I was lucky this evening to have some really sharp viewing conditions, so I set up even though it was freezing out! (It stayed around zero degrees over my whole observing period. Brrr!)
First up, the Moon was in a great position for me to get some short video to process and stack later. I'll share the result on here when I'm finished :)
After the moon slid out of my view, I looked around the Hyades in Taurus using my 25mm eyepiece for the largest FOV I could manage. The Hyades are so beautiful, I love looking at them! After that, I had a go at splitting Alnitak which is one of my January quests, but had no luck. (you can read my other January targets here ) I did manage to split Mintaka though with a 4mm eyepiece which gives me 250x magnification. It was a lovely sight, the larger primary star and smaller, fainter blue companion stood out really nicely.
I was coming to the end of the time I had allowed, so I thought I'd have a tinker with the alignment and the GoTo on the mount. I haven't really ever used these elements as I wanted to learn my way around the night sky. After I'd aligned it, i set it to look for Uranus, and was delighted to see it shining green in the eyepiece! It wasn't as visually impressive as Saturn or Jupiter, and it remained a small disc even at 250x magnification, but I was really pleased to finally see it!
All in all, I was pretty pleased with my unplanned short session!
Showing posts with label mintaka star. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mintaka star. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 January 2015
Monday, 29 December 2014
January 2015 Viewing Aims
To give my stargazing some kind of direction, I've set myself some targets for January:
Very early in January comes the Quadrantid meteor shower, also known as the Bootid shower. It's name comes from the now declassified constellation of Quandrans Muralis and the shower material is associated with asteroid 2003 EH1 or maybe the comet c/1490 y1 - there is some debate over this. It has a small peak window on the night of the 4th January, but a well lit waxing gibbous Moon may well wash the shower out. Meteors may also be seen between the 1st and 5th of January, but in smaller numbers.
I've got a bit of a thing about double stars at the moment, having managed to split spectacular Albireo earlier this winter. This month, Ill be trying to split Alnitak and Mintaka in Orion. Alnitak is the farthest East of the belt stars, Mintaka the western most. Alnitak might be tough to split it in my particular telescope, but I like a challenge, and Orion is now in a favourable viewing position for me.
A short hop from Orion is the constellation of Monoceros, I've read about beta Monocerotis and it sounds like it will be a nice treble to try and split and see.
On the 11th January, Mercury and Venus will be close together low in the South West. Ive never seen Mercury so I've really got my hopes up about this. I've a sneaking feeling though that they will be too low on the horizon for me - my South West view is partially blocked by trees.
Jupiter is now in a position where I can see it from about 2230, so Ill be looking forward to my first views of the season. It's one of my favourite sights, and I'm hoping to attempt some images this year.
Early January should give me some opportunities to continue my Lunar 100 challenge. I'd like to try to image each one, but my main aim for January- lunar wise at least - is to image the Appenines!
Finally, comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is on it's way so I'll be trying to catch a little glimpse of it. There is a wealth of information on the comet here.
I hope this may have inspired you to look at some of these, let me know how you get on, and your own aims via the comment option below. Here's hoping for clear skies!
Very early in January comes the Quadrantid meteor shower, also known as the Bootid shower. It's name comes from the now declassified constellation of Quandrans Muralis and the shower material is associated with asteroid 2003 EH1 or maybe the comet c/1490 y1 - there is some debate over this. It has a small peak window on the night of the 4th January, but a well lit waxing gibbous Moon may well wash the shower out. Meteors may also be seen between the 1st and 5th of January, but in smaller numbers.
I've got a bit of a thing about double stars at the moment, having managed to split spectacular Albireo earlier this winter. This month, Ill be trying to split Alnitak and Mintaka in Orion. Alnitak is the farthest East of the belt stars, Mintaka the western most. Alnitak might be tough to split it in my particular telescope, but I like a challenge, and Orion is now in a favourable viewing position for me.
A short hop from Orion is the constellation of Monoceros, I've read about beta Monocerotis and it sounds like it will be a nice treble to try and split and see.
On the 11th January, Mercury and Venus will be close together low in the South West. Ive never seen Mercury so I've really got my hopes up about this. I've a sneaking feeling though that they will be too low on the horizon for me - my South West view is partially blocked by trees.
Jupiter is now in a position where I can see it from about 2230, so Ill be looking forward to my first views of the season. It's one of my favourite sights, and I'm hoping to attempt some images this year.
Early January should give me some opportunities to continue my Lunar 100 challenge. I'd like to try to image each one, but my main aim for January- lunar wise at least - is to image the Appenines!
Finally, comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is on it's way so I'll be trying to catch a little glimpse of it. There is a wealth of information on the comet here.
I hope this may have inspired you to look at some of these, let me know how you get on, and your own aims via the comment option below. Here's hoping for clear skies!
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