January 2015 – The Amazing Sky

January 31, 2015January 31, 2015

Heads Up! – A Picturesque Snow Moonrise

This Tuesday, Feb. 3, watch the Full “Snow” Moon rise accompanied by the giant planet Jupiter.

Tuesday is Full Moon, the February “Snow Moon” according to some interpretations. Indeed, from most places in North America the Moon will rise over a snow-covered landscape to light the winter night.

This Full Moon is also special because it will pair with bright Jupiter. Both worlds are now at or near “opposition.”

Any Full Moon is always opposite the Sun – that’s why it is fully illuminated by the Sun.

But Jupiter is also near its annual opposition point in its orbit. The official date of opposition is Friday, Feb. 6. On that date Earth passes directly between the Sun and Jupiter – our three worlds lie in a line across the solar system. We are then closest to Jupiter and Jupiter appears opposite the Sun.

Being opposite the Sun, Jupiter rises as the Sun sets. And so will the Full Moon on Tuesday, accompanied by the giant planet now at its brightest for the year.

Look east at sunset. It will be a photogenic sight for the prepared photographer.

But you can also enjoy it with just the unaided eyes or binoculars, as the two worlds will appear about a binocular field apart, 5 degrees.

The double circles on the chart mark the position of the Earth’s shadow, which is always opposite the Sun. You can’t see our shadow out in space – not unless the Full Moon passes through it, which it will on April 4, for a total eclipse of the Moon. More about that in two months.

For now, enjoy the Snow Moon with the Giant Planet.

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

The Old Hearst Church in Moonlight

The Big Dipper and the Pole Star shine above the moonlit historic Hearst Church.

Tuesday was a productive evening of shooting in the moonlight. One of the best from the night pictures the Hearst Church in the rustic town of Pinos Altos in the Gila Forest of southern New Mexico.

The Big Dipper stars shine at right, with the Pointer stars in the Bowl aiming at Polaris above the Church. Illumination is from a waxing quarter Moon and from some decorative lights in the yard next door across the street.

The Hearst Church was opened in May 1898 and indeed is named for the famous Hearst family. Money to build the church was raised by the local mining families with a major donation from Phoebe Hearst, wife of the mining magnate and senator George Hearst. Phoebe was also mother to newspaper tychoon William Randolph Hearst, the inspiration for Orson Welles’ movie Citizen Kane. Gold that decorates Hearst’s mansion in California came from the family mine near Pinos Altos.

As the mining boom went bust the Methodist church lost its pastor then its congregation. It is now an art gallery and home to the Grant County Art Guild. See their website for details on the historic church.

While I know many of my blog’s followers enjoy the photos for their own sake, lots of folks also like to learn more about the technical aspects of the images.

So with this blog, and selected others in future, I’ll present a bit more of the “how-to” information.

How the Image Was Shot and Processed

Taking the image could not have been simpler. It is a single 45-second exposure at f/2.8 with the 24mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 800, on a static tripod, about as basic as you get for nightscape shooting. There is no fancy stacking or compositing.

The trick is still in the processing, however. Here is a breakdown of the Photoshop CC 2014 file and its various layers. Every aspect of the processing is non-destructive. No pixels were ever harmed in the process. Every adjustment can be tweaked and modified after the fact.

< Star spikes top layer added with “Astronomy Tools” actions from Noel Carboni.

< Sharpening layer created from stamping the final layers into one layer using the Command-Option-Shift-E command, then a High Pass filter applied, blended with Soft Light and masked to sharpen just the ground.

< Adjustment layers for colour, brightness & contrast, and levels, applied to the sky and ground separately with masks, created using Quick Selection Tool and Refine Edge.

< A Clone & Heal layer for wiping out the power lines & power pole, using the Patch & Spot Healing Tools.

< The base image, opened from the developed Raw file as a Smart Object, with noise reduction and sharpening applied as Smart Filters.

I know this won’t explain all the processing steps but I hope it provides some idea of what goes into a nightscape.

