Cold Moon, active sun

The full moon of December is traditionally called the "Cold Moon".  An appropriate nickname - the temperature is already in the single-digits Fahrenheit two hours before midnight.  This year it is also a perigean full moon (aka "super moon"), so it is noticeably brighter than average.

Cold Moon rising over Snowshoe Mountain, 04 December.

Cold Moon illumination.  Laowa 7.5mm f/2 lens, 2-hr live composite.

A large sunspot group is traversing the sun.  

 

White light. AT80EDT refractor + Lunt solar wedge.

Hydrogen-Alpha light.  Lunt LS50THa with double-stacked etalons.

Even though it is winter, heat currents in the air make it difficult to get sharp single images of the sun during the middle of the day.

December-01 moonlight star trails

 The landscape was lit up by the 11.6-day moon.  There was a gusty wind blowing, which required the camera to be set up on the leeward side of a shed for protection.  Temperature was 11° F heading toward an eventual low of 1.4° F the next morning.

Equipment: Olympus E-M1iii + Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens.

2-hr live composite mode

 

1-hr live composite.

New sunspots

A large sunspot group has just rotated into view.  This group is so large that it was visible to the NASA Perserverance Rover on Mars, which was not designed for high-resolution solar observation.   Who knows, more northern-lights displays may be in our near future.

Equipment: Olympus E-M1iii + AT80EDT refractor + Lunt Solar Wedge + ND0.6 filter.

 

Star trails on Thanksgiving evening

There were some thin clouds, mostly to the south, that had the potential to ruin this 78-min exposure.  However, it looks like it was mostly successful.  The landscape was illuminated by the first-quarter moon.  

Equipment: Olympus E-M1iii + Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens.

 

After the moon sets

 The official start of winter is more than three weeks away, but the winter constellations are now rising above Snowshoe Mountain in the late evening.  Shortly after moonset on Tuesday the measured sky brightness was 21.38 mpsas.  

Two cameras were used for these images: Olympus E-M1iii + Leica 15mm f/1.7 lens + Hoya Sparkle-6 filter, and Sony A7iii + Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 lens + Hoya Softon filter.

Jupiter (left) and Orion rising.  Leica 15mm.

Orion.  Sony 50mm.

Jupiter, Castor and Pollux.  Sony 50mm.

The view to the south featured the less-impressive constellation Cetus.  However, this constellation contains a nearby star, Tau Ceti (τ Ceti), that is only 11.9-ly distant and the 19th closest star system.  Notably, it is also the seventh-nearest naked-eye star.

Tau Ceti (circled) and Saturn (upper right corner).  Leica 15mm.

 

A closer look.  Sony 50mm

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Neptune (circled) and Saturn.

Late November constellations

 These pictures were obtained near 8:30 pm last night with the temperature in the low 20's F.  The eventual low was about 5° F the next morning.  Temperatures this low are a problem for doing polar alignment of the star tracking mount, because the green laser that is used for lining up on Polaris does not work well in the cold.

The camera used was a Sony A7iii + Rokinon AF 85mm f/1.4 FEII lens + Hoya Softon filter.  The  measured sky brightness was sqml=21.31 mpsas.  Some faint red airglow was evident at lower elevations. 

Lyra

 

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Cassiopeia

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Perseus

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Auriga

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

The Pleiades, Hyades, and Uranus (circled)

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Some stars before the storm

 There is a 3.5-inch blanket of new snow on the ground this morning (Sunday).  Last night started out clear, with a nice view of the 2.8-day crescent moon during twilight.

Olympus E-M5iii + 40-150mm f/4.

 Clouds were moving in from the south as I photographed the Summer Triangle in the west over Bristol Head.

Olympus E-M1iii + 12mm f/2 + Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.

 There are three famous double stars in the region of the Summer Triangle.  They are Epsilon Lyrae ("Double Double"), Albireo (Beta Cygni), and 61 Cygni (the "Flying Star").  The finder chart below shows where they are located.  I photographed them with a GSO 4.5-in (114 mm) f/12.5 Classical Cassegrain (1427 mm focal length) and a Sony A7iii camera.

