Calamity, Cameras and Transit

May you live in interesting times, goes the Chinese curse.  And boy have I been appreciating that curse recently.  First there was the break in and loss of the 20D ... I've already told that story here, so you might know of it already.  So .. the 60D arrived!  We'd had it for four days, then I fell 4 meters off a cliff.  Carrying it.  I and the camera got a dunking in freezing cold water.

The good news is that 48 hours in the hot water cupboard with some dessicant revived the camera.  And it seems to be as good as new.  What a relief!  The weather and other environmental factors (scumbag moon) have prohibited me from starting up the star shots since the weekend, but I hope you will follow me on this journey of exploration.

Anyways ... on to today.  Today being of course, the sixth of the sixth, transit of Venus time!  We had clear skies this morning, for a little while, then clouds came rolling in to obscure 1st contact on the transit, with patchy clouds we got a small viewing around 11:30 this morning, we saw Venus halo'd against the star, and then it rained.

And rained.

Hopes were dashed, until around 4pm, the sky cleared right up and we got some beautiful stuff then!  Just as Venus was approaching egress, we finally started seeing some awesome stuff!

This is shot with the new camera and the awesome solar observing rig we hand built for the occasion.  Venus is the dark circle at the bottom and the other blotches that look like dirt on the ccd are actually sunspots :D  Added bonus there!

Hopefully gfkBill will post the shots he managed to get as well, but all in all, a good day :D

And here's that solar observing rig :D

April Skies

Well here we are in April already.  I apologise for my lack of activity of late, lots of things happening around my life at the moment, including injuries, physiotherapy and notably, a burglary.  Which, it has to be said, sucked. They got my telescope lenses and our camera.

So Bill is doing awesome work with the tracker at the moment, I wont be shooting for a while :(

Dear Canon NZ, any chance of a free 5D? Mk II will do, I'm not greedy!

In other news, the Hike to the Stars event we all planned and spent money on camping gear to organise was totally cancelled due to the worsening weather, so we're thinking October/November now, or possibly a smaller expedition will happen later, anyone whose interested should watch this space!

Anyways, on to the skies this month, as that's supposed to be the purpose of this post.

Jupiter and Venus will be visible early in the evening sky this month, after being a pair of drama queens last month.  Mars is still out and about and getting dimmer and smaller as we pull away from it. Saturn, that beautiful gem, is up in the northern sky and Titan is well visible about 4 ring-diameters from the planet, an awesome site and if you want to see it, come over, and bring your own lenses because I no longer have any :(

The usual suspects are around this month, Crux, Orion, Scorpio, both Magellanic clouds (see Bill's awesome photos),

Mercury makes a good looking morning sky appearance this month, rising due east 2 hours before the sun in the middle of April, in the beginning of the month, it's "only" 95,000,000km from us!

As usual I will be updating the 1200mm Calendar with what I can find this month (Google-Fu pending of course).  Speaking of Calendars, I have added some calendars to 1200mm's including:  Cassini's tour of the Saturn System,

Oh and the blog got it's 10,000th page view this week! YAY!

Anyways ... keep looking up guys!



Interesting and/or Awesome things!

• Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Overview
• Starry starry night
• Venus and Jupiter cuddling up in night sky
• One last show for Venus, Jupiter and moon
• Saturn's Rings & Biggest Moon Dazzle in New Photo

March Skies

A good month coming up!

First off, 1200mm has a public Google calendar now, for events (like the hike on 24 March) and general stargazing goodness (Mars in opposition tonight!).

so, March So far:

4 March: Mars in opposition.
8 March: Moon close to Mars, Full Moon
11 March: Moon close to Saturn
14 March: Jupiter and Venus close together
15 March: Last Quarter Moon
20 March: Autumn Equinox, day and night are equal length
23 March: New Moon
24 March: 1200mm Hike to the Stars - if you;d like to come to this, please contact us.
26 March: Crescent Moon close to Jupiter and Venus.

