Comet Lulin

ETX70AT, DSI IIC

Here's the latest photo taken of the comet Lulin. Lulin will only be by the planet earth once so this is a special photo! Read below for more details!

Comet Lulin or Lulin's Comet (official designation C/2007 N3 (Lulin)) is a non-periodic comet. It was discovered by Ye Quanzhi and Lin Chi-Sheng from Lulin Observatory.^[1][2][6] It peaked in brightness and arrived at perigee for observers on Earth on February 24, 2009, at magnitude +5,^[7][2][8] and at 0.411 AU from Earth.^[3] The comet also appeared to pass near Saturn on February 23, and is predicted to pass near Regulus in Leo on February 26 and 27, 2009.^[2][6] It is expected to appear to pass near Comet Cardinal on May 12, 2009.^[9] It currently lies 0.412 AU from Earth, appearing at magnitude +5.2 in the constellation Leo.^[4][8] The comet became visible to the naked eye from dark-sky sites around February 7.^[10] It passed between Earth and the double star Zubenelgenubi on February 6, between Earth and Spica on February 15 and 16, between earth and Gamma Virginis on February 19 and is predicted to pass between Earth and the star cluster M44 around March 4 and 5.
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2007_N3 for more info.

Saturn

I noticed I didn't have a photo of Saturn. So I added one that I took back in June of 2008. It's a little out of focus and I was using my LPI imager to take the photo. I will try for a better one when Saturn is at a better angle to see the rings (probably in 2010.)


ETX70AT, Meade LPI

Latest Moon Photo

Latest Moon Photo taken with ETX70AT, DSI IIC and 3xbarlow.



On Friday 2-6-09 The Children's Imagination Workshop in Temecula is having a Astronomy night. This event is all about Galileo and will feature information about the moon. So I have been taking some new photos to present that night in case of rain. (right now it looks like it might!)

Double Cluster

Double Cluster
(EXT70AT, DSI IIC)



The Double Cluster is the common name for the naked-eye open clusters NGC 884 and NGC 869, which are close together in the constellation Perseus. NGC 884 and NGC 869 are at distances of 7600 and 6800 light-years away, respectively, so they are close to one another in space as well.

They are relatively young clusters, with NGC 869 5.6 million years and NGC 884 at 3.2 million years according to the 2000 Sky Catalogue. In comparison, the Pleiades have an estimated age ranging from 75 million years to 150 million years.

They are also blueshifted, with NGC 869 approaching Earth at a speed of 22 km/s and NGC 884 approaching at a similar speed of 21 km/s. Their hottest main sequence stars are of spectral type B0.

For more information visit wikipedia.org

Crescent Venus

This photo of Venus shows the "crescent" shape because of it's location in relationship to the sun.
(ETX70AT, DSI IIC)


Venus (pronounced en-us-Venus.ogg /ˈviːnəs/ (help·info)) is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never appears to venture far from the Sun: its elongation reaches a maximum of 47.8°. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, for which reason it is often called the Morning Star or the Evening Star.

For more information visit Wikipedia.org

Moon

Moon (waxing cresent)
ETX70AT, DSI IIC

The Moon (Latin: Luna) is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest natural satellite in the Solar System.

The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is 384,403 km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The Moon's diameter is 3,474 km,^[6] a little more than a quarter of that of the Earth. Thus, the Moon's volume is about 2 percent that of Earth; the pull of gravity at its surface is about 17 percent that at the Earth's surface. The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth every 27.3 days (the orbital period), and the periodic variations in the geometry of the Earth–Moon–Sun system are responsible for the lunar phases that repeat every 29.5 days (the synodic period).

The Moon is the only celestial body to which humans have travelled and upon which humans have performed a manned moon landing. The first artificial object to pass near the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 1, the first artificial object to impact the lunar surface was Luna 2, and the first photographs of the normally occluded far side of the Moon were made by Luna 3, all in 1959. The first spacecraft to perform a successful lunar soft landing was Luna 9; this was soon followed with the first successful lunar soft landing by Surveyor 1 and the first unmanned vehicle to orbit the Moon by Luna 10, all in 1966.^[6] The United States (U.S.) Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, resulting in six landings between 1969 and 1972. Human exploration of the Moon ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time. Several countries have announced plans to return humans to the surface of the Moon in the 2020s.

For more information visit Wikipedia.org

Uranus

Here's a photo I took last night:
EXT70AT, DSI IIC




Uranus ( /ˈjʊərənəs/ (help·info) or /jʊˈreɪnəs/ (help·info)^[12]) is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky (Uranus, Οὐρανός), the father of Kronos (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter). Though it is visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets, it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.^[13] Sir William Herschel announced its discovery on March 13, 1781, expanding the known boundaries of the solar system for the first time in modern history. This was also the first discovery of a planet made using a telescope. (from Wikipedia)