Comet LoveJoy C/2014 Q2

Comet LoveJoy C/2014 Q2 captured in the southern hemisphere. Image Credit : Damian Peach

This holiday we had a wonderful treat, Comet LoveJoy C/2014 Q2 made a wonder pass. Those int eh southern hemisphere had the best viewing and were able to come up with some amazing images. Unfortunately, I had to fight a horizon and some trees! Curse you trees! (Shakes fist at the trees.) As Always I like to provide a really good image so you know what you are looking at versus my image.

Comet LoveJoy Facts:

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is a long-period comet discovered on 17 August 2014 by Terry Lovejoy using a 0.2-meter (8 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope.^[1] It was discovered at apparent magnitude 15 in the southern constellation of Puppis.^[1] It is the fifth comet discovered by Terry Lovejoy, means you need to look up the designations when looking for comet Lovejoy. . .you will see his others, you need to add the C/2014 Q2.

By December 2014 the comet had brightened to roughly magnitude 7.4,^[4] making it a small telescope and binoculars target. By mid-December the comet was visible to the naked eye for experienced observers with dark skies and keen eyesight.^[5] On 28−29 December 2014, the comet will pass 1/3° from globular cluster Messier 79.^[6] In January 2015 it will brighten to roughly magnitude 4−5,^[7] and will be one of the brightest comets located high in a dark sky in years. On 7 January 2015 the comet will pass 0.469 AU (70,200,000 km; 43,600,000 mi) from Earth.^[8] It crosses the celestial equator on 9 January 2015 becoming better seen from the northern hemisphere.^[9] The comet will come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 30 January 2015 at a distance of 1.29 AU from the Sun.^[2]

How fast is it flying? Currently as I write this it is traveling at 80,365.54 MPH,  relative to the sun, or 129,335.85 KPH.(35.93 KM/s) You can find the live stream data here.

Before entering the planetary region (epoch 1950), C/2014 Q2 had an orbital period of about 11500 years.^[3] After leaving the planetary region (epoch 2050), it will have an orbital period of about 8000 years.^[3]

Observing and Photographing:

Here is a photo that helped me find the comet:

image credits in the image

I took advantage of it being near stars and objects I could find. In the Northern hemisphere it was a bit more difficult to see. I can’t wait till after January 9th! (Plus I have my autoguider and will know how to use it by then so no more fuzzy bad tracking photos!)

If this doesn’t help you can always use the following website: http://theskylive.com/c2014q2-tracker I highly recommend storing that web page at least the main one here : http://theskylive.com/comets Put that in your tool chest to find these things!

To find it I looked on the night of 25December 2014, but couldn’t find it even using binoculars. I had been reading all over that you can see it but I couldn’t see a thing. I realized that these were all reports coming from the southern hemisphere. . . .its a bit different up north. weird saying that from Florida.

Even through a 6″ Schmidt–Cassegrain it was a tough find right now. That’s OK I am actually very excited to see this is goign to brighten up and put on an even better show for us in the northern hemisphere. When I took this the object was traveling at about 80,365.54 MPH,  relative to the sun, or 129,335.85 KPH.(35.93 KM/s) and was approx 50 million miles from earth or 80.5million KM from earth. . . To find it I had good calm skies, and I had to star hop, I looked near Messier 79 and looked for it near star HIP 25273.

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) taken by Me and my wife on 29Dec2014

How am I sure I got it? I mean it doesn’t’ have a tail. (It twice had it’s tail lost, most likely from solar winds.)^[10]   In the time frame starting at 11:43 PM (2343) Eastern time (GMT-5) 28Dec2014,  until 12:09 AM or 0009 29Dec2014, the object had moved. The following Photo is untouched and un edited I only adjusted levels enough for you to see it.

Yes it’s got blur and streaks from the motion of the Telescope tracking.

I inserted it to show the movement between the two, in the time frame of 26 minutes.

I am adding another photo of the Original with the star labeled.

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) taken by Me and my wife on 28Dec2014 Near Star labeled.

Photo was a bit tough to post process. I could only adjust the levels and curves a bit to brighten up the image. Yes you can see it in the photo, but when the file saves the histogram has to be stretched in order to make it visible. There is a science behind it, I just don’t get it, other wise the image looks dark as can be. My Camera (Orion StarShoot G3 Deep Space Camera) likes to make things reddish or blue so I have to adjust the color to reflect what you see with your eyes.

If you can’t get to photo it, at least try to see it, you got some time,  but See it before 2050. . . otherwise you gonna have to wait a bit!

References

1. “MPEC 2014-Q10 : COMET C/2014 Q2 (LOVEJOY)”. IAU Minor Planet Center. 2014-08-19. Retrieved 2014-09-14. (CK14Q020)
2. “MPEC 2014-R69 : Observations and Orbits of Comets”. IAU Minor Planet Center. 2014-09-07. Retrieved 2014-09-14.
3. Horizons output. “Barycentric Osculating Orbital Elements for Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)”. Retrieved 2014-09-14. (Solution using the Solar System Barycenter and barycentric coordinates. Select Ephemeris Type:Elements and Center:@0)
4. Yoshida, Seiichi (2014-12-07). “Weekly Information about Bright Comets (2014 Dec. 6: South)”. aerith.net. Retrieved 2014-12-09.
5. Alan MacRobert (2014-12-15). “Binocular Comet Lovejoy Heading Our Way”. Sky & Telescope. Retrieved 2014-12-18.
6. Bob King (2014-12-08). “C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy – A Binocular Comet in Time for Christmas”. Universe Today. Retrieved 2014-12-09.
7. Seiichi Yoshida (2014-09-14). “C/2014 Q2 ( Lovejoy )”. Seiichi Yoshida’s Comet Catalog. Retrieved 2013-09-14. (September 2014 archive)
8. “JPL Close-Approach Data: C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)” (last observation: 2014-10-02; arc: 93 days). Retrieved 2014-10-26.
9. “Elements and Ephemeris for C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)”. Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 2014-10-29. (CK14Q020)
10. Bob King (2014-12-27). “Comet Q2 Lovejoy Loses Tail, Grows Another, Loses That One Too!“. Universe Today. Retrieved 2014-12-29.

