Rage against the clouds

a rant by RevAaron written on his iPod Touch

Question: What's worse than a totally clouded-over new moon night?

Answer: A totally clouded-over new moon night that started out perfectly clear which precipitated a drive to a dark sky site and several cups of coffee before clouding over just before arrival and now I'm sitting in my van too caffeinated to even sleep, with only an iPod Touch and a headache to keep me company.



I know I'm not alone. Every amateur astronomer has these kinds of nights sometimes. The sad fact is that even great weather prediction sites like the Clear Sky Chart and SkippySky are wrong sometimes, and those are the worst nights. At least if clouds are predicted, I can make other plans. Heck, I've got two new Battlestar Galactica discs at home just begging to be watched. Frak! Not to mention blog posts to finish and an electronic observing log desperately needing updated.

I know it's not fair, but it's enough to make a person want to call up the Weather Channel and verbally abuse a meteorologist.* So what to do? One thing is sure: if I head for home, it will immediately clear up. There ought to be a country song about this or something. I think I'll give it another hour or so, then drive back.

The bright side: I'll appreciate the next cloudless night all the more.



*Apologies to any meteorologists reading this. We appreciate what you do.

Sunrise

My trusty Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy defines crepuscular rays as, "An atmospheric phenomenon resulting from the scattering of sunlight by dust particles in the troposphere... Shadows cast by distant clouds give rise to the fan-like effect, the rays appearing to diverge from the Sun as a result of perspective."

I hypothesize that the recent wildfires in South Florida are responsible for the lovely display of crepuscular rays we had this past Friday morning here in Fort Myers. Images were taken by a Sony DSC-S500 at ISO 80, f/5.6.

If you'd like to see more, and more better, photos of atmospheric phenomena like these, check out this link sent to me by Twitter friend Dave Pearson (he runs this photo group). Cool! Thanks, Dave!

Tracking Satellites in Google Earth

If you love Google Earth as much as me, you'll love being able to use it to watch satellites (especially famous ones like the ISS and Hubble) swinging around the earth in their orbits. Robert Simpson (aka Orbiting Frog), has created many scripts to track and display satellites in Google Earth, many of which I have used in the past. He has created a central download page from which you can access all the .kml files he made for satellite tracking. Have fun!

Orbiting Frog - Satellites on Google Earth

How many planets have you seen?

How many planets have you seen?

Now that the IAU has ruled that only Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are planets, it's a lot easier to say you've seen them all then it used to be. Using the new definition I can proudly claim to have seen all of them, but...

Personally, I prefer a definition that includes the dwarf planets as full fledged planets. A dwarf planet is a small planet orbiting solo around the sun (as opposed to orbiting a planet) still big enough for gravity to pull it into a spherical-ish shape. This would nicely add Haumea, Makemake, Eris, and the subject of this post, Ceres to the list (plus quite a few more yet to be discovered, I'm sure). Ceres was discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. It was the first asteroid (or minor planet) to be discovered, and it resides in the Belt. Unlike some stars, our sun has only one asteroid belt, and it doesn't look quite like that one from the Empire Strikes Back, dang it. For a truly awesome look at the 200 largest bodies in the Solar System, including the dwarf planets, take a look at this image here. Really blows the mind.

We'll soon know more about what Ceres looks like when the Dawn mission reaches the dwarf in 2015 after visiting the asteroid Vesta. Currently the best view we have is a composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope which you see at the top of the page.

Although Ceres and all other asteroids don't look like anything more than a star-like point in amateur instruments and small scopes (thus the name from the latin), like much of amateur astronomy the thrill is derived from knowing what you are seeing. I have seen a few asteroids before, the easiest being Vesta, but I've yet to see a dwarf planet. Pluto is currently in Saggitarius and ~ magnitude 14, making it a real pain to track down until it moves to a less crowded constellation. The other way-out-there dwarf planets like Eris are too faint to see visually with amateur equipment. This leaves Ceres, shining brightly right now at about magnitude 6.7, beyond easy range of the naked eye but no problem for binoculars. During February Ceres is at opposition, meaning we are between it and Sol, and thus at the closest distance (about 1.5 AU). I created a finder chart using Cartes du Ciel, which you can download here if you would like to join me in my quest.

So soon I'm gonna say I've seen 9 planets :)

True love: Caffeinated gear

My wife really surprised me this Valentine's Day: I've always joked that I'd get a Caffeinated Astronomy t-shirt some day; well, she got me one of those and a ball cap. Don't worry Ewan, if I start selling them you'll get royalties :-) I'm not really a ball cap-wearing kind of guy, except when I observe: works to soak up the sweat from those 80 degree summer nights out at the scope.

I imagine the guys at SWFAS will think I've got some ego if I wear the shirt to the next club meeting, but what the heck. Thanks Amy :-)

Miss me?

Have you missed me? I'm afraid my online presence has suffered lately due to my "First Life." Oh well. Let me bring you up to speed with my recent astronomical activities:

The absolutely perfect weather manifested on the previous weekend led me to a trip to my dark sky site at Kirby Storter with the Obsession. NELM was 6.4+. Keeping with my 2009 resolution to observe more comets, I observed one I had never seen before, a 10th magnitude fuzzball passing through Auriga known as C/2006 OF2 Broughton. Fairly conspicuous in the 20", but then that's the whole point of owning a 20" :-). Following this, I proceeded to observe 36 galaxies in Leo and Leo Minor. Not only did this finish all the Herschel 400 objects in these constellations, it gives me a nice head start on future lists. I typically observe all the SA2000.0 objects in the immediate vicinity of my targets, I'll be glad I did someday. Final tally: 299/400 Herschel 400 observed. I'm starting to think I might actually finish this project this year! Ended the session with the magnificent Comet Lulin, although he's still reluctant to show his tails to me (I swear Miami's closing in on me more and more each time I go out there). Don't forget that Lulin's closest approach to Earth happens 24 February - as soon as the moon gets out of the way, conditions will be ideal for viewing. You can find finder charts on my Lulin Links page. Some naked eye reports are starting to come in now, it's at about 6th magnitude.

In other news, I've finally joined my local astronomy club, the Southwest Florida Astronomical Society, SWFAS (pronounced "swa-foss.") I attended my first meeting last Thursday. We meet in the planetarium dome of the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium here in Fort Myers, how cool is that? A lot of really nice folks, although I particularly enjoyed meeting the previously mentioned Chuck Pavlick. He had his 12" dob set up outside the back of the planetarium. It was funny to see us Florida folks shivering to death in the 40 degree F air taking turns looking at M42 and the gibbous moon overhead. Apparently many of the club members will be attending the upcoming Winter Star Party in the Keys. I'd be there if I could :-). SWFAS has about 85 members, our president says that places us among the largest clubs in the state. I'm looking forward to attending some club observing events in the near future.

An interesting observation: I can definitely say that talking to people on Twitter has increased my confidence in my ability to share my love of astronomy with others in "real" life. If I hadn't had this very positive online experience, I doubt that I would have been able to conquer my introvertedness (is that a real word?) and join the club; I tend to be a "loner," but I think that's changing. It was a watershed event for me when I realized there were people out there who would listen to what I had to say. I would like to thank Tavi, Ewan, Louis, Waddell, Mike, and all the others out there for their kindness and support of Caffeinated Astronomy.

Coming up: a review of the iPod Touch / iPhone as a tool for the amateur astronomer.

Clear skies!