All this and much more will be explained in an upcoming half-day “Photoshop for Astronomy” Workshop I’m presenting Saturday, May 9. If you are in the Calgary, Alberta area, consider joining us. For details and to register, see the All-Star Telescope web page.

Also, my ebook featured below has all the details on shooting and processing images like these.

Clear skies and happy shooting!

January 24, 2015

Triple Shadow Transit on Jupiter

Jupiter put on quite a show last night, with transits galore on its cloud tops.

Not since Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter in 1994 have I witnessed such amazing and dramatic sights on Jupiter.

Last night, January 23, was the night of the triple shadow transits on Jupiter, with Io, Europa and Callisto all casting their shadows onto the Jovian cloud tops at one, but just for 24 minutes.

In addition, the disk of Callisto and Io were also superimposed on the disk, though only Callisto’s disk was obvious. With it, for a time I could see Jupiter dotted with 4 dark spots.

I make no claims that the video shows amazing detail. I shot it with the biggest telescope I have at my disposal here in New Mexico, a short-focus 92mm refractor. Such an event really needed a large reflector with lots of focal length to do it justice and magnify Jupiter enough to see the details well.

However, I shot the video clips to serve as my personal souvenir of the event. I hope the video and my commentary convey some of the excitement of the night, in seeing an event we will not see repeated until 2032.

January 23, 2015

Heads Up! – Watch a Monster Asteroid Miss Us!

On Monday, January 26 North American stargazers have a ringside seat for the near miss of a monster asteroid.

On Monday night an asteroid known as 2004 BL86 will pass just 1.2 million kilometres from Earth, a close approach that brings it to within three times the distance to the Moon. Many small asteroids have made the news of late that have approached much closer than this.

The difference with 2004 BL86 is that this hurtling interplanetary rock is 1/2 kilometre across. That’s big for a near-Earth asteroid. If one this size were to hit Earth it would create a city- or region-devastating catastrophe of epic proportions.

No bigger asteroid is known to be coming this close to us until the year 2027 when 1999 AN10 comes as close as the Moon.

On Monday night 2004 BL86 will be moving so fast (about 2 degrees an hour) that, through a telescope, you should be able to see it move in real time, appearing as a dim star gliding against the background stars.

The best time to watch will be between 10 and 11 p.m. Mountain Time (or midnight to 1 a.m. Eastern) when the asteroid will be buzzing past the Beehive star cluster, aka Messier 44. It will be high in the east and any star chart, planetarium software or GoTo telescope will show you where to find the Beehive cluster in Cancer. From a dark site, the Beehive appears as a fuzzy glow in Cancer between Gemini and Leo.

Locate the Beehive in a low-power, wide-field eyepiece. The asteroid will be moving up (north) past the cluster on the east side of the cluster. The diagram provides a normal view matching the naked-eye orientation of the sky, with north up and east to the left.

In a Newtonian telescope the field will appear upside down – the asteroid will appear to the right of the cluster moving down. In a refractor or Cassegrain telescope with a star diagonal the field will appear mirror-reversed, with the asteroid again on the right side of the cluster, but moving up.

The asteroid will appear at ninth magnitude, the brightness of some of the moderate brightness stars plotted. Using any telescope 80mm or larger in aperture, picking out a ninth mag star should be easy, even in city skies and with the waxing Moon up, as long as you have clear skies. Just be sure to use your lowest power.

Happy asteroid hunting! Just remember to duck!

For more info and finder charts, see Sky and Telescope’s page.

January 21, 2015

Moon, Mercury and Venus in Conjunction

This was the scene on Wednesday night, as the waxing Moon formed a triangle with Mercury and Venus.

Skies cleared nicely this evening, providing a beautiful view and photogenic scene of the inner planets near the waxing Moon.

On January 21 the crescent Moon appeared with Venus (at left) and Mercury (below), and with the trio above the lights of Silver City, New Mexico.

