Pousados IV
A polar night
As the side photograph shows, the night started with a beautiful twilight with the two quite bright interior planets, Venus and Mercury diving in parade, but too much apart to call a it a proper conjunction.
The Moon surface was illuminated in almost three quarters not allowing to observe conveniently all the remaining part of the universe and still with the aggravating fact that only at 4 of the dawn would finally set.
During the day was able to verify that the night would be of exceptional transparency as well the certainty to have the clear sky, I did not bother to wait to see how dark was the yard of mr. Mota.
The SQM reached on average 20,30 after the Moonset , with an ambient temperature around the zero degrees celsius, and a total absence of moistness. The turbulence was quite strong.
These cold polar influence nights are a bit strange , especially when clouds appear that although fortunely solitary, they vanish or take strange elongated forms.
The visual observation was very conditionated by the intense moonlight, making faded or even invisible most of the targets to which I