observing – The Amazing Sky

December 18, 2024December 21, 2024

Under the Great Southern Sky (2024)

After an absence of seven years it was great to be back under the fabulous sky of the Southern Hemisphere, home to the best deep-space splendours. Here’s my sky tour…

From 2000 to 2017, the year of my last previous trip Down Under, I had been travelling to the Southern Hemisphere, sometimes to Chile but most often to Australia, once a year or biennially. There’s just so much to see and photograph in the southern sky.

This is a panorama of the southernmost portion of the Milky Way, from the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri at far left, to Sirius, the brightest nighttime star, at far right. The second brightest star, Canopus, is at bottom. This is a panorama of 3 segments, each a stack of 10 to 20 sub-frames, each 4 minutes at ISO 800 with the Canon Ra and Canon RF28-70mm lens at f/2.

While the deep-south sky represents perhaps just 30 percent of the entire celestial sphere, it contains arguably the best of everything in the sky: the best nebulas, the best star clusters, the best galaxies, and certainly the best view of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

No astronomical life is complete without a visit (or two or more!) to the lands south of the equator, ideally to a latitude of about 20° to 35° South. For the first time since 2017, I headed south this past March, in 2024. My belated blog takes you on a tour of the great southern sky.

NOTE: My blog is illustrated with lots of images, so it might take a while to load. Click or tap on an image to bring it up full screen. For the technically curious, I have included gear and exposure details in the captions.

Far Away in Australia

Yes, it’s long way to go — a 15-hour-flight from Canada. But Australia is my favourite destination down under. I can speak the language (sort of!), and have learned to drive on the left. Even after a seven year absence, my brain took only a few minutes to adjust once again to most of the car, and opposing traffic, being on the “wrong side” of me.

After a visit with the “relos” (Aussie for “relatives”) in Sydney and on the Central Coast of New South Wales, I loaded up all the telescope gear my folks had been kindly storing for me for two decades, and headed inland. Not really Outback. And not really “bush.”

My destination in March, as it usually has been on my many visits (this was my 12th time to Australia), was Coonabarabran in the Central West of NSW. It bills itself as the “Astronomy Capital of Australia.”

And rightly so, as nearby is the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia’s largest complex of optical telescopes (check the slide show above). I had a great tour again — thanks, Blake! — of the big 4-metre AAT that towers over the rest of the observatories on the mountain.

The Upside-Down Sky

A pano of Mirrabook Cottage, my astronomy retreat site.

My home for the first week in “Coona,” as the waning Moon got out of the way, was the Mirrabook Cottage off Timor Road, ideal as an astrophoto retreat. The view to the east and south (the view above) is partly obscured by gum trees, but not enough to prevent shooting targets around the South Celestial Pole, such as the Magellanic Clouds, as I show below.

The scope came with me this time, but the mount had been in Oz for 20 years.

The first order of the day upon arriving was to sort out my gear, to see if it was all working. My main Oz telescope, a legendary Astro-Physics Traveler refractor that I had stored in Australia since the early 2000s, came home with me in 2017, for use at the 2017, 2023, and 2024 solar eclipses in North America (the links take you to blogs for those eclipses) .

So this year I brought another little refractor with me, the diminutive Sharpstar 61mm EDPH III. Many of the images I present here I shot with the Sharpstar, on the veteran Astro-Physics AP400 mount I show above, which had lived in Australia for two decades. It came home with me this time, to use the very next month at the April total eclipse in Quebec. My blog with the final music video from that eclipse is here.

But I also brought a little star tracker, an MSM Nomad, which I reviewed here, just in case the old iOptron tracker I had in Australia, but hadn’t used since 2017, did not work. I needn’t have feared. It was the new Nomad that had issues, with the iOptron serving me well as a back-up for wide-angle Milky Way images.

This is a wide-angle view of the constellations of the northern hemisphere winter, but seen from the southern hemisphere looking north on an austral autumn night, March 3, 2024. Shot on the MSM Nomad tracker, for a blend of 4 x 2-minutes tracked at ISO 1600 for the sky and 2 x 2-minutes untracked at ISO 800 for the ground.

From Mirrabook looking north affords a fine view of a sky familiar to us northerners — if we stand on our heads! Orion and the stars of “winter” are there but upside-down for us, with the constellations that are overhead for us at home, now low in the north.

I shot all the images presented here during my two-week Oz astrophoto extravaganza. I had clear skies every night, bar for a couple that were welcome breaks!

A more complete gallery of my images from Australia in 2024 is here on my Flickr site.

This is a wide-angle view of the southern Milky Way, here from Carina and Crux at lower left up to Orion and Monoceros at upper right. On the MSM Nomad tracker, for a stack of 10 x 3-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the TTArtisan 11mm lens on the Canon Ra.

South of Orion, and overhead from Australia (as I show above), is the dimmer section of the Milky Way passing through constellations once part of the huge celestial ship Argo Navis, now broken into Puppis the Aft Deck, Vela the Sails, and Carina the Keel, the latter containing the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus, second only to Sirius nearby in Canis Major.