 

 

Planet in Focus: Jupiter

Jupiter

Like I have stated before I like to show you the best possible image from NASA so you have a referance. Image credit NASA

Jupiter is the “King of the planets” in our solar system, as one of my good friends called it. What a way t end the planetary march on. . I’m not sure if I will photo Mercury, it’s hard to get and I don’t have a clear shot to the horizon. Jupiter was the first planet I saw with my new telescope. My wife asked, “Well how does it look?” I stood back, looked up at the planet in the sky with out the telescope and when the magnitude of what I just saw hit I just said, “Wow!”

It was the First planet I attempted to photograph, I wanted others to see and feel what I felt and saw. I wanted to bring friends on the journey.  As I look at the planet I am always fascinated and amazed at what I see, and the more I learned the more fascinating this planet got to be.

First things first, it’s size, Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system, and it’s fifth in orbit.  It’s radius is a whopping 43,440.7 miles or 69,911 km. By comparison earth’s is only 3,958.8 miles or 6,371.00 km.

Jupiter is strikingly beautiful, It’s cloud bands are very distinct. Don’t expect Hubble like images with a 6″ or lower, once you get some practice you get to see detail as you train your eyes to pull it out. You will be able to see the bands and the Four Galilean Moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. I use an ap for my smart phone called “Jupiter Guide”, it shows you the position of the moons and when the Great Red Spot, or GRS passes or is estimated to pass earth side, the rotation of Jupiter is 10 hours, the fastest of our solar system.

Jupiter’s rotation being so fast creates strong jets of wind on the planet, add to it there is nothing known to stop the winds. The recent findings show that the colors of browns and reds are cuased by the sun “burning” the ammonia and ammonia compounds (with an unknown chemical). These high winds “smear” and mold the bands of clouds into the strips as you see.

Bands of Jupiter and the temporal zones, Image credit Skyandtelescope.com

 

One of the notable features of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot (GRS), The Great Red Spot’s dimensions are 24–40,000 km × 12–14,000 km. It is large enough to contain two or three planets of Earth’s diameter. The maximum altitude of this storm is about 8 km (5 mi) above the surrounding cloud tops. Winds around the edge of the spot peak at about 120 m/s (432 km/h), currents inside it seem stagnant, with little inflow or outflow.

More recently, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot, about half the size of its larger cousin. Scientists do not yet know if these ovals and planet-circling bands are shallow or deeply rooted to the interior.

Diagram of Jupiter, its interior, surface features, rings, and inner moons. A 3D renderer was used to make the skeleton for this picture so everything is drawn to scale (except the aurorae). Image credit: Kelvinsong

 

Jupiter’s atmosphere is similar to that of the sun as it is mostly hydrogen 89.8±2.0% (H₂) and helium 10.2±2.0% (He). As we descend into the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, this compresses the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system, albeit an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water. Scientists think that, at depths perhaps halfway to the planet’s center, the pressure becomes so great that electrons are squeezed off the hydrogen atoms, making the liquid electrically conducting. Jupiter’s fast rotation is thought to drive electrical currents in this region, generating the planet’s powerful magnetic field. It is still unclear if, deeper down, Jupiter has a central core of solid material.

The Jovian magnetosphere is the region of space influenced by Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field. It balloons 1 to 3 million kilometers (600,000 to 2 million miles) toward the sun and tapers into a windsock-shaped tail extending more than 1 billion kilometers (600 million miles) behind Jupiter, as far as Saturn’s orbit. The magnetic field rotates with the planet and sweeps up particles that have an electric charge. Near the planet, the magnetic field traps a swarm of charged particles and accelerates them to very high energies, creating intense radiation that bombards the innermost moons and can damage spacecraft.

Discovered in 1979 by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, Jupiter’s rings were a surprise, as they are composed of small, dark particles and are difficult (but not impossible) to see except when backlit by the sun. Data from the Galileo spacecraft indicate that Jupiter’s ring system may be formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smash into the giant planet’s small innermost moons.

