Amateur Astronomers Group

01/18/2025

A post from our sister site

Spaceweather Today:

Solar maximum is peppering the solar disk with dark spots. Three sunspots (AR3959, 3961, 3964) facing Earth have unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields. NOAA forecasters are estimating a 70% chance of M-class flares and a 30% chance of X-flares today..

This (almost) full solar disk image was captured from Alamogordo, NM at 10:38 AM MST using my Coronado Solar Max II h-alpha telescope and ZWO ASI174MM camera.

01/05/2025

First Mars image of the season (from our sister site).

On Sunday, 12 Jan 2025, Mars will make its closest approach to Earth since 2022 and enter its annual opposition shortly thereafter. This time around, Mars will make its closest approach to Earth since 2022, at 59,703,891 miles (96,084,099 km). This is actually quite far compared to earlier this century, and the martian disc being only 14.5 arc-seconds across.

Key features to observe on the rusty-red surface of Mars include the the north polar cap and Syrtis Major, both visible in this image. The martian northern polar cap consists primarily of water ice. Frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulates as a comparatively thin layer about one meter thick on top of the cap.

Syrtis Major is a massive shield volcano in the eastern hemisphere of Mars. The dark color comes from the basaltic volcanic rock of the region and the relative lack of dust. Data from the Mars Global Surveyor revealed it is actually a broad topographic rise.

Image captured form Alamogordo, NM this morning (5 Jan 2025, 5:50 AM MST) using my 180mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope and ZWO ASI 224MC camera.

01/04/2025

A post from our sister site!

Happy Perihelion Day 2025!

Earth’s 🌎 orbit around the Sun isn’t a circle. Instead, it’s an ellipse that has closest and farthest points from the Sun each year. This closest Earth-Sun distance is called perihelion, from the Greek roots peri meaning near and helios meaning Sun.

For 2025, our closest point came this morning (4 Jan 2025) at 91,405,993 miles (147,103,686 km). In early January, we’re about 3% closer to the sun – roughly 3 million miles (5 million km) – than we are during Earth’s aphelion (farthest point) in early July.

Technically speaking, this also marks the moment when the Sun ☀️ appears larger in the sky than at any other time of year, and when the Earth receives the most radiation from it. In practice, however, that 3% difference in the Earth's distance from the Sun is barely noticeable.

Interesting tidbit🤓: If you know orbits, perhelion is also when the Earth is traveling the fastest around the Sun - Earth is rushing along now at almost 19 miles per second (30.3 km/s) - and to account for this on the calendar, February has (mostly) only 28 days. 🤓

12/26/2024

In March 1785, German-born British astronomer William Herschel discovered what would become NGC 3254. This Hubble image using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a portion of the galaxy that resides in the constellation of Leo Minor.

NGC 3254 has a fascinating secret hiding in plain sight – it is a Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies have extraordinarily active cores (called an active galactic nucleus) that release as much energy as the rest of the galaxy put together. The active cores of Seyfert galaxies such as NGC 3254 are brightest when observed in light outside the visible spectrum.

NGC 3254 lies some 118 million light-years from Earth and had two supernovas in recent history, one in 1941 and another in 2019.

12/23/2024

Something I wrote on our sister site!

In the run-up to the Parker Solar Probe🛰 encounter with the Sun ☀️tomorrow morning, I wanted to talk about the extreme engineering involved in one of its instruments - the Faraday cup.

The Solar Probe Cup (SPC) is an instrument that is designed to measure the ions and electrons that make up the solar wind and coronal plasma. While solar panels, cameras and the electronics of the spacecraft are safely tucked behind its heat shield during the close encounter, the SPC instrument was designed to be pointed directly at the Sun at all times, allowing the solar wind (which is flowing primarily radially away from the Sun) to be measured throughout the orbit.

While previous generations of these Faraday cups have flown successfully on numerous missions in relatively benign environments - the Parker version has to operate in an enviroment exceeding 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit🥵 AND send accurate readings!

The cup itself is made from sheets of Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum, an alloy of molybdenum, with a melting point of about 4,260 F (2,349 C). The grids that produce an electric field for the Solar Probe Cup are made from tungsten, a metal with the highest known melting point of 6,192 F (3,422 C). Normally lasers🤓 are used to etch the gridlines in these grids — however due to the high melting point, acid had to be used instead.

Another challenge came in the form of the electronic wiring — most cables would melt from exposure to heat radiation at such close proximity to the Sun. To solve this problem, the team grew sapphire crystal tubes to suspend the wiring, and made the wires from niobium.

Scientists still do not fully know how the Sun's magnetic field is generated deep within its interior; nor have a grasp on what drives the solar cycles (and those sunspots I often post images of on this site). By sampling the solar corona and observing how the Sun behaves at closer proximities, hopefully the instruments will give us information that will help us on our way to solving these mysteries.