Puppis and Vela

Though somewhat obscure and hard to pick out as distinctive patterns, Puppis and Vela are filled with deep-sky wonders.

The biggest is so vast it covers as much sky as a hand length, held at arm’s length. But it is totally invisible to the eye, even aided by optics.

This is a framing of the vast Gum Nebula in the southern Milky Way, that sprawls over the constellations of Vela and Puppis. This is a stack of 12 x 5 minutes at ISO 1600 and f/2 with the Astronomik 12nm H-alpha clip-in filter, blended onto the base unfiltered images from a stack of 14 x 3 minutes at f/2.8, all with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm on the red-sensitive Canon Ra camera, and on the MSM Nomad tracker.

This is the huge Gum Nebula, discovered in 1955 by Australian astronomer Colin Gum, working at the Mt. Stromlo Observatory near Canberra. It might be a star-forming nebula shaped by stellar winds, or it might be the exploded debris of a nearby supernova star.

Within the Gum Nebula in Vela is a smaller complex of arcs and fragments I show below. This definitely is a supernova remnant, one that exploded about 11,000 years ago some 900 light years away. But it, too, is large, making it a perfect target for the little refractor, and a telephoto lens, with both versions below.

This frames most of the intricate arcs and loops of the Vela Supernova Remnant (SNR). This is a stack of 8 x 10-minute exposures shot through an IDAS NBZ dual narrowband filter to bring out the nebulosity, blended with a stack of 12 x 5-minute exposures with no filter. All with the filter-modified Canon EOS R camera, on the Sharpstar 61 EDPH III refractor at f/4.4.

This is the large Vela Supernova Remnant in a stack of 15 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 1000. With a broadband filter.

The area is also home to rich fields of bright star clusters (two are below), many intertwined with wreaths of star-forming nebulosity. These rival or exceed the more famous northern targets of the Messier Catalogue compiled between 1774 and 1781 by Charles Messier. It took several more decades before astronomers from the north catalogued the sky to the south.

This is the bright, large and colourful naked-eye star cluster NGC 2516 in Carina, aka the Southern Beehive Cluster, near the bright star Avior (Epsilon Carinae) in Carina. This is a stack of 8 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and the Canon R at ISO 800.

This frames a pair of contrasting and superb star clusters in Puppis: rich NGC 2477 on the left and sparse but bright NGC 2451 on the right, the latter centred on the orange star c Puppis. This is a stack of 8 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and the modified Canon R at ISO 800.

Carina and Crux

Continuing deeper down the Milky Way we come to its most southerly portion rich in nebulas and clusters that outclass anything up north. This is also the brightest part of the Milky Way after the Galactic Centre.

This is the showpiece nebula of the southern skies, the Carina Nebula. The bright and rich Football Cluster, aka the Black Arrow Cluster or Pincushion Cluster, is at upper left. With the Sharpstar refractor at f/4.4 and filter-modified Canon R at ISO 3200 for narrowband filtered shots and ISO 800 for unfiltered shots.

The Carina Nebula is larger than the more famous Orion Nebula farther north. In the eyepiece it is a glowing cloud painted in shades of grey and crossed by intersecting dark lanes of dust. Photographs reveal even more intricate details, and the magenta tints of glowing hydrogen.

At upper left is the “Football Cluster,” as Aussies call it, or the Black Arrow Cluster, aka NGC 3532. It is surely one of the finest open star clusters in the sky. John Herschel, who in the 19th century compiled the first thorough catalogue of southern objects, thought so. I agree!

This is the Southern Pleiades star cluster surrounding the naked eye star Theta Carinae. This is a stack of 8 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and the Canon R at ISO 800.

Below the Carina Nebula is a brighter and bluer star cluster known as the Southern Pleiades, or IC 2602. Like many of the targets I show here, it is visible to the unaided eye and is a fine sight in binoculars, which are all you need to enjoy most of the southern splendours.

This two-segment telephoto lens panorama extends from the colourful stars of Crux, the Southern Cross at left, to Carina at right. This is a panorama of two segments, each a stack of 12 x 2-minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 on Canon Ra at ISO 800.

East of the constellation of Carina is the iconic and colourful Southern Cross, or Crux, a star pattern on the flags of Australia, New Zealand and several other austral nations.

This frames the dark Coal Sack nebula in Crux, the Southern Cross. This is a stack of 8 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and the filter-modified Canon R at ISO 800.

Next to Crux is the darkest patch in the Milky Way, called the Coal Sack. Looking like a dark hole to the eye, in photos it breaks up into streaky dust lanes surrounded by famous star clusters, like the Jewel Box above it. Like many southern clusters, the aptly named (by Herschel) Jewel Box contains a variety of colourful stars.

This is the region around the star Lambda Centauri, with the Running Chicken Nebula or IC 2948, at bottom, surrounding the star Lambda Centauri and the loose open star cluster IC 2944. This is a stack of 12 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm at f/4.4 and filter-modified Canon EOS R camera at ISO 800.