Compare this view of reality with the graphic from my blog of a few days ago, and with a similar scene a month earlier with the Moon closer to Venus but with no Mercury.

With the Moon now returning to the sky, sighting Comet Lovejoy will become more difficult.

On Thursday night, January 22, the Moon will be higher and shine near Mars.

Happy viewing!

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015

Heads Up! – Triple Shadow Dance on Jupiter

Something very special is going to happen on Jupiter this Friday night.

If you have a telescope be sure to train it on Jupiter Friday evening or into Saturday morning for a rare sight. For 24 minutes we will see three of Jupiter’s moons casting their shadows onto Jupiter’s cloud tops at once.

We will not see this sight again until March 20, 2032.

The shadows of the Jovian moons Io, Europa and Callisto will be on the disk of Jupiter from:

• 1:28 a.m. until 1:52 a.m. EST, after midnight on January 27 for those in eastern North America.

For those in western North America the times are:

• 11:28 p.m. until 11:52 p.m. MST, or 10:28 p.m. to 10:52 p.m. PST, before midnight on January 26.

Callisto’s shadow enters the disk earlier in the evening for North America, at 10:11 p.m. EST. A double shadow transit begins when the small but intense shadow of Io enters the disk at 11:35 p.m. EST. Double shadow transits are fairly common.

The rare sight begins just under two hours later, at 1:28 a.m. EST or 11:28 p.m. MST when Europa’s shadow also enters the disk.

It is short-lived, however. The fast-moving shadow of Io leaves the disk 24 minutes later, at 1:52 a.m. EST, or 11:52 p.m. MST, leaving only the shadows of Callisto and Europa on the disk. (The graphic illustrates the triple transit halfway through the 24-minute-long window.)

You’ll need a telescope to witness this rare dance of shadows. An 80mm refractor or 100mm reflector should suffice. Use high power. The shadows will appear as dark spots of varying size and intensity. Io’s will be darkest, Callisto’s will be largest but less intense. Europa’s shadow will look the smallest.

The disks of Io and Callisto will also be on the disk but will appear as bright dots, making them harder to pick out against the bright cloud bands.

Jupiter is the brightest object in the eastern sky in the late evening. You can’t miss it!

For more details see Sky and Telescope’s webpage.

January 19, 2015

Heads Up! Sight the Thin Moon by Mercury & Venus

On Wednesday, January 21 look low in the southwest for a conjunction of the Moon and inner planets.

Mercury is ending its brief evening appearance and proximity to Venus. But this week you can still spot it a binocular field or so below Venus as it descends back toward the Sun.

On Wednesday, January 21, look low in the southwest to sight the thin waxing crescent Moon sitting near Venus and Mercury, forming a wide triangle of inner rocky worlds.

The other rocky planet in the inner solar system, Mars, shines higher up in the evening twilight as a moderate brightness reddish star. The next night, January 22, the waxing Moon will sit beside Mars in a wide conjunction.

Catch the Moon-Mercury-Venus trio early, as they will set an hour or so after local sunset.

Clear skies!

January 18, 2015

Lovejoy Passes the Pleiades

Tonight Comet Lovejoy paired with the Pleiades star cluster.

Sunday, January 18 was the night to catch the ever-photogenic Comet Lovejoy at its best and closest to the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. Its long blue ion tail stretched back past the Pleiades.

I thought the tail would be passing right over the star cluster, but not so. At least not when I was shooting it at about 7:30 pm MST.

Still, the combination made a fine pairing of cosmic blue objects for the camera. The top image is with a 135mm telephoto.

This wide-angle image, with a 24mm lens, takes in many of the northern winter constellations, from Orion at bottom, to Auriga at top, with Taurus in the middle. Notice the dark tendrils of the Taurus Dark Clouds.

At right, beside the Pleiades, is the green and blue comet, with its tail reaching back past the Pleiades.

I shot both images from the dark skies of City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico, which has proven to be one of the finest places on the planet for watching Lovejoy!

