The Observing Journal.

Every good astronomer should keep a journal of what they have been observing. I have not been as good as others perhaps, but I do have journals going back a number of years.

The seeing scale is the one devised by Antoniadii. It's simple and it works well enough.

9:25pm - Eclipse is truely underway. Moon ½ obscured by penumbra. Shadow is a smokey, brown-grey colour. Constant broken cloud streaming across the sky from the south. *grrr* 9:40pm - Clouded over suddenly. Spitting and very light rain. Clouds could break as quicky as it came over.
10pm - Gaps in the sky, but not where I want to look! Some faint glimpses of the moon shining through the cloud.  10:05pm - Cloud breaking. Moon shining through the hazey clouds. Sky clearing - hue (of eclipse) has changed to an orange-yellow colour. Best view is in the 50mm finder. Orange-yellow moon with stars surrounding it. Still some trouble from clouds/haze
10:20pm - No cloud! Moon a smokey-yellow colour. Sagitarius region of Milky Way visible Totality - Moon a smokey-light orange colour. Meteor flashes across FOV of finder (I kid you not!) A real Spielberg moment!
11:00 - Significant brightening of the trailing edge of the eclipse. Eclipse is now drawing to it's conclusion.

 

Date: 16/7/07	Time: NA	Seeing: NA
Weather: Clear
Equipment: Naked eye observation.

A random observation of the youngest moon  sitting on the hill-line, and Venus. It really was a striking sight - of no "observational" value but just simply striking. It could have been photographed, or drawn, but that would not have conveyed enough of "moment" I guess the thing was, it was unexpected - a chance discovery whilst walking home from work, just startling in it's simple beauty. It's very hard to capture a moment like that - even writing it here just fails to capture the surprise, the crispness of the frosty air, the particular blue of the evening sky, that feeling that while everyone else around me is scurrying home muffled up against the cold, I'm looking up, witnessing this jewel-like alignment of the planets in the sky. 

Lugging the 8" has aggrevated my elbow (Cracked it hard against the doorframe on Queens Birthday weekend - asfter finishing fixing up thje Newt!) But the last few nights (as cold as they have been) have been dark and clear. Not all that steady mind! Jupiter is now high up in the sky.

Wella few things have been happening lately. 

Firstly, I've resurrected the 8" reflector again, and have beem lucky enought to have a spell of excellent weather to use it under. Now it's a hard thing to suddenly look at your favourite old telescope (The refractor) and suddenly realise that you've stumbled onto something even better. The details on Jupiter was astonishing, and I'm looking forward to the opposition of Mars later in the year with much anticipation. The only thing with the rflectopr at the moment is that you really need to setup well before your session, it's it's mandatory to check the alignment of the components. TO this end I'm going to have to make some kind of collimating eyepiece, just to quicken the process. The refractor, being such a sturdy instrument is great for "grab'n'go" astronomy.

The other major astronomical even for me was a long weekend spent in the Catlins, a rugged and beautiful isolated spot in the South Island, with the clearest, darkest skies. The milky way a ghostly luminescent arch of clouds with countless clusters and knots and eddies in it - visible all the way down to the horizon. Clouds in the sky were dark; sillhouetted against the sky - not pale yellow as is the case here in Dunedin. I could have stayed outside all night were it not for the fierce cold southerlies straight off the Southern Ocean. *siigh*

Comet McNaught

Just a wee note  about the above. The most spectacular naked eye comet I've ever seen. Possible will be the "Great Comet" of my generation. Better than Halley. Not at all helped by a spell of the most appalling cloudy weather ever!

The first appearance past the setting sun was spectacular - a bright comet, easily 1st or 2nd mag, with a bright tail that spanned a handsbreadth across the sky. The tail was visible even thru light haze. 

The comet is fading now, but an observation of the 24th is worth noting.

A dark shadow on the souther edge of the comets tail was visible. If it was a physiological contrast effect it was seen by Paul as well. He required no prompting to see it. As the evening darkened, an area of light to the Nth side of the nucleus was also apparent. 

McNaught.jpg

A casual observation of Venus approx 4º from the moon in broad daylight. I've seen this before but I was surprised at how vividly it stood out - even in the haze.  

Spied the opportunity to observe Saturn and the half-full moon tonight. Saturn was the best I've seen - A and B rings visible, a band running around the planet, the notch of Saturn's shadow on the rings planly visisble. 

Discovered that I can observe the moon 10º either side of the meridian from my place. I have large pine trees to the north, but there is a gap bteween them, and the wall of the house, that will give me a long momentof observation if I time it right. 

Rheita Valley - A strange knotted gap in the lunar surface. It looks like a meteor has bumped and gouged chunks from the surface in  tumbled line. 

Jupiter - Observed Europa and Io leaving a transit of Jupiter. Europa was already free of the disc but Io took a good 10-15 mins to clear from what redshift was predicting. I was hoping that I might be able to make out the moons shadows on jupiter, but the poor seeing put paid to that one. 

Cursed the moon slightly for being up so high. Alt-az gets grumpy about turning in azimuth (Get a slow-motion built!!) Could not see Plato craterlettes so I';m guessing it needs edge illumination to stand out. Valles Alpes stood out nicely. The rille on the floor is obviously beyond the powers of my telescope to resolve. 

