A Double Astronomical Whammy!
Wow! I am just getting in from an incredible evening of amateur astronomy. Just by chance, I noticed that the sky was pretty clear this evening, so I went out at around a quarter after seven to check out the visibility, as I wanted to try with binoculars, at least, to find Comet SWAN C/2006 M4 in the western sky just after sundown. I went out on our rooftop terrace, and noticed a steady, bright. orange object in the western sky, about the same magnitude as Mars at opposition. It reminded me of the red planet back in its classic, very close approach in the late summer of 2003. But then, I noticed that the object was moving. OK, maybe it was an airplane. But it had a steady glow. I ran inside to pick up a pair of 10x25 binoculars, not the best for astronomy due to the narrow field of view, but what the hey, you can't be picky at a time like this. Coming out again onto the deck, I easily found the object, now nearing the zenith. Checking it out with binoculars, I could make out no blinking lights as are found on aircraft, so it must be a satellite of some kind. It was really bright, so I thought perhaps it is an iridium satellite or something like that, and I was waiting for it to suddenly fade in brightness, as the solar panels tilted away from the sun, but it did not drastically dim in magnitude, going out of sight when it moved behind the house.
So, I thought, what was it that I had just seen? Luckily, I have Starry Night Pro Plus 5.0 on my computer, so I hurried inside, updating the Earth satellite, comet and asteroid positions in the database. It is set up, of course, for my location in Fürth, and I went forward and backward in time using the program, showing the western horizon. One thing that this program has really made me aware of is the amount of manmade stuff orbiting the Earth. By just increasing the speed of time using the program, the sky is rapidly crisscrossed by all kinds of satellite traffic, reminding me of the Coruscant scenes in the Star Wars movies. Looking at the time of around 19:15 hours, I finally found what it was that I had observed. It was the ISS: the International Space Station, with its crew of three, including a German astronaut, Thomas Reiter. Extremely cool; the whole experience made me feel really futuristic, being able to watch a space station transit overhead.
Next on the agenda was Comet SWAN. Looking at my Starry Night Pro screen, I saw that the comet was currently in the constellation of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. So I went out on the deck again, found the familiar U-shape of the constellation, and started scanning the sky with the binoculars. Eventually, a fuzzy ball popped to my attention. Hmm, I thought, that must be it. But then I decided, let's break out the scope and see how it looks under just a bit more magnification, from 10x to 14x. A common misconception among novice telescope users is that you have to have a lot of magnification to see anything. Actually, light gathering power is more important than magnification, so if you see a cheap department store scope around Christmas time advertising 500x, stay the hell away. You will only be disappointed. I broke out my ETX-70 AT, a 70mm Meade refractor, set it up on the tripod, attached the Autostar, which is a mini-computer to point the telescope at objects selected, and slipped in my 25mm eyepiece. Taking my equipment outside, I leveled the scope, facing it due north, which is easy to do here for 2 reasons. One, the building where we live is oriented according to the four cardinal directions (NOT the case with a lot of German buildings) and two, Polaris, the North Star, was easily visible. I turned on the ETX, went through the Autostar alignment process, centering the scope on two selected stars, and then tried, in vain, to eyeball the scope to Comet SWAN's location. Since that didn't work, I thought, OK, how should I locate the comet in the scope? I hurried once more inside, got the right ascension and declination coordinates from Starry Night, and went back out, entering these as a new object in the Autostar computer. The scope's battery-powered motor started whirring, the telescope started turning, and moved to the new position. I looked through the ocular and, bingo! There it was. A much brighter, fuzzy white blob of light, journeying around the sun.
I have seen other comets, such as Comet LINEAR a few years ago, with my ETX. Unfortunately I didn't have a telescope for the awesome Hale-Bopp back in 1996-97, but Comet SWAN was pretty impressive. I could barely make out a faint tail to the comet, probably due to a bit of western light pollution from Fürth that I have to deal with. What really wowed me, however, was seeing the comet MOVE during the course of a half-hour with respect to the background stars. The thing is bookin'! Wow! To see something 1 astronomical unit away moving at that speed is awe-inspiring. I tried looking for the comet with the naked, ok, partially clothed eye, as I wear glasses, and using averted vision, depending on the rods in my eyes instead of the cones, I could barely make out the comet. If I were at a darker site, it would probably stand out more, but I guess the visual magnitude of it to be around 5.5 or 6.0, the normal limit of seeing with the naked eye.
I hope to get out again to check out Comet SWAN, and I definitely will be keeping track of the ISS using Starry Night, as seeing that was something I won't forget.
