Category: Planetary

Brilliant Saturn at the Dark Lunar Limb

A conjunction of the Moon and the planet Saturn - September 27, 2014
A conjunction of the Moon and the planet Saturn – September 27, 2014

Aloha!

I had plans to go to the summit of Haleakala to observe the occultation of Saturn by the Moon, but clouds and wind kept me closer to home. I was delighted when a patch of sky opened up and I could observe the wonderful phenomenon from home.

As I was observing Saturn get closer to our Moon I was struck by how small it appeared in comparison, appearing the size of some of the smaller lunar craters. I began sketching in the details of the Moon and noticed a few stars I wanted to include. I needed to do some erasures because one of the stars was occulted ~15 minutes before Saturn, an unexpected treat. Once Saturn made it to the limb I could not clearly time the initial ingress as conditions began to deteriorate. It was however brilliantly lit in comparison to the dark lunar limb. I noted time as 19:41:36 HAST when all evidence of Saturn disappeared. My sketch is as Saturn had partially slipped past the limb. I was unable to view egress as the Moon had slipped behind clouds by this time.

Occultation of Saturn by the Moon
Maui, Hawaii
4,000el
SV102ED 79x
9/27/14
Black paper, white & black charcoal
Photoscape to clean up sketch

Cindy (Thia) Krach

C/Bennett 1969

Comet C/Bennett 1969 - April 8, 1970
Comet C/Bennett 1969 – April 8, 1970

Hey ASOD!

I send my first observation of a comet , Bennett 1970. This drawing is an
original one seen in 10 x 50 binos.
This early morning the sky was hazy, only the brightest stars were seen.
After some time, I could see a comet over the hills!
I used my 4″ new. refl. to observe it first. I saw fontains in the coma, but
did not manage to draw it on paper!!
Instead, I made this sketch seen in binos! Info on my sketch!
The sketch was made with pencil on white paper (inverted).
Loc..: Trondheim, Norway.

Best sky to all : Per-Jonny Bremseth.

Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques)

Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) - September 23, 2014
Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) – September 23, 2014

Object Name: C/2014 E2 (Jacques)
Object Type: Comet
Location: Stokesley, North Yorkshire
Date: 23 September 2014
Media: 4H, HB, 2B and 4B pencils, blending stumps, kneadable eraser on white paper, scanned then inverted and edited using Paint Shop Pro
Telescope: 130mm Newtonian reflector, 13mm Plössl (50x / 1 degree FOV), no filter
Time: 22.41 UT – 23.44 UT
Seeing: III-II (Antoniadi scale)
Transparency: Good, LM:5.22
Notes: The comet was in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It appeared slightly elongated but I could not see a tail. The coma appeared a light green colour.

Steve

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sjb_astro/

Great elongation of Mercury 2014

The Great Elongation of Mercury - May and June 2014
The Great Elongation of Mercury – May and June 2014

In the spring of 2014 we observed a super elongation of Mercury; high brightness and large apparent diameter.
I followed up the Mercury from 9. May to the fifth day of June. I got a great experience and a wealth of experience.
I managed to identify a lot of formation on the surface of Mercury, despite I used a small telescope. I hope you enjoy this little compilation! 🙂

Information:

Observer: Viktor Cseh
Location: Nagyvarsány/Hungary (Central Europe)

Equipment used: 100/1000 achromatic refractor
Ocular: 4mm Kasai Magellan ortho
Magnification: 250X
Filters: W80A blue, W21 orange and W12 yellow

Drawing instruments: graphite pencils, white observing form.

Clear Skies!

Viktor 🙂

Jacques C/2014 E2

Comet Jacques C/2014 E2 - August 27, 2014
Comet Jacques C/2014 E2 – August 27, 2014

Object Name Jacques C/2014 E2
Object Type Comet
Location El Picacho (Cádiz)
Date 08/27/2014
Media graphite pencil, processed for inverting black with Photoshop software
Telescope: Dobson Meade LB 12″
Eye: Ethos Nagler 12 mm (x127)
Observing conditions: SQML 21,10
Greetings and thank you very much
Web: http://observandoeluniverso.blogspot.com.es/
Javier Perez (javi_cad)

Comet Jacques & Struve 3053

Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) in conjunction with Struve 3053 - August 24, 2014
Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) in conjunction with Struve 3053 – August 24, 2014

I found this comet in Cassiopeia the other night (August 24) near the colourful double star Struve 3053 and thought it made a nice composition. As I observed over the course of an hour I was surprised to see how quickly the comet moved against the background stars from the position I first sketched it at 11:15 local time to the position indicated by the X at about 12:10. The observations were made with a 120mm F/8.3 refractor at 42x in a 68 degree eyepiece from my Orleans, Ontario backyard.

