telescopes bigger and my logs are being updated with beautiful images.

Online Observing

Posted on by July 20, 2021

Winter in the Western Cape, South Africa, leaves less opportunity for me to do deep-sky observing. It’s supposed to be our rainy season and I am accustomed to my telescope going into semi hibernation. I love the rain and we need the rain but when clouds gather just to show they have enough muscle to cover the entire heaven and I feel no raindrops falling on my head, I get really depressed.

There is some consolation in the fact that these days one can observe online as well. I have become a member of Slooh which feels like the most straight forward online telescope system for an enthusiastic amateur like me. I took baby steps at first and signed up as a crew member, which means I did not get to control the robotic telescopes but could observe the objects reserved by Slooh apprentices and astronomers in real time. Apprentice  and Astronomer members pay a subscription and crew members go along for the ride. Now a month later I’ve decided to take my second step and updated my account to an Apprentice. I will now get to reserve time on the telescopes and do settings and very cool stuff. Mostly I’ll still  go along for the ride. Honestly the less I have to fiddle with alignments and settings when observing, the better.

Usually when I go online I have access to content instantly but reality soon dawned when I realized that Slooh telescopes are live and have weather issues just like anywhere else. At least Slooh’s website has so much interesting stuff to explore while waiting for the dots on the telescope page to turn green for go.

Instead of doing astrophotography I sketch. Doing sketches while observing through a remote robotic telescope seems like crooking big time. Most of the rules that apply when I’m observing through my telescope fall by the wayside. How can I determine co-ordinates when the stars do not drift across to the west in the eyepiece like they do in my uncomputerised telescope  Trying to determine star colours seem to be less obvious through the Canary Island telescopes but nebulae are so much easier to sketch when not having to nudge the telescope at the same time.

I always keep a log of every observation – even when online. I know I will not be able to submit my online observations to the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa for I am such a goody two shoes and that would be like lip syncing. On the other hand, I am observing in real time but just without bug spray and I will be taking my online adventures into account when I tally the grand total of my deep sky observations.

Bingo – To be able to complete my notes I scoured the internet for hours to find specs on Slooh’s telescopes. I almost joined a forum of disgruntled people who could not find any specs and were accusing Slooh of being a scam. Luckily I went onto the website again to see whether Canary Two had come online and this time I noticed a cheeky arrow over a pink button on the telescope page. It’s amazing how much more info one can find if you know where to look. Each location also has a webcam and from that footage I can sort of guess atmospheric conditions. Apparently if the stars seem elongated, the wind is blowing a gust!

To get the most from of an online session I try to get as close to the real thing as possible: lights off when I’m visiting Canary Island, curtains drawn for Chile. I use my regular sketch pad with red light and have coffee from a flask. By adjusting my computer’s display I can become relatively dark adapted.

Doing Astronomy online is a far cry from looking directly through my own telescope. I thought there would be no accelerated heartbeat, no oohs or wows until my first observation of a red dwarf thanks to Slooh’s Chile One. “Kapteyn’s Star” was absolutely breathtaking through the 14” Smidt Cassegrain. Mostly when I observe galaxies I see small smudges but one Slooh astronomer member opened up a new universe for me when he reserved time to observe NGC 1433 on Chile One. WOW!

Thanks to Slooh, apprentices and astronomers for giving us this wonderful opportunity and for sharing their observing time.