Between Carina and Crux sits another wonderful field of clusters and nebulas, among them the more recently named Running Chicken Nebula. Can you see it? Above it is the Pearl Cluster, NGC 3766, also notable for its colourful member stars.

This frames the small constellation of Musca the Fly below the Southern Cross, with the dark nebula called the Dark Doodad, part of the Musca Dark Nebula Complex. This is a stack of 12 x 2 minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

Below Crux is the little constellation of Musca the Fly (many southern constellations are named for rather mundane creatures and objects). One of Musca’s prime sights is the long finger of dusty darkness called the Dark Doodad — yes, that’s its official name!

The Magellanic Clouds

All the targets I’ve shown so far reside in our Milky Way. The next two objects, named for 16th century explorer Ferdinand Magellan, are extra-galactic.

This is the southern Milky Way in Carina, Crux and Centaurus arcing over Mirrabook Cottage. At right are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. This is looking south to the South Celestial Pole which is near centre here.

The Clouds are other galaxies beyond ours, but nearby. They are among the closest galaxies and are considered satellites of the Milky Way. Both are visible to the unaided eye, looking like detached bits of the Milky Way. For deep-sky aficionados, they are reason enough to visit the Southern Hemisphere!

This frames the entire Small Magellanic Cloud, a member of the Local Group of galaxies and a companion of our Milky Way Galaxy. The field is 7.5 by 5º. This is a blend of a stack of 8 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an IDAS NBZ narrowband filter, and a stack of 12 x 5 minute unfiltered exposures at ISO 800, all with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and the filter-modified Canon R.

The Small Magellanic Cloud contains many star-forming nebulas that glow in hydrogen red and oxygen cyan. It is most famous for its spectacular neighbour, the great globular star cluster called 47 Tucanae, here at right. It is not actually part of the SMC — 47 Tuc is more than ten times closer, on the outskirts of our Galaxy.

As rich as the Small Cloud is, it pales in comparison to its bigger neighbour, the LMC. The Large Magellanic Cloud is almost a universe unto itself. Astronomers have devoted their careers to studying it.

This is the Large Magellanic Cloud, some 160,000 light years away. This is with the Sharpstar refractor in a stack of 12 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an IDAS NBZ dual-band (OIII and H-a) filter that adds most of the nebulosity, blended with a stack of 20 x 5-minute exposures at ISO 800 with no filter for the main “natural light” background content.

The biggest attraction in the LMC, one visible to the eye, is the Tarantula Nebula, the mass of cyan at left here. Many of the LMC’s nebulas emit light primarily from oxygen, not hydrogen. But figuring out which object is which can be tough. The LMC is filled with so many nebulas and clusters — and nebulous clusters — that no two catalogues of its contents ever quite agree on the identity and labels of all of them.

Northern Fields

The Magellanic Clouds are in the deep south, close to the Celestial Pole. A trip south of the equator is needed to see them. But on my trips to Australia I often like to shoot “northern” fields that I can’t get well at home in Canada.

This frames the variety of bright nebulas and dark dust clouds in and around the Belt and Sword of Orion. It shows how the bright Orion Nebula is really just the visible tip of a vast complex of gas and dust in Orion. This is a stack of 14 x 2 minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 and on the Canon Ra at ISO 800. The lens had an 82mm URTH Night broadband filter on it to enhance nebulas somewhat.

This is the Belt and Sword of Orion the Hunter surrounded by interstellar clouds. It’s low in my south from home, but high in the north down under. This is with a telephoto lens, not the telescope, captured under better and more comfortable skies than I have in winter in Canada.

This is the nebula-rich region of Monoceros the Unicorn, containing the bright Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, below the fainter and larger complex of nebulosity, NGC 2264, which contains the small (on this scale) Cone Nebula. This is a stack of 16 x 2 minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm lens at f/2 and on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

Nearby is another nebulous field but fainter, in Monoceros the Unicorn, containing the popular target, the Rosette Nebula, at bottom here. But there’s much more in the area that shows up only in long exposures under dark skies.

At top is the large Seagull Nebula, an area of mostly red hydrogen-alpha emission and is a region of star formation. At bottom is the small Thor’s Helmet, mostly emitting cyan oxygen III light. This is a blend of a stack of 12 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 3200 with the IDAS NBZ filter, and a stack of 12 x 5-minute exposures at ISO 800 with no filter. All with the Sharpstar 61mm refractor at f/4.4 and Canon EOS R camera.

A target I’ve often had difficulty shooting for one technical reason or another is the Seagull Nebula straddling the border between Monoceros and Canis Major. I got it this time, together with a contrasting blue-green nebula called Thor’s Helmet, at lower left. It’s the expelled outer layers of a hot but aging giant star called a Wolf-Rayet star.

The OzSky Star Party

After a successful week at Mirrabook, I packed up and moved down the road to the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel, home to the annual OzSky Star Safari I have now attended six times over the years. (I see as of this writing it is almost sold out for 2025!)