Two ridges where the Caucasus and Appenines meet D.Buckland and D.von Cotte, stood out nicely. 

Callisto was also passing south of Jupiter. Very nice. 

Diagram of Mare Crisium. The ridge to the eastside of themare quite noticable (D Tetyaeve) Cleomedes G has small craterlette to the SE that was barely visible. Rukle says craterless approx 8km in dia.  See L100 Page

See drawings from the 2nd. Central craterlet visible in moments of perfect seeing. Astounding! :-) 

Plato

the date on the drawing is wrong

Just a note to say that I staggered out in the breeze and the cold and saw the conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter

All I need now is the moon!

Observed mare Crisium on the moon. The terminator cust across the crater Picard, but the mountain ranges that make up the rim of Crisium were illuminated across the terminator. Striking. 

We had the most stunning display of Aurora Australis this night. We had undualting curtains of light, twisting vortices, rays, fans, shimmering ribbons. The whole sky was alive at one point. Breathtaking!

The photos were taken with a digital camera by my partner Paul, and show far more colour than was visible with the naked eye, because of the sensitivity of the CCD detector. Different colours in the aurora are caused by different elements.  

The mountainous region of the wets of Mare Crisium. The "cliff" (near Yerkes) showed up quite strongly.  Luna 15 landed in this area.

A coup tonight. First night I have made a point of observing at twilight. The sky was exceptionally stead. Observed Jupiter. First time inages that I've seen such a clear disc. Cursory examination showed the equatorial belts, a darker region near the north pole and a pale belt south of the southern equatorial belt. Blue filter helped bring out the detail

Viewed the waxing moon at 60x. Beautifully displayed earthshine

Mercury. - Very low on the horizon. Tiny crescent at 120x with strong prismatic atmosphere effect. Very distorted as it was so low. Filters of no help.

Appenines again. Terminator has brought out the uplands leading to them. Stark contrast to the "sudden" drop into the Imbrium basin.

The Appenines (Moon) -  almost a full moon. Appenines showed up as bright peaks and dots in the bright lunar landscape. They follow the curve around the rim of Mare Imbrium. In the past observing this area was always confusing (presumably because I did it when the area was on the terminator)

Looked for a comet today - Comet NEAT. Did try to use the 50mm spotter but not much luck.Dragged out the 4" refractor and printed off a finde chart in Redshift. Found it - a small grey smudge. Mag 6.8 doesn't seem all that faint when you look at a star atlas, but it wasn't all that obvious! Binocs would not be quite up to it I think. 

(Prior to this night I accidently left my observing log out in 2 days worth of drizzly rain and the dates and info that was inked in, washed out!)

One of the clearest nights of looking at Mars. There was a slight haze which made looking at the surface features very easy and obvious The triangular feature is Syrtis Major.

Mars again Polar caps are definately smaller and more intense seeming

Mars again but for the damn clouds! However, very steady skies.

As it happenes, the 8" was blown over in strong winds a couple of weekends ago. Everything was dislodged and the 2ndary got a small chip on onw edge, but it's otherwise ok!

Well set up the reflector yesterday and so was awake this morning (not really planning to be - Iw anted to sleep in!) So I test drove Aaron's old telescope

I have to say that the view was no better than yesterday. Similar markings seemed visisble however the seeing was deteriorating fairly quickly. The rough collimation may have plenty to do with this. Or perhaps my expectations are too much? The primary is a tad grimy but I thought that wouldn't have affect the image so much. (Need a finder!!)

Mars!

Jupiter - No great detail visisble on jupiter (and it passed behind bloody tree) Did see a faint star amongst the moons

Looked at the moon today. Am too lazy for my own good and should try and lern a few features. Observed a striking crater on the lunar terminator called Gassendi. You could clearly see the crater flow was littered with broken blocks. According to Nortons Star Atlas, the crater is 88km in diameter. So, some of these blocks are really hills of mountains that are kilometers wide and high. Wow!

Saturn was up too. Beautiful ivory-yellow colour. A & B rings clearly seen and a faint dusty band on the planet. Very subtly. Filters didn't seem to do much. Obdrved mostly with 9mm ortho. 

It would have been a good night except for the low cloud that hugged the ground near the top of Mt Cargill and blew over my place. When looking at the waxing crescent moon you could see verly clearly the high speed air stream. Was still able to "see" detailing on the moon. 

(This would be the "slow boiling" effect that I get when the wind comes from the north. This air seems moist and causes low clouds to creep over the top of the mountain and slide down the sides - even though there will be no high altitude clouds. Mostly a late spring to summer occurence. Frustrating.)

Archimedes near the terminator. Much detail visisble expecially the apparently flat plains which show uplands, hills, which seem too numerous to draw. Could spend hours (trying to) draw this region. 

Venus - Small gibbous phase. No discernable detail but then it's the first look. Blue and yellow filters did not help.

Moon - Chance observation of  an occultation of 50 Aquarii

Jupiter  - Verly little detail in the cloud belts due to subtle boiling of air currents. 

Saturn - Notch missing out of ring where the shadow falls. Could not see Cassinis Division and colour filters did not help. Very faint moon, amost lost in the glare. Blue filter enhanced cloud band constrast against plnet but no details.

This site last revised April 2011