Jupiter’s rings. Image Credit, NASA

Data:

Discovered By		Known by the Ancients
Date of Discovery		Unknown
Orbit Size Around Sun (semi-major axis)		Metric: 778,340,821 km English: 483,638,564 miles Scientific Notation: 7.7834082 x 108 km (5.2028870 A.U.) By Comparison: 5.203 x Earth
Perihelion (closest)		Metric: 740,679,835 km English: 460,237,112 miles Scientific Notation: 7.40680 x 108 km (4.951 A.U.) By Comparison: 5.035 x Earth
Aphelion (farthest)		Metric: 816,001,807 km English: 507,040,015 miles Scientific Notation: 8.16002 x 108 km (5.455 A.U.) By Comparison: 5.365 x Earth
Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year)		11.862615 Earth years 4,332.82 Earth days By Comparison: 11.863 x Earth
Orbit Circumference		Metric: 4,887,595,931 km English: 3,037,011,311 miles Scientific Notation: 4.888 x 109 km By Comparison: 5.200 x Earth
Average Orbit Velocity		Metric: 47,002 km/h English: 29,205 mph Scientific Notation: 1.3056 x 104 m/s By Comparison: 0.438 x Earth
Orbit Eccentricity		0.04838624 By Comparison: 2.895 x Earth
Orbit Inclination		1.304 degrees
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit		3.1 degrees
Mean Radius		Metric: 69,911 km English: 43,440.7 miles Scientific Notation: 6.9911 x 104 km By Comparison: 10.9733 x Earth
Equatorial Circumference		Metric: 439,263.8 km English: 272,945.9 miles Scientific Notation: 4.39264 x 105 km By Comparison: 10.9733 x Earth
Volume		Metric: 1,431,281,810,739,360 km3 English: 343,382,767,518,322 mi3 Scientific Notation: 1.43128 x 1015 km3 By Comparison: 1321.337 x Earth
Mass		Metric: 1,898,130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation: 1.8981 x 1027 kg By Comparison: 317.828 x Earth
Density		Metric: 1.326 g/cm3 By Comparison: 0.241 x Earth
Surface Area		Metric: 61,418,738,571 km2 English: 23,713,907,537 square miles Scientific Notation: 6.1419 x 1010 km2 By Comparison: 120.414 x Earth
Surface Gravity		Metric: 24.79 m/s2 English: 81.3 ft/s2 By Comparison: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 253 pounds on Jupiter.
Escape Velocity		Metric: 216,720 km/h English: 134,664 mph Scientific Notation: 6.020 x 104 m/s By Comparison: 5.380 x Earth
Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day)		0.41354 Earth days 9.92496 hours By Comparison: 0.41467 x Earth
Effective Temperature		Metric: -148 °C English: -234 °F Scientific Notation: 125 K
Atmospheric Constituents		Hydrogen, Helium Scientific Notation: H2, He

Surface temp. min mean max 1 bar level 165 K (−108.15°C) 0.1 bar 112 K
Apparent magnitude	−1.6 to −2.94
Angular diameter	29.8″ to 50.1″
Atmosphere
Surface pressure	20–200 kPa (cloud layer)
Scale height	27 km
Composition	by volume: 89.8±2.0% hydrogen (H2) 10.2±2.0% helium (He) ≈ 0.3% methane (CH4) ≈ 0.026% ammonia (NH3) ≈ 0.003% hydrogen deuteride (HD) 0.0006% ethane (C2H6) 0.0004% water (H2O) Ices: ammonia (NH3) water (H2O) ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4SH)

Photography and Observations:

I ended up chasing this Big SOB for many months much like Captain Ahab and the white whale, from Moby Dick. The first few times my processing was pitiful. I tried being cheap and using a Logitech webcam modified and had no idea what I was doing. the best I had doing that was wonky and washed out, or so off shaped it didn’t even look like a planet, more like an eggplant.

With some practice and learning how to properly use Registax 6 I was able to get images such as:

This was one of my first images that showed up nicely.

As you can see the image comes out a little fuzzy. Partially due to not focusing it properly, but there is an added touch at the end, using unsharpening mask, and blending the layers together. Once you do that you get something a little sharper;

After applying a unsharpening filter to the image it sharpens it up and makes a much more noticeable difference.

 

As you can see, Using just a Celestron 6SE, a Neximage 5, and Registax 6, you can get images much like this, oh and you have to do some post processing in Photoshop to clean it up and crop the image. I personally like to put the image so it is properly oriented.

Now when you do take a video of Jupiter you can not record for 2 minutes or more. The rotation of the planet is great enough it will blur your image. If you want to get fancy you can take an image of the moons as well  and then shrink down the image so it fits over the washed out planet. To get the moons, you have to  increase the gain until they appear and/or slow the shutter speed, this will wash out the image of Jupiter. Once you get the image, you can then get an image of the planet itself by turning the gain down and increase shutter speed. Once you merge the processed images together, (it’s not “shopping” these are the real images that are impossible to get both at the same time with out doing this.) you should have an image much like this:

Jupiter and it’s Galilean moons

This is am image I did where I had over processed the image of Jupiter to try to bring the contrasting bands out. I wanted to put this up because I never bothered to revisit the image and make it right now that I learned how to do it properly. I might get to it, I don’t like to have pressure, I also like to show people that are new to the hobby that there is a learning curve and you shouldn’t expect to be an expert, unless you took a class in photoshop.

I enjoyed taking the photos and seeing what you can see on the other sides of the planet, the GRS gets a great deal of attention, but there is a whole planet there.

The less photographed side of Jupiter, the side with out the spot.

as you observe and get more photos you start to get a few really cool things that happen. . . .

Jupiter with one of it’s moons transiting the face. You can see the shadow of the moon as the black dot, the moon is hard to make out as it is very similar in color to the planet and the planet is bright.

or this one which I think was better;

Jupiter with another moon transit

I attempted to get a bigger image I don’t think I was successful, it’s a bit fuzzy. But because I chose to “zoom” with the camera, which when I talked to Chuck Higgens at the Orion launch, he explained to me that it is better to use a Barlow, the farther ahead of the process you can get the magnifier, the better, the farther back you are basically “blowing up the pixels.” I forget what I did on this one I am pretty certain I just “zoomed” with the camera.