A colorful sunset over the telescope field at the OzSky star party, March 15, 2024, at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel, near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. Handheld with the RF28-70mm lens at 28mm on the Canon R.

Limited to about 30 people, OzSky (flip through the slide show above) caters to ardent amateur astronomers from overseas who want to revel in the southern sky, aided by the presence on site of a field of giant telescopes, delivered and set up by a great group of Australian astronomers, who show everyone how to run the computer-equipped scopes. And with tips on what to look at beyond the top “eye candy” targets I’m presenting here.

The views of the southern splendours through these 18- to 25-inch telescopes are well worth the price of admission!

Our group photo of the 2024 OzSky T-shirted attendees and hosts.

It is always a great week of stargazing and camaraderie. If you are thinking of “doing the southern sky,” I can think of no better way than by attending OzSky. While it is primarily geared to visual observers, a growing number of attendees have been lured into the “dark side” of astrophotography.

March and April, austral autumn, are good months to go anywhere down under, as you get views of the best of what the southern sky has to offer. The Milky Way is up all night, just as it is six months later in our northern autumn. That’s when I made my complementary Arizona pilgrimage this year, blogged about here.

The Dark Emu Rising

One of the great naked-eye sights at OzSky in its usual months of March or April is the Dark Emu rising after midnight.

This frames the Australian Aboriginal “Dark Emu” made of dark dust lanes in the Milky Way as it rises in the east. This is a blend of four tracked exposures for the sky and one untracked for the ground, all two minutes at ISO 1600 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the Canon EOS R camera.

It is an Australian Aboriginal constellation made of lanes of obscuring interstellar dust, from the Coal Sack on down the Milky Way to past the Galactic Centre. It is obvious to the eye — a constellation made of darkness.

Sagittarius and Scorpius

Late at night in the austral autumn months, the centre of the Galaxy region in Sagittarius and Scorpius comes up, presenting such a wealth of fields and targets it is hard to know where to begin.

There’s no richer and more colourful area of the sky than this field encompassing the Galactic Center in Sagittarius, at left, and the constellation of Scorpius seen in full here at centre and at right. This is a stack of 6 x 2 minute exposures with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

Yes, we can see this area from up north, but there’s nothing like seeing Scorpius crawling up the sky head first, and then shining from high overhead by dawn.

This is a mosaic of the tail of Scorpius — from the bright star cluster Messier 7 at upper left embedded in bright Milky Way starclouds, to the large star cluster NGC 6124 amid dusty dark lanes at lower right. This is a stitch of 3 segments: each a stack of 6 x 2 minute exposures with the Canon RF135mm at f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

Fields like this in the Tail of Scorpius are below my northern horizon at home. And it would still be low from a southern U.S. site, where natural green or red airglow can spoil images. I’ve never had an issue with airglow in Australia. Oz skies are as dark and clean as I have ever experienced.

The Southern Milky Way

The grand finale of a night at OzSky, or anywhere in the southern hemisphere in autumn, is the celestial sight that I think ranks as one of the sky’s best, up there with a total solar eclipse.

This is an all-sky view of the centre of the Galaxy region in Sagittarius and Scorpius nearly overhead before dawn on an austral autumn morning in March 2024. The Milky Way stretches from Aquila at bottom left to Crux and Carina at upper right. This is a stack of 4 x 4 minute tracked exposures, at f/2.8 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the filter-modified Canon EOS R at ISO 800.

That sight is the jaw-dropping pre-dawn panorama of our Galaxy stretched across the sky, with the bright core overhead and its spiral arms out to either side. It is obvious as a giant edge-on galaxy, with us far off-centre. The image above frames the entire Dark Emu.

One of my projects this year, for a moonless night with little likelihood of clouds coming through, was to work photographically along the Milky Way, down from Orion into Puppis and Vela, through Carina and Crux, and into Centaurus, then finishing with the galactic core area of Scorpius and Sagittarius.

This panorama takes in a 180° sweep of the Milky Way: from Sagittarius, Scorpius and the Galactic Centre at left, to Orion, Gemini and near the galactic anti-centre at right. This is a panorama of 11 segments, each a stack of 8 to 12 exposures, of 2 or 3 minutes each, with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at f/2.2 or f/2.8 on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

The resulting 180º panorama, made of 11 segments shot at 32° South, was an all-night affair, interrupted by a nearby tree and the oncoming dawn. It complements one I shot six months later from 32° North in Arizona. That panorama is included in my Comet Chasing blog.

The Moon Returns

OzSky, as are all star parties, is timed for the dark of the Moon. By the end of the week, with everyone well and truly satiated by starlight and dark skies, the crescent Moon was beginning to appear in the west. (Yes, that’s a young waxing evening Moon, here near Jupiter on March 14, 2024.)

The waxing crescent Moon near Jupiter in the western twilight sky on an austral autumn evening. This is a blend of exposures to retain the detail around the bright Moon and corona glow: long (2.5s) for the sky and stars, and three shorter (0.6s, 0.3s and 1/6s) exposures for the Moon.

