January Sunspots

Glorious Sunspot Display

The Sun's activity cycle has now reached a maximum. Sadly, I haven't done any solar imaging for the past three months. Most days have been cloudy. There have been a few frigid clear days, but almost every one was accompanied by strong winds of 12 miles per hour with stronger gusts. Gusts shake my telescope and blow my light-shielded laptop off the observing table. Finally, on January 17th, clear sky arrived with no wind. The temperature was about 42 degrees, much better than recent temperatures near freezing. Five sunspot groups were spread across the Sun.

The following 12-panel mosaic shows the sunspot distribution.

The next image is a cropped section from the mosaic above. From left to right across the top are sunspots 3965, 3962, and the large umbra of spot 3959. From left to right across the bottom are complex sunspot groups 3961 and 3964. This image can be viewed at 100 percent size with no loss of detail.

After capturing videos for the large mosaic above, I captured two more to construct the next 2-panel mosaic of the northeast quadrant containing four of the five sunspot groups. Click on the image to see  good detail in the full size image at 100 percent. The complicated, multi-umbra structure of lower sunspot 3961 is remarkable.

Now inspect individual sunspot portraits. The split umbra of sunspot 3959 below is interesting. Click on the image to enlarge and notice the strange fork-like dark filament whose "tines" point toward the umbra.

Again, click to enlarge complicated sunspot 3961 shown below. I can see seven individual umbras with possibly more not fully dark ones among the magnetic arches reaching across the white active areas beneath. A dramatic dark filament arch on the left adds to the scene.

In the lower right below sunspot 3964 shows a structure somewhat similar to 3961 above, but not quite as dramatic. Notice the white active area penetrating the right umbra like a piercing arrow. 

Finally, some prominences were visible around the solar limb. I processed the 12-panel mosaic above to show a few.

Although seeing wasn't particularly good for this session, I was pleased by the amount of detail available in the images above.

Mars Occultation

Unusual Event

The Moon passed in front of Mars on the cold evening of January 13th! In a completely clear sky the full Moon was nicely placed for imaging well above the northeastern horizon. It was a great opportunity to use Seestar to capture the event, and I had everything setup an hour ahead of time. I've used Seestar many times before and always made sure to level it before imaging. This time, for some unknown reason, I forgot the initial leveling. This stupid, careless mistake probably caused troublesome tracking errors later.

My plan was to begin taking individual photos at about 8:20PM EST before ingress and then switch to video as Mars closely approached the lunar limb. At first, photos were taken using Seestar's 1X magnification, but this seemed to make Mars very tiny. For example, here's a cropped 1X image taken at 8:40.

At 1X the entire lunar disc fit within the field of view. As I took a few more photos, I became concerned that Mars' disc would be too small at 1X, so I switched to 2X. Now the whole Moon no longer fit inside the field of view, but Mars' visibility improved. Unfortunately, tracking errors increased making it hard to keep the Moon from drifting away from center. The next image was captured at 9:05, twenty-five minutes after the previous image.

You can clearly see the Mars-Moon separation decreasing. The Moon always moves west to east relative to background stars. Mars reached opposition on January 16th, and, on this January 13th night, Mars was moving in retrograde motion east to west relative to background stars. So the two bodies were approaching each other for a "head on collision" as seen from Earth. At 9:10, five minutes after the previous photo, the separation continued to diminish.

The Moon was moving approximately 35 times faster than Mars relative to the stars this night, so the Moon was like a 105 mile per hour car approaching a strolling pedestrian Mars. By 9:15 the occultation ingress was nearly ready to begin as you can see in the next photo.

At this point, at 9:15, I should have immediately begun recording video. Unfortunately, I waited before hitting the record button at about 9:16. So when the video began, Mars was already just touching the lunar edge. The video below runs for 43 seconds and does show Mars gradually disappearing behind the Moon. The disappearance itself only took about 26 seconds! Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to follow the disappearance in the center of the bottom lunar limb, but you can see it with some effort. Engage the full screen option. Viewing on a laptop or tablet screen helps. I'm disappointed by the video quality.

More than an hour later, at about 10:27, Mars would emerge from behind the Moon. Since I didn't know exactly where or when Mars would reappear, my second video attempt failed to capture the egress. I began recording about four minutes too late! But I did manage to capture a good photo at 10:31.

Mars' angular diameter was only 14.5 arc seconds in the photo above compared to the Moon's 31.7 arc minute diameter. So the Moon looks 131 times bigger than Mars. Of course, Mars was 5.34 light minutes away while the Moon was only 1.26 light seconds away. Mars was 254 times more distant than the Moon. At the same distance, side by side, Mars' diameter is roughly twice as large as the Moon's.

Finally, although Seestar made it easy to observe this event from indoor comfort, I wonder how much better results would have been if I endured the cold and set up my Nikon Z62 outside on my 130mm refractor. For example, consider images displayed recently in Astronomy Picture of the Day which you can see at the following two links.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2501/MoonMars_Sultan_960.jpg 

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2501/MarsLOc_Jan13.jpg 

Galaxies

Limited Results

December 30th was an unexpectedly cloudless night with a new Moon. Clear conditions were too good to pass up. I knew it would be the last opportunity to use Seestar for a while, so I set out to capture a few galaxy targets on my observing list. Initially annoying neighbor lights were eventually turned off.

Seestar's ability to produce good galaxy images is limited, especially for small dim galaxies. The 50mm aperture is a small light bucket, and, in my particular case, bright background sky prevents capture of faint detail. Exposures longer than about 30 minutes don't seem to yield more detail. (All images shown below are 30-minute exposures.) Seestar's field of view is too large for smaller galaxies which call for more magnification. Nevertheless, Seestar reveals much more than my eyeball can ever perceive at the eyepiece of my telescopes. In spite of Seestar's limitations, I still enjoy finding and examining galaxies I've never seen before.

