February Newsletter of Worthing Astronomers by Brian Halls

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015

SOUTHERN ASTRONOMER THE

MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF WORTHING ASTRONOMERS & WORTHING SKYWATCHERS

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015

This Issue

Astronomy Meetings

Month of the Planets...................................................................page 3 Viewing the Planets – draw, image or photograph?..........….......page 4 WA News (including Workshop detail, and Guideline reminder....page 7 Observing Notes for February......................................................page 8 Astronomy wear and club logo/ Space News …...........................page 10 Night Sky Map.............................................................................page 11 Jupiter Observing blank/report form...........................................back page

Worthing Astronomers (WA) meet on the first Friday of the month, every two months (February, April, June, August, October and December) at Goring URC, corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Barrington Road, Worthing, BN12 4EA. Admission £3.

QUICK VIEW ASTRO EVENTS DIARY

We meet at 19.30

February

Adur AS (AAS) meet at Southwick Christian Community Church, 1-5 Roman Crescent, Southwick BN42 4TY, first Monday of the month (unless otherwise stated). Admission: £5 for guests, £3 for members.

All times shown are Universal Time (UT = GMT) For AAS, and WA details, see side bar on left

Meetings start at 19.30 WA, and AAS venues have off road parking facilities and grounds adjacent for setting up telescopes when conditions allow. More monthly details in the Quick View Diary, page two. Worthing Astronomers is a free to join society with a membership of over 350 persons, all sharing an interest of Astronomy. With the aid of this newsletter, website, social media, regular star parties, workshops and public observing events we hope to encourage and share our interests in observing the sky with the public, our colleagues in our own group and with neighbouring societies.

1 2 3 6 12 13 18 19 22 24 25 28

Sunrise 0740h : Sunset 1654h AAS: My Top 20 Images by Damien Peach Full Moon (23h) Wolf Moon (Old English) Moon at Apogee (furthest from the Earth) (05h) Jupiter at Opposition (18h) WA: Workshop - Observing The Sun Safely by Brian Halls Moon: Last Quarter (03h) Saturn 2.1°S of Moon (0h) Moon at Perigee (nearest to the Earth) (07h) New Moon (23h) Chinese New Year Conjunction of Venus and Mars (05h) Mercury greatest elongation west - 27°(19h) Moon: First Quarter (17h) Sunrise 0650h : Sunset 1742h

CONTRIBUTIONS AND UNSUBSCRIBE Contributions – written articles (preferably word processed in .txt, .doc or .odt format), photographs or letters to the editor for the March issue should be in by February 15 and sent to the editor at the contact address: editor@worthingastronomers.org.uk If you no longer wish to subscribe to the group and cancel newsletters and other information, please send an email to: info@worthingastronomers.org.uk with 'Unsubscribe' in the subject line; we do not want our stuff to end up like spam littering your in-box. Volunteers are always welcome: if you want to find out more, call 01903 521205 or drop us a line at the e-mail address above. If you like the newsletter or its content please feel free to distribute it to anyone you know who might be interested. Content is subject to copyright to the group and/or the individuals whose images or articles are used.

Lunar phases February 2015

Cover picture: A picture of C/2014 Q Lovejoy by member, Rob Aro.

AMENDUUM FAS ASTRO-CALENDAR Several members have pointed out some errors and have queries regarding data that appears in the Federation's Astro-Calendars for 2015. Sunrise and sunset times are local for Liverpool - the Liverpool AS are responsible for putting the AstroCalendar together and would naturally use local times in much the same way local (Worthing) sun set and rise times are used in our own Astro Events Diary. The BST times for the March 20 solar eclipse are inaccurate. As has been pointed out, British Summer Time does not start until Sunday morning, 29th March – a full week and more after the partial eclipse.

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015

Month of the Planets The planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter put on a show for us earthbound astronomers this month.

observe, with binoculars or telescopes. For a good view of the features of the planet or the mutual satellite phenomenon I would suggest a minimum of 100mmfor a refractor and 150mm for a reflector.

Jupiter starts the ball rolling on February 6 when the planet reaches opposition.

Use a magnification that gives you crisp detail – this may produce a smaller image but it will be far better than a dimmer, higher magnification – unless of course the seeing is really exceptional. Cold winter nights can produce those.