It was time to pack the telescopes into their trailers, and for everyone to head back home, whether that be in Australia or elsewhere in the world.

If You Go…

If you travel to the Southern Hemisphere, at the very least take binoculars and star charts, especially simple “beginner” charts, as you’ll be starting over again identifying a new set of patterns and stars.

For astrophotography, a star tracker is all you need, plus of course a camera and lenses. Focal lengths from fish-eye to telephoto can all be put to use. But many of the best fields are suitable for framing with no more than a 135mm lens, as I used for some of the images here.

But take good charts to identify the location of the South Celestial Pole in Octans the Octant. With no bright “South Star,” it can be tricky getting that field into your polar alignment sighting scope. Once aligned, I tend to leave my rig set up where it is, and not have to repeat the process each night. That’s why it’s nice to base yourself under dark skies at a cottage like Mirrabook, and not be on the road and at a different site every night.

The Sharpstar 61mm scope on the Star Adventurer GTi mount.

If you want to have a telescope with you, one of the current generation of small (50mm to 70mm) apo refractors is ideal, either to look through or shoot through. For imaging, a small equatorial mount is essential, but can be tough to pack with its tripod. And you need to power it. The little Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi powered by its internal 8 AA batteries, but on a collapsible carbon fibre tripod, is a good choice.

For visual tours, the OzSky Star Safari will provide all the eyepiece time on big scopes you could ask for. It is imaging where you are on your own to come fully equipped and self-contained.

When will I be back? Perhaps not in 2025. But 2026 is a possibility, maybe a little later in austral autumn to get the Galactic Centre up sooner and higher before dawn. I’ve been to Australia in the winter months of June and July and it’s too cold! May perhaps.

My Oz observing site — with camera gear accompanied by a roo. Or a wallaby? Note the cover over my aligned tracker rig at right.

If you go once, you will be bitten (we hope not literally by one of Oz’s killer critters!) by the southern sky passion.

The only downside is that when I get home, often to poor weather, but even when skies are clear, I find that the home skies tend to lose their excitement and attraction. They just can’t compare to the great southern skies.

— Alan, December 18, 2024 / AmazingSky.com

May 31, 2020May 31, 2020

Following the Evening Star

It’s been a marvelous few months following Venus rise and fall across the evening sky, in its best show in eight years.

Venus is now gone from our western sky, but since late 2019 until late May 2020 it had dominated the sky as a brilliant evening star.

Here’s a gallery of Venus portraits I shot during its wonderful show these last few months.

The show began in November 2019 when rising Venus met declining Jupiter on November 23 for a fine conjunction of the two brightest planets in the evening twilight.

Venus and Jupiter over the Rockies — The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter of November 23, 2019, as seen over the foothills and front ranges of the Rocky Mountains in southwest Alberta. I shot this from the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, prior to their monthly Open House event that night with about 400 in attendance. But at this time it was just me and one other ardent photographer present to shoot this scene. This is an HDR blend (stacked using Adobe Camera Raw) of 5 exposures at 2/3-stop intervals, with the Rokinon 85mm lens at f/4 on the red-sensitive Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 100.

A week later I captured the line of the then three evening planets and the Moon across the southwest, defining the path of the ecliptic across the evening sky.

Moon and Three Planets Line-Up — The waxing crescent Moon and three planets in a line across the southwestern evening sky on Nov. 30, 2019, a chilly and frosty night. Saturn is below and to the right of the Moon, Venus is brightest at centre, while Jupiter is to the lower right of Venus just above the horizon. Those two planets were in conjunction a week earlier. The line of Moon and planets visibly defines the ecliptic low across the late autumn evening sky. This is from latitide 51° N. I shot this from the viewpoint at Blackfoot Crossing overlooking the Bow River in Alberta.

A week after that I took the opportunity to shoot some selfies of me with binoculars looking at Venus, as it met Saturn in a wide conjunction, with Venus then still low in the southwest. It was just beginning its climb up into the western sky.

Observing Venus and Saturn (Dec 8, 2019) — A selfie of me observing the grouping of Venus and Saturn in the evening twilight on Dec 8, 2019, using binoculars. They were closest to each other two nights later.

A month later in mid-winter, Venus was still rather low but brilliant even in a hazy moonlit sky, as I posed for another selfie, this time with a small telescope. These images are always useful for illustrations in books and magazines. And blogs!

Observing Venus in Clouds — A selfie of me observing Venus in clouds and in the moonlight. I am using the Explore Scientific 80mm refractor on the Twilight Nano alt-az mount. This was January 9, 2020.

By the end of February Venus had climbed high into the west, and was appearing monthly near the waxing crescent Moon. This is another binocular selfie from February 27.

Selfie with Binoculars Looking at Moon (Feb 27, 2020) — A selfie looking at the waxing crescent Moon near Venus on Feb 27, 2020, using the Celestron SkyMaster 15×70 Pro binoculars on the Sky-Watcher AZ5 mount for a steady view. This is a single shot with the Nikon D750 and Sigma 24mm lens, using the flash on the camera.

