Bill Weir

Amongst a decent sized group of people viewing the ISS and Shuttle pass was a blast. The night sky viewing with the home schoolers out in Metchosin was perfect in my estimation. Venus, Saturn and the Moon with Regulus showed themselves well. Even managed to throw in a couple of Binaries.

The climax of the evening was the ISS Shuttle flyby. They arose in the west on cue. It was a beautiful sight. They could easily fit in the FOV of my 80mm refractor fitted with a wide field 40mm eyepiece. I was able to track them quite easily. I even snapped off a couple of shots of each individually. I linked them together and then rotated it. I took each shot at exactly the same point when each entered the FOV so I'm fairly sure this shows them with the proper separation. In the image the streaked line on the left is the ISS and the one on the right is the Shuttle. They are heading east which is to the left.

There is also this second image which was a shorter exposure. It was a small point of light on the large scale. After cropping and enlarging I ended up with this blurry image. What do you think, Shuttle or ISS? Not bad for a hand held point and shoot shot through an ED 80mm.

Earlier this evening I was at the Village Green here in Metchosin, doing some H-Alpha Solar observing while my son was at Scouts. Occasionally there would be a passer by who had a look. I was also showing them Venus through my little 80mm refractor. It was kind of funny because they would say," I don't see it I only see the Moon." Then I would tell them, that that little crescent was Venus. Then I would show them how to see it naked eye. I mentioned that I knew that Saturn would be also visible but I wasn't sure where it was. Duh!

Here's how Venus looked to us through my little refractor. Photo taken with my wife's little point and shoot. This time I actually played with the settings. ISO 50 1/200 sec f/2.8. Simple crop.

Thanks to Malcolm's fine article on Vesta, I'd like to contribute a little. I managed (with some difficulty I might add due to my wooded property) observations of Vesta on Sunday the 10th and last night the 13th. For doing the observation I was using my little 80mm refractor at only 18X. The almost 3 degree FOV made identification easy. The fact that the asteroid is in close proximity to two 6.1 mag stars also helped in making identification easy. The third, 6th mag dot had clearly moved in the 3 day time span. On Suday the trio formed a very squat, drawn out V. Last night Vesta was less than a degree directly north of the eastern of the stars. This created more of a backwards L or check mark shape. I'd estimate Vesta to be 6th mag because the three dots appeared almost identical. I say almost because there was a slight golden appearance to Vesta. The two stars were white. When I increased the magnification to 54X the golden colour increased.

If anyone is wanting to pursue this more there is a website you might want to visit this website, which was created to compile observations around Deep Impact. It has now resurfaced because of the impending launch of the Dawn Mission that will send a craft to visit Vesta and Ceres. Observations, Images/Animations and sketches are welcomed. It is also a source of star charts for the future. In the grey panel on the left of the page click on Star Charts and then scroll down. Then just pick a date for a widefield chart. On the right is a far more detailed 5*X8* chart, for if you are having trouble picking it out of the field.

I was feeling pretty lazy today and doing my best to avoid yard work. I had heard there was a pretty active region moving onto the face of the Sun. It was the excuse I was looking for to kill a little time. Around 1600hrs I took out my Zenithstar 80 with the old 0.5A Daystar H-Alpha filter and had a look. A very large active area with several prominent dark spots was visible close to the following edge. A large looping prominence was also noted almost directly opposite on the preceding edge. No other proms were noted.

I then took out my 6" dob with a full aperture white light filter. Now I know H-Alpha can be pretty exciting but under white light this new Sunspot, 0960 really showed what it is made of. The complexity of the region was fabulous. I did a sketch of both views. The full surface view in white light is at 50X and the enlargement at 100X. The H-Alpha is at 56X and 113X. I was using my 8-24mm Nagler zoom as the eyepiece. It makes it so easy to find the sweet spots for magnification. Holding the white light filter up to my face I could just make out the presence of the Sunspot naked eye.

Seeing as things were boring on the Sun I decided to do some day time Lunar observing and this was where I had one of those light bulb going on moments.

Down close to the south polar region of the Moon is a fair sized crater named Maginus. In it I could make out a nice Sunrise crater ray going on. In fact, I stumbled across this ray before, a little over a year ago. I also saw it when I was in Costa Rica just this last March. Now this is where it gets interesting, or at least it is to me. This past March it was also seen the day after the X (which I didn't see due to rain) happened. When I first saw this ray it was on May 6/06. I don't know if the X appeared the day before that date, but I do know it happened 2 months earlier on Mar 6/06 because I have a photo that I took. It's also when I did that progression map. The X happens in 2 month cycles so I'm thinking that it probably happened on the May date. Now stay with me, because I'm finally getting to my point.