 

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Vega and Epsilon Lyrae (upper right).  Rokinon 135mm f/2.

Epsilon Lyrae.  Full image area.  North to the right. GSO Cassegrain.

Epsilon Lyrae, a closer look.  North is up.

Each of the two stars seen here is also a double star, hence the nickname "Double Double".  Resolving the two tight pairs requires good optics and high magnification (about 100x or more).

Albireo.  Full image area.  North to the right. GSO Cassegrain.

Albireo, a closer look.  North is up.

Albireo is famous for the contrasting colors of the two stars: golden and blue.

61 Cygni. Full image area. North to the right. GSO Cassegrain.

 

61 Cygni, a closer look.  North is up.

61 Cygni is known as the "Flying Star" because of its large proper motion (movement relative to the background stars).  This rapid movement is related to its close distance:  11.4 ly.  It is the 12th closest star system.

The image quality from the 4.5-inch Cassegrain is less than I would like.  There is some asymmetry to the star images that indicates a probable collimation issue.  I'll have to work on that some day.  For now, this scope is going into the closet.

GSO 4.5-inch Classical Cassegrain

 

More aurora pictures and the sunpot responsible

 A picture of the sun this morning shows the sunspot responsible for the flare that caused the massive auroral display on Tuesday.  The sunspot is the large one in the upper right quadrant.  It is about to rotate out of sight.

13 Nov, false-color image.  AT80EDT refractor + Lunt solar wedge.

 The auroral display Tuesday night got progressively better over the course of several hours.  At first it manifested as a bright greenish glow on the northern horizon, almost like a false dawn, with barely perceptible red glow filling the northern sky.  Eventually, the green glow transformed into green curtain auroras and the larger red glow was visible to the eye.  For a while, the Bristol Head ridgeline to the west was silhouetted in front of a bright red glow.

 

The beginning.  Sony A7iii + Laowa 15mm f/2.

An hour+ later.

Wednesday night was cloudy here in Creede, so there was no follow up to this great display.  The sky looks normal tonight, with some airglow at low elevations along the horizon. The measured sky brightness varied from 20.92 to 21.05 mpsas, depending on direction.

Western view.  Olympus E-M1iii + Leica 9mm f/1.7 + sparkle filter.

 

Eastern view.

Tuesday auroral display: wow!

 A severe geomagnetic storm produced an auroral display Tuesday evening (11 Nov) that was visible even in some southern states.  From here in Creede it was an impressive show.  The red glow was only occasionally visible to the eye, but it lit up the camera display.  Camera sensors are much more sensitive to red than the human eye.  The green curtains, however, were very easy to see and very exciting.  I haven't seen a display like this since I was a kid in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Lots of pictures were obtained in two sessions, but these three were typical of the best part of the display.  Camera: Sony A7iii + Laowa 15mm f/2 lens + Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.

 

East

North

West

Scraps from last night

 Last night I was able to get in only one shot of Comet Lemmon with the AT80EDT refractor before it set behind the Bristol Head ridgeline.  A second shot showed only the tail:

Tail of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).  AT80EDT refractor.

The comet is past peak brightness, but without the moon it still shows a nice tail in photographs.

After the comet sank out of sight I turned the telescope to the open star cluster M23 in Sagittarius:

M23

 M23 is just one cluster among many in this densely populated section of the Milky Way.  Here is a finder chart for context:

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

 After the star cluster, the dwarf-planet Pluto was a good target:

Pluto (circled) on 08 Nov.

Here is an image from 16 Oct with about the same FOV, taken with a 135mm f/2 lens:

Pluto (circled) on 16 Oct.

Comparison of the two images reveals how much Pluto has moved with respect to the background stars over three weeks.  Pluto is currently about magnitude 14.6 in the constellation Capricornus.