This is the point when it is due south at midnight and almost at its closest to earth – and occurs every 398.8 days - about every thirteen months or so. With a pair of binoculars or a small telescope, the polar flattening of the planet is clearly discernible and the four bright Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) can be seen like small stars laid out either side of the planet – that is of course if they are not transit across the face of Jupiter or orbiting behind the planet. A larger telescope will be needed to see one of these small moons crossing the face of the planet and these events are not rare. Last spring we did witness a rarity, something called a double transit, when the shadow of two Jupiter satellites – Ganymede and Io – crossed the face of the planet, while one of the moons throwing a shadow, was also crossing the face of the planet. The picture at the top of the page shows a few hardy members (plus some curious members of the public) preparing to observe the event How Big? Because Jupiter is the largest planets of the solar system it is also one of the most dramatic to see even in a moderate telescope.

Later in the month the planets Venus and Mars reach a conjunction – that is, they appear close in the sky as seen from Earth.

Shadows in transit – March 16, 2014

Its angular diameter gets to about 45.3” (“ = arcseconds.) To put that into easier terms, if you turn your telescope to the Moon at about 8 days past new, you will see the crater Copernicus. The angular diameter of Copernicus is also about 45”. So if you get a nice view of Copernicus in your eyepiece then that will be the size of Jupiter in your telescope!

On the evenings of February 21/22 look out towards the south-west sky and the bright (-3.9m) Venus will be apparent. About ½° to the west (about a full Moon diameter) will be the much fainter Mars (1.3m). On the 21st the young moon will be in the tableau as well but by the 22nd it will be further to the east. The ecliptic diagram on the next page shows how the line of sight effect is caused. We on Earth are looking across the inner solar system and see the two planets almost side-by-side with each other.

Closest approach of the two bodies occurs earlier in the day when the two planets are below our local horizon – but they will still be close enough that Another feature at the moment is that we, on planet evening to appreciate the event. Earth, are passing through the plane of the orbit of Venus will appear like a nearly full Moon (phase the satellites of Jupiter. That means (until the end 88%) in a moderate telescope and, will have a of the summer) the satellites of Jupiter will appear angular diameter of about 11” (about quarter the to eclipse, transit and occult each other. size of Jupiter in the eyepiece). Mars will be even smaller at 4”. So the Jupiter environment is quite interesting to Therefore, Jupiter is quite a sizeable object to see in the telescope.

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015 Month of the Planets

Those with larger instruments (250mm upwards) may still be able to make out detail on Mars but it will be hard going but a challenge none the less. I wide field eyepiece is recommended to both planets in the same view. It is also a good photo opportunity as the 4 day old Moon is also in the sky; a nice wide angled view will put all three bodies in the same field. What telescope? As mentioned previously, a good pair of binoculars will show Jupiter and its satellites and Venus and Mars together. The best apertures to use for seeing these events and to get planetary detail, a long f/number is best – usually about f10 or more. Refractors usually fall in this category but so do some Newtonians and most compound (SCT) telescopes at the 200mm aperture or over range. However even low f/number instruments will give their users some exciting views. For many years I used an f15 90mm Broadhurst & Clarkson refractor that gave me far better views of Jupiter than a 305mm f8 Newtonian reflector. Altair Starwave, the Moonraker series, and some SkyWatcher Evostar refractors fall into the f10 or more category while the SkyWatcher Skyliner Dobsonian mounted Newtonian reflectors with apertures over 250mm are also high f-number instruments .

The inner planets relative to each other on February 22

Viewing The Planets Two of the three planets mentioned in the above article – Venus and Jupiter are wonderful planets to look at; why not try and capture your views so you have something to look back on at a later time? Drawing What You See by Brian Halls When it comes to astronomy, many people just enjoy looking at what they see with their own eyes but, there often comes a time when the observer may want to record what they are looking at.

The websites previously mentioned also contain excellent primers for regular planetary observing if you get the bug for it! If you want tips on putting pencil/inks to paper and get your inner artist out; the website operated by Jeremy Perez at www.perezmedia.net is a good source of inspiration with lots of suggestions and resources – including free downloads.

They can be downloaded from the BAA Jupiter section website - www.britastro.org/jupiter/programme Venus templates are obtainable from the BAA Mercury & Venus section website www.britastro.org/section-information When starting out do not worry about the technical details listed on the report form – just make sure, telescope, date/time and, seeing conditions details are correct. Sketch away!

