Astronomy – Page 52 – A Darker View

Venus and Mars

The Moon, Venus and Jupiter — A morning conjunction of the three brightest objects in the night sky, the Moon, Venus and Jupiter on the morning of July 15, 2012, the Pleiades star cluster can be seen at the top

Over the coming weeks Venus and Mars will dance in the sunset. Close approach will occur on February 2nd, with the pair about 5° apart. They will remain in close proximity in the sky for much of February, finally disappearing into the glare of sunset around the end of the month.

On the evening of the 31st, a pretty crescent Moon will join this dance in the sunset, forming a triangle about 5° across. A 16% illuminated crescent moon with make a lovely trio with the bright planets.

A Little Icy…

Summit Ice — A heavy coat of ice covers everything at the summit of Mauna Kea

Ice — Freezing fog and 90mph winds combine to create ice sculpture on Mauna Kea

Heavy Ice — Ice on the Keck 2 dome ladders after the New Year’s storm of 2015

A snow covered summit road — Getting to the summit over a snow and ice covered road in heavy fog

Keck Under Ice — Keck Observatory covered in heavy ice

Icy Weather — The meteorological instruments atop the Keck weather mast covered with thick ice.

Snow — A touch of snow and ice atop Mauna Kea this morning

Icy — Freezing fog and 90mph winds combine to create ice sculpture on Mauna Kea

Park Away From Dome — An ice covered sign warning drivers to park away from the telescope dome

MastCam Ice — Hanging ice blocks the view of MastCam after a severe winter storm on January 4th, 2015

Ice on the Mast — Ice on the Keck weather mast

A Blade of Ice — The effects of freezing fog on the summit of Mauna Kea

Keck 2 Ice — A ladder platform of the Keck 2 dome with a heavy coating of ice

Iced — The emergency evacuation vehicle covered with ice

A Little Snow…

Snow Day — Looking across at the Keck 1 dome from the top of Keck 2 with Mauna Loa in the background

Snowy Keck 1 — Keck 1 looms in the fog and snow

Snowy Arrival at the Summit — The crew arriving to a summit to find several inches of fresh snow

SMA On Ice — The SMA (Smithsonian Submillimeter Array) under a heavy coating of ice and snow with Haleakalā in the background

A Bit of Snow — The twin domes of Keck after a bit of snow on the summit of Mauna Kea

Shoveling Snow — The crew shovels the loading dock clear while the OMKM grader clears a troublesome snowdrift.

A Summit Road — Six inches of snow on the road as we approach the summit of Mauna Kea

Fesh snowfall from the top of the Keck 2 dome

Fresh Snow — Fresh snow atop Mauna Kea, the first good storm of 2013

Arrival — We arrive to eight inches of snow at the telescopes

Snowy SMA — The SMA antennas in snow and fog

Snowplow — An MKSS snowplow clears the road atop Mauna Kea

Snowy Summits — A fresh snowfall blankets the summit of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa

Icy Sunrise — The Sun rising over an icy snowfield along the summit road of Mauna Kea

IRTF Snow 3Mar2015 — Snow falling around the IRTF telescope on the afternoon of March 3, 2015

Fresh snowfall blankets the summit of Mauna Kea

Light Snow — A light snowfall atop the summit of Mauna Kea

Abandoning the Summit — Abandoning the summit as weather conditions deteriorate and the snow begins to fall

Nearly There — Keck 2 appears out of the fog and snow as we are nearly there

A Little More Snow — April storm brought enough snow to cover the slopes of Mauna Kea

GenPIC, A Microcontroller Utility PCB

Over the years I have hand wired so many microcontroller PCB’s. Along with my own projects for myself there are more than a dozen of my little microcontroller devices at work about the observatory. The OSIRIS IR calibration source, the Keck 2 dome inclinometers, a precipitation sensor interface, the Keck 1 AO electronic vault temperature sensors, the weather mast fan and shelter controller, the list goes on. Anyplace a bit of electronic intelligence is needed for the task.

Of course the challenge is that each of these controllers has been hand wired and built for a specific task. This takes a few hours of running little wires on a perfboard. And while I enjoy such wiring, it does make the task take notably longer.

While a couple of my microcontroller designs have been laid out on proper circuit cards, like the SciMeasure camera exposure controllers, I have never laid out a general purpose microcontroller PCB. This is not for lack of thinking about it, so many times I have considered this could be so much easier if I could only invest a little time in a layout.

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Mercury at Maximum Elongation

Today Mercury will be at maximum western elongation, as high in the morning sky as it will appear for this current apparition. After today the planet will slide back into the dawn, passing through superior conjunction on March 6th to reappear in the evening around the end of March.

Mercury Transit 9May2016 — Mercury transiting the Sun on May 9, 2016. Celestron C8 and Canon 6D at f/10.

The best evening apparition of 2017 will be in July, with a maximum elongation of over 27°. The best morning apparition will be May at over 25°, with today being nearly as good at over 24°.

There are no transits of Mercury in 2017, the next will be Nov 11, 2019.

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Breaker

Transform

Comet 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková

This February will feature a very close approach of Comet 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková. The comet will pass about 0.08AU (11.9 million km or 7.4 million miles) from Earth on February 11th, making it an easy telescopic object, and a marginal naked eye comet at around 6th magnitude.

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques on the evening of 27Aug2014

This is a short period comet with an orbit only 5.25 years long. At aphelion it orbits out very close to Jupiter, while at perihelion it is well inside the orbit of Venus. As such it may occasionally pass very close to Earth.

The comet itself is rather interesting. Discovered in 1948 the comet has been a the frequent target of scientific observation as it may pass quite close to Earth. In 2011 it passed about 0.06AU from Earth and was the target of radar observations.

Currently in the evening sky the comet is sinking into the sunset rather rapidly. It will pass by the Sun around the end of January to appear in the morning sky. It will rise rapidly above the dawn, by February 5th it will be rising at 3:22am, about four hours before the Sun. On the day of close approach, February 11th, the comet will rise well before midnight in the northern sky.

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy as it appeared on the night of 20Dec2104, 28 x 4min with a Canon 6D and a TV-76mm ‘scope

The comet is predicted to remain quite bright, around 7th magnitude or better for all of January and most of February, possibly peaking at around 6th magnitude near close approach to the Earth. As this is a well observed comet these magnitudes are likely to be reasonably accurate.

Of course any comet getting this close to us will catch the attention of the doomsday preachers and assorted apocalyptic predictions. Comet 45P is already a bit of a YouTube celebrity with quite a few videos filled with dire predictions.

I predict that we will have a pretty comet in the new year’s sky to provide a nice target for telescopic observations and astrophotographers. I would suggest making a point to get out and observe this comet as it passes by.

Full Moon

Full Moon will occur today at 01:34HST.

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Venus at Maximum Elongation

Today Venus is at maximum elongation, as high in the sunset sky as it will get for this evening apparition, about 47.1°. After today the planet will begin its slide back into the glare of sunset. It will disappear from view around mid-March and reach inferior conjunction on March 25th, 2017.

As Earth and Venus race about the Sun, Venus will complete about one cycle of appearances each year. We can expect one evening apparition and one morning apparition to occur in 2017.

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