January 17, 2015January 17, 2015

Night of the Comet

What a beautifully photogenic comet Lovejoy is proving to be!

On Friday, January 16, I caught Comet Lovejoy crossing the ecliptic as it travels through Taurus. The long exposure above shows it amid the star clusters, nebulas, and dark clouds of Taurus and Perseus.

The blue Pleiades is at centre, and the red California Nebula is at top. Throughout are the dark tendrils of the dusty Taurus Dark Clouds.

The long blue ion tail of Lovejoy now extends back 15° to 20° on photos and is easy to trace for half that distance in binoculars in a dark sky.

I turned the top photo 90° to orient the comet so it points “down.”

However, this wide-angle nightscape shows the real orientation of the comet, high in the sky above Orion, here rising over the rock formations of City of Rocks State Park, my favourite dark sky site in this area of New Mexico.

Taken earlier in the evening, this ultra-wide image shows the comet at top, with its blue tail oriented along the ecliptic and aligned with the Zodiacal Light, from the glow of sunlight reflecting off comet dust in the inner solar system.

The Zodiacal Light follows the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system and where we find the planets, such as Mars and Venus at bottom here. The comet seems to point toward the Sun, now below the horizon here at the base of the Zodiacal Light. That’s just as it should be! Comet gas tails always point away from the Sun, as they are blown away from the comet’s head by the solar wind.

This night Comet Lovejoy was crossing the ecliptic, as its orbit continues to take it north in a path almost perpendicular to the ecliptic. While planets orbit in the ecliptic plane, most comets do not. They can have orbits oriented at all kinds of angles off the ecliptic plane.

But on January 16 Comet Lovejoy crossed the ecliptic, placing it at the apex of the Zodiacal Light.

This wider view takes in the Zodiacal Light, the comet and Orion rising at left.

This was a marvellous “night of the comet.”

January 17, 2015

A Stunning Sky of Subtle Glows

What a fabulous night! The desert sky was full of subtle glows and myriad stars.

Friday, January 16 was a stunning evening for stargazing. I took the opportunity to shoot a 360° panorama of the evening sky, recording a host of subtle glows.

The Zodiacal Light reaches up from the western horizon and the last vestiges of evening twilight. This is the glow of sunlight reflecting off cometary dust particles in the inner solar system. From the clear desert skies it is brilliant.

The dark of the Moon periods in January, February and March are the best times of the year to see the evening Zodiacal Light from the northern hemisphere.

The Milky Way arches across the eastern sky from Cygnus to Canis Major. That’s light from billions of stars in our Galaxy.

At centre, in the circular fish-eye image above, is the small wisp of green Comet Lovejoy, near the zenith overhead and appearing at the apex of the Zodiacal Light’s tapering pyramid of light.

This view is from the same images used to create the circular all-sky scene at top, but projected in a rectangular 360° format.

Technical notes:

I shot 8 segments for the panorama, each a 1-minute exposure at f/2.8 with a 15mm lens oriented in portrait mode, and using a Canon 6D at ISO 3200. There was no tracking – the camera was just on a tripod. Each segment is 45° apart.

I used PTGui software to stitch the segments into one seamless scene.

January 16, 2015January 16, 2015

Comet Lovejoy Moving Amid the Stars

Comet Lovejoy is now at its best. I captured a time-lapse of it moving through the stars.

Last night I shot Comet Lovejoy with a couple of cameras. One, using a telephoto lens, captured the green comet with its long blue ion tail near the blue Pleiades star cluster (at top). The comet is passing west of the Pleiades over the next few nights, providing some wonderfully photogenic compositions.

Clear skies most of the night allowed me to also shoot through the telescope, taking 280 close-up images of the comet over 5 hours as the telescope tracked the stars. Assembled into a time-lapse movie, the result shows the comet slowly gliding against the background stars in its orbit around the Sun.

Expand the video frame to see it properly.