Drawing what you see at the eyepiece is a good way to gain knowledge about what you are looking at – be it planets, Moon or deep sky objects. A Jupiter 'blank' for you to use is on the back page. * Photography was once the province of the skilled astro-photographer with access to large telescopes. The invention of the light sensitive chip changed all that. Photographing What You See by Sinead Woods I took the Jupiter moon transit photo (next page) when my scope was very new. I only had it for a few weeks. I did have a small Celestron GOTO before, so I was experienced with the basics.

The oldest but standard method is to draw what one sees. “I am not an artist” is not an excuse! All the observer need do is to draw what they see at the eyepiece and accurately as possible render it onto a report form or piece of paper. To make the job easier templates are available to print out and use. Jupiter is not a pure circle; because of its rotation speed it is 'flattened' at the poles. One of these templates is useful.

daily sunspot number can be derived.

The drawing above of the planet Jupiter shows the dark spots created by the collision of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the planet in the summer of 1994. Up to about 20 years ago disk drawing was the only way I and others would regularly go about recording our planetary observations as very many observers STILL do today!

I traded it in for something completely manual and decided to get the SkyWatcher 8" Dobsonian. When I realised the sky would be nice and clear for the transit of two Galilean moons across Jupiter with shadows, I put the scope outside to cool down to the freezing outside temperature in advance to improve viewing. I didn't know what to expect.

Luckily the 2" T-adaptor I ordered had arrived in time. This enables the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera to be connected easily to the Drawing is still done by the professional to this day. telescope. At solar observatories, the duty observer is The advantage of that adaptor over the Celestron expected to produce a daily solar disk drawing, 1.25" one I had is it doesn't have any glass so the showing the positions of the sunspots and other image quality is not reduced. You also get more white-light features from which the local

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015 Viewing the Planets continued

A specialised 'science' camera using web-cam technology

You will also need a laptop or tablet to attach your camera too so that you can capture your data and some capture software that you will use to control the camera, I use one called SharpCap but there are lots out there to choose from. Shadows in Transit – March 16, 2014

Something else to consider is the sky conditions or “seeing” If the atmosphere is turbulent then this turbulence will be magnified when trying to image a planet through your telescope.

inside your field of view if you can use a 2" Tadaptor so I recommend that. The camera I use is a Canon 600D. (If I were to get a new camera I would look for one with a higher ISO setting. The maximum ISO setting on this one is 6400 which isn't great for astro-photography without a tracking motor.) Through the eyepiece I observed Jupiter around the time the transits were due to start and thought I could see a small bulge on the side of the giant planet. That was indeed one of the moons; a few minutes later I saw a shadow cast on the planet for the first time! I was so pleased I was able to see it. I thought it would be so faint I'd have to imagine it. But it was very clear to the eye and I remember saying it looks like there is a hole! So I started snapping in Manual mode trying various exposure lengths and ISOs. The image needs to be refocused when you change from eyepiece to camera, and one way I do that is switch the camera to Live View if there are visible stars/planet and magnify the view on the screen and then fine tune the focus. There is a position locking screw on this scope so you can lock the focuser position which is handy.

Sinead's Dob mounted reflector © Sinead Woods

Web-cams For Planetary Imaging by Steve Bassett Advancements in technology over the past few years have opened up the world of planetary imaging to astronomers.

This can often be seen as a planet looking fuzzy sometimes as if someone is pouring water over your telescope lens. If the sky conditions are poor no amount of money spent on equipment (short of chartering a flight into orbit) will help to hide this. This aspect is probably one of the hardest to judge. You never know if or when it will clear, you may get patches of clear calm sky for a few minutes and then the sky quality drops again. This is why instead of taking single shots we rely on taking video footage as I will explain more in detail later.

We are now able to obtain high quality, high resolution images of the planets within our solar system using fairly inexpensive equipment.

First I’d like to explain a little more about the telescope and for the beginner this can get a little heavy but I think trying to grasp this concept is useful.