In March I visited Churchill, Manitoba just as the lockdown and travel restrictions were coming into effect. But our lone and last tour group at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre saw some fine auroras, as here on this evening with the Northern Lights appearing even in the twilight. And what’s that bright star? Venus, of course!

Aurora in Twilight at Churchill Northern Studies Centre — The Northern Lights in the evening twilight on March 18, 2020, as the aurora appeared in the early evening sky. Orion is at far left in this panorama, with Cassiopeia at top centre. Part of the Big Dipper is at far right. The bright object over the Centre is Venus, with the Pleiades above. This is a panorama of 8 segments with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 800 for 1.6 seconds each. Stitched with Photoshop.

Upon my return home to Alberta, I was able to shoot more panoramas on the prairies of the wonderful early spring sky with Orion setting into the twilight and Venus in Taurus shining below the iconic Pleiades star cluster.

Panorama of Venus and the Winter Stars (March 25, 2020) — This is a panorama of the evening sky on March 25, 2020, with brilliant Venus high in the west at centre just after the date (March 24) of its greatest elongation in the evening sky for 2020. It appears here about as high as it can get with the ecliptic tipped up to a high angle in spring. To the left is Orion and the winter stars in the twilight, including Sirius at far left. Just above the horizon right of centre in the bright twilight is the day-old thin crescent Moon about to set. Above Venus are the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters. This is a panorama of 5 segments with the Nikon D750 and 24mm Sigma lens, stitched with PTGui. Each segment was 8 seconds at ISO 400 and f/2.8.

March 26 was a superb night for catching Venus now at its highest and almost at its brightest at this appearance, as the waxing Moon appeared below it.

The evening scene on March 26, 2020 of the setting waxing crescent Moon below Venus which is below the Pleiades star cluster. At top centre is the Hyades star cluster and Aldebaran in Taurus. At left is Orion sinking into the twilight of a spring evening. The setting is the old farmstead near home. This is a stack of 7 exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one for the sky, all 10 seconds at f/2.8 with the 24mm Sigma lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 400.

The waxing crescent Moon with Earthshine and (above) Venus shine in the evening twilight sky over an icy pond near home, on March 26, 2020. Venus was just past greatest elongation from the Sun, and being spring with the high angle of the ecliptic, Venus was as high as it can get this year in an evening apparition. The Pleiades is at very top. This is a stack of 7 exposures for the ground to smooth noise and one for the sky, all 2.5 seconds at f.4 with the Sigma 24mm lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 200.

The highlight of the spring Venus season was its close approach to the Pleiades, which it passes only every 8 years. Here I am viewing the conjunction two days before the closest approach, with Orion over my shoulder.

Viewing Venus & Pleiades with Big Binoculars — A selfie of me viewing the close approach of Venus to the Pleiades star cluster on April 1, 2020, using big 15×70 Celestron SkyMaster Pro binoculars mounted on a Canadian-built Starlight Innovations binocular mount, a parallelogram-style mount. Orion is over my left shoulder; the Hyades is at centre above the mount. The waxing gibbous Moon provided the illumination. This is a stack of 4 images for the ground to smooth noise and 1 image for the sky to minimize trailing, all 13 seconds at f/5.6 with the Sigma 24mm lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 1600. Topaz Sharpen AI and DeNoise AI applied.

The night of closest approach, April 3, was cloudy, but here is a consolation closeup taken the next night with brilliant Venus departing the Seven Sisters.

Venus and the Pleiades - Close-Up (April 4, 2020) — Venus above the Pleiades star cluster, M45, on April 4, 2020, in the twilight and moonlight. Light from the gibbous Moon illuminated the sky, so no long exposure would reveal much detail in and around the Pleiades. Venus passes close to the Pleiades only every 8 years. Some light cloud this night added the glow. This is a stack of multiple exposures of varying lengths: 2 minutes, 30 seconds, 10 seconds and 2 seconds, blended with masks to prevent Venus from being too blown out while still recording the stars. All were with the SharpStar 140mm PH apo refractor with the 0.73x flattener/reducer for f/4.8 and at ISO 400 with the Canon EOS Ra.

Later in April Venus reached its greatest brilliancy, at magnitude -4.7, the date when the size of is disk, phase, and proximity to Earth converge to make Venus as bright as possible. On this night I shot the Moon, then 30° away from Venus and the planet with the same gear to show their relative sizes and similar crescent phase this night. The caption provides more details.

Moon and Venus Crescents Compared — A collage of two images of the Moon and Venus taken minutes apart on April 28, 2020, to show the similarity in their phases this night, April 28, 2020. Both images were shot with the same focal length and camera and so are identical in image scale, to compare their apparent sizes. I have not enlarged Venus, but I have put a frame around it to emphasize that its image has been layered in as a composite. The Moon was a 5.6-day-old waxing crescent this night, 32% illuminated. Venus was at its greatest brilliancy, or Greatest Illuminated Extent, with a disk 38 arc seconds across and 27% illuminated, so slightly less. Taken with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor with a 2X Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1600mm and with the Canon 60Da APS-sensor camera. The Moon image is the full frame of the sensor, uncropped. Both images are single short exposures at ISO 100.

