Upcoming celestial events...

KmH · Mar 3, 2013

Garbz said:
The tail has always been faint, but unfortunately it disintegrated about a day before I got to take the shot. Living in the tropics in Australia we're in our rainy season so I didn't manage to get a shot any earlier and haven't seen the sky since either From the looks of some other photos on the iceinspace forums everyone photographing that weekend was disappointed but the tail has slightly rebuilt itself since. Unfortunately as well it's now in the Phoenix constellation which sets too early for me to take a photo.

Well, it still had a nice coma.

File:17P-Holmes Auvergne 2007 11 02.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Garbz · Mar 4, 2013

Indeed it did. Quite interesting that we have two very different objects in the sky at the moment. Panstarrs has a crap coma while Lemmon has a crap tail

By the way anyone thinking the simulated view of Panstarrs just looks unreal have a look at this forum thread: Solar System - IceInSpace People are getting wonderful results. Unfortunately I've got nothing but clouds where I live at the moment :cry:

TATTRAT · Mar 4, 2013

subscribed, how did I miss this? Makes for a great excuse to head up to skyline drive and spend the night out there, away from city lights.

rambler · Mar 5, 2013

Thanks for the link and great phots. The App "Star Walk" is useful for seeing what the sky will look like over a selected area in the future.
Some more:http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/start

a way to find dark places!
http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2010

These sites were suggested at a lecture I attended by Joe LeFevre at a local camera club:
http://www.joelefevrephoto.com/

jbkm1994 · Mar 5, 2013

Thanks for the links!

bc_steve · Mar 6, 2013

rambler said:
Thanks for the link and great phots. The App "Star Walk" is useful for seeing what the sky will look like over a selected area in the future.

damn, it's for Apple only. Sounds pretty handy!

pgriz · Mar 7, 2013

Reminder that the Comet PanStarrs will move into the northern hemisphere by the 9th, and should be far away from the sun by the 12th to be visible above the western horizon (and in front of the new moon). That's next Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, folks. Some info here: NASA - Comet PANSTARRS Rises to the Occasion Mid-March, and here: Comet Pan-STARRS of 2013: Photos and Sky Maps for Stargazers | Space.com

It's also good to have something in the foreground (ie, on Earth) to frame the celestial sights, and this application The Photographer's Ephemeris can help you find a suitable location to see the rising moon amid interesting scenery.

I'm posting this "early" to get people to plan their activity... and hopefully we can see some really nice photos.

bc_steve · Mar 7, 2013

Thanks a lot for all the information pgriz!!

They are unfortunately calling for clouds to roll in sometime on Sunday and stick around at least until Wednesday. I'm sure I will get an opportunity at some point. It is supposed to be clear on the 9th but I'm not sure how visible the comet will be that early. We will see.

Thanks also for the link to that app, I have been looking for something like that!

pgriz · Mar 9, 2013

The first reports of comet PAN-Starrs in the northern hemisphere are starting to come in. See: SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids for some images. The important dates are March 12 and 13 - so if you have a clear western horizon, it may be worth your while to have a look. I have had clear skies yesterday and today, but nothing visible from my latitude (46 degrees N), yet.

pgriz · Mar 12, 2013

Tonight (March 12) and tomorrow (March 13) are your opportunity to shoot the comet and the new moon together just after sunset. I'm clouded out, but hopefully others will have better luck. The images being posted of the comet on www.spaceweather.com are pretty impressive.

TCampbell · Mar 12, 2013

So I went out at the appointed time with about several friends from the astronomy club and a lot of visitors. I had my camera & lens on the tripod ready to go as well as my wide-field scope (TeleVue NP101is). I waited for the appointed time, set the camera and scopes to face the appointed spot, and this is what I saw.

Not C2011 L4 PanSTARRS by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

BTW, the comet landed at my local airport in case any of you want to go see it.

ARRRRRGH! It was a SPECTACULARLY sunny day. No clouds! We were all certain we would actually get to see it (which would really be something for Michigan since I think we've had a grand total of about 3 clear nights so far this year.) Quite frustrating when the moisture in the atmosphere condensed into these clouds as the sun set and completely blocked all chances of seeing the comet. Thursday night was supposed to be clear but they've downgraded the forecast to partly cloudy -- so that's iffy -- but it's the best shot I've got. The next clear day on the forecast is more than a week out in the 10-day forecast.

pgriz · Mar 12, 2013

Tim, I feel your frustration, especially when you had a clear day. We've got solid horizon-to-horizon cloud cover and drizzle. Latest forecast was for rain changing to snow overnight. Not much better tomorrow. Those of us in the photo club who also do astronomy have been considering an appropriate sacrifice to get things to open up. Fortunately, we do retain at least a veneer of civilization, and have refrained from those kinds of actions. Patience is supposedly a virtue, but the timing is just not working.

pgriz · Mar 13, 2013

Clouds played hide and seek. I didn't want to play, but had to. At the point over the lake that I went to, there were a number of other photographers also trying their luck with the comet, especially after being completely skunked yesterday by heavy overcast and drizzle/rain. All but two gave up after a while, and I was one of the two. I found the comet image after uploading the shots on my computer (circled below). On the main RAW file, you can see a bit of the tail.

ISO 400, 4 sec. at f/8, cropped and resized.

As you can see, clouds kept on hiding the comet's position. After a while, I decided to pack it in as the comet's position was below the next cloud bank. However, the new moon looked pretty nice.

ISO 400, 8 sec. at f/5.6, resized.

Will try again tomorrow. If the weather cooperates.

Garbz · Mar 14, 2013

Welcome to my world. I live in the tropics. That means that as soon as it's warm enough to go out at night without a jumper on I have full cloud cover every afternoon so there's no point.

I missed Pannstars due to bad weather and only got one single shot of Lemmon which I took when I went to take out the trash and noticed I could see stars for the first time in months. Oh and got to work late the day after ...

pgriz · Mar 14, 2013

Garbz said:
Welcome to my world. I live in the tropics. That means that as soon as it's warm enough to go out at night without a jumper on I have full cloud cover every afternoon so there's no point.

I missed Pannstars due to bad weather and only got one single shot of Lemmon which I took when I went to take out the trash and noticed I could see stars for the first time in months. Oh and got to work late the day after ...

I'll commisserate with you on the continual cloud part, but not the "living in the tropics" part.

(It's snowing again here.

)

Yeah - clouds and weather can be a challenge. The other fellow who stuck it out is a member of the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) and he was there with camera, binocs, and a scope. He was telling me that of the popular outreach events (Perseid showers, lunar eclipses, star parties) many, if not most were clouded out. He said they did catch the last 40 minutes of the Venus transit (before it set), but a group only 20 km away had their observing interrupted by clouds.