Zoomed in with out using a barlow, it just makes the pixels blown out.

I am not ashamed at any images I do, I am certain I will look back in a year and think. . . “wow I thought that was good?” he important part of doing the images is to have fun with it and meet new people. I really like looking at Jupiter, during Dec-Feb because every time you look, you don’t know what you will get.

Referances:

1.) Nasa; http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Jupiter&Display=Facts

2.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Jupiter#Great_Red_Spot

3.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

4.) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kelvinsong

Planet in Focus: Venus

Venus

Venus, Image credits NASA

Venus is the second closest planet to the sun and is almost as big as the earth. Oddly Venus rotates backwards in relationship to most of the planets giving it a sunrise in the west and a sun set in the east. And speaking of rotation, one day on Venus lasts a long time. 243 Earth days, but it has a comparable shorter year 225 earth days.

It’s a rocky planet, or a terrestrial planet. Venus’ surface is a cratered and volcanic landscape. with a very dense and thick atmosphere. That “air” is primarily carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrogen (N₂), with clouds of sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) droplets. Which is very toxic to most things that we consider living.

Venus is pretty ordinary. . no moons and no rings. But HOT! It gets temperatures of almost 480 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) Which is too hot for life as we know it.

It’s a cruel harsh world of dim light, super heated air from run away greenhouse effect and toxic air. The super heated world has temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Images taken below the clouds reveal volcanoes and deformed mountains. Unfortunately, the planet is so hot that probes make it down and take a few images before shutting down due to the extreme heat rendering the probes useless.

Venus has a small magnetic field which was discovered in 1967, by Venera 4. The Magnetic field is much weaker than earth’s and is induced by an interaction between the ionosphere and the solar wind. This is a bit different than say Earth’s which is produced by the internal dynamo in the core. Venus’s small induced magnetosphere provides negligible protection to the atmosphere against cosmic radiation. This radiation may result in cloud-to-cloud lightning discharges.

The weak magnetosphere around Venus means that the solar wind is interacting directly with its outer atmosphere. Here, ions of hydrogen and oxygen are being created by the dissociation of neutral molecules from ultraviolet radiation. The solar wind then supplies energy that gives some of these ions sufficient velocity to escape Venus’s gravity field. This erosion process results in a steady loss of low-mass hydrogen, helium, and oxygen ions, whereas higher-mass molecules, such as carbon dioxide, are more likely to be retained. Atmospheric erosion by the solar wind probably led to the loss of most of Venus’s water during the first billion years after it formed. The erosion has increased the ratio of higher-mass deuterium to lower-mass hydrogen in the upper atmosphere by 150 times compared to the ratio in the lower atmosphere.^[1]

Photographing

Venus in a 6″ Celestron SCT

I was only able to get one photo. It’s a tough planet to get, Mercury is just as tough for several reasons. First off you can’t get a full image due to it being inside the orbit of earth. As explained in the next image:

The phases of Venus : Image credit http://www.physast.uga.edu/~rls/astro1020/ch3/ovhd.html

Earth looks very similar if viewed from Mars, for the same reasons. I didn’t really enjoy photoing this planet, it’s only visibly low in the horizon at either sunset or sunrise, due to it’s location in the solar system nearer the sun. This makes it a very small window to get the images. Mercury is even harder. I don’t think I’ll revisit this due to my current location and there being an abundant of trees. But hey at least now I can say I saw it.

I only recall I used the Celestron 6se and the Orion StarShoot Deep Space Video Camera II, I hadn’t purchased the neximager5 which I think might be interesting to try it with. I don’t recall the settings as I hadn’t started logging notes just yet.  This is the very reason and my chase of Jupiter that caused me to start logging notes. I couldn’t remember the settings I had used and as I jumped from planets to stars to dso’s I would forget the settings. I’ve used them so much now I remember what to use when. I was also not as good with Registax as I am now and as versed in capturing images with the cameras. It might be worth the look with the neximager5, I just didn’t enjoy this planet as much, it’s just a real hassle to me. Some astronomers enjoy chasing it and seeing what phases they can get.