Do you think this Sun rise ray happens every month or is it only on the cycle of when the libration is favorable to show the X? I guess in a month I'll know, if the sky cooperates. I'm attaching a not very good shot that I took of the ray in Maginus. The seeing was awful.

I took these two shots between 2200 and 2300hrs May 23/07. In the complete Moon shot the X is really tiny and just barely visible but what is also in the shot is the 3.9 mag star rho Leo, (the forward sticking hind foot of Leo). The Moon skimmed just south of it. That shot was taken through my 6" dob (I rotated the image for realism) hand holding my wife's point and shoot to a 22mm eyepiece. The larger cropped image was through a 12mm eyepiece.

I really do need to stop looking out before going to bed. I did this around 0015hrs, so 25.25hrs after doing the sketch the evening before. The comet had moved so much that I needed to use my 40mm eyepiece in my 6" dob to get the entire view within one FOV. I didn't feel like doing one of my linked FOV sketches as they take a bit longer to do. The FOV given with this combo is approximately 2 degrees.

The previous night the comet was approx half way between the brightest star just left of centre in this sketch and the galaxy at the far left. The bright star in John McDonald's and Charles Banville's images is the one halfway between the brightest star and the galaxy. [John's] calculations say the comet moved approx
64.4 arcmin. My sketch suggests you could add a bit of that +10% to the calculations.

Anyway here's how I saw things last night through my 6" dob at 30X. I kind of rushed the sketch but it's a good thing I did because clouds obscured the view shortly after I was mostly done. I could have added a few more stars.

I had wanted to use the same sized scope to do the repeat observation for consistency of image scale but I didn't. I was tired from the evening before and had spent most of last evening helping my son study for his Provincial chemistry exam. The thought of setting up then taking down my 12.5" truss was more than I could take so I just set out my 6" dob. It's moments like that, that I wished I had one of those cheapo big dobs, instead of one of Guy's beautiful pieces of work.

The comet had moved a great deal in 24hrs. At the point of the sketch it had moved to about 0.3 of a degree from NGC 6015. To give a bit of a perspective, there is a star that I drew in the first sketch that lies to the right, just outside of the rings defining the FOV. This is the star that is now dead centre in the second sketch.

The comet was a bit more difficult to see last night but I don't attribute that to the smaller aperture used, as I it was the same scope that I used to observe it two nights earlier. I think it was due to the fact that the comet was situated right beside an 8th mag star and also that glaringly bright naked eye 5th mag star that is seen at around 4 o'clock in the sketch.

This sketch is how things were seen using a 17mm T4 Nagler in my f/8 6" dob, for approx. 70X magnification. The FOV is a bit greater than 1 degree.

Well it's crude and could use a bit of tidying up but that will have to wait until tomorrow. This is how I saw this conjunction tonight as viewed through my 12.5" dob. I could actually just fit both objects within the single FOV of my 17mm Nagler. That puts them at approximately 0.88 degrees apart. I had to stop sketching due to a contrail. I hope someone managed to image this tonight, it looked very cool. Coincidentally it was exactly a year ago, that fragmented comet Schwassmann-Wachmann was making its dramatic fly by of M 13 and M57.

More info on Tangent Arcs.

In March 2006 I managed to get a couple of sort of decent shots of the Aristarchus Plateau one of which I've attached. My all time favorite of the area though is this one from APOD.

This last January though, I had my most interesting view of that area. It was one that really high lighted how dramatic the drop off is into Vallis Schroteri. It was so odd that I did a quick sketch so I could figure out what I was seeing. The terminator was a little to the west of Aristarchus.
Normally I see a terminator not as a true dark line but as fading into darkness. This terminator line that I saw was as true a dark line as I've ever seen on the Moon. It truly demonstrated how much higher the eastern side of the plateau is than the west where Herodotus is.

This is an area that's truly magnificent to explore with larger aperture.
There are so many rilles, rupees and little mons. This attached sketch was done using my 6" dob at 300X on the night of Jan 29/07. The seeing was excellent.

The photo was taken Mar 12/06 with my wife's little point and shoot hand held to the eyepiece of my little 6" dob.

The Moon is such an awesome object to observe. Chances are it will never be the same twice unless you work at it.

I raced around the Western Communities to find the highest vanatage point out that way and still be within 1/2 hr from home. I eventually ended up un a dead end street over looking the Walmart parking lot and the Can West Mall (or what ever it's called now). The street was packed with cars as beside me was a small hill that a couple of dozen kids and their parents were using to tobogan into the parking lot.