Each of the 280 frames is a 1-minute exposure, taken at ISO 6400, using a TMB 92mm refractor at f/4.4. I started the sequence just before 7pm and ended it just before midnight. So the movie records about 5 hours of motion.

Toward the end some cloud drifting through causes the stars to bloat up momentarily. And as the comet set lower into the west sky conditions got worse compared to the start of the sequence when the comet was at its highest in the south.

However, judicious processing using the time-lapse software LRTimelapse and Sequence helped compensate for the changing sky conditions.

Do take a look at this fine comet. The tail is visible in binoculars from a dark site.

– Alan, January 16, 2015 / © Alan Dyer 2015 / amazingsky.com

January 11, 2015

Finding Lovejoy in the Stars

The coming week is the best time to sight Comet Lovejoy as it sails through Taurus.

Here’s a finder chart for locating Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) over the next week as it climbs higher in our southern sky. It is well-placed high in the south as it gets dark each evening.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t pass near any really bright stars to serve as a convenient jumping off point for finding the comet. Look west (right) of the stars of Taurus the bull and the bright star Aldebaran by 2 to 3 binocular fields. In a dark sky, look for a fuzzy star in your binoculars. Once you find it with optics, if your sky is dark enough, you should be able to see it naked eye, but only just. In the city, forget it!

On the nights of January 17 to 19 Comet Lovejoy will be just over a binocular field to the right (west) of the distinctive Pleiades star cluster, marked here as M45, for Messier 45.

Here’s the comet as it appeared on Saturday night, January 10, with it west of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster marking the head of Taurus and well below the Pleiades at top.

This is a closer view, with a telephoto lens, of the comet from Sunday night, January 11, showing how its faint blue ion tail stretches back several degrees. However, only the long exposures used here pick up the full extent of the tail. Visually, even through binoculars, just a hint of a tail is visible extending to the left away from the large fuzzy coma, or head of the comet.

This is a closer view of the coma and ion tail, shot through a telescope on Sunday night, January 11. It shows some of the fine structure in the ion tail that is changing hourly and nightly, shaped in part by gusts of solar wind.

The comet is now at at its brightest, while the evening sky is now dark and moonless. So head to a dark sky site, keep warm, and look up to enjoy our winter comet, coming to us from Australia where it was discovered by Terry Lovejoy.

Chart courtesy Starry Night™/Simulation Curriculum.

January 10, 2015January 10, 2015

Shooting the Inner Planet Pairing

Here is the Mercury-Venus conjunction for real, from Saturday night.

In my last post I described the upcoming weekend conjunction of Mercury near Venus. Well, here’s the real thing, in shots from Saturday night, January 10.

Mercury is the dimmer of the two objects in the colourful evening twilight in the enchanted skies of New Mexico.

The top photo is a “normal” lens view of the scene. The photo below zooms in on the pair with a telephoto lens.

Mercury is nearing its greatest angle away from the Sun and will remain near Venus for the next week. So if skies are clear in the early evening, take a look. Mercury is very easy to sight with unaided eyes. If you have not seen the innermost planet, this is a good chance to check it off your “to see” list.

A fact to keep in mind: both planets have probes orbiting them, but both are nearing the end of their missions. Europe’s Venus Express has ended its mission and is about to make its final plunge into the dense Venusian atmosphere.

At Mercury, NASA’s Messenger probe has gained a small reprieve, with it now expecting to impact on Mercury at the end of April, a month later than expected.

January 8, 2015January 8, 2015

Sight the Inner Planet Pairing

The two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, meet up in the dusk sky this weekend.

While I usually devote my blog to showcasing my photos of celestial events and wonders, a New Year’s resolution for me was to expand my blog to include alerts to what’s coming up in the sky. Here’s the first entry for 2015.

This weekend and for the following week (January 9 to 18) look southwest to see brilliant Venus accompanied in a close conjunction by elusive Mercury.

Look low in the southwest between 5 and 6 pm local time.

Venus is brilliant and hard to miss. Yes, that’s Venus not an aircraft!

