Friday, December 21, 2007

Christmas Eve Spectacular!

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

Christmas Eve, and you're snuggled cozily in your den. A glowing fire gently crackles and pops in the fireplace, and your head starts to droop as you nod off. Just then, something cold and wet nudges your cheek. You open your eyes to stare directly into a large black nose. It's time to take the dog for his walk.
Grumbling in vain, you put on your coat, snap the leash onto the wiggling dog's collar, open the door to a rush of cold air. You step outside and enter a magical landscape.
The night isn't dark, it's glowing with a silvery-white light. Up above, the 98% full moon looks huge and clear in the azure sky. It just might be the brightest moon you've ever seen. That's because it's the highest-riding full moon until the year 2023.

And not far from the beautiful moon glows fireplace-red Mars. This Christmas Eve, Mars is at its closest to Earth for the next nine years. Mars is also "at opposition." That's astronomy-lingo for "directly opposite the sun." It means Mars is up whenever the sun is down: on Christmas Eve, the Red Planet will be visible all night long.

As Christmas scenes go, it doesn't get much better. Gliding in formation across the sky, the moon and Mars seem so close you could almost reach up, grab the pair and bounce them down the street for Fido to retrieve.
Or maybe you could lasso them, as George says in the movie It's a Wonderful Life. "Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey! That's a pretty good idea! I'll give you the moon, Mary...."
In the years ahead, NASA is going to lasso the moon. NASA's giant Ares rocket, still on the drawing board, will take form and then take mankind back to that brilliant silver orb where scientists will learn how to harness the moon's powers.
Plans are to establish a lunar base for exploration and use the moon's surface as a springboard to even further destinations. At the moon's poles there is evidence of hydrogen and perhaps actual water frozen in the soil. Furthermore, ordinary moonrocks are made of minerals that contain more than 40% oxygen. These are resources that can be used to produce rocket fuel, breathable air and a welcome drink on a dry, dusty world.

Maybe on some future Christmas Eve, one of us will step outside of our cozy lunar cabin and walk our space-suited dog with long, floating steps down some dusty lunar road. We'll look up and say, "There's a pretty full Earth tonight!"
But on this frosty Christmas Eve, your feet crunch Earth's cold ground with a crisp clear sound as you walk back toward the house looking up through the silvery stillness at the lovely moon and its bright partner, Mars. The only other sounds you hear are dog tags jingling like sleigh bells. Suddenly a shadow flits across the moon. A cloud? A plane? A sleigh! Maybe those were sleigh bells you heard!
Smiling to yourself, you open the door to go back inside, taking one last glance at the night sky and one of the loveliest heavenly sights you’ll see for years.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Pleaides M45

Beautiful image of M45 taken on 10th December.
The Pleaides is a wonderful cluster of stars that is now visible high in the South East. I used to call it the 'Little Bear' because it looks like a minature version of Ursa Major 'The Plough'.
This cluster is very special as all the bright stars are blue and very hot. This makes nearby gas to glow because of the energy and produces nebulocity. I have taken images before of M45, but could not capture the glow. This time I managed to capture M45 with it's blue nebulocity and looks beautiful!
Tonight the sky is clear and the Moon sits low in the Southern sky, but it is frosty and really cold, I really didn't feel like going outside tonight. My next task is to try to image the Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula. I have never seen these before, but judging by the results of the Orion Nebula, i'm sure I can capture a reasonable image.
I'm beginning to think about changing some of my equipment, the Skywatcher 130m is brilliant for planetary work with the webcam, but I cannot attach the Canon 350D. Should I replace the scope with a Skywatcher ED80 refractor? This can easily be attached to the SLT mount...hmm....still thinking!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Orion Nebula M42 and Running Man Nebula



These images taken on 10th December, the lower image is a closer view of the blur at the top of the Orion Nebula image.
Cold, clear and frosty evening and a beautiful sky! At first I took about an hour of images of M45 Plaiedes while I waited for Orion to rise over the rooftops. I have waited a long time now to try to capture a more detailed image of the Orion Nebula with my Canon 350D. This is my first attempt and results are stunning! I played around a bit with colours which has given me several different results, the one above is my favourite!
The image is composed of 60 x 30s images, stacked in Deepskystacker and processed in Photoshop 7. Canon 350D and Skywatcher ST80 telescope.
If you look closely at the lower image you can see a shadow of a 'running man' this is a feint nebula above the main Orion nebula