Tiangong - 2

The Chinese space station Tiangong -2 flew across the night sky over a location close to ESAC. The Moon, Jupiter and some clouds complete this night-sky portray.

The Chinese station is a cylindrical module of 10 meters long and 3.3 meters diameter, flying at altitudes around 370km. In this pass, the station came out of shadow at 23:12 CEST on the western sky at 10 deg elevation, crossed the Leo constellation at 62 deg elevation, and got into shadow again at 23:18 in the eastern sky. The apparent magnitude was approximately 1 mag.

The images were taken with a Nikon D3100 with 1sec exposure and a cadence of around 2 seconds.

2012-03-14: Venus Jupiter conjunction - The Planetary Party II

The Planetary Party was held at ESAC after sunset, on 14th March 2012. Venus and Jupiter came closest in a conjunction about 3.5deg apart. Around 30 people gathered around the telescopes to watch the beautiful show.

Venus and Jupiter setting during the ESAC Planetary Party.

Mounting the telescopes before the ESAC Planetary Party.

Venus, the jewel of the night, was seen as a magnificent bright beacon, outshining any other star or planet in the sky.

Jupiter seemed to the naked eye a mere companion of Venus in their diving beyond the horizon, over the Aulencia castle. But through the telescope he showed its might. For a good reason he is the king of the planets.

Mars could be seen in the Eastern sky, with a remarkable reddish hue showing clearly the northern polar cap. Mars raised high in the sky during the night, chasing its companions. He did not to want to miss the show.

The party finished with the farewell of the most prominent object of the winter sky: M42, the Orion Nebula. The images were captured during the observation in order to shown the chromatic richness of this nebula. Visually through the telescope it is perceived as a diffuse but structured greenish area.

Venus and Jupiter at Sunset

Venus and Jupiter are a beautiful sight this month in the Western sky at sunset. They come closest (conjunction) on 14th March, 2012, only 3 degrees apart.

The time-lapse movies shows the inspiring set of the two bodies on the western horizon.

Venus and Jupiter at Sunset, Majadahonda, Spain from Miguel Perez Ayucar on Vimeo.

Venus and Jupiter at sunset, Baqueira from Miguel Perez Ayucar on Vimeo.

Jupiter through the Club's telescope, 30 August 2011

This image was taken with the Phillips Toucam and the club's telescope (Celestron CGEM, 925 EdgeHD) on 31st August around 2am, by Manuel Castillo, Santa Martinez and Miguel Perez Ayucar. A Barlow magnification lens was used to augment the size of Jupiter. The viewing conditions were poor, so we observed Jupiter between stratus clouds. The image is a processed (Registrax5) stack of a 2min video using the webcam.

Jupiter, visible

We tried also the IR filter, but we could not see the planet! Probably due to the bad cloudy viewing conditions.

First images with the club's new telescope (Celestron CGEM 925 EdgeHD)

We have used the warm and clear nights in August to go out observing at ESAC. We used the ESAC Astronomy Club new telescope, a celestron CGEM, with 9,25" EdgeHD tube. Light conditions are poor on-site but we managed to get some good first images. The images shown in this entry date from the night of the 27th Aug 2011.

We tried faint objects first, the Dumbbel Nebula M27 and the Ring Nebula M57. The images are shown here. The alignment was not great so we could only apply relatively short exposures before objects were moving noticeably. Dumbbel nebula image is a stack of 8 images of 10 second exposure each, with the Club's Meade DSI camera. The magnification of the telescope (2.3m focal) is quite large so only a fraction (around half) of the bubble is seen. No focal reducer was used.

Dumbbel Nebula, M27

We also tried M57, the Ring nebula. This was much better captured by the camera. The image is a stack of 9 images of 10 second exposure time each. The central star is seen, as well as the delicate redish and greenish colors of the gaseous remains.

Ring Nebula, M57

We waited until Jupiter rose over the horizon and over the glare of our particular Messier object, the M-503, and tried the Phillips Toucam to image the planet and its moons. K3CCD was used for capturing the image sequence, and Registrax v5 for stacking and image processing. The image is generated from a webcam clip of 1 min duration and black&white mode.

Jupiter in b&w

The last image is a color one with the Toucam, 2 seconds 'avi' clip. K3CCD was used for capturing the image sequence, and Registrax v5 for stacking and image processing. The Red Great Eye is noticeable in the right side of the South band. Also Io (left), Europa (right high) and Ganymede (right low) are visible.

Jupiter in color

These first images are very promising, and we expect to improve in the future with better tracking, images exposures, capture options, and post-processing.