Skies in March from the Royal Astronomical Society of NZ

For us Rodney/Snells Types, lots of LMC and SMC this month, as well as the usual cuplrits of Orion, Crux et Al.

Looking forward to some good moon and mars viewing!

Southern Skies in February

So, what to look forward to this month?

Straight up early in the month, the moon is full on the 8th, which unfortunately coincides with the peak night of the Centaurids meteor shower.

The moon then proceeds to last quarter on the 15th and is new again on the 22nd.

Early in the month, Both Jupiter and Venus will be visible in the west, during the early part of the evening. With Saturn and Mars rising later in the evenings, towards midnight.  These planets will continue their dance around the skies this month.

Orion is very visible this month, so some awesome M42 opportunities will be able to be had, 1200mm is thinking of a stack for that one, through the scope on AstroCam 2 :)

The Seven Sisters (Pleiades/Matariki) is also hanging around and is stunning even through a small pair of binoculars.

The 1200mm crew is planning our first star party of 2012 on February 8 to attempt to pierce the full moon's glare and see some Centaurids from the meteor shower.

And finally, there's another small meteor shower (Gamma Normids) starting up on the 25th of February, that will peak in March.

Planetary goodness.

Pity I have to work tonight ... Mercury, Venus and Jupiter all visible to the naked eye.  Ahhhh, the dance of the planets :D

The light of 100 Billion Stars twinkling off broken glass ...

Now my heart-rate has calmed somewhat I can tell the story

Toinght was a perfect night - still, quiet, a fair time before the moon rose and washed everything out so off to the darkest part of Snells I could think of I go.

Venus was just setting ...

and the Milky Way was out in force ...

with an occasional meteor ...

and I dropped the camera.

Smash, tinkly noises and the sound of my heart stopping.  I rushed back to the car, thinking "oh crap" and sped home to get torch and Jeremy.  We found the remains of something .. and upon getting home discovered it was my UV filter ...

I lucked out

Lens and camera seem fine as rain - Canon build em tough!

w0000t!

Got some shots!!!  Some nice ones!  It was cold (0.6 degrees coldest), the sky was beautiful and the seeing was also awesome!  Bill came over, Rusty and Pip  were here, Jeremy took pics and Eddie came over .. was a good good night!! As well as good shots, had a great time!

So shots live over here:  http://flic.kr/p/8hm9z2, http://flic.kr/p/8hpoTs, http://flic.kr/p/8hm9k6

This is my new fave :D

I would also like to take a second to say thanks to Canon and CHDK.  I got some nice DNGs from my system tonight :D  And thanks to all you guys for coming over and going wow!

Also, completed Bahitov Mask today and it works like a charm!  Instant and EASY focus :D - V important, plus I made it myself too!

One planetary evening

So far .. Saturn, Venus, Mars and a passing airliner :)

Coming up - Jupiter, Uranus, Luna and will have a go at Neptune, although that may be too close to the Moon tonight :)

Also, resolved the double in Acrux (one of my FAVORITE stars) :D

6mm for the win!  I can resolve a planetary disk for Venus and Mars .. for the first time!!! Well Mars for the first time FOR SURE anyways.

Happy!

The plan for tonight

Ok, so I am planning something.  It will hinge on whether I get the scotch mount done by tonight of course (drill charging now) but, here goes.

1730-1830 Venus Setting in the NW    Awesome Crescent, using 9mm + Barlow
1800-1900 Mars in NNW ~ 35°
2100-0100 Moon - half full
2100-0100 Saturn follows Moon down the sky  Oh so beautiful, will be looking again soon
2350 Neptune Rises
0200 Jupiter Rises in East
0220 Uranus Rises in East
0513 Mercury Rises

12 hours of solar system goodness :)

Lets see if I can do it :D

Last on March 11?

Oh Shit

I have been bad!  The telescope hasn't even been out  been looking for work is my only excuse I'm afraid.

Anyways, here's some shots I snapped tonight.  Enjoy!