Data

Discovered By		Known by the Ancients
Date of Discovery		Unknown
Orbit Size Around Sun (semi-major axis)		Metric: 108,209,475 km English: 67,238,251 miles Scientific Notation: 1.0820948 x 108 km (7.2333566 x 10-1 A.U.) By Comparison: 0.723 x Earth
Perihelion (closest)		Metric: 107,476,170 km English: 66,782,596 miles Scientific Notation: 1.07476 x 108 km (7.184 x 10-1 A.U.) By Comparison: 0.731 x Earth
Aphelion (farthest)		Metric: 108,942,780 km English: 67,693,905 miles Scientific Notation: 1.08943 x 108 km (0.7282 A.U.) By Comparison: 0.716 x Earth
Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year)		0.61519726 Earth years 224.70 Earth days By Comparison: 0.615 x Earth
Orbit Circumference		Metric: 679,892,378 km English: 422,465,538 miles Scientific Notation: 6.799 x 108 km By Comparison: 0.723 x Earth
Average Orbit Velocity		Metric: 126,074 km/h English: 78,339 mph Scientific Notation: 3.5020 x 104 m/s By Comparison: 1.176 x Earth
Orbit Eccentricity		0.00677672 By Comparison: 0.406 x Earth
Orbit Inclination		3.39 degrees
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit		177.3 degrees (retrograde rotation) By Comparison: 7.56 x Earth
Mean Radius		Metric: 6,051.8 km English: 3,760.4 miles Scientific Notation: 6.0518 x 103 km By Comparison: 0.9499 x Earth
Equatorial Circumference		Metric: 38,024.6 km English: 23,627.4 miles Scientific Notation: 3.80246 x 104 km By Comparison: 0.9499 x Earth’s
Volume		Metric: 928,415,345,893 km3 English: 222,738,686,740 mi3 Scientific Notation: 9.28415 x 1011 km3 By Comparison: 0.857 x Earth’s
Mass		Metric: 4,867,320,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation: 4.8673 x 1024 kg By Comparison: 0.815 x Earth
Density		Metric: 5.243 g/cm3 By Comparison: Comparable to the average density of the Earth.
Surface Area		Metric: 460,234,317 km2 English: 177,697,463 square miles Scientific Notation: 4.6023 x 108 km2 By Comparison: 0.902 x Earth
Surface Gravity		Metric: 8.87 m/s2 English: 29.1 ft/s2 By Comparison: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 91 pounds on Venus.
Escape Velocity		Metric: 37,296 km/h English: 23,175 mph Scientific Notation: 1.036 x 104 m/s By Comparison: 0.926 x Earth
Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day)		-243.018 Earth days (retrograde) -5832.4 hours (retrograde) By Comparison: 243.68 x Earth
Minimum/Maximum Surface Temperature		Metric: 462 °C English: 864 °F Scientific Notation: 735 K

Atmosphere
Surface pressure	92 bar (9.2 MPa)
Composition	≈ 96.5% carbon dioxide ≈ 3.5% nitrogen 0.015% sulfur dioxide 0.007% argon 0.002% water vapour 0.0017% carbon monoxide 0.0012% helium 0.0007% neon trace carbonyl sulfide trace hydrogen chloride trace hydrogen fluoride

Referances:

1.) Svedhem, Håkan; Titov, Dmitry V.; Taylor, Fredric W.; Witasse, Olivier (November 2007). “Venus as a more Earth-like planet”. Nature 450 (7170): 629–632. Bibcode:2007Natur.450..629S. doi:10.1038/nature06432. PMID 18046393.

2.) NASA: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Venus&Display=Facts

 

 

Planet in Focus: Pluto

Pluto, ah the cold desolate planet that reaches way out into our solar system. This poor thing has been discovered and demoted before it even made one lap around the sun.  Let’s look at this thing shall we?

Pluto surface detail by NASA

Not much is known about Pluto from observation, but scientists have been able to figure out quite a bit about it. Spectroscopic analysis of Pluto’s surface reveals it to be composed of more than 98 percent nitrogen ice, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide. The face of Pluto oriented toward Charon contains more methane ice, whereas the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice. One amazing thing they were able to figure out is that the content of methane and that it was frozen. when Pluto comes close enough in it’s orbit the sunlit side warms enough for the frozen methane to thaw and create a very faint atmosphere.  when it cools it “snows” methane and changes the land scape. As far as atmosphere it has a very thin one of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide gases

Pluto has 5 known moons:

Pluto and its satellites, with the Moon comparison

Name (Pronunciation)		Discovery Year	Diameter (km)	Mass (kg)	Orbital radius (km) (barycentric)	Orbital period (d)	Period ratio	Magnitude (mag)
Pluto	/ˈpluːtoʊ/	1930	2,306 (66% Moon)	1.305×1022 (18% Moon)	2,035	6.3872 (25% Moon)	1.000	15.1
Charon	/ˈʃærən/, /ˈkɛərən/	1978	1,205 (35% Moon)	1.52×1021 (2% Moon)	17,536 (5% Moon)	6.3872 (25% Moon)	1.000	16.8
Styx	/ˈstɪks/	2012	10–25	?	~42,000 ± 2,000	20.2 ± 0.1	3.16	27
Nix	/ˈnɪks/	2005	91	4×1017	48,708	24.856	3.892	23.7
Kerberos	/ˈkɛərbərəs/	2011	13–34	?	~59,000	32.1	5.03	26
Hydra	/ˈhaɪdrə/	2005	114	8×1017	64,749	38.206	5.982	23.3

Nasa has a satellite moving towards Pluto as we speak and is destined to study the far away planet in great detail. New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto will be at 7:49:59 a.m. EDT (11:49:59 UTC) on July 14, 2015.

The discovery of Nix and Hydra suggests that Pluto may possess a variable ring system. Small-body impacts can create debris that can form into planetary rings. Data from a deep-optical survey by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that no ring system is present. If such a system exists, it is either tenuous like the rings of Jupiter or is tightly confined to less than 1,000 km in width. Similar conclusions have been made from occultation studies.

So my photo. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out

Pluto. I pulled out all the stops to capture this, its small but there

While this doesn’t look like much more than just a small dot, I was able to get some color difference between some pixels. The significance of this is this, I used my Orion StarShoot Deep Space Video Camera II, my Celestron 6SE, a 2x Barlow and zoomed with the zoom function on the camera. The night was calm clear and dry. I lived in an area east of Reno Nevada and I was in the middle of now where. I took a lot of video to make sure that I got a good picture. out of all the video I shot, this was the best result. I used registax 6 and cleaned up in photoshop with final processing.