So, I thought, what was it that I had just seen? Luckily, I have Starry Night Pro Plus 5.0 on my computer, so I hurried inside, updating the Earth satellite, comet and asteroid positions in the database. It is set up, of course, for my location in Fürth, and I went forward and backward in time using the program, showing the western horizon. One thing that this program has really made me aware of is the amount of manmade stuff orbiting the Earth. By just increasing the speed of time using the program, the sky is rapidly crisscrossed by all kinds of satellite traffic, reminding me of the Coruscant scenes in the Star Wars movies. Looking at the time of around 19:15 hours, I finally found what it was that I had observed. It was the ISS: the International Space Station, with its crew of three, including a German astronaut, Thomas Reiter. Extremely cool; the whole experience made me feel really futuristic, being able to watch a space station transit overhead.
Next on the agenda was Comet SWAN. Looking at my Starry Night Pro screen, I saw that the comet was currently in the constellation of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. So I went out on the deck again, found the familiar U-shape of the constellation, and started scanning the sky with the binoculars. Eventually, a fuzzy ball popped to my attention. Hmm, I thought, that must be it. But then I decided, let's break out the scope and see how it looks under just a bit more magnification, from 10x to 14x. A common misconception among novice telescope users is that you have to have a lot of magnification to see anything. Actually, light gathering power is more important than magnification, so if you see a cheap department store scope around Christmas time advertising 500x, stay the hell away. You will only be disappointed. I broke out my ETX-70 AT, a 70mm Meade refractor, set it up on the tripod, attached the Autostar, which is a mini-computer to point the telescope at objects selected, and slipped in my 25mm eyepiece. Taking my equipment outside, I leveled the scope, facing it due north, which is easy to do here for 2 reasons. One, the building where we live is oriented according to the four cardinal directions (NOT the case with a lot of German buildings) and two, Polaris, the North Star, was easily visible. I turned on the ETX, went through the Autostar alignment process, centering the scope on two selected stars, and then tried, in vain, to eyeball the scope to Comet SWAN's location. Since that didn't work, I thought, OK, how should I locate the comet in the scope? I hurried once more inside, got the right ascension and declination coordinates from Starry Night, and went back out, entering these as a new object in the Autostar computer. The scope's battery-powered motor started whirring, the telescope started turning, and moved to the new position. I looked through the ocular and, bingo! There it was. A much brighter, fuzzy white blob of light, journeying around the sun.
I have seen other comets, such as Comet LINEAR a few years ago, with my ETX. Unfortunately I didn't have a telescope for the awesome Hale-Bopp back in 1996-97, but Comet SWAN was pretty impressive. I could barely make out a faint tail to the comet, probably due to a bit of western light pollution from Fürth that I have to deal with. What really wowed me, however, was seeing the comet MOVE during the course of a half-hour with respect to the background stars. The thing is bookin'! Wow! To see something 1 astronomical unit away moving at that speed is awe-inspiring. I tried looking for the comet with the naked, ok, partially clothed eye, as I wear glasses, and using averted vision, depending on the rods in my eyes instead of the cones, I could barely make out the comet. If I were at a darker site, it would probably stand out more, but I guess the visual magnitude of it to be around 5.5 or 6.0, the normal limit of seeing with the naked eye.
I hope to get out again to check out Comet SWAN, and I definitely will be keeping track of the ISS using Starry Night, as seeing that was something I won't forget.
Comments
I wish some rebel astronomy group would declare war on unnecessary lights, attacking them with air rifles until the skies are truly dark once more!
Suddenly, Delbert Jenson, the patriarch of the Jensen family, nearly dropped his beer while pointing and shouting "there it is!!" Everybody got really excited, I remember standing there watching this bright, bright light race across the dark blue twilight. After a minute it was a distant light on the horizon. My brother was trying to point his telescope at it, but it was moving way too fast.
The speed of orbital spacecraft is truly amazing. Thinking about it one day on the long drive from Minneapolis to Ames, I got to thinking about speed and scale. A space shuttle is 184 feet long, and goes 17,500 mph. My car goes seventy on the highway. How big would a shuttle be if the scale speed was the same as my car?
70/17500=0.0004
0.0004 x 184 feet = 0.736 feet
0.736 feet = 8 7/8 inches
So next time you're going seventy on the interstate, think about that nine inch long model of the space shuttle you built as a kid. Imagine holding it out the window of your car; that's how fast they really go.
I had the luck to be able to see the ISS on Friday night from a very light-polluted truckstop parking lot, as well as yesterday evening from another parking lot in Fürth. The weather is getting cloudier and foggier here, with the coming of November, whose old Germanic name is Nebelung, the month of fog, so it will be pure luck if I catch it in the coming days as well.
I never saw Skylab as a kid, but I remember when it came down in Australia on July 11, 1979. I was staying at my sister, Barb's, in Lincoln, Nebraska, and that was all that was on the news at the time.