In truth any type of telescope will give good results. f ratios need to be looked at; telescopes f ratio is CCD cameras are now being used for this particular line of astro-photography and there are a the relationship of the scopes focal length divided by the telescopes aperture. lot of planetary cameras on the market to choose from starting at around £100. As an example, if you have a fast f5 telescope like Another popular way to do this currently is by using my 150P Newtonian (focal length of 750mm divided by aperture of 150mm) you are going to need a slightly modified web-cam attached to your to add barlow lenses to boost the scopes focal I used a remote shutter release cable and 2 second telescope which can be cheaper still (below) length and by doing so increase the magnification delay timer so there would be no shake. otherwise even Jupiter our largest planet will be tiny in your image. Next thing a second shadow appeared on the planet at the same time! It was amazing to I tend to image the planets at f15 which means I’m observe. The pictures turned out better than I using a 3x barlow attached to my camera (3xf5). expected. I like the way my telescope only takes a This is pretty low by planetary imaging standards minute to set up. but we have to take into account the size of the CCD sensor in the camera, a small sensor will give The hardest part is carrying the heavy base, but at a larger image at f15 than a large sensor will. least I know that not much can go wrong and I enjoy finding objects manually like nebula and If we look at another example the Celestron comets. 127SLT a Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope this has an f ratio of f12 (focal length of 1500mm divided by Photo references for Viewing Planets article: So how do we start imaging the planets? Firstly we aperture of 127mm) more than twice that of my will need to look at the required equipment. As well 150P Newtonian. as the camera ideally we are going to need a telescope preferably one that has a high f ratio to If we use a 3x barlow in this scope we end up with Canon camera – Astronomiser, give us the required magnification which needs to a much larger f ratio of f36 (3xf12) and as a result Astrophotography Techniques, Which DSLR? be fairly high this will effectively become the the apparent magnification of the target is higher. cameras lens. Nikon camera – Astrophotography Europe, I have put together 2 images using the 12dstring A steady mount to sit your telescope on is also a field of view calculator to demonstrate the huge advantage as well as it having the ability to differences of the scopes in the example, these “track” your targets although I have seen planetary images are the exact size they would appear in an images achieved by manually moving the mount to image taken using the specified equipment (top keep the planet centred. next page).

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015 Web-cams for planetary imaging continued

This calculator is great for seeing what your set-up can achieve and I recommend you have a play. As you can see the Celestron's higher f ratio has given us a smaller field of view and therefore a higher magnification but using the same barlow lens and camera. The advantage of starting with a telescope that already has a high f ratio is that you don’t need to have an as powerful barlow as you perhaps would with a scope that has a lower f ratio. The more powerful the barlow lens the harder it will be to focus and clarity of the image may suffer. It’s always best to have as little glass between the camera and target as possible! It is possible to purchase very good high power barlow lenses at 4x and 5x known as Powermates® made by Televue. These are often used by Newtonian owners to get a high f ratio using the best possible accessory to achieve it but they are expensive!

Top: A view of Jupiter using an f5 telescope. Below: same telescope now using a 3x barlow

I realise this is a lot to take in, if you are still reading then thank you for sticking with me. If anything is unclear and you want to know more about the f ratios then by all means drop me a line. As I mentioned earlier, instead of taking individual images of the target the method employed is to record video footage; this helps to catch those moments of clarity (if we are lucky) when the sky is calm and the wind high in the atmosphere has calmed. Sometimes on good nights this clarity or good seeing can last all night which is excellent and you collect some very good data. Most of the time the seeing comes and goes randomly and there is no way to predict when it will change and for how long but, taking video footage allows us to capture the good as well as the bad and we can remove the bad later. Some of the time the seeing is poor and doesn’t improve and you end up with a blurry fuzzy image that can still show some detail but is not as good as it could be. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done and it can be frustrating and it’s always worth trying to process but more than likely you will just have to try again another night. Once we are set-up it can be challenging to find your target. Obviously you need to know where about in the sky to point your scope and software such as Stellarium and mobile phone apps can help with this.

it is slowly drifting off of the screen you will be able to re-centre it between imaging runs and a little drift isn’t a big problem. If you are using SharpCap the user interface will look something like this (below).

You will probably need to focus your telescope to get the preview as sharp as possible. Focus is as important as having good seeing conditions. No amount of post processing can mask a poorly focused image so spend some time on this.

Even when you know where the planet is it can be a challenge to get the target into your telescopes sights and onto your camera sensor. I sometimes use an eyepiece to centre the planet then swap it for the camera which sometimes works but the process of swapping the eyepiece for the camera can sometimes move the scope a fraction and you lose your target. Ensuring that your finder scope or red dot finder is well aligned helps. Another method is to use your capture software. Turn the gain or exposure up and even if you’re out of focus you will see the bright planet on the preview screen if you are close to it but patience and practice are key here! As I said at the start ideally this is where you want to have a tracking mount so that once you have managed to centre the planet it stays there, even if

How SharCap displays the screen image. Picture controls are on the right.