This is one example of NASA's bold missions, doing something that is a true test of human ingenuity to answer longstanding questions about our universe.

11/02/2024

Copying over from our sister site.

The Sun Today (2 Nov 2024)

The Sun is at solar maximum and is dominated by two large sunspots in its northern hemisphere, AR3878 and AR3879. The Sun has 11 numbered active regions facing the Earth today.

Today (2 Nov) both are quiet, but AR3878 spewed out a blast of plasma resulting in an X.2 flare on 31 Oct. A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) did not result from the blast. The pulse of extreme ultraviolet ionized the Earth's upper atmosphere resulting in a shortwave radio blackout (below 25 MHz) over the Pacific Ocean.

The Sun is generating a few minor M-class flares today producing a few shortwave blackouts in the Indian Ocean basin. Earth's magnetic field is relatively quiet today (so far).

Image captured from Alamogordo, NM on 2 Nov 2024 at 11:02 MT (1702 UT) using my trusty Astro Tech 102mm f7 refractor, Lunt B1200 calcium-k filter (393.4 nm) and ZWO ASI174MM camera. Approximately 2000 images were captured and I used the best 75% to create the final photo.

10/14/2024

my first attempt at Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Alamogordo

Comet C/2023 A3 reached its perihelion — the closest it gets to the Sun — on Sept. 27 (0.391 AU) and came closest to Earth on 12 Oct 2024, passing about 44 million miles (71 million km) or 0.47 AU distant.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the distant Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China on 9 Jan 2023 and independently found by the ATLAS telescopes in South Africa on 22 Feb 2023. The comet last past Earth some 80,000 years ago on its highly elliptical orbit.

Image captured with a Canon T2i at ISO 800 with a single 25-second exposure (dark applied by the camera) using a 24mm f3.5 lens from South Scenic Ave in Alamogordo on 13 Oct 2024 shortly after sunset.

10/08/2024

A post from our sister site🤓

I went out a few days ago to photograph Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS but it was already in the glare of the rising morning sun. However all is not lost, I pulled this image from the ESA/NASA SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) today (8 Oct 2024).

The Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument on SOHO is a prolific comet catcher from its postion at the L1 Lagrangian point. Operating since 1995, SOHO has imaged over 5,000 comets rounding the Sun.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China on 9 Jan 2023. It will begin to appear in our evening sky after sunset in mid-October. Tsuchinshan–ATLAS is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on 12 Oct at a distance of 44 million miles (71 million km).

Stay tuned for more updates!

10/01/2024

Sharing a post from our sister site. 🤔This finally appears to be the real deal.

One of the sun’s closest neighbors, Barnard’s star (5.96 light years distant), appears to have at least one planet orbiting it, as well as another three possible planets that need further confirmation.

Using an instrument called ESPRESSO on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the newly found exoplanet completes an orbit in just over three Earth days. This also means its surface is way too hot for liquid water or life, with a temperature of around 125°C (257°F).

Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf star and can be found in the constellation Ophiuchus, however it is too dim (mag +9.5) to see with the naked eye. Its stellar mass is about 16% of the Sun's, and it has 19% of the Sun's diameter.

This isn't the first time that a planet has been supposedly spotted around Barnard's Star. Being so close to Earth, it has been a frequent target of exoplanet searches for over a century and has a long history of false positive planet detections (most recently in 2018).

09/22/2024

Jupiter from Alamogordo, NM on the morning of 22 Sep 2024 using my 180mm Maksutov at f15 (2700mm) and ZWO ASI224MC camera.

09/17/2024

Tonight's (17 Sep 2024) partial lunar eclipse will turn the moon a murky red-brown color when Earth's shadow crosses the lunar surface. For Alamogordo, the eclipse will begin at 8:44 PM MT and extend through 10:47 PM MT.

In this partial lunar eclipse, only 3.5% of the moon's visible surface will be covered by the darkest part of Earth's shadow, creating the appearance of a hazy "bite" taken out of the lunar surface. The shadow will darken the side of the moon facing Earth.

This partial lunar eclipse is extra special as it also falls during a "supermoon", the second of four supermoons in a row for 2024. The Moon will reside some 222,122 miles (357, 471 km) from the Earth.

08/26/2024

Researchers using Georgia State University’s (GSU) Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array have identified new details about the size and appearance of Polaris, also known as The North Star. The most remarkable finding was the large bright and dark spots on the star’s surface.

Polaris is a kind of star known as a classical Cepheid variable where its true brightness depends on its period of pulsation - brighter stars pulsate slower than fainter stars. According to Gaia data, Polaris lies some 448 light-years from Earth.