But Mercury is fainter and is best seen at first in binoculars, as a dimmer star near Venus. Once you sight it, it’ll be easy to see naked eye, as long as your evening sky is clear.

Mercury passes less than a degree from Venus this weekend (the circle shows a typical 7° binocular field).

Here are the two planets as they appeared last Sunday night, when they were farther apart.

After Sunday, Mercury continues to climb higher, separating from Venus, as it moves along the green orbital path shown here. Mercury reaches its highest angle away from the Sun on Wednesday, January 14 – what we call “greatest elongation.”

It then drops back toward the Sun and horizon. We won’t be able to see Mercury well again in the west until early May,

Happy planet hunting!

P.S. Visit my webpage to download a PDF of a free 2015 Sky Calendar.

January 6, 2015January 6, 2015

Catching A Comet

Tonight I caught a close-up of the green head and blue tail of Comet Lovejoy.

Clear skies tonight, Tuesday, January 6, allowed me to shoot Comet Lovejoy from home using a telescope and guiding system for a close-up view. I had just over half an hour of darkness between end of twilight at 6:30 and moonrise at 7:15 but that’s all I needed to grab several guided exposures.

This telescopic shot takes in a field of about 5 by 3 degrees, a little smaller than what most binoculars would show.

The image is a stack of four 2-minute exposures with the telescope guiding on the fast-moving comet. Comet Lovejoy is now at its closest point to Earth and moving fairly rapidly across the sky. So I guided on the comet, letting the stars trail slightly over the 8 minutes of exposure time.

The head of the comet glows bright green in photos, from glowing diatomic carbon, while the tail glows blue from other ionized gases streaming away from the head, or coma. The source of it all is a tiny icy nucleus completely hidden from view amid the glowing gases.

Comet Lovejoy was easy in binoculars, which showed a bare hint of the tail in dark skies. I could see the comet naked eye, but only by knowing just where to look. It appeared as a slightly fuzzy star, but unless you knew what you were looking at you wouldn’t know it was comet. This is a binocular comet for dark skies. But a very nice binocular comet.

January 5, 2015January 6, 2015

Comet on the Rocks

Comet Lovejoy glows above the granite spires of City of Rocks State Park.

With clouds forecast for the rest of the week I made the best of it tonight and headed out to my favourite local spot for nightscape images, the City of Rocks State Park on Highway 180 between Silver City and Deming, New Mexico.

It was a quick photo session tonight. I arrived at just the right time to catch the comet and Orion rising behind the rock formations, with the moonlight beginning to illuminate the rocky rims.

The comet is the small green spot just right of centre at the top. It is now climbing quite high in the southern sky as it comes up north. I could see it easily in binoculars as a large fuzzy spot and I thought I could just make it out with unaided eyes once I knew just where to look.

This will be a fine comet for binoculars once the Moon gets out of the way later this week, though you will need to be at a dark site. The comet is diffuse and will be utterly washed out by city lights. This is no Hale-Bopp! But as comets go, Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 is a nice one.

January 4, 2015January 4, 2015

Comet Lovejoy in the Moonlight

Sunday night, January 4, proved stunningly clear, ideal for seeing and shooting Comet Lovejoy in the moonlight.

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is moving rapidly north and this week sits just west of Orion. To capture it tonight I went out to the City of Rocks State Park, seeking a scenic foreground, with Orion rising with the comet.

The Full Moon is just off frame at left, unavoidably glaring into the frame.

Comet Lovejoy appears as a small green fuzzy spot at upper right.

In this view I had to crop Orion in order to fit in the landscape and the comet, at upper right. Three short aircraft contrails appear at the bottom. The Full Moon illuminates the southern New Mexico landscape.

In the coming week, with the Moon rising later each night, and the comet climbing higher, it will become much easier to see in a dark sky.

However, while Comet Lovejoy might be technically visible to the unaided eye, you really need binoculars to pick it out. We’ll see if it sports much of a tail once we sight it again in a dark moonless sky.