Vern’s Weblog

Highlights Oct 28 to Nov 3

• Daylight savings ends next Sunday morning which means it will get dark really early!
• Comet 17P Holmes is amazing!

International Space Station

No passes this week.

The Sun

The Sun rises from 7:27 MDT to 7:34 am MDT  this week. It sets 6:06 to 5:58 pm MDT. The solar disk is spotless today (Sunday). The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts that activity will remain at very low levels.

The Moon

The Moon transitions to third quarter on Thursday, November 1st at 3:18 pm MDT.

The star Regulus in constellation Leo is occulted by the Moon shortly after 5 am early Saturday morning and re-appears about an half hour later.

The Planets

Mercury reappears in the morning sky

Venus shines brilliantly high up in the east before sunrise at magnitude -4.5. It appears as a half disk.

Mars rises around 9:30pm and is good position for viewing and imaging around 1 am. Its now about 12 arc min across. Some surface details and northern polar hood can be seen on a good night.

Jupiter is too low for good views and sets early.

Saturn is above Venus in the east in early morning (magnitude +0.8).

Uranus is constellation Aquarius and is magnitude 5.8.

Neptune is in Capricornus and is magnitude 7.9.

Pluto at magnitude 14 is no longer in for good position for viewing and sets before dark.

Dark Sky

We get some dark sky this weekend. Friday evening the Moon rises after midnight (1:25 am MDT Sat.) and on Saturday evening it rises at 1:35 am MST (assuming I did the conversion to MST correctly). That about 6 hrs in the dark.

Comets

17P Holmes is even more amazing.  Its now maybe 6 arc min wide. Even in 7×50 binoculars you can easily see the core and surrounding coma. Be sure to check it out! See the SkyHound  comet pages for location.

Meteor Showers

The Orionids meteor shower continues through Nov 7. The peak was Oct 21. Sporadic rates are still high.

The comet’s unusual yellow to greenish yellow color reported on Wednesday and Thursday has faded.  It now appears as bluish-white. 

Since I was up taking images of 17P Holmes, I captured Mars as well just before shutting down.  According to the S&T Mars Profiler, that should be Mare Cimmerium extending from the left to about midway across and then Mare Sirenum extending onward to the lower right. 

Image taken with Celestron Nexstar 11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam.  Location was from Louisville, CO. Sky was clear, no wind, temperature 48°F, very good transparency, and turbulence 7/10.

Image of comet 17P Holmes about 4 hour after previous image.  Coma appears to be about 30% larger than in previous image.

Celestron Nexstar 11 telescope and Phillips Toucam 840K webcamera. Sky was clear, transparency very good, turbulence very good 7/10, temperature 48°F, and no wind.

Comet 17P Holmes was magnitude 16.9 and then brightened to naked eye visibility. It appears to me to be about the same brightness as Epsilon Perseus or about magnitude 2.9. It is a beautiful object to view in the eyepiece. A small, bright, almost starlike, center nucleas surrounded by very distinct coma. The yellowish color is very noticable. Its one of those objects that photos fail to capture, or at least any that I’ve seen thus far. There is a large variation in brightness between the brilliant core and surrounding nucleus which makes it difficult for astrophotographers. Our eyes capture the variation quite easily.

Image taken with a Celestron Nexstar11 Telescope and Phillips 840K webcam (yes a webcam!). Sky was clear, transparency very good, turbulence very good 6/10, temperature 54°F, no wind, bright, nearly full moon.