A week later, with Venus just past its point of greatest brilliancy, I shot the planet by daylight in the early evening sky, using a telescope to zoom into the planet to show its waning crescent phase. By this time the phase was obvious in binoculars.

Venus in the Day Sky — Venus in the daytime sky and through some thin clouds, on May 5, 2020, with Venus at a very high apparition. This was at about 7 pm with the Sun still well up in the early evening, to show how well Venus can be seen in the daytime sky when it is at a wider angle from the Sun; and indeed is often the best time to view it as the planet’s brilliance is muted. This is a single 1/400-second exposure at ISO 100 with the Canon 60Da through the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor and 2X Barlow for f/12 and 1600mm focal length.

But Venus was now dropping rapidly from sight. By May 23, it was low in the twilight and below Mercury, then at its best for 2020 for an evening appearance from my latitude. Note the thin Moon below the planets. This was a superb sight for binoculars.

Thin Moon below Venus and Mercury — On May 23, 2020, the very thin crescent Moon (then 34 hours old) shines below bright Venus (10 days before its inferior conjunction with the Sun) and above it dimmer Mercury , then 10 days before its greatest elongation from the Sun in the evening sky. All were beautifully visible to the naked eye and a great sight in binoculars, looking very much like this scene captured with a 135mm telephoto lens. Venus was magnitude -4.4, Mercury was -0.7. This is a single shot at f/2.8 and 1/ 5 second at ISO 100 with the Canon EOS Ra which does bring out the sunset reds well.

By May 29, Venus was now tough to pick out of the evening sky, and a challenge to shoot even by day, as it then stood only 8° away from the Sun. What was once obvious to the naked eye now took a computerized telescope to pick out of the noon-day blue sky. A telescope showed the now razor-thin crescent as Venus approached its June 3 “inferior conjunction” — its passage between Earth and the Sun.

Venus Near Inferior Conjunction (May 29, 2020) — Venus as a razor-thin crescent and only 8° east of the Sun on May 29, 2020, five days before its June 3 inferior conjunction. The crescent is extending a little beyond 180° here due to scattering in the Venusian clouds. The disk was 57 arc seconds across and 0.9% illuminated. The magnitude was -3.9. This was at midday, shot with the 130mm Astro-Physics f/6 refractor with a 2X Barlow and the Canon 60Da camera, but the frame cropped further in processing. This is a single 1/1250th second exposure at ISO 100, the sharpest of 70 still frames taken.

I shot and narrated video footage of the thin crescent Venus, my parting shots of Venus for its evening appearance in 2020.

But in June, post inferior conjunction, it will rise very quickly into our morning sky, providing a mirror-image repeat performance as a morning star for the rest of 2020.

Venus Near Inferior Conjunction from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.

I wish you all the best and a safe and healthy time in 2020. Take some solace in what the sky can show us and in the beauty of the night.

Clear skies!

— Alan, May 31, 2020 / AmazingSky.com

November 30, 2018December 9, 2018

Follow Comet Wirtanen

A well-known comet is making its closest approach to Earth in many years and promises a good show.

Comet Wirtanen is now climbing up the late autumn and winter sky for northern hemisphere viewers, and is already a fine binocular comet. By mid-December it might be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, but only from a dark rural site.

Discovered in 1948 by Carl Wirtanen at the Lick Observatory, his namesake comet orbits the Sun every 5.4 years. So unlike other recent bright comets that have visited us for the first time, Comet Wirtanen (aka 46P) is well known. It is one of many “Jupiter-family” comets whose orbits have been shaped by the gravity of Jupiter and orbit the Sun about every 6 years.

So since it was discovered, Comet 46P (the 46th comet in the catalog of periodic comets) has been well observed. It isn’t better known because at most returns it never gets bright, and that’s because it never gets closer to the Sun than a little more than the distance from the Earth to the Sun. (Its perihelion distance is 1.06 AU, with 1 AU, or Astronomical Unit, being the average distance from Earth to the Sun.)

However, despite this, we’re expecting – indeed already enjoying – a good show at this return.

Due to the quirk of orbital clockwork, on this return the comet reaches its closest point to the Sun just before it is also closest to Earth.

That puts the comet “just” 11,680,000 kilometres from us at its closest approach to Earth on December 16, four days after perihelion, the point when the comet is closest to the Sun.

Comet Wirtanen from Space — The relative position of the Sun, Earth and Comet Wirtanen on December 16, 2018.

Comet Wirtanen will be relatively bright simply by virtue of its proximity.

But it is also an active comet, emitting a lot of gas and dust into a large “coma,” and that’s what we see, not the 1-kilometre-wide icy nucleus itself which is too small and shrouded by the coma. (As a footnote, Comet Wirtanen was to have been the comet that the European Rosetta probe was to visit, but launch delays forced ESA to switch cometary targets.)

