Canon 1100D with Meade LX-90 8″ scope, ISO 6400, 1/15 second at 21:51 ACDT (click image to enlarge)
The two planets are slowly separating, tonight to 13 minutes of arc, around one fifth of a degree, up from 6.5 minutes of arc on Monday night.
My main goal tonight was to share the view with Karen, who worked the previous two nights, before Jupiter and Saturn are no longer in the same low power field of view. She enjoyed it.
I didn’t have a lot of time for set up and imaging tonight, but wanted to take an image that emphasised the planets themselves rather than their moons. The focus is not great, and Jupiter is still overexposed, but I like the fact that Saturn’s ring and the planet are distinct here.
The good news is that I have my Meade LX90’s AutoStar back from repair now, and it works well! This will encourage me to start doing tracked, piggy-backed, wide-field photometry again. It’s been awhile.
Jupiter and Galilean moons plus Saturn with Canon 1100D with LX-90, ISO 1600, 1/5 second at 21:37 ACDT (click image to enlarge)
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, my Meade LX-90 8″ telescope’s AutoStar is being repaired, but tonight I decided to attempt to image the conjunction anyway with manual pointing and no tracking. Fast shutter speed and high gain was important to reduce the effects of rapid movement while obtaining enough detail.
The separation between the two planets was still around one eighth of a degree tonight, well within a low power eyepiece (24.5mm super wide angle) and my Canon 1100D’s sensor frame.
Sky Safari Pro screenshot identifying the four Galilean moons
All four Galilean moons are visible along with Saturn’s rings and the ball of the planet. Io is visible as a “bump” on Jupiter at around 11 o’clock.
Note the reversed telescopic view due to the optics.
The focus is not amazing, but under the circumstances, it turned out reasonably well. The planets were low in the sky as well.
Although I had images containing Saturn’s largest moon Titan, I wasn’t happy with the quality.
I also took a wide-field shot of the pair low on the western horizon, peeping through cloud, not long before the sky became cloud-filled. The exposure and gain make the sky appear abnormally bright.
Jupiter (top) and Saturn with Canon 1100D, 100mm focal length, f2.0, ISO 400, 1 second exposure at 21:53 ACDT
I had a nice view of the Great Conjunction of 2020 last night with Saturn, its largest moon Titan, Jupiter, three Galilean moons (there was a star near Europa that I initially mistook for a moon), all visible in a low power eyepiece.
My Meade LX-90’s AutoStar hand controller is in for repair so unfortunately I had to position the scope manually. With no fine controls or tracking, that was awkward but doable. Imaging, not so doable. There will be plenty from others though.
I expected the two planets to appear a little closer on the sky, but in hindsight, should not have.
I’ll be out again the next couple of nights for another look since, as per my last post, the two planets will still be quite close for the next few nights.
Two days before the Great Conjunction of 2020 (on Dec 21) in which Jupiter and Saturn will appear at their closest in the sky in nearly four centuries, I took a wide field image of the pair low in the west on Dec 19 at around 9:50pm ACDT (click to enlarge).
Of the two brightest objects near the centre, Jupiter is at left and Saturn at right.
The planets are separated by around 16.5 minutes of arc or 0.275 degrees or a little more than half of the angular size of the full Moon. At the same time on Monday, Jupiter and Saturn will be separated by less than 6.5 minutes of arc or not much more than a tenth of a degree. On Dec 22 and 23 they will still be quite close, at almost 7.5 and 10 minutes of arc respectively.
Jupiter and Galilean moons plus Saturn with Canon 1100D, 100mm focal length, f2.0, ISO 800, 1 second exposure
The following screenshot from Sky Safari pro (iOS) helps with identification. Most of the moons, except for Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are not visible in the wide field image.
Sky Safari Pro screenshot
A cropped portion of the image (click to enlarge) shows the Galilean moons a little more clearly, including Io as a slight bump at lower left of Jupiter. Titan is barely visible at the lower left of Saturn. The resolution is not high enough to see Saturn’s rings or any detail on Jupiter.
Cropped portion of wide field image
I’m hoping that at least one or two nights early next week, the local weather will cooperate for more viewing of the conjunction.
After upgrading my MacBook to macOS Catalina, WINE stopped working, because 32-bit applications were no longer permitted to run. I had been using WINE to run the Windows IRIS program for image processing and DSLR photometry as part of my minimalist approach.
After my father died in January this year, his older MacBook was passed on to me. It still has Yosemite as the OS, so WINE & IRIS work fine on it!
Given all the times we spent talking about astronomy, the special time we shared watching the 2001 Leonids under a dark country sky, and the “help desk” support I tried to give him over the phone, I know that dad would approve of my use of his old computer in this way.
As of July 24 2020, there are more than 100 Nova Ret 2020 observations, most visual, with a handful of CCD submissions. Mine (visual) are shown in purple.