Running Jacques !!!

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques - August 27, 2014
Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques – August 27, 2014

* Object Name: C/2014 E2 (Jacques)
* Object Type: comet
* Location: Castres (Tarn – France) N43.35 E2.14
* Date: August 27th 2014 21h35 to 22h55 UT
* Media: pencil HB + 2B, white drawing paper, scanned + inverted & colorized with PhotoPaint

Conditions: humidity 80%, 18°C, no wind.
Excellent transparency and pretty good seing
No Moon
Equipment:
– Dobson Orion XT12 (300 x 1500mm => F/D 5)
– Eyepiece Televue Panoptic 15mm (mag x 100)
– no filter

While watching at this nice comet, close to Cephei, I got stunned seing the velociy of this object.
After only 5 minutes, I could notice a change in it’s location at only x100 magnification.
So I decided to take my scratchbook to report its moving path during a couple of hours.

There was no visible tail, I just could detect a slight dissimetry on the coma.
I was stargazing in (small) town, in my garden, with some lights around, so this was not the best condition.
The nucleus is not so bright as last Lovejoy’s one, and the green colour is fainter than the representation I made (just a little cheat:)
The magnitude is difficult to estimate on these objects, but I guess it was about 7 or better.

The comet was on Aug. 27th the closest from earth (about 0,56UA) and it is also reaching these days it’s peak of activity.

NOTE : On Aug 31th 0:00 to 2:00 don’t miss the conjunction with Mu Cephei (the beautiful Herschel’s Garnet Star) even maybe an occultation by the comet!

Thanks for your interest.
Jean-Marc Saliou
APAM astroclub – France

Webmaster’s note: ASOD viewers have probably noticed that Comet Jacques has been the focus of the last few days. This reflects the great number of excellent sketches submitted of this comet.

4 Dimensions for Jacques

C/2014 E2 Jacques - August 24, 2014
C/2014 E2 Jacques – August 24, 2014
C/2014 E2 Jacques - August 24, 2014
C/2014 E2 Jacques – August 24, 2014

Object Name (C/2014 E2 Jacques)
Object Type (Comet)
Location (Varages Provence France)
Date (24-08-2014)
Media (watercolour, 4 white paper, Paint.net and 3D photo maker)
With our sketches we are staying with 2D only, the two dimensions of our papers.
So, I project to reach 3D with anaglyph (cyan-red) glasses. It’s not so easy to make four watercolour layers, two inverted one naked eye for the sky and another through the eyepiece for the comet, plus two classical views one for the telescope and one for the landscape… and then compile all of them with stereo slip.

But on top of that I want to reach another dimension, the time! Today, it was the good time to try that!
This Lautter refractor, was build in 1830 ! The telescope and this lovely mount aren’t copies but originals. In the year 1830, the comet Jacques was very far from the today’s orbit. To give an idea of this 1830 old-time, we just invent photography and railway, the country of Belgium, the cities of Miami and Victoria doesn’t exist yet. That gives us an idea of the fourth dimension.
The light coming from the comet Jacques was seen trough those very old lenses.
The watercolours show this old lady refractor of Jean-Luc and Caroline, my friends from the “La Blaque” domain, near Varages in Provence.
This antiquity was shown for the first time to the public during our yearly star party : august 2014 24th; what a success! I was lucky to receive some EP time (just 15 minutes) to sketch the comet Jacques. Regarding the long queue of curious waiting for a view of the comet I was quite happy.
A diameter of 180mm f/d 15 with a 40mm eyepiece gives a magnification of 67X. The end time for the comet field was 21:45 UTC.

To see the 3D effect of the second picture you have to use anaglyph glasses.

Clear sky to you all !

Michel Deconinck

Comet C / 2014 E2 Jacques

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques - August 24, 2014
Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques – August 24, 2014

– Object name: C / 2014 E2 Jacques
– Subject Type: Comet
– Location: Pueblonuevo Bullaque; Ciudad Real (Spain)
– Date: 08/24/2014 Time: 00:30 TU
– Media: 0.5b graphite pencil, HB 2.5; Dither and processed for inverting black with GIMP 2.8 software
– Telescope: achromatic refractor; 152mm lens; 1200mm focal length; focal ratio F / 7.9
– Mount: HEQ5 Pro goto equatorial
– Eye: 25mm William Optics 2 “48X with 1.5 ° real field
– Observing conditions: wind calm; 4/5 stability; 4/5 transparency and an approximate limiting magnitude, at first glance at the zenith of 6

Greetings and thank you very much
Web: http://elportaldelaastronomia.wordpress.com/
Francisco José Caleya