Asteroid 97 Klotho Passing Through Virgo
The blue arrow marks the asteroid 97 Klotho passing through the constellation Virgo on 26/2/12 at 4.46am New Mexico time (UTC -7). First discovered by E.W. Tempel in Marseille on 17th February 1868 Klotho is a main-belt asteroid with a diameter of 82.83 km. It rotates 35 times per hour and has an absolute magnitude of 7.63. In this image Klotho has just passed the large red star HIP 61658 and to the top right you can see the spiral galaxy NGC 4536 with the much fainter NGC 4533 galaxy above it. The asteroid was named after one of the three Fates (Moirae to the Greeks, Parcae to the Romans), Klotho, who carried a spindle and a globe and spun the thread of life. The other Fates were Lachesis and Atropos. T20 1 x 600 sec. RA 12:37:49 DEC 1:44:20
The image below shows the orbital track of this asteroid through the solar system marked in blue….
Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd Update
I haven’t imaged Comet Garradd since September last year thanks to the vagaries of the Welsh weather, which seems remarkably similar to the conditions in the New Mexico mountains every time I tried to set up an imaging session via iTelescope.net (formerly the GRAS network). In that time the comet has steadily brightened (currently mag 6.6) and earlier this month it glided serenely past the globular cluster M92 during another superb photographic opportunity that I missed! Rolando Ligustri in Italy has been posting up some fantastic images of the two tails that are now clearly visible in short exposure photographs so I was keen to see this activity for myself and capture some images as soon as the weather in New Mexico improved. Last night was perfect with no cloud and low wind so I booked 25 minutes on T20, the wide angle FSQ 106 telescope fitted with a one shot colour camera.
The resulting image processed today clearly shows the gas (left) and dust (right) tails extending out either side of the comet nucleus at almost 180 degrees to each other. The nucleus glows green with cyanogen gas. An added bonus was NGC 6015, the small spiral galaxy you can see at the top left. The bright bluish star on the left edge is HIP 77277 at mag 5.15. The comet is now passing through the tail of the dragon in the constellation Draco and will remain observable at around mag 7 in northern skies until April, after which it will fade gradually. The comet is visible in binoculars and small telescopes as a faint grey smudge, but telescopes of 8″ and above will reveal some tail detail. The best way to see this comet though is to take an image of it and an exposure of just 10 minutes in a 3″ telescope will easily show both tails. Unless another comet goes into outburst suddenly this is likely to be the brightest comet with easily resolved tail detail this year, so make the most of the next two months and take a look !
Image taken 2.57am New Mexico time 26/2/12 via T20 (Takahashi FSQ-ED 106mm 530mm / f5 widefield refractor paired with an FLI ML8300-C 8.3 megapixel one-shot colour camera) 25 minutes exposure Bin 1 @ 2 x 600 sec and 1 x 300 sec. RA: 15h 55m 02.0s DEC: 62° 54′ 25″ (J2000). Processed in Maxim DL5 and Photoshop CS2.
NGC 6791 – A Metal Rich 8 Billion Year Old Cluster
At first glance this looks like a classic globular cluster full of ageing red stars, but along with Berkeley 17 (see October 23rd blog post) NGC 6791, located in the constellation Lyra, is considered to be one of the oldest open clusters in the Milky Way at somewhere around 8 billion years old.
The cluster was first recognized by Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke working at Gottingen University with a 3″ Merz refractor in 1853 and contains approximately 3000 stars. Unusually for open clusters of this age NGC 6791 contains a high number of metal rich stars (principally iron) and a curious set of faint white dwarf stars with differing ages that have been the subject of recent study using the Hubble Telescope.
Imaged on 29/9/2011 6.16am New Mexico using GRAS 3 (TAK TOA 150/FLI ML8300 one shot colour camera. Bin 1). RA: 19h 20m 53.0s DEC: 37° 46′ 18″ (J2000) 20 minutes exposure @ 2 x 600 seconds.