Using the CHARA optical interferometric array of six telescopes at Mount Wilson observatory, California, the GSU team's investigation was to map the orbit of the close, faint companion that orbits Polaris every 30 years. The MIRC-X camera provided the first glimpse of what the surface of a Cepheid variable looks like. CHARA images revealed large bright and dark spots on the surface of Polaris that changed over time. Ahh, additional research is forthcoming.!

The team successfully tracked the orbit of the close companion (called α UMi Ab) and measured changes in the size of the Cepheid as it pulsated. The orbital motion showed that Polaris has a mass five times larger than that of the sun. The images of Polaris also showed that it has a diameter 46 times the size of the sun.

The National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) deserves a shout-out as well. The new observations of Polaris were made and recorded as part of the open access program at the CHARA Array, where astronomers from around the world can apply for time through NOIRLab!

If your interested, The Astrophysical Journal published the new peer-reviewed research on August 20, 2024. Here's the link, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad5e7a

08/20/2024

There are two types of (astronomical) Blue Moons - but neither has anything to do with color.

A seasonal Blue Moon is the traditional definition of a Blue Moon and refers to the third full moon in a season that has four full moons.

The second definition is the monthly Blue Moon, referring to the second full moon in a single calendar month.

The Blue Moon that will occur tonite (19 Aug 2024) will fit the first definition and will also be a supermoon - being slightly bigger in our sky. .

07/23/2024

Look east before midnight on July 23 and 24 to see a waning gibbous moon close to the ringed planet.

07/16/2024

Who doesn't like these amazing JWST pictures?

These galaxies, collectively known as Arp 142, are informally named the Penguin Galaxy, although to me it looks more like a hummingbird. Webb’s observations, which combine near- and mid-infrared light from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), respectively, clearly show that they are joined by a thin haze (represented in blue) that is a mix of stars and gas, a result of their cosmic dance.

Per NASA, Their ongoing interaction was set in motion between 25 and 75 million years ago when the Penguin (individually cataloged as NGC 2936) and the Egg (NGC 2937) completed their first pass.

At a distance of about 23 million light-years, these two galaxies are roughly 10 times farther away than our nearest major galactic neighbor - Andromeda - and well withi nthe range of amateur telescopes.

07/04/2024

On these hot summer days you really don't want to be out in the New Mexico daytime taking images of the Sun. This was done with a tiny Astro-Tech AT60ED, Lunt B1200 CaK filter, ZWO ASI290MM on a Skywatcher. Whole setup takes less than 5 minute to setup, align and capture images!.

With the summer sun high in the sky, I set up my portable solar setup to capture this Calcium-K (Cak) image yesterday (1 Jul 2024).

While we are still approaching solar maximum perhaps later this year, these sunspots have relatively stable magnetic fields and pose little threat for strong solar flares.

Image captured from Alamogordo, NM on 1 July 2024 (1850 UT) using my AT60ED f6 refractor, Lunt B1200 CaK filter (393.4 nm) and ZWO ASI290MM camera on a Skywatcher SolarQuest mount.

06/21/2024

The full moon of June occurs tonight (21 June). The June full moon is known as the Strawberry Moon because it's appearance in the sky meant strawberries were likely ripe or soon to be ripe. An added treat tonight will see the Moon closely passing the bright reddish star Antares, however those located in a swath of the Pacific Ocean (i.e. Fiji) will see the moon pass in front of the star, which is the brightest in the constellation Scorpius, the Scorpion.

In case you didn't notice, summer officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere yesterday (20 June, 4:51 p.m. ET) , the earliest start to the season in over two centuries.🤓 Summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year (in the northern hemisphere), when the Sun is at its highest position in the sky.

Image of the Moon captured from Alamogordo, NM on 27 May 2024 using my Takahashi refractor and new ZWO ASI585MC-Pro camera.

05/30/2024

Here is an image I posted on our sister site of the Coalsack Nebula.

Here is another astrophoto from my southern skies program- this time of the Coalsack Nebula region against a rich Milky Way starfield. Bright blue star Acrux (the 13th brightest star in the night sky) is at the top of the image. To the naked eye Acrux appears as a single star, but it is actually a multiple star system containing six components.

The first observation of the Coalsack was reported by the Spanish navigator and explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in 1499 while exploring the South America coast, however it was recognized by ancient cultures far earlier.

The Coalsack Nebula covers nearly 7° by 5° and extends into the neighboring constellations Centaurus and Musca and is one of the best known dark nebulae in the night sky, The dark cloud of cold gas and dust lies at a distance of 600 light years from Earth and is about 30 to 35 light years across.

This image was captured back on 12 Dec 2023 from Namibia, Africa using an ASA H8 f/2.9 Hyperbolic telescope and Moravian C3-61000 camera. Total integration time was 20 minutes (5 min each RGB and Lum).