Friday, November 9, 2012

Observing Report 11/8

The 7 PM session at the Meade telescope,
Jupiter rising in the background.
Thursday lab was fortunate to have very clear (but cold!) skies for their second observing session. Both 7 and 8 PM groups had a sky tour, looked at Jupiter and moons through a Meade 8" telescope, and then focused on taking an image with the SBIG 402 CCD camera. The 7 PM group also got a look at what Dr. Marschall was doing with the research telescope. Here a some of the results of our labors. The targets were globular cluster M15 and planetary nebula M27.


M15, unfiltered, 24-sec exposure.
M15, combo of 3 16-sec exposures through RGB filters.

M27, combo of 3 18-sec exposures through RGB filters.

Astronomy Software and the Real Sky

Below is a photograph of the sky from the observing platform outside the Gettysburg College Observatory at 8:45 PM on Nov. 8. It shows the observatory building and, from left to right, Capella, Jupiter, and Aldebaran. The Pleiades are above, and Orion is rising, although it is difficult to see it in the glare. Below that are screenshots of the same scene from Starry Night 6 (College) and Stellarium 11.1 (which is free!). The observatory site panorama is one we made ourselves. Both applications have the capacity to simulate light pollution, though that feature is not enabled in these shots.

Photo by Ian Clarke, Panasonic Lumix FZ100, 30 sec exposure processed with UFRaw.

Starry Night College, 6.4.6.

Stellarium 11.1

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Observing Report: Nov 5, 2012




Monday lab had a clear but cold second session at the observatory.  (In the video above, you can see darkness fall at the observatory before the lab session at 24x natural speed.) The focus of the session was imaging, though we also had a visual sky tour and a telescopic view of Juipter, which was visible above the eastern horizon by 7:30.

Big Dipper in the NNW, 6:20 PM

Bright objects L-R Capella, Jupiter, Aldebaran. 8:30 PM

We used an SBIG 402 CCD camera to image one deep space object in each session. In the 7:00 session, we took pictures of M57 (the Ring Nebula) and at 8:00 the target was M27 (the Dumbell Nebula). In both sessions we took both unfiltered images and a set of images through RGB filters to later combine into a color image. Here are the results:
M27, unfiltered, 24 sec exposure. Not focused as well as we thought. Color results were  not satisfactory.

M57, unfiltered, 12 sec exposure.

Combinations of three 12 sec exposures through red, blue, and green filters. Best of the night!


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Solar Eclipse

Here is an article about the Nov. 13 eclipse visible from part of Austrailia and the Pacific. Includes links to webcasts.

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/01/14864299-countdown-to-a-total-solar-eclipse

Thursday, November 1, 2012

November Sky this Month Shows Coming Up

Come see our first public show with the new LED cove light system! Topics will include bright planets in the morning and evening skies, more meteors, standard time, and the winter stars.

Sunday, 11/4, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, 11/6, 12 Noon
Tuesday, 11/6, 7:00 PM

The Hatter Planetarium is located in Masters 115. All shows are free and all are welcome!
Remainder of the Fall 2012 schedule is on our web site.