Tomorrow morning, December 11th, a nice trio will see three bright objects create a close 6° triangle. Lowest of the three will be Mercury, shining brightly at -0.6 magnitude, at about 18° elevation at sunrise. About 4° above Mercury will be a nice 4% illuminated crescent Moon. Above the Moon will be Venus, shining at -3.9 magnitude it will be very hard to miss. About 16° above the trio you can find Saturn, making three bright planets in the dawn. This conjunction should be worth setting the alarm clock early for.
Category: Astronomy
Exploring the cosmos
A Line of Planets in the Dawn
Tomorrow morning, December 10th, you will find a nice lineup of planets in the dawn sky. Mercury, Venus and Saturn will be in a line about 20° long. Adding to the lineup will be a nice crescent Moon, a bit over 10° higher in the sky than Saturn.
The view at 06:00HST will find a 19% illuminated Moon at 38° elevation. Working down the line you will see Saturn at 29° elevation, Venus at 15° elevation and Mercury at 9° elevation. With sunrise not until 06:46HST this will give plenty of time to view, and perhaps photograph, a line of planets in the dawn.
Over the next few days the view will be much the same, with the Moon lower each morning. On December 11th the Moon will sit between Venus and Mercury creating a nice trio.
Rewiring a Celestron NexStar Telescope
The original NexStar telescopes are great instruments. Ours has seen many uses, from dark skies to not so dark skies as it has been set up in the Arizona Desert, the summit of Mauna Kea, or various school yards and resorts for public viewing. It has been used as a visual instrument, a photographic ‘scope, even done a little real work.
For the most part the scope has worked well, and has been well maintained, even updated with the latest hand pad controller. But on occasion there is a problem… connection issues would crop up. The dreaded “No Response 16” or “No Response 17” errors would appear, indicating that the motor control board is not talking. This would result in having to power cycle and realign the telescope.
Lately the errors have become more problematic. The last straw was a public event I recently used the telescope for, setting up the telescope for Halloween. Continual errors plagued the evening, a constant struggle. While the scope usually tracked, I could not use GOTO as each alignment was quickly off by just enough to be useless.
I have had the telescope apart too often in attempts to fix this, inspecting and re-seating the cables. This usually works, the problem will go away, for a while.
In general I like what I see inside the telescope. A well designed piece of kit with good components. Decades of taking gear apart have provided me so many examples of poor or good design. Inside the NexStar I just like what I see. The telescope is easy to get apart, just a few screws to remove each cover, exposing everything you might need to work on. The designers of this telescope obviously took pride in their work, it shows.
The exception to this is the wiring. There are a number of issues that can create trouble. Or rather there were a few issues, I just took care of that…
Continue reading “Rewiring a Celestron NexStar Telescope”Geminids
The annual Geminid meteor shower has become one of the most reliable annual meteor showers. Known for bright and slow moving fireballs the Geminids can provide a good reason to spend a few hours outside on a December night. This shower has routinely provided rates above 100 meteors per hours in past years, this year should be no exception.
Stargazing on Hawai’i
Here on the Big Island the single best place to stargaze is the Mauna Kea VIS. The dark skies are usually free of clouds and are well away from the lights of Hilo and Kona. After dark use for stargazing is not only permitted, but encouraged. It can be cold at 9,200ft, bring warm clothes and blankets
The peak is expected to occur around December 13, 07h to December 14, 04h UT. For viewers here in Hawai’i this occurs on the night of December 12th. The Geminids feature a broad peak, with high rates for nearly 24 hours, thus allowing the all time zones a decent chance to enjoy the show.
There should be no substantial moonlight to drown out this years showing, dark skies to allow even the faintest meteors to be seen. The Moon is a thin waxing crescent, 1% illuminated on the morning of the 13th, essentially new.
The Geminid radiant rises round 8pm, thus meteors should be visible all night long. You can stay up late or set the alarm early, your preference. Southern viewers will have to wait until around midnight for the constellation Gemini to rise, making this a morning shower.
Watching meteors requires no more equipment than your eyes and a dark sky, and can be enjoyable for just about anyone. Well? It is December, you should probably add a warm coat to the equipment list.
Astronomers Go Infrared to Map Brightest Galaxies in Universe
W. M. Keck Observatory press release…
A group of astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the U.S. Mainland, Canada, and Europe recently used the twin telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to conduct a census of the brightest, but until now unseen, galaxies in the distant Universe, bringing astronomers one step closer to understanding how galaxies form and evolve.
While it’s not clear what gives these galaxies their intense luminosity, it could be the result of a collision between two spiral-type galaxies, similar to the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. Or they could be in a particularly gas-rich region of space, where galaxies form stars quickly due to constant bombardment from gas and dust.