NGC 2362 (Tau Canis Majoris) Cluster – The Youngest Cluster in the Milky Way
NGC 2362 (Caldwell 64) is a visually stunning open cluster of around 60 stars spread across 6′ (9 light years) in the Canis Major constellation. The cluster is located on the outer edge of the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 and rediscovered by William Herschel in March 1785. Its brightest star at the centre of the cluster is Tau Canis Majoris (mag 4.4), and therefore it is sometimes called the Tau Canis Majoris Cluster. NGC 2362 has a distance of 5,100 light years and is a relatively young 4-5 million years in age. There have been numerous mistaken associations of nebulosity with this cluster and all modern researchers now agree that there is no native nebulosity. The cluster does however sit within a large bubble of HII gas associated with the Sharpless 310 nebula. The nebula may be a remnant of the clusters original nursery cloud which has otherwise been blown away by the stellar winds of the hot young stars.
The central Tau Canis Majoris star is actually a multiple star system in its own right, but the component stars cannot be resolved by smaller telescopes. The core is a close binary with two stars of equal magnitude (Rosat X-Ray satellite images).
Image taken on 1/10/2010 5.55 am New Mexico time on GRAS 3 (TAK TOA 150/FLI ML8300 one shot colour camera). RA: 07h 18m 42.1s DEC: -24° 57′ 00″ (J2000). 10 minute exposure @ 1 x 600 seconds.
Big Sunspot Group AR 1339
Sunspot group AR 1339 is an impressive sight right now and its high energy Delta class magnetic field has produced some spectacular M-Class flares over the last 24 hours. As it approaches the central meridian of the sun it is worth keeping a watch for X-Class flares from this region which may produce some impressive auroras down here on Earth. AR1339 appears at the top in the images with AR 1338 below. To the left three new active regions are just rounding the limb (AR’s 1340, 1341 & 1342). Images taken 11.21 – 11.46 UT using a DMK41 camera, CaK PST, Ha PST, CaK B1200 diagonal.
Berkeley 17 – The Oldest Open Cluster in the Milky Way
The Berkeley Open Cluster catalogue contains 104 clusters observed by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley using the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) plates. The catalogue was published in 1958 by Jiri Alter et al. The Berkeley clusters are a fascinating and challenging group to explore and contain some of the oldest and most distant open clusters in our galaxy. Over the next few months i’m going to introduce you to a few of these clusters with the help of some images taken using the GRAS remote telescopes in New Mexico.
Berkeley 17 (Be17) is found in the constellation Auriga and currently holds the title for the oldest open cluster in our galaxy. There is some dispute over the maximum age estimate depending on which astronomical paper you read, but the average figure is somewhere around 10.06 – 10.08 billion years old (a 2006 paper gives a date range of 8.5- 9 billion years, but does not rule out a greater age) . Be17 does have a rival for oldest open cluster, NGC 6791 in Lyra, but until a definitive date range is provided for the latter Be17 reigns supreme.
Like most of the Berkeley clusters Be17 is very faint with magnitudes of its estimated 400 member stars in the range 17.8 – 20.0. It appears as a slightly more dense clump in the centre of the photo below and is largely populated by old red stars of relatively high metallicity with no evidence of any blue stragglers which are more common in older globular clusters. Be17 is thought to inhabit the thin disk of our galaxy and therefore helps to date the formation of the thin disk as well as supplying an upper date limit for the formation of the thick disk and halo.
Imaged using GRAS 03 TAK TOA 150/FLI ML8300 one shot colour camera. 24th September 2011 09:11:37 UTC RA: 05h 20m 32.0s DEC: 30° 34′ 30″ (J2000) 20 minutes exposure @ 2 x 600 seconds.
The Sun – 15th October 2011 – Lots of surface activity
Lovely clear blue skies today, but with loads of atmospheric jitter so close up images of the activity were not possible. These Ha and CaK images were taken between 10.30 and 12.30 UT. There are seven active regions gliding over the surface of the sun with lots of nice spot, filament and pore detail. Active regions in the images include 1312, 1313, 1318 on the right and 1314, 1316, 1317, 1319 on the left.