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015 Web-cams for planetary imaging continued

WA NEWS

No amount of post processing can mask a poorly focused image so spend some time on this.

GUIDELINES One of the main tenets of the group is to enjoy doing astronomy but also to let others enjoy the hobby too. As stated in the Guidelines:

Most capture software will have the ability to zoom in on the preview so use this feature to help get the sharpest focus you can! You will probably find that even with the focus as sharp as you can get it the preview will still look a little fuzzy but this is dependent on your equipment. Just get it as good as you possibly can and start to capture some footage which ideally needs to be in an .AVI file format. Others formats will need to be converted to .AVI in order to work with the processing software. I typically aim for around 1500 frames on the moon running at about 15fps and perhaps 3000 frames on the planets running at a higher fps to try and capture the fainter detail. Settings and capture duration all come down to the conditions you have as well as what camera and telescope you are using so you will need to play around to find what suits you best.

Worthing Astronomers... 11. expect all members to treat other members of the Group and any visitors with respect.

The final image (below) after sharpening and processing shows a lot of detail from the planets surface and two satellites.

All such cases shall be dealt with under item 13 of the Guidelines. WORKSHOP NIGHT Our next Workshop is on Friday 6 February.

Once you have some video of your chosen target you are going to need to align and stack the footage into a single image. Free software is available for this and my favourites are Registax or AutoStakkert2. What these programs do is essentially take your video footage separate out all of the individual frames and align I even have my own basic YouTube guide for them all it then sorts them into best quality and Registax here if you would like to watch. worst quality and allows you to decide how many of the frames you wish to use. Jupiter is currently nicely placed to try out your planetary imaging and one of the big advantages of It will then “stack” or merge these frames into one planetary work is that you don’t need to do it from a image. The process of stacking is done to give us a dark sky location to achieve some excellent results. high signal to noise ratio (S/N). S/N goes a little beyond the scope of this guide but in a nutshell Light pollution does not have a massive effect on noise is the horrible grainy blotchy effect you the outcome of your planetary images as the sometimes get in single images but noise remains planets are so bright anyway. You can easily give constant so by adding more signal (the actual part this a go from your garden. of the image we want to see) we can average out the noise effectively smoothing it over. It’s If you do give it a try be sure to send your images in complicated so I won’t go any deeper into S/N in for the newsletter or share them with us on our this guide. Facebook group or Flickr site. To help illustrate how much of a difference stacking Hopefully this guide has been of use and has software and post processing makes here are 3 inspired you to give this fascinating style of astroimages that show Jupiter at different stages of photography a go. processing. As always, if there is anything that you need clarifying then please either contact me though the WA email address or direct on Facebook. Clear skies all! References: Capture software – Sharpcap, IRIS Processing software – Registax, Autostakkert 2, IRIS Additional processing software – GIMP, Photoshop The picture above, shows a single unprocessed frame of the video footage. Using one of the processing pieces of software mentioned above, the image (top, next column) is starting look smoother after stacking due to the noise being “averaged” out. One of the satellites of the planet can be just made out, lower right of disk.

I must remind you that at no time will the Group permit intemperate language relating to race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or special need of individuals, to be used at any Meeting, Workshop, group or public Star Party.

Other software – 12 Dimensional String (field of view calculator) Planetary images in this article by Steve and, his YouTube tutorial can be found here.

The topic will be safe observing of the Sun. This talk comes at the time when our minds will be thinking of the forthcoming partial solar eclipse. This will be a practical talk on how to observe the Sun with the ordinary telescope the amateur has at their disposal – but how to do it in complete safety. This will be not be a lecture session discussion about solar-physics, solar neutrinos etc. The Sun is often neglected as an object to observe – yet it is the nearest star to us. This Workshop hopes to remove the 'mystique' that some people think surrounds solar observing and will demonstrate the variety of tools available which can make observing the Sun safe, and above all, interesting and fun. Hopefully this will encourage those that can, to get to observe the partial eclipse at the end of March and perhaps at other times. Chris Pennells (who many of you will know) is our refreshments guru; can we ask for a volunteer to give him a break this meeting? I know several members do muck in and help with the washing up but it would be nice to give Chris a chance to put his feet up for this meeting. Thanks. GET WELL SOON One of our Skywatcher colleagues, young Sophie Watts is going into hospital for an operation this month. I am sure you will join me in wishing her a speedy recovery.