I had received a mixed response to this as  supposedly I shouldn’t be able to get this photo using a 6″ schmidt cassegrain. I disagree, my methods are to use the camera, and use the zoom function to get a better closer view. If that’s not enough you can add the Barlow with it and then zoom in. The image will come out faint, but you have to turn up the gain or leave the shutter open longer. Tracking is key here. This is a definite must revisit with the larger scope once I get it. I am not certain how it will turn out being in Florida’s skies which are full of light polution and haze. I wouldn’t expect much more than what I got with the 6″ under perfect conditions.

Pluto facts

Discovered By		Clyde Tombaugh
Date of Discovery		1930
Orbit Size Around Sun (semi-major axis)		Metric: 5,906,440,628 km English: 3,670,092,055 miles Scientific Notation: 5.9064406 x 109 km (3.9482117 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 39.482 x Earth
Perihelion (closest)		Metric: 4,436,756,954 km English: 2,756,872,958 miles Scientific Notation: 4.43676 x 109 km (2.9667 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 30.162 x Earth
Aphelion (farthest)		Metric: 7,376,124,302 km English: 4,583,311,152 miles Scientific Notation: 7.37612 x 109 km (4.931 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 48.496 x Earth
Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year)		247.92065 Earth years 90553.02 Earth days By Comparison: 247.921 x Earth
Orbit Circumference		Metric: 36,529,978,039 km English: 22,698,676,007 miles Scientific Notation: 3.653 x 1010 km By Comparison: 38.866 x Earth
Average Orbit Velocity		Metric: 16,809 km/h English: 10,444 mph Scientific Notation: 4.6691 x 103 m/s By Comparison: 0.157 x Earth
Orbit Eccentricity		0.2488273 By Comparison: 14.890 x Earth
Orbit Inclination		17.14 degrees
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit		122.5 degrees (retrograde rotation) By Comparison: 5.23 x Earth
Mean Radius		Metric: 1,151 km English: 715.2 miles Scientific Notation: 1.151 x 103 km By Comparison: 0.1807 x Earth
Equatorial Circumference		Metric: 7,231.9 km English: 4,493.7 miles Scientific Notation: 7.23195 x 103 km By Comparison: 0.1807 x Earth
Volume		Metric: 6,387,259,783 km3 English: 1,532,385,114 mi3 Scientific Notation: 6.38726 x 109 km3 By Comparison: 0.006 x Earth
Mass		Metric: 13,090,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation: 1.3090 x 1022 kg By Comparison: 0.002 x Earth
Density		Metric: 2.050 g/cm3 By Comparison: 0.372 x Earth
Surface Area		Metric: 16,647,940 km2 English: 6,427,806 square miles Scientific Notation: 1.6648 x 107 km2 By Comparison: 0.033 x Earth
Surface Gravity		Metric: 0.66 m/s2 English: 2.2 ft/s2 By Comparison: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 7 pounds on Pluto.
Escape Velocity		Metric: 4,428 km/h English: 2,751 mph Scientific Notation: 1.230 x 103 m/s By Comparison: Escape velocity of Earth is 25,030 mph.
Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day)		-6.387 Earth days (retrograde) -153.29280 hours (retrograde) By Comparison: One Earth day is 24 hours.
Minimum/Maximum Surface Temperature		Metric: -233/-223 °C English: -387/-369 °F Scientific Notation: 40/50 K
Atmospheric Constituents		By Comparison: Earth’s atmosphere consists mostly of N2 and O2.

Planet in Focus: Neptune

Neptune

Neptune, taken by voyager 2. Image Credits NASA

Neptune, the 8th planet and the last of the gas giants in our solar system. It’s a very inhospitable planet. With winds raging at over supersonic speeds, in excess of 1,300 MPH (2,100 KPH) it is cold and violent.

neptune has the distinct honor of being the first planet located through Mathematical prediction instead of being seen then figured out that it was a planet. It had been seen by Galileo who incorrectly listed it is a star in 1612 and 1613. But after the discovery of Uranus, it didn’t travel as it should have been if there was no other planet in the solar system.

French mathematician, Urbain Joseph Le Verrier, proposed the position and mass of another as yet unknown planet that could cause the observed changes to Uranus’ orbit. After being ignored by French astronomers, Le Verrier sent his predictions to Johann Gottfried Galle at the Berlin Observatory, who found Neptune on his first night of searching in 1846. Seventeen days later, its largest moon, Triton, was also discovered.

Uranus had an odd magnetic field, but is not alone. Neptune is off too, approximately 47 degrees off from it’s axis of rotation. Neptune’s magnetosphere changes rather erratically. It fluctuates so much because of the rapid rotation of the planet and the field being off from the planet’s axis. The magnetic field of Neptune is about 27 times more powerful than that of Earth.

Being a gas giant, it does have an earth sized core. This core has temps that get to 5,400 K (5,000 °C) in it’s depths due to gravity and pressure. It’s atmosphere is vast and deep merging from water and other melted  “ices.” Neptune is a deep dark blue. The blue color is because of he atmosphere containing methane, but it is speculated to be an unknown component that makes it so dark and vivid.

