Tomorrow morning, Feb 27th, the planet Mercury can be seen about 3° below the rising Moon. Mercury will rise about 05:29HST and be over 15° above the horizon at sunrise. The Moon will be quite old, a very thin 4% illuminated crescent. the pairing should make for a pretty dawn.
Water Vapor Detected in the Atmosphere of a Hot Jupiter
W. M. Keck Observatory press release…
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) astronomers using data gathered at the W. M. Keck Observatory have developed a new technique for planetary scientists that could provide insight into how many water planets like Earth exist within our universe. The results have been published on February 24th by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Credit: Alexandra Lockwood (CalTech) background image used with permission from David Aguilar (CFA)
However, a significant portion of the population of extrasolar planets does not fit either of these criteria and there wasn’t really a way to find information about the atmospheres of these planets. Looking to resolve this problem, Lockwood and her advisor Geoffrey Blake—Caltech professor of cosmochemistry, planetary sciences and chemistry—were inspired by the recent detection of carbon monoxide in the extrasolar planet, tau Boo b and they wondered if they could detect water in a similar manner.
Continue reading “Water Vapor Detected in the Atmosphere of a Hot Jupiter”
The Moon and Venus
The following morning, February 25th, will see the Moon 7° below Venus. Observant sky-watchers will note Mercury another 16° closer to the eastern horizon and the rising Sun.
Postcard from the Universe – The Rosette
A result from Saturday night. About an hour of integration all told… Good color, very nice stars, good detail. While encouraging, I really need more time on this one, there is too much noise in the fainter regions of the nebula. I can get more data and add it to the stack to continue to improve the result. From up on the mountain I should be able to use longer exposures with darker skies. Colder conditions will reduce the dark current in the camera, also aiding in longer exposures.
The Rosette Nebula is a large star forming region just east of Orion in the constellation of Monocerus. It is quite large, the main body seen in the photograph is well over a degree across. The dark region in the center is about the size of the Full Moon
Shooting from the Driveway
A good night in the driveway last night.
I want to use this combination camera and telescope with a very wide field to work over the dark nebulae of the Summer Milky Way. With 384mm focal length the full frame camera gives me over 5.35° x 3.56° field of view. The beehive also lent itself to the wide field, another large object that was worth a stop to shoot.
Aside from one little equipment issue to start, more an operator education issue, the gear worked great. Note to self… Must turn off camera WiFi before the camera will link to the computer via USB. I am currently using APT to control the camera, a very impressive bit of software. The auto-guider worked perfectly, frame after frame nearly identical. I can slideshow through dozens of sub-frames and not see any difference, no drift!
A single sub-frame of the Rosette Nebula is shown to the right. The Rosette is an emission nebula with most of the light emitted at the wavelength of Hα 656.28 nm. My Canon 6D is stock, no astrophoto modifications. Despite an IR cutoff filter that blocks much of the Hα light the camera captures a fair amount of the nebula. Perhaps I should get a 48mm Hα filter for the camera to shoot from the driveway.
With everything working so well I really need to haul the rig up to Hale Pohaku for a night of imaging under darker skies than I get down at 1000ft. Next weekend is dark-of-the-Moon weekend. Need to plan an outing?
It will take a bit to process the results of the night. As usual, keep an eye here on Darker View for the finished photos.
Postcard from Hawaiʻi – ʻŌhelo
We found a few of these when hiking in Volcanos NP a couple weeks ago. A little searching revealed some ripe ones. Nice flavor, a little tart, not unlike cranberry they need a little sweetener to make them really good.
Sending My First Takedown Notice
Occasionally I use the Google image search function to see if any of my photos are being used on other websites. Yes… It is something to do when insomnia strikes.
Earlier this month I found quite a few of my photos being used on an very obnoxious site. The same page also contained numerous images from the West Hawai’i Astronomy Club website. I will forgo including the URL or link here, no need providing them one more incoming referral. Suffice it to say that the entire website was constructed of stolen or scraped material, the sole purpose of which is to serve as search engine bait. Once on the website clicking on anything generated pop-ups, pop-unders, a slew of ads. This was not innocent infringement, this is a business built on theft of intellectual property.
A little sleuthing revealed that the site was located on a hosting service out of the Netherlands, WorldStream.nl. As this site is not within the US a DMCA takedown notice is not legally enforceable. However, European law is pretty good with respect to copyright, the hosting provider should take a notice of infringement seriously. Thus I sent an email off to the listed customer service address…
Postcard from the Universe – Double Cluster
Repairing the Lanai
I really have been putting off the repairs too long. There are several boards that have had dry rot set in. One deck board is right next to the usual route of travel, much more rot and it will become a safety hazard.
After the repairs a full coat of paint is in order. That is going to be a major job. the latticework of the shaded area will require power-washing. Repainting all of those detailed bits will also require a lot of work. I do have an air compressor, perhaps a spray rig is the right way to go.
I have a quart of exterior white paint to try out. The first item painted will be the first replaced board. I need to see how the paint looks beside the older trim paint used around the entire house. I long ago learned just how many variations of white exist in paint.
It will be a lengthy chore to complete the entire lanai. It is something I can do in stages, a few hours here, a few hours there, it will get done.
The Moon and Saturn
Tomorrow morning, Feb 21st, the Moon will be in close attendance with Saturn, separated by a little under 4°. The two will be high in southern the sky before dawn, a last quarter Moon will be 61% illuminated. Saturn can be seen as a 0.5 magnitude object just East of the Moon and west of the head of Scorpio. The following morning, Feb 22nd, the Moon will have moved to the other side of the ringed planet with a separation of just over 8°.
Viewers on the other side of the world will be able to see a very close pairing of the two, less than half a degree apart or even in occultaion depending on location. Close approach will be about 14:00 HST on the 21st. You could make an attempt to view the pair in the daytime sky, Saturn is bright enough to be seen next to the Moon in a modest telescope or even a good pair of binoculars. Unfortunately the Moon sets around 11:00, a few hours before close approach here in the islands.