I began this night by aiming low in the south to elliptical galaxy NGC1316, an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Fornax. In the image below NGC1316 is the large bright central object. Smaller galaxy NGC1318 is directly above center. In the lower left a dim fuzzy patch below a relatively bright pair of stars is galaxy PGC12706. Additional galaxies would have appeared in the field of view if I had moved NGC1316 below center. I missed this good opportunity.

Also in the southern sky was a close galaxy pair in Canis Major. I pointed Seestar there next. Centered in the image below, NGC2293 is below its close companion NGC2292. These two galaxies are separated by only 44 arc seconds! Just to the upper right of the centered pair is another galaxy, NGC2295, flanked closely by two foreground stars in our own galaxy. NGC2295 is about 3.75 arc minutes from NGC2292. It would be nice to see a more magnified image here, but this isn't possible with Seestar. 

Leaving southern sky glow, I moved north to Ursa Major where three galaxies were available for addition to my Messier collection. In the next image nearly edge-on spiral galaxy M108 is large enough to show some dark dust clouds and internal structure. There are three bright foreground stars from our own galaxy directly in front of M108. (Enlarge the image to see these more clearly.)

This night's next Ursa Major galaxy was barred spiral galaxy M109. The image below was good enough to show some spiral arms. Once again, a bright foreground star appears in front of the galaxy's disc. Two other dim galaxies can be seen in the same field of view. To the right of M109, near the right hand edge, is 13.4 magnitude galaxy PGC37553. The dim smudge to the lower left of M109 is 15th magnitude galaxy PGC37700.

The brightest Ursa Major galaxy of the night was M82 shown next. The hint of a dark lane cutting diagonally across the center is just visible in the enlarged image.

By the end of this session I had added three more objects to my Messier collection leaving only 26 more needed to reach the complete 110 total.
 

Looking South

Galaxies and Clusters

The Moon had not yet risen on December 22nd when I saw a clear evening sky. One annoying neighbor light made sky darkness less than ideal. Also, at this time of year many nearby houses with bright Christmas lights add to suburban sky glow. At my location the worst light pollution conditions are at low southern altitudes where I planned to capture a few targets.

It was a cold 26 degrees when I carried Seestar outside to begin imaging. On nights like this I can do the initial Seestar setup inside before moving Seestar outside. In warm comfort I turn on the power, establish connection to my tablet, wait for any firmware updates to load, raise the viewing arm,  install the dew shield, and turn on the dew heater. It then takes only a few seconds to move Seestar outside, place it in its usual level spot, and immediately return inside to control the remaining initialization. I really appreciate how Seestar takes all of the suffering out of observing! 

The first southern sky target this night was galaxy NGC1300 in Eridanus. As the 30-minute exposure shown below progressed, I was thrilled to see this barred spiral galaxy gradually become visible in spite of considerable sky glow in that part of the sky. The small fuzzy ball to the upper right of NGC1300 is elliptical galaxy NGC 1297.

Next, I moved to capture a pair of interacting galaxies in Canis Major. Once again, a 30-minute exposure allowed the galaxies to eventually appear. The larger, more circular shaped galaxy is NGC2207. Close by to its lower left is smaller galaxy IC2163 which has been captured by NGC2207's gravity. IC2163 has actually passed by NGC2207 and will begin circling behind over the course of tens of million years. The two galaxies orbit each other and will eventually merge. It's incredible to be able to see this interaction even though the image is small! If you Google the Hubble Telescope image of these galaxies, you can see this interaction in amazing detail. 

The southern constellation Puppis contains two Messier objects I wanted to add to my collection. Where does that odd name come from? The ancient astronomer Ptolemy created a huge constellation of mostly southern stars called, Argo Navis - the ship of Jason and the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece. Later, this original constellation was broken into three smaller parts called Carina, the keel, Vela, the sails, and Puppis, the stern. (Puppis is a Latin term.) M93 was the most impressive of two Puppis open clusters I captured this night. The 10-minute exposure is shown in the next picture.

Also in Puppis is relatively unremarkable open cluster M47 shown below. This is a 5-minute exposure.

Discouraged by light pollution to the south, I turned north toward Ursa Major which was beginning to rise to a decent altitude. There I targeted the unusual Messier object, M40, with a quick 5-minute exposure. M40 is not a galaxy, nebula, or star cluster. Instead, it's an optical double star - two stars not actually orbiting each other but coincidentally appearing close together along our line of sight. The upper star is about 1,000 light years away, and the lower star is 470 light years away. The angular separation of the stars is about 53 arc seconds. If you enlarge the image and follow a diagonal line starting with the star pair and moving upward, you can barely see two tiny galaxies. First along this diagonal line is NGC4290. Next is smaller NGC4284. As I understand it, Messier was looking for these fuzzy nebulae and added the double star to his catalog when he couldn't find the dim fuzzies.

As you can see in the image above, Seestar has no trouble resolving two stars separated by 53 arc seconds. I wondered how close two stars could be and still be seen by Seestar as separate. After a quick search through some of my Seestar images I found an example of two stars 14 arc seconds apart that were clearly separate. Maybe I'll find another pair slightly closer, but I doubt clear separations less than 10 arc seconds are possible. Nevertheless, Seestar's resolving power is remarkable for such a small aperture! 

After imaging M40 I went outside for a quick sky check and noticed hazy clouds forming in the north. The temperature had dropped to 23 degrees, and it was time to quit.