In 1989, Voyager 2 found and tracked an oval-shaped, dark storm in Neptune’s southern hemisphere. This was dubbed the “Great Dark Spot.”The storm is large enough to engulf the entire planet earth The great Dark Spot spun counterclockwise, and moved westward at almost 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) per hour. Recent images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showed no sign of this Great Dark Spot, but did reveal the appearance and then fading of two other Great Dark Spots over the last decade. Voyager 2 also took images of clouds casting shadows on a lower cloud deck, enabling scientists to visually measure the altitude differences between the upper and lower cloud decks.

Neptune has six known rings. Voyager 2’s observations confirmed that these unusual rings are not uniform but have four thick regions (clumps of dust) called arcs. The rings are thought to be relatively young and short-lived.

Neptune has 13 known moons, six of which were discovered by Voyager 2. A 14th tiny, very dim, moon was discovered in 2013 and awaits official recognition. Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, orbits the planet in the opposite direction compared with the rest of the moons, suggesting that it may have been captured by Neptune in the distant past. Triton is extremely cold – temperatures on its surface are about -235 degrees Celsius (-391 degrees Fahrenheit). Despite this deep freeze at Triton, Voyager 2 discovered geysers spewing icy material upward more than 8 kilometers (5 miles). Triton’s thin atmosphere, also discovered by Voyager, has been detected from Earth several times since, and is growing warmer – although scientists do not yet know why.

Neptune in a 6se

I used the Orion StarShoot Deep Space Video Camera II, on this shot. I had quite a bit of tracking issues so I was unable to get much video to process through registax. The drift was far too much in the attempt I had and 5 of the video captures caused the image to be blurred or streaked.

The blue was a very deep blue a bit more purple if my eyes remember correctly I would love to get another crack at this.  Considering the distance this object is from the planet I’m not going to complain too much.

Discovered By		Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, Johann Galle
Date of Discovery		23 September 1846
Orbit Size Around Sun (semi-major axis)		Metric: 4,498,396,441 km English: 2,795,173,960 miles Scientific Notation: 4.4983964 x 109 km (3.0069923 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 30.070 x Earth
Perihelion (closest)		Metric: 4,459,753,056 km English: 2,771,162,074 miles Scientific Notation: 4.45975 x 109 km (2.981 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 30.318 x Earth
Aphelion (farthest)		Metric: 4,537,039,826 km English: 2,819,185,846 miles Scientific Notation: 4.53704 x 109 km (3.033 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 29.830 x Earth
Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year)		164.79132 Earth years 60190.03 Earth days By Comparison: 164.791 x Earth
Orbit Circumference		Metric: 28,263,736,967 km English: 17,562,271,937 miles Scientific Notation: 2.826 x 1010 km By Comparison: 30.071 x Earth
Average Orbit Velocity		Metric: 19,566 km/h English: 12,158 mph Scientific Notation: 5.4349 x 103 m/s By Comparison: 0.182 x Earth
Orbit Eccentricity		0.00859048 By Comparison: 0.514 x Earth
Orbit Inclination		1.77 degrees
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit		28.3 degrees
Mean Radius		Metric: 24,622 km English: 15,299.4 miles Scientific Notation: 2.4622 x 104 km By Comparison: 3.8647 x Earth
Equatorial Circumference		Metric: 154,704.6 km English: 96,129.0 miles Scientific Notation: 1.54705 x 105 km By Comparison: 3.8647 x Earth
Volume		Metric: 62,525,703,987,421 km3 English: 15,000,714,125,712 mi3 Scientific Notation: 6.25257 x 1013 km3 By Comparison: 57.723 x Earth
Mass		Metric: 102,410,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation: 1.0241 x 1026 kg By Comparison: 17.148 x Earth
Density		Metric: 1.638 g/cm3 By Comparison: 0.297 x Earth
Surface Area		Metric: 7,618,272,763 km2 English: 2,941,431,558 square miles Scientific Notation: 7.6183 x 109 km2 By Comparison: 14.980 x Earth
Surface Gravity		Metric: 11.15 m/s2 English: 36.6 ft/s2 By Comparison: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 114 pounds on Neptune.
Escape Velocity		Metric: 84,816 km/h English: 52,702 mph Scientific Notation: 2.356 x 104 m/s By Comparison: By Comparison: 2.105 x Earth.
Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day)		0.671 Earth days 16.11000 hours By Comparison: 0.67 x Earth
Effective Temperature		Metric: -214 °C English: -353 °F Scientific Notation: 59 K
Atmospheric Constituents		Hydrogen, Helium, Methane Scientific Notation: H2, He, CH4 By Comparison: Earth atmosphere consists mostly of N2 and O2.

Referances:

1.) Nasa; http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Neptune

Planet in Focus: Uranus

Uranus

This is the image captured by Voyager, I like to use really good images to compare my work with.
Image credits Nasa

Discovered first in 1781 by William Herschel and is the seventh planet in our solar system. It’s a gas giant that has one of the coldest planetary atmospheres in our solar system with a minimum temp of 49 K (−224.2 °C). Uranus has a very featureless look, but in reality the cloud structure is more, for starters it’s layered. The low clouds are thought to be water and the top layer contains methane. The planet has an interior part that is rock and ice In contrast, the interior of Uranus is mainly composed of ices and rock.

