September 27th 2015 – Don’t Miss it: Superbloodmoon

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Benoit Guertin

A total lunar eclipse is sometimes referred as a Blood Moon due to the reddish-brown hue the Moon takes when passing in Earth’s shadow. So why “Super“? The Moon has an elliptical orbit around Earth, with the distance varying by 20,000km between the closest (perigee) and farther (apogee) approaches. When there is a full Moon during its closest approach it’s called a Supermoon. The result is a Moon that is 14% larger in area and 30% brighter than at apogee.

September 27th 2015 happens to be special because both events will take place at the same time: a total lunar eclipse at perigee. Last time that happened was nearly 30 years ago!

Total Lunar Eclipse
20-Feb-2008 – Benoit Guertin

Time-lapse Video with Microsoft Movie Maker

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Benoit Guertin

Creating a time-lapse video out of your individual photos is a simple matter with Microsoft Movie Maker. And the cool thing is that it will work with Canon RAW .CR2 format files, so no need to convert them to JPG ahead of time.

The following steps are performed with Windows8.

Step 1 – Select the sequence of images in Microsoft Photo Gallery

timelapse01 Step 2 – Under Create select Movie. This will automatically launch Microsoft Movie Maker with the individual photos loaded in a new Movie Maker Project.

timelapse02

New Movie Maker Project created timelapse03

Step 3 – Under Edit – Video Tools, change the duration between frames to a value less than 1.0- example 0.20.

timelapse04 Step 4 – Save your movie in the format and resolution you wish. Voila! And why not add a title, caption and a soundtrack to go the extra mile.

Therefore set your camera on a tripod and start taking some pictures of the night sky.

Bright Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) – Visible to Northern Hemisphere end of November

Posted on August 23, 2015 by Benoit Guertin

There’s a bright comet in the sky, currently at magnitude 6 and predicted to brighten to 5 by November. Not yet visible in the Northern Hemisphere, but just as it peaks in brightness towards the end of November, it will start showing up in the early morning sky, gradually rising earlier every day until late January 2016

Note that a good opportunity will be around January 2nd when it will pass within 1deg of magnitude 0 star Alpha Bootis – Arcturus. Until then, people in the south keep enjoying it, I’ll just have to wait for the cold winter nights to get a peek at this comet.

Comet C/2013 US10 is not periodic, but comes from the distant Oort Cloud and this will be it’s only recorded passage by the Sun. After spending millions of years slowly orbiting the outer solar reaches, it got disturbed, possibly by a nearby star and is now on an ejection trajectory; its velocity is such that it will be flung into interstellar space, away from the Sun’s influence until it’s picked up by another star.

Trajectory of Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina for 2015-2016

Visibility of Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina in the Evening

Visibility of Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina in the Early Morning

August 13th Celestial Pole Time Lapse

Video

Couldn’t put all those frames to waste, so I processed and assembled them into a time-lapse video showing the Earth’s rotation and the various layers of clouds flying by.

The video was created with Microsoft MovieMaker, a tool that all Win7 and Win8 users have by default. So it’s FREE! Yay!

These were processed in IRIS and saved as BMP, but MovieMaker will also create videos with Canon CR2 RAW Files directly. Therefore dump all your frame and you can generate an instant video without any processing. By default it sets 7.0sec delay between images. Simply select all images and change the value to 0.100 or whatever frame rate you wish. And then export your video.

August 13th – Celestial Pole Over the House

Image

The Perseids peak had already passed, but the sky was better so I decided to set up the trusty Canon XTi and see if I could catch some meteors. This time instead of pointing the camera straight up, I decided to frame the top of the house to provide some reference.

Out of the over 120 shots taken, a sequence of 30 frames were without clouds obscuring the stars. This was a perfect opportunity to mark the celestial pole by adding the images without alignment.

Celestial Pole on August 13, 2015
30 x 30sec

Canon XTi
17mm F4.0 ISO800
30 x 30sec

August 12th – No Perseids but did get some constellations

Image

The 2015 Perseids were predicted to be great, largely thanks to Mother Nature turning off its night-light (aka our Moon). Unfortunately the weather wasn’t as cooperative… With clouds over the horizon I knew my window to try to capture some Perseids was quickly vanishing. Nevertheless I setup my camera on a tripod and hoped for the best.

The best I got was 13 shots without clouds. A quick scan of them did not reveal any notable meteor streak. But it wasn’t all a waste. I was able to process, align and stack them to provide a good 60deg field of view around the zenith.

Constellations Draco, Lyra, Cygnus and Vulpecula 13 x 30sec (17mm F4.0 ISO400) 12-aug-2015 Benoit Guertin

Constellations Draco, Lyra, Cygnus and Vulpecula
13 x 30sec (17mm F4.0 ISO400)
Benoit Guertin

Canon XTi
17mm F4.0 ISO400
13 x 30sec
Fixed mount, no tracking

Blue Moon – July 30

Status

Tonight is a Blue Moon. Normally there are 12 full moon in a calendar year, but every 3 years or so there are 13. That extra full moon is called a Blue Moon, and it’s normally give to the 2nd full moon in a calendar month.

It’s a “rare” event, hence the saying “Once in a Blue Moon”.

June 30th – Venus and Jupiter Less Than 1deg Apart

Status

Tonight, June 30th, right after sunset and before it’s fully dark if you look West you’ll see Venus and Jupiter less than a degree apart in the sky. And with either binoculars or a small telescope you’ll be able to observe Venus as a crescent, and the moons of Jupiter.

Hubble Space Telescope – 25 Years of Exploring the Universe

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Benoit Guertin

Hubblesite.org

Exactly 25 years ago today, the Discovery space shuttle took off with the Hubble Space Telescope aboard. For all the mind-blowing images Hubble has been able to bring to us, the project started actually pretty badly…

Above all the funding challenges that such a large project faced, there were many issues on how and who should grind the primary mirror. In all three mirrors were built by three different companies should there be issues during production. The Challenger disaster in 1986 delayed the launch of the telescope, and when it was finally placed in orbit, a faulty mirror wasn’t able to correctly focus the image to the clear and crisp views everyone had expected. As the flaw was due to an error in the calibrating instrument during the final shaping of the mirror, it meant it was flawed to perfection, and could therefore be corrected by giving it “glasses”. It wasn’t until 1993 that corrective optics were incorporated and we could finally start exploring the potential of the telescope.

As the Hubble Space Telescope is in low earth orbit it is within easy reach to be serviced by astronauts, and five shuttle missions were dedicated to servicing Hubble, the last one being in 2009 to extend the operation until 2020. By then the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be operational. Something to note here is that while Hubble could be serviced and maintained over time due to its proximity to Earth, JWST will be too far out, located at the L2 Lagrange point – 1.5 million km, beyond Moon’s orbit.

To celebrate these 25 years, NASA and ESA have released this wonderful galactic firework: Westerlund 2

NASA Unveils Celestial Fireworks as Official Hubble 25th Anniversary Image
Source: Hubblesite.org

Faint Images of Galaxies M95 and M96

Image

Galaxies are always a challenge… Imaging objects such as nebulas within our galaxy is much better suited to my small telescope. At 700mm focal length, galaxies over 30 million light years away are rather small and lack detail. Nevertheless this is my go at Messier 95 and 96 in the constellation of the Lion.

These galaxies were discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 with a 12in telescope, nearly 4 times the size of mine.