By 1620 hrs I had located the Comet with my 10X50 Binoculars then got it in the sight of my little 80mm refractor. Even at 13X and a better that 4 degree FOV with the refractor the tail streamed out of the FOV. It took a while but I managed to coax the first kid over to have a look. It wasn't long before I was surrounded by children and adults alike and we had a great old time. We chatted, passed the binoculars around, took turns looking in the scope and just generally stared off to the West in amazement as the Comet brightened in the sky.

On the National list the word "Great" has been attributed to this comet. Whether it is or not I can't really say. All I know is that it allowed me to have this absolutely wonderful moment in my life and to share it with people I don't even know. If that isn't "Great" I don't know what is.

I'm attaching the lowly best of the bunch shot that I took hand holding my wife's little point and shoot digital up the the 40mm eyepiece in my 80 mm ED refractor. It has been cropped a bit to get rid of the vingetting. The pole in the foreground had a Canadian flag on it that looked really cool with the comet through the scope. I was hoping it would show up but it didn't. Oh well the kids liked it. One of these days I'll have to get me one of those fancy DSLRs.

From Metchosin I had pretty much a similar experience with battling the clouds. I set up under the covered stage at the Village Green, behind the Municipal Hall. Under it's shelter I was able to observe, but would be protected from the rain that never happened.

I first noticed a notch on the inner edge of the Sun at 11:12:56[am PST]. I could see Mercury well visible as half a dot at 11:13:47 but then cloud obscured the final viewing of 2nd contact.

A few minutes later The Sun was clear enough again, to attempt taking some pictures, when a secretary from the Hall out for a smoke break stumbled across me. I snapped off a few pictures, then showed her what I was looking at. She went back inside but soon returned with all the rest (3) of the office staff in tow. Until around 11:40 I managed to show them what they had heard about on the news.

At 1:11[pm PST] cracks in the clouds again allowed me fleeting glances until 1:30 when things socked in solid. I was setup well to camp out for the whole day with only needing to leave for a short bit around 3:00 to pick my son up at school. I was to bring him back so we could watch the end of the transit together. Sadly things never cleared after I picked him up, but we did wait at the Village Green just in case.

I hadn't seen it all but did see the part that I had really wanted to and that was the beginning. Seeing glimpses in the middle was pretty good icing on the cake. For me at least it was a very successful transit.

This is my best photo of the bunch taken with my wife's little Canon point and shoot. It was hand held up to a 10mm Speers WALER eyepiece that was in my 6" dob. I had to crop it to get rid of most of the vignetting. I darkened the background but don't really know what I'm doing, so forgive the rough edge to the Sun. This shot was taken at approximately 11:17[am PST].

I'm also including a shot of the Metchosin Mercury Transit Camp.

From June 10th through June 18th, I managed total of six observations of the wonderful merging of Mars, M44 and Saturn. This wasn�t the easiest of tasks, due to several reasons. The first obstacle was the very late twilight period at this time of year. This was coupled with the fact that these objects are presently located very close to the western horizon at that time of night. From the time they�d become visible, to their disappearing into the distant hills I only had about an hour of time. Weather, also did its best to conspire against me.

For three of the observations I actually headed out to the observing location under total cloud cover. Drifting by, cracks in the clouds allowed me enough time to eke out the location of the objects. For two of these nights I filled in some of the stars using the sketch that I did on the 11th.

Two of the three missed observations were due to rain. The third missed occasion (June 17th) was due to my duties as a father. My younger son and I were at a Scout camp in Sooke, and on that evening he was running the campfire ceremony. As the sky darkened I could see through the dense forest that the sky to the west was clear, but I knew where I needed to be. (He did extremely well by the way) By the time I manage to get to where I could set my telescope up the trio had disappeared below the horizon. I did manage to get in a good little observing session from this nice dark location though.

The panel of six sketches (inverted) chronicles the movement of Mars from west of the Bee Hive Cluster (M44), through the cluster, then on to and past Saturn. The linked circles are the twinning of the adjacent two-degree FOV provided by a 40mm eyepiece in my f/8 6� dob. Start at the upper left and move down, then go back up and read down on the right. Follow the little pale orange dot as it moves across the field. South is up. Saturn�s movement away from M44 was apparent, but pales in comparison to the speed with which Mars moved through the sky.

This was a really fun project to do.

35mm SLR 55mm lens at f/2 ISO 400, approx 30 second exposure
Ilford B&W film

I'm sure with better software the raw image could look better but I'm not there yet. Just though David and Matthew shouldn't be the only ones doing this.

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