A few pretty interesting features about this planet is like Venus it rotates opposite of the majority of the planets by rotating east to west. Uranus also has a really interesting feature, it axis is tilted almost parallel to its orbital plane, so it looks like it’s spinning on it’s side like rolling around the orbit. There is speculation that the extreme tilt is because of a collision with an object that could be as big as a planet. This situation may be the result of a collision with a planet-sized body early in the planet’s history, which apparently radically changed Uranus’ rotation. Because of Uranus’ unusual orientation, the planet experiences extreme variations in sunlight during each 20-year-long season. The orbit of Uranus is 84 earth years, and because of it’s extreme tilt one quarter of it’s year puts one pole in sun lite and the other pole is in a long dark winter.

Normally a planet’s magnetic field is pretty much in line with it’s axis This pane’s is not, it’s tipped over nearly 60 degrees fro the axis of rotation. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder it is offset from the center by 1/3rd the planet’s radius.

Everyone can see a picture and clearly know it’s Saturn because of it’s rings, but Saturn isn’t the only planet to have rings. Uranus has two sets as well.  There inner set has nine rings which are predominately dark, they were discovered in 1977. When Voyager 2 flew by they found two additional inner rings. An outer ring system was discovered by Hubble in 2003. It’s fascinating to know we can still make discoveries  in this day and age.

Uranus has 27 known moons, named for characters from the works of William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope.

For some reason when I looked at it I thought it was goign to be brownish. .. I’m not sure why at all. but instead it was blue, much more soft than Neptune. Planets get their color from what they are made of – their composition, and Uranus is made mostly of hydrogen, helium and methane. Methane is what gives Uranus its blue color.

I took this photo of Uranus with only a 6″ Celestron Schmitt Cass telescope.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see the rings, but considering I don’t have the budget of NASA. . .I get what I can afford. If memory and my notes serve me right It was a pretty clear night, I do miss Nevada’s skies. It wasn’t too hard to pick out in the eyepiece, however the planet looks more like a faint star when seeing it with my own eyes. The camera is much much more sensitive.

To collect this image I took several videos with the Orion StarShoot Deep Space Video Camera II, and I took roughly 20 seconds of video. For this image I used the zoom function to get a closer view, otherwise it would have just looked smaller. I processed the footage in Registax version 6 and edited it in Photoshop to clean it up and remove artifacts. This one was a pretty straight forward method of processing. I got the video and ran it through it, the key to remember when using Registax is to set the limits with the smallest Lollipops when on the set limit phase.

There was just something pretty about the color, much like when you see a shade or a hue and never see it any where else. it was just calm and peaceful instead of in your face bold. I really enjoyed seeing it. . .fascinating to think of the distance.

Data

Discovered By		William Herschel
Date of Discovery		13 March 1781
Orbit Size Around Sun (semi-major axis)		Metric: 2,870,658,186 km English: 1,783,744,300 miles Scientific Notation: 2.8706582 x 109 km (1.9189165 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 19.189 x Earth
Perihelion (closest)		Metric: 2,734,998,229 km English: 1,699,449,110 miles Scientific Notation: 2.73500 x 109 km (1.828 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 18.593 x Earth
Aphelion (farthest)		Metric: 3,006,318,143 km English: 1,868,039,489 miles Scientific Notation: 3.00632 x 109 km (2.010 x 101 A.U.) By Comparison: 19.766 x Earth
Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year)		84.016846 Earth years 30,687.15 Earth days By Comparison: 84.017 x Earth
Orbit Circumference		Metric: 18,026,802,831 km English: 11,201,335,967 miles Scientific Notation: 1.803 x 1010 km By Comparison: 19.180 x Earth
Average Orbit Velocity		Metric: 24,477 km/h English: 15,209 mph Scientific Notation: 6.7991 x 103 m/s By Comparison: 0.228 x Earth
Orbit Eccentricity		0.04725744 By Comparison: 2.828 x Earth
Orbit Inclination		0.77 degrees
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit		97.8 degrees (retrograde rotation) (retrograde rotation) By Comparison: 4.173 x Earth
Mean Radius		Metric: 25,362 km English: 15,759.2 miles Scientific Notation: 2.5362 x 104 km By Comparison: 3.9809 x Earth
Equatorial Circumference		Metric: 159,354.1 km English: 99,018.1 miles Scientific Notation: 1.59354 x 105 km By Comparison: 3.9809 x Earth
Volume		Metric: 68,334,355,695,584 km3 Scientific Notation: 6.83344 x 1013 km3 By Comparison: 63.085 x Earth
Mass		Metric: 86,810,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation: 8.6810 x 1025 kg By Comparison: 14.536 x Earth’s
Density		Metric: 1.270 g/cm3 By Comparison: 0.230 x Earth
Surface Area		Metric: 8,083,079,690 km2 English: 3,120,894,516 square miles Scientific Notation: 8.0831 x 109 km2 By Comparison: 15.847 x Earth
Surface Gravity		Metric: 8.87 m/s2 English: 29.1 ft/s2 By Comparison: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 91 pounds on Uranus.
Escape Velocity		Metric: 76,968 km/h English: 47,826 mph Scientific Notation: 2.138 x 104 m/s By Comparison: 1.911 x Earth
Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day)		-0.718 Earth days (retrograde) -17.23992 hours (retrograde) By Comparison: 0.72 x Earth
Effective Temperature		Metric: -216 °C English: -357 °F Scientific Notation: 57 K
Atmospheric Constituents		Hydrogen, Helium, Methane Scientific Notation: H2, He, CH4 By Comparison: Earth’s atmosphere consists mostly of N2 and O2.

Refeance:

1) NASA; http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Uranus