Astronomy Log

It has been an evening ritual just lately to find out when the ISS is passing overhead (via the heavens-above website) and then rush out and spot it. It’s amazing actually how bright it is, and how lots of people have not thought it was some sort of UFO.

After spotting it a couple of times, I then decided I wanted to try and get some images via my webcam and LX200, which can track satellites. I have seen video on YouTube from other people with similar telescopes and the video looks really good.

I began by downloading the latest ISS data from the Meade website, (which actually just links to another website) and installed it into Autostar.

I then read the LX200 manual about tracking satellites and I thought originally the LX200 would do everything for me and track automatically, but unfortunately this is not the case.

You actually have to allow the telescope to move in the path that the satellite is moving, but start your tracking once you see the object in the viewfinder, so really a bit hit and miss.

So far I have not managed to get it right, and track the ISS, but I’ll keep trying and see if I can get some video.

I recently purchased a Hursch f6.6 focal reducer which just came in a cardboard case type box with a cleaning cloth. I also have a Meade f3.3 focal reducer but this came in a plastic bolt case.

I put a wanted ad for a plastic focal reducer bolt case on astrobuysell and I also called into ScopesnSkies to see if they had one, but they did not. 

But last week I saw some cake decoration boxes in the kitchen, and thought they may be perfect!

They are the half size cake decoration boxes that contain sugar stars, silver balls etc. from companies such as Supercook and Dr Oetker. So I removed the outer packaging and cleaned the inside out.

I then cut out some thin foam and glued it into the case and then placed my focal reducer in and it fitted perfectly. The focal reducer does only fit one way up though, but is now airtight.

Stars Dancing with Black Holes was the title of Marc Freitag’s talk at this months meeting of the Cambridge Astronomy Association.

Marc began by explaining what actually is defined as a black hole; known to have a most extreme case of gravitation, where the mass is concentrated in one point and it is surrounded by a spherical horizon.

Marc also had an interesting slide detailing the flow and gravity pull of a black hole which included details on subsonic flow, supersonic flow and about the sonic horizon.

There is believed to be a black hole at the centre of our Milky Way.

We were told that the effects of Massive Black Holes (MBH) on stars can be used to reveal the presence of Massive Black Holes and determine their properties. We also learnt that stars around Massive Black Holes in a spherical nucleus produce a rosette orbit and that as a star is close to an MBH you get a Keplerian ellipse.

Stellar Massive Black Holes are the end product of evolution of stars greater than 20 to 30 suns, and they are only 1-2 stars in 1,000.  This version accumulates around the Massive Black Holes.

One interesting future piece of research is to be the LISA spacecraft which is being designed to measure the mass and rotation of Massive Black Holes. IT will measure Gravitational Waves (GW) which are emitted when a black hole passes a massive black hole.

A Gravitational Wave is a contraction of space in one direction and an expansion in the other direction. Gravitational Waves also produce contraction and expansion of space itself.

The LISA spacecraft consist of three spacecraft that will form the shape of a triangle in space in an orbit similar to that of the earth.  The distance between the spacecraft will be 5 million km apart.

LISA will detect gravitation waves by comparing distances between “test masses” in different directions using lasers. A similar research project on the ground has been executed called LIGO in the US and VIRGO in Italy.

Overall the talk was very in depth and I got a bit lost half way through with all of the formulae and physics, but the talk was littered with interesting images, simulations and videos.

I look forward to see the launch of LISA in the future, and to see if it will be possible to detect gravitational waves as well as if it will be possible to keep the three spacecraft evenly spaced across space in order to constantly create a perfect triangle.

An article in Nature says that wet conditions probably persisted for a long time on the Red Planet.

Researchers from NASA found evidence of vast lakes, flowing rivers, and deltas on early Mars, all of which were potential habitats for life.

The data comes from the NASA spacecraft on Mars.

But surely we all expected this outcome, didn’t we?

Especially when the spacecraft is digging on the north iced pole of the planet.  I think the major breakthrough would be finding some microbes and genetic substance of marsian frozen creatures.

Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is an astronomy pocket book by Philip’s covering all of the major deep sky targets.

The book begins with an introduction to the astronomy area of deep sky objects, and an introduction to the basics of sky watching and the sorts of equipment that can be used, including binoculars and various telescopes.

The book also tells you where and when to observe, as well as about sketching and how to plan a nights observing.  Over three quarters of the book is given over to listing all the main deep sky objects which can be observed. 

Each deep sky object entry gives a description of the object together with RA and Dec positions and a note of where you can find the object on the sky maps at the back of the book. The book also contains some colour images of the objects.

The rear of the book contains a chapter on the history of deep sky observing including descriptions about the early observers. The book also contains star charts and maps as well as summary lists of the deep sky objects, their magnitude, what page in the book they are on and what month of the year is the best for viewing them.

Overall, Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is a great little book if you are interested in deep sky targets and want to be able to draw up a list of objects to observe and where to locate them in the nights sky and when via the sky maps and summary lists.

Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is available from Amazon

This has been the first time I have imaged Jupiter with my Meade LX200 telescope, as last year when Jupiter was visible I had my Meade Bressier telescope.

Jupiter is not at a great location at the moment, as it is situated quite low in the sky, so atmospheric turbulence is a problem.  Also at the moment I have to wait until 12.30am for the planet to be high enough and within view as I have a house next door which covers the planet before this.

I used my Philips Webcam and used two different programs to capture the video, I used QCFocus and Philips VLounge software. I like QCFocus as it saves the video as .AVI files, whereas my copy of VLounge saves in .MPG, so I need to convert the video into .AVI in order to load it into Registax, which is a hassle.

I began just connecting the webcam straight to the telescope for the first capture, but as you can see from the image below, that the size of the planet is quite small.

I did want to try and catch the shadows of one of Jupiter’s moons on the image, but the black circle you can see on these images is actually a mark or dust spot and not what I thought was one of the moon’s shadows.

The second image involved adding a Meade Telenegative 2x Barlow lens to the telescope in order to get a larger image on the chip of the webcam.

I did also tried adding the standard Meade diagonal after the 2x Barlow but this made the image nearly completely fill the chip on the webcam but the image was over magnified and out of focus, I have not included an image of it here.

Next time I will try different combinations of may be a f6.6 focal reducer with a barlow, I think I will also try and image using the Meade DSI II that I have.