Continue reading “Astronomers Go Infrared to Map Brightest Galaxies in Universe”
Mercury at Maximum Elongation
Today Mercury reaches maximum elongation, the furthest point it will reach from the Sun in the sky and the highest it will be above the sunrise for this morning apparition. The planet is easily visible as a bright, starlike object about 15° above the rising Sun as the twilight begins. Over the next couple weeks Mercury will slide back into the sunrise, heading for superior conjunction on February 16th.
The December WHAC Meeting
The West Hawai’i Astronomy Club will hold its December Meeting as usual on the second Tuesday of the month, December 11th at 7pm. We will be unable to have the meeting at CFHT due to conflict with another event, thus we will be meeting at Keck Observatory HQ in Waimea.
As many of our members traveled to observe the recent total solar eclipse in Australia we expect to be treated to photos and travelogues of their expedition. Join us for eclipse photos and more.
Jupiter at Opposition
Jupiter will pass through opposition at 14:43 today. The planet will rise at sunset and transit at midnight, available for observation for the entire night. For the remainder of the year and much of the spring, the planet will shine brightly in the evening sky.
TMT Permit Approved
The Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) for the Thirty Meter Telescope has been granted. The Hearing Officer’s report is published and available for reading. And it is interesting reading! Quite oddly I do enjoy reading these legal documents, I have learned much about the summit through the various documents like this.
There are numerous claims that seem quite odd to anyone familiar with the summit, claims that were easily disproved during the investigative process. An “extensive fencing network”? What fences? Anyone who has visited the summit knows that there are no fences around the observatories at the summit. There are some small enclosures necessary to keep people safe around storage tanks and such. Well below the summit the VLBA antenna is enclosed for safety reasons, as is an electrical substation at Hale Pohaku.
49. Petitioners contend that a purported “subdivision” of land among the various existing observatories is evidenced by an “extensive fencing network.” Exhibit A-202 at 22. As was plain during the site visit, there is no “fencing network,” much less an “extensive” one, in the summit region of Mauna Kea.
Claims that the TMT would negatively impact the waters of Lake Waiau? The TMT is not located anywhere near the lake’s watershed. The petitioners engaged in legal mudslinging, throwing as many claims as possible at the case to see what would stick, a legal tactic I dislike immensely. Making such unfounded claims merely serves to discredit the petitioners, distracting the conversation away from the real issues involved in sharing the summit region.
466. Considering all of the evidence, including but not limited to the testimonies of Drs. Liu and Kauanui, and giving such evidence due weight, Petitioners have not offered reliable, probative, substantial, or credible evidence, scientific or otherwise, to suggest that the Project will be harmful to the health, safety, and welfare of native Hawaiians or anyone else.
There are reasonable cultural objections to the use of the mountain for astronomy. These are what must be addressed in this process. Can use of the summit be shared among the various parties? The report clearly comes to the conclusion that we can share the summit and that the presence of the new telescope can be minimized through proper measures.
101. Petitioners did not offer reliable, probative, substantial, and credible evidence, whether from expert or lay witnesses, that would support the conclusion that the TMT Project would cause substantial adverse impact to plants, aquatic life and wildlife, cultural, historic, and archaeological sites, minerals, recreational sites, geologic sites, scenic areas, ecologically significant areas, or watersheds.
There is a list of conditions, which seem quite reasonable… The staff must receive cultural and environmental education on the special nature of the summit of Mauna Kea. We do this at Keck, something I usually find quite interesting. They must use a completely enclosed waste water system. There must be an invasive species plan. Conditions around the construction site must be monitored, including arthropod populations, during construction and for two years afterwards. There is an extensive list that goes on from here…
e. The proposed land use, including buildings, structures, and
facilities, will be compatible with the locality and surrounding areas, appropriate
to the physical conditions and capabilities of the specific parcel or parcels
Will this be the end of the legal process? No. There is an additional hearing for the petitioners to take place before the Hearings Officer so that both sides may review the findings. It is also likely that at least one lawsuit will be filed in reaction to issuance of the CDUP. Unless there is some new legal issue these are unlikely to progress very far. The process so far has been quite exhaustive, any further legal action would simply be a rehashing of what we have already heard.
Postcard from the Universe – Orion Nebula with the EOS-M
The first astrophoto taken with the EOS-M. Considering the trouble it is to manually trigger the exposures without proper camera control, I am surprised I stuck it out to take 40+ subs. Since 30 seconds was the longest I could program the camera for I simply maxed out the ISO and took a lot of subs plus a dozen darks. There is still way too much noise in the resulting frame. Still, the ISO 12,800 frames are not all that bad, better than I expected. If this camera had remote control it would be a decent little astro camera. Longer subs and a lower ISO would deliver decent results.
