Activity

Sungrazing Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) has just entered the field of view of SOHO’s C3 coronagraph (see image below).  Should be great viewing of the comet’s fiery passage near the sun.

Monday or Tuesday 1/13 and 1/14 could be sunny and comet C/2024 G3 could be visible on day sky. On Monday above Sun, so Sun could be blocked by roof,  on Tuesday comet will be on the left side of the Sun, so Sun could be blocked by the vertical wall on the right side.

Our Reflector magazine for December 2024 has a cover topic “A FLYING SAUCER IN CETUS”.  I wondered if this might  be referring to the near edge on galaxy NGC 1055 that I noticed when observing and photographing M77.  Sure enough!  On page 5 and 6, NGC 1055 is pictured and described by author Dr. James R. Dire as looking like a flying sau…[Read more]

Glorious M42 (Orion Nebula) returns to our skies!  The image below is the first one taken with my 6 inch Quattro f/4 reflector of M42 as one can tell from the spikes on the brighter stars due to the secondary mirror supports.  82, 5 second frames were stacked and contrast stretched.

Great idea. We should include some featured objects into our public events, for example M42 (Orion Nebula) or C14 (Double cluster).
Hubble imaged 87 of the 110 objects in the Charles Messier catalog and 89 of the 109 objects in the Caldwell catalog. So there is 87+89 = 176 potential objects to observe and compare with the Hubble images.

Comet 2023 A3 was 1/10th of a degree from the star Alya, a beautiful double and the tail star of Serpens on 11/22 but cloudy skies prevented viewing until last night (11/25). The comet was about 2 degrees away from Alya then and so I used this star to find the comet. Alya is nicely split in a small telescope (22 arcseconds apart); both components…[Read more]

Whoops, the above photo is from 11/27 and not the 26th.  Nineteen 5 second frames were stacked.  A satellite crossed just below the comet in one of the early frames.

Getting out 11/26 before the clouds, rain and cold prevent viewing.  Wanted another view and photo of C/2023 A3 as it appeared near an isolated star SAO 123928 in Serpens.  Upon viewing the 6.3 mag star I could see the comet (mag 8.1) a half degree away.  Below is a stack image of the encounter.

October 8th, 2024 meeting minutes.

Motion of C/2023 A3 over a 24 hr. period from 11-6 to 11-7 2024.  The comet has moved about 1 degree further from the star 74 Oph’s (bright star at bottom of image) position and it’s brightness has attenuated about 0.14 magnitude.

Another one of C/2023 A3!  The star 74 Oph (SAO 123377) was used to locate the comet.  The comet shines at around 5.0 magnitude.

On the Sun you can see a large spot with the naked eye protected by eclipse glasses in the left part.

Sounds like a plan to me, I’ll be there a little before 530 on November 12th.

Colin

I can bring my laser collimator to the meeting (it is an inexpensive one, $21 on Amazon) that works well with my 6 inch f/4 scope.  Might try it and if it also works with Colin’s scope he can get one for himself.  With reflectors, it’s a good idea to check collimation every time you observe.

Randy, I would really like to do that, if I bring it to the next meeting could we do it then?

Hi Colin, If the telescope hasn’t been collimated (mirrors aligned), then doing that may vastly improve the image. We can take a look at it and perform the collimation for free if you wish. Let me know.
Thanks,

Randy Hemann
whatsup dot hemann at gmail.com

<p style=”text-align: left;”>C/2023 A3 looking nearly stellar in my cell phone shot through my grab and go setup on 2024-10-27 at 7:56pm.  Visually, I could see quite a bit of tail but the phone didn’t seem to pick it up.</p>