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015

OBSERVING NOTES February All times are expressed as Universal (UT) and can be considered the same as GMT. Information, unless otherwise stated is for the 15th of the month

Mercury is poorly placed mid-month rising before the Sun in the morning. The close approach of Venus and Mars has already been mentioned previously as has the opposition of Jupiter – see page 3-4. Uranus is 3° above the Moon on February 22 while the Moon is 9½° above the Venus/Mars pairing. Visibility of Moon and planets, including sunrises and sets, mid-month

Saturn rises just after 02.00UT and is seen at it is best seen in the early morning dawn sky.

and Andromeda, though it is now fading, it will still be visible in binoculars and small telescopes. It remains in our northern skies for the rest of the year though slowly fading in magnitude.

Mid-month, the Moon has left the night time sky. It rises just before the Sun and is a thin crescent. With a telescope or even a pair of binoculars and while the sky is still dark, try and get to see 'earthshine' (popularly seen in the young crescent Moon in the evening sky).

Any images of the comet should be passed on to the BAA Comet Section – contact me for details.

On the evening of February 4 and between 18.30-21.00UT try and get a view of Vallis Schroteri (Schröters Valley). If you can, image or draw it. The BAA lunar section are interested in this feature at this point after Full Moon. Send them to me and I'll pass them onto the BAA. Schröters Valley

Lovejoy and The Pleiades

Terry Lovejoy's discovery has brightened up the winter sky during the early part of the New Year and hopefully will continue to do so. The green hue of the comet commented on by many who saw it is produced by molecules of diatomic carbon in the coma that fluoresce under the Sun's ultraviolet rays. In contrast, the comet's delicate gas tail appeared a tinted blue thanks to fluorescing charged molecules of carbon monoxide. Further images from many members appeared on the WA website. Schröters Valley is the sinuous rille north of the left side crater(Herodatus) © Brian Halls

There are many Stellar and Deep Sky objects to capture the imagination this month.

There are no bright meteor showers this month but, there is a Comet visible - Lovejoy that so many of us have seen and even photographed during the last month, having reached 3.9m.

A magnificent double star is ι(iota) Cancri. To find it look at the chart on page 9. Cancer appears as an inverted Y. Iota is the star at the end of the single ‘leg’ of the Y. A challenge for binoculars but, a small telescope with a low magnification will show a gold primary

During the month it passes between the constellations of Perseus 8

The Southern Astronomer No.77 – February 2015 Observing Notes continued

with a blue. While we are in the constellation of Cancer scan down from Iota to the upturned ‘V’ on the sky map. A cluster of stars is quite apparent - the ‘Beehive’cluster or Messier (M) 44. Best seen with binoculars or a low power eyepiece, the cluster of stars is brighter than the stars that make up the rest of the constellation. What we are looking at is a cluster of comparatively youngish stars ~700 million years old - which lie at a distance of about 500 light years. To the east of the main constellation a 'temporary' star is appearing -Jupiter. The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237) is an emission nebula - it appears due to light from stars glowing within it. Find Betelgeuse the top left hand star in Orion. Using binoculars, look to the left (eastwards) of the star and on a moonless night it can be found. It is quite large - it occupies an area of sky that is about the equivalent of 4 full moons! A large telescope will make it out – add special anti-light pollution filters, and some structure in the nebula might be made out as well. In the northern area of sky lies another challenge. M81 is a galaxy which even using binoculars will show a distinct oval shape. A telescope will show bright area of the nucleus. This object is 6.9m and so might be thought of as a naked-eye object certainly some observers have reported it as being seen with a naked-eye. Near M81 is another galaxy - NGC 3034 -or M82. A telescope is best used for this object. It is classified as an irregular galaxy; it seems that something catastrophic happened to this city of stars long, long ago. It is speculated that M81 was a companion galaxy and its passage close by disrupted the stars of M82. Right: John Slinn's image of the Rosette Nebula taken with 1 x ten minute exposure using a 100mm telescope and a Canon 450D modified SLR camera. Clouds rolled in before more exposures could be made.

