Mars, on Fire

Clear sky was forecast for this morning, along with below average seeing.

I had a vibrate only alarm set on my Garmin.  I planned to test the forecast.  I used the "silent" alarm on the Garmin so the kitties wouldn't be confused and think it was breakfast time for them.

Yes, we are a multi-cat family.  We have the furry kind of cats.  And we have my Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, which is a member of the catadioptric family.

 Buzz.  The alarm did its job.  I dutifully went outside to check the sky.

It was clear.  Nary a wisp of a cloud.  Blessed with a clear sky.

I moved the car out of the garage into the driveway.  I put the ramp down over the step from the house to the garage.  I rolled the Cat over the ramp, through the garage, to its location on the driveway.  Next, the observing table, on wheels, too.  And finally, the chair.  All of the equipment was out.

Ten minutes later, the Cat was leveled and powered up.  Laptop was booted and USB cable attached to the Cat.

I looked up, ready to start the alignment.  Gotta build a good model of the sky to be able to find objects.

This is what I saw.  Horrors.  Cloudy horrors.

Hey!  Where did the clouds come from?

I sat, dejectedly, in the observing chair, observing clouds.

Occasionally, a hole would open and I could briefly see a star or two.

More importantly, Polaris would peak through to torment me.  At least I could use that to tell the Cat where true north was.  That's the first step of alignment, anyway.

The laptop was running CPWI, Celestron's telescope control software, taking place of the old handheld controller.  I used CPWI's representation of the sky to find other alignment stars as they peeked through the holes.

Finally, the Cat was aligned.

I sat waiting.  Hopes were not high.  More coffee.  

The clouds were moving quickly, though.  That tempered my expectations as to seeing conditions should the sky clear.

Finally.

Look closely.  Mars.

Mars.

I pointed the Cat at Mars and it was beautiful.  Polar icecap was evident.

But, the turbulence made it look like Mars was dancing and on fire.

Here are a couple of frames from the imager. Click to make bigger.

Mars, on Fire, imager frame

Mars, on Fire, another frame

I ran the imager for dozens of minutes, hoping to be able use "lucky imaging" to tease something useful out of the data.

I think I was successful.

Mars

Mars is tiny and its opposition is still four months away.  Here, you can see hints of some of Mars' surface features, including the northern polar icecap.

KA-BOOM?

"In space, no one can hear you scream." -Alien (1979)

It's germaine for human chomping, chest bursting outer space aliens when they are rampaging through the corridors of your spaceship.  I wonder if it holds true when your star goes supernova?

I know.  Not quite the same thing.  In the movie, there is lots of blood and gore.  And, admittedly, lots of localized screaming.  But outside of the USCSS Nostromo,  in the vacuum of space, it was pretty quiet.

They should've taken Ripley's advice to "nuke it from orbit."

Maybe that is what happened in Messier object M61.  It had a star go supernova on May 6th and no one heard a peep.  No screaming. 

Well, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) sky survey only detected the new supernova on May 6th.  It actually happened a really, really long time ago.  The light from the event is just now getting here.

Imagine that the astronomers at ZTF were just sitting there looking through their telescopes at M61 and then, all of a sudden, a star exploded into brightness.  Right before their very eyes.

No screaming.  Not even a simple "pop," let alone a more boisterous "KA-BOOM."

This is M61, as imaged by me this weekend.  It was nicely placed high in my southwest sky, in the constellation Virgo.

M61.  No screaming.  No KA-BOOM.

Virgo is a fun constellation to explore.  Tons of dim galaxies at which to peer.  I have spent hours exploring Virgo.  Even in this image, there is more than just M61.

Just for fun, I uploaded the image to Astrometry.net to run a plate solve and this is what it found.

M61 and neighbors.

So, where is the supernova?  Which one?  It turns out that M61 has had 8 supernova since people have been paying attention to it.  The latest is named "SN 2020jfo" and I've annotated in this image.

M61 with annotated supernova.

A zoomed-in version is here.

Cropped M61 with annotated supernova.

Now knowing that M61 has frequent supernova events, I'm going to spend more time looking for them myself.

Staging

The Clear Sky Chart for my location shows a hint of a possibility for some astronomy tonight.  If the forecast is correct, this will be the first time in, oh so long!

A Chance for Tonight or Tomorrow Morning?

Since it has been so long since I've been able to bring the Cat out, I thought I'd better set everything up to make sure that it all plays nicely together.  I'm looking at you, "Windows 10 software updates ..."

The Astro Cat, Astro Table, and the Astro Chair

I'm thankful for the wheeled platforms!

Mars Needs More Mars...

Did you know that Mars comes into opposition this year?

This apparition, Mars will be in opposition to Earth on October 13th, 2020.  Mark your calendars!

If you can't wait, you can do as I did.  Start going outside in the wee hours of the morning and watch Marsrise. Mars rose above the horizon this morning at 0427.

I was outside with the Cat and captured this image.

Tiny Mars

Mars is tiny.  It currently only occupies 5.7 arcseconds in the sky and hangs low in the southeast, making it a challenge to image.  I was fairly happy to be able to capture this and that it showed a hint of features.

At opposition, Mars will occupy over 22 arcseconds and will be much higher in the south.

Looking forward to it!

More images to come.

Best Spirals Ever!

It was a spiral galaxy type of night.

The sky was dark and moonless. Its transparency was excellent.

With this, I was able to see the spiral arms on M81, one the two galaxies known as Bode's Nebula.  Usually, I can only see M81 as a blob of light.

M81 Bode's Nebula

M81 with its spiral arms

M81 is more than just a blob.

A Simple Mod

While playing with the latest CPWI beta, it became clear that I needed to make a modification to my Cat.

It's a simple modification and a cheap modification.  And it will prevent enormous frustration when using the scope in the field.

It's a binder clip

I added a small binder clip to provide strain relief on the USB cable from the laptop to the hub on the focus motor.

Not only does this hub provide control over the focuser, it also controls the movement of the scope.  Tracking, alignment, and slewing to target operations are sent from the laptop via this cable.  

The cable normally hangs from  a USB type B connector on the underside of the focuser housing, just begging to be pulled out.  This strain relief prevents that.

What simple mods have you done to your scope?

A Ring and a Cigar!

Friday evening, we had a break in the rainy weather.  Yay!

And the sky was dark with excellent transparency. 

So, I loaded up on coffee and rolled the Cat out into the driveway.  It sure is nice to have it on wheels.  It is a little tough negotiating it through the doorway to the garage and down the ramp, but I think I've got the procedure down now.

Love the wheels.

This is not the droid you are looking for...

The astronomy session started out as just an opportunity to wring out some new equipment and software, but I did get to observe a new (to me) planetary nebula and an oddly shaped and colored galaxy!

So, what did I see?  A couple of highlights are below.