Comet Wirtanen is glowing at magnitude 5 to 6, technically making it visible to the naked eye. However, because it is large and diffuse, in practice you need binoculars to see it – now.

But as it approaches Earth and the Sun, Wirtanen will brighten, perhaps to magnitude 3 (the brightest stars are magnitude 0 to 1), making it easier to see with the unaided eye from a dark site.

The one catch is that as it heads toward its brightest in mid-December the waxing Moon also begins to enter the sky and wash out the comet with moonlight.

The first two weeks of December will be prime time for Wirtanen

Comet Wirtanen Path — The path of Comet Wirtanen across the sky in December 2018. The yellow dots mark the position of the comet at nightly intervals for late evening (10 p.m.) for North America. While comet will be in the sky most of the night, it will be highest in late evening about 10 p.m. local time when the sky will look as depicted, with the comet high in the south to southeast. Click or tap to download a full-sized version.

The first two weeks of December will be prime time for Wirtanen, with a particularly good opportunity coming on the evenings of December 15 and 16 when it shines below the Pleiades star cluster. The gibbous Moon will set about 1 to 2 a.m. with the comet still high enough for a dark sky view and photos.

Those will be great nights to shoot the comet and the cluster with a telephoto lens, provided the camera is on a tracker for untrailed exposures of 1 to 4 minutes. A 135mm to 300mm lens will frame the pair well.

Winter Green Comet with Orion — Comet Wirtanen as a green glow at upper right here in Eridanus. and well to the west of Orion, rising here at left, on the evening of December 6, 2018. I shot this with a wide-angle 35mm lens in a blend of tracked and untracked 1-minute exposures.

After that, through late December, the bright Moon will interfere with the view. For example, a close approach of the comet near the star Capella on December 23 happens with the nearly Full Moon not far away.

Comet Wirtanen / 46P on December 6, 2018 — Comet Wirtanen in a close-up through a telescope on December 6, 2018 in a stack of short and long exposures.

I took the above close-up photo of Comet Wirtanen on December 6. It is a long-exposure telescopic view, but the comet is easy to see with binoculars. It appears visually and photographically as a diffuse fuzzball, with the camera recording a vivid cyan colour from glowing cyanogen and diatomic carbon molecules. You won’t see that colour with your eyes, even in a telescope.

Comet Wirtanen Path Dec 8 to 16 — The path of Comet Wirtanen Dec 8 to 16 superimposed on an actual sky image with the comet taken December 8. The circle indicates the field of view of typical binoculars. On Dec 15 and 16 the comet will be in the same binocular field as the Pleiades star cluster. The positions are for about 10 pm Mountain Standard Time for each of those dates.

Even at the comet’s best in mid-December any tail might be hard to see and even photograph (it appears faintly above) as it will be both faint and pointed directly away from us because, as comet tails do, it will also be pointed away from the Sun.

Look for a large glow which will be grey to the eye but green to the camera.

While you can just take pictures for yourself, astronomers are asking amateur astrophotographers to participate in a worldwide observing campaign to monitor Comet Wirtanen. More details are available here at wirtanen.astro.umd.edu and at http://aop.astro.umd.edu/

Clear skies and happy comet hunting!

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!

November 17, 2013November 17, 2013

Relaunching Stargazing in Barbados

Barbados is soon to have a new state-of-the-art public observatory for promoting astronomy.

On Saturday night, November 16, I was fortunate and privileged to be the guest speaker at the first event at the newly refurbished Harry Bayley Observatory in Bridgetown, Barbados. A grant from an educational foundation in the UK has allowed the Barbados Astronomical Society to renew the aging 50-year-old facility with a fresh new interior, and all the high-tech fittings of a modern public observatory.

A new dome was lifted into place on top of the 3-storey structure earlier in the week, and the painting and interior finishing was completed just a day or two before my talk, in time for a public RSVP event Saturday night.

I gave a talk on The Amazing Sky, showing images and movies from the November 3 total eclipse, among many other photos of the sights anyone can see in the day and night sky. I gave the same talk twice, to two packed houses of 40 people per session in the main floor meeting room/lecture hall. A wonderful spread of local food and drink was served upstairs.

Lots of work remains to complete the refurbishment but the facility was in good enough shape to host a public event. The official opening is in January.

A new Meade 16-inch telescope on a Software Bisque MX2 mount is on its way for installation later this year, equipped with the latest robotic control and digital cameras for public viewing. A hydrogen-alpha solar telescope will also be part of the arsenal of equipment.

This night, members set up a portable Celestron 8-inch telescope outside for viewing the Moon and Jupiter. In contrast to viewing at home at this time of year, observing from 13° North latitude was in shorts and shirt-sleeves.

It was a terrific evening and I’m pleased to have been part of the relaunching of the Observatory and astronomy activities on the island. Many thanks go to my host on the island, Greg Merrick, for making the evening – and my stay this week – possible.