The Rosette Nebula, January 2015 © John Slinn

The Southern Astronomer No.77 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; February 2015 WA LOGOS & HI-VIS VESTS Jan Halls As we have had quite a few new members join us I thought it was time for an update on the Logos/Vests. Worthing Astronomers have a logo that can be embroidered onto garments or as a patch which can be attached or sewn onto items, though the patch is not recommended for polo or sweat shirts. The embroidered logos are done by myself (I decided not to sell my machine for those who heard my October meeting announcement) and because I cannot afford or have the room to hold a stock of garments in different sizes, members are asked to provide their own in either black or navy in their preferred size and choice of style which can be sweat shirts, polo shirts or fleeces, and even ordinary plain blouse type shirts.

...fleeces...

Shirts...

From last year we started putting our name, Worthing Astronomers, onto Hi-Viz garments which again can either be vests or outer wear. For this kind of garment it has proved better to have the name painted/printed onto the garments because of the various thickness and for these Graham Williams has kindly agreed to put the names on. As with the actual clothing items, please provide a garment style of your choice in the appropriate size. Having the WA on clothing is extremely useful when we do our outreach events such as talks and of course our summertime events, having the high-visibility vests or whatever garment is chosen, makes anyone with telescopes easy to identify at our dark evening events and the public then knows who to approach to ask those all important questions and get a view through the telescope!

...hi-vis vest.

Sadly there is a small charge of ÂŁ4 to cover the costs, please provide this with your garment. For two or more garments, a ÂŁ1 discount is given for each additional item. The cost does apply to both the embroidered and printed items. Contact: treasurer@worthingastronomers.org.uk

SPACE NEWS BEAGLE 2 FOUND The mystery surrounding the loss of the pioneering British Mars probe Beagle 2 has at last been resolved.

of the planet after an entry that had gone wrong. Early in January, NASA announced that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had found the craft on the surface of Mars.

On Christmas morning, 2003, the probe was due to have landed on Mars from where It appears that entry, deployment of it would examine the terrain and perform parachute and landing had gone experiments. successfully but for some reason, one or possibly two of the four solar panel 'petals' Sadly and despite a lot of hope, nothing was had failed to open properly blocking the heard from the small landing craft. It was radio communications equipment from presumed lost, either burnt up in the Martian signalling! atmosphere or have impacted the surface

Why the deployment of these vital pieces failed remains unknown, though damage on landing or fouling of the mechanism by some of Beagles equipment is a possibility. With this news, Britain becomes only the third nation to land a probe on the Red Planet. The ESA Mar Express mission of which Beagle was the lander is still in operation and in October of 2014 observed comet Sidings Springs pass the planet.

The Southern Astronomer No.77 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; February 2015

Stellarium

THE NIGHT SKY: FEBRUARY 15 A view of the night sky from the Worthing area at around 21.30UT

On the back page of this newsletter is a Jupiter 'blank' for you to keep and to print out as and when you need to. These blanks are used for drawing the planet when seen through the telescope. The article on page 4 reminds you that NO ARTISTIC SKILL is required. Just a true representation of which you see. As long as you record your telescope details, seeing conditions and time (Universal Time (UT)) the drawing will become a record of what you observed. If you cannot see too much detail, do not worry. The more experience you gain at the eyepiece doing this, the more you 'train' the eye to see the finer detail. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

WORTHING ASTRONOMERS JUPITER OBSERVING FORM

Drawing 1: UT:_________Seeing:_______

Drawing 2: UT:_________Seeing:_______

CM 1:___________CM 2: ____________

Date:________________________________

Seeing:_______________________________

UT (Start)_____________UT (Finish)_______ Filters:________________________________ Telescope:____________________________ Location:______________________________ Magnification:__________________________ Observer:_____________________________

INTENSITY AND COLOUR ESTIMATES Time (UT__________________Seeing____________CM1........................ CM2........................ Intensity

Colour

Intensity

Colour

Intensity

SPR

GRS

NEB

SSTZ

SEB(S)

NTropZ

SSTB

SEBZ

NTB

STZ

SEB(N)

NTZ

STB

EZ(S)

NNTB

StropZ

NNTZ

SEB

EZ(N)

NPR

Notes: [Intensity scale runs from 0 (brightest) to 10 (black sky).]

Colour