Most observers are from Brazil (10), then Bolivia and Australia (5 each), with one from Italy and South Africa.
The southerly declination of the target and comparison stars in Reticulum (almost -55o degrees) makes northern hemisphere observations difficult.
A linear fit shows an overall decline of around 0.17 magnitudes per day, but there’s a lot of spread in the data and novae are unpredictable.
MGAB-V207’s pre-brightening magnitude was 15.8 (Johnson V). Just before I wrote this, it was designated N Ret 2020 in VSX and the AAVSO International Database.
I observed the nova at around 5:30am this morning (July 17) in 7×50 binoculars. My estimate, based upon 4.95 and 5.45 visual magnitude comparison stars, was 5.2.
It may have been brighter but that was my best estimate, given the seeing quality at the time, and a lack of coffee. Having said that, I’m confident that it was reasonable.
At the time of my submission to AAVSO this morning, there were 6 observations, including mine. Andrew Pearce in WA submitted his second observation (brighter) soon after mine.
To get familiar with the field, I started with Stellarium:
and this AAVSO finder chart, which needs to be rotated by about 45 degrees anti-clockwise to match the Stellarium view:
In general, the sky was lovely this morning. After estimating the nova’s brightness, when the dawn became evident, I took this quick shot of a conjunction of the crescent Moon, Venus, and Aldebaran (alpha Tauri) low in the NE sky (1/5 sec, ISO 200, f 2.0, unprocessed) with our recently pruned walnut tree (thanks Karen!) visible at upper right:
Between the nova, satellites passing through my binocular field while observing it and the stars of Reticulum, a stray meteor, the Luna-Venus-Aldebaran conjunction, Orion rising in the east, and the general beauty of the sky, it was an uplifting start to the day.
I was again reminded that there is a hidden sky, waiting for all to see.
Variable stars and novae in particular, always reinforce to me the dynamic, constantly changing universe of which we are a small part. In what often feels like a dystopian world, especially in 2020, I find it oddly comforting that the Universe just keeps doing its thing, irrespective of us. Astronomy is a great way to get some perspective.
The semi-regular late-type variable supergiant star alpha Orionis, better known as Betelgeuse, pulsating with a period of around 420 days at a distance of 640 light years, one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye and normally in the top 10 list of brightest stars in the sky, is currently undergoing a rapid dimming event.
If Betelgeuse was located at our sun’s position, it would engulf all the inner planets and extend out to the vicinity of Jupiter’s orbit.
When this star ends its life in a supernova explosion it will be visible in daytime and cast shadows at night.
There have been recent questions about the possibility of Betelguese going supernova (or having done so already) and whether the current dimming may be a sign of it.
ATel 13365 has this to say about the dimming event:
The current faintness of Betelgeuse appears to arise from the coincidence of the star being near the minimum light of the ~5.9-yr light-cycle as well as near, the deeper than usual, minimum of the ~425-d period.
It’s interesting to look at past observations of the star.
Here are the last 2 years of visual and Johnson V observations:
The last 5 years of observations:
The last 10 years of observations:
The last 25 years of observations:
In this and the next plot you can see the transition to image-based photometry about 50 years ago in the form of Johnson V data points.
The last 50 years of observations:
The last 100 years of observations:
It’s apparent that there have been similar dimming events over the last 100 years, e.g. in 1947, 1985 and other years.
It’s not obvious that the current dimming event is significantly more rapid than others that came before it, at least by looking at the slope of a linear fit of dimming events.
Alpha Orionis is a bright star, varying between around magnitude 0 and 1.3. It’s easily observable in the north-eastern late evening sky at the moment, along with comparison stars such as Aldebaran and Pollux.
You can create a finder chart via the AAVSO website. An easier way to get started is to see pages 2 and 3 and the chart on the last page of the AAVSO Citizen Sky southern “10 star” tutorial.
The submission of observations to the AAVSO is encouraged and there’s no need for binoculars or a telescope.
Receiving the Merit Award at Melbourne University from AAVSO Director, Stella Kafka, Dec 10 2019
Patrick Wills also received the AAVSO Merit Award this year for his work on the AAVSO Variable Star Index, a database that VStar also uses, including the web services Patrick has created.
An extremely modest number really, compared with other observers over a similar timeframe.
But still, somehow a nice milestone.
I’ve also submitted more than 100 DSLR photometry observations to AID. Again, not many in comparative terms.
The light curve shows the last ten years of visual and B band data along with the 169 (in purple) visual and DSLR eta Carinae observations I’ve made during that time. The red trend line shows the steady rise in eta Carinae’s brightness that has been going on for decades now.
Between VStar, work, and life in general, I don’t get a lot of time to observe these days, but I try to make each observation count.
For anyone following Strange Quarks, you will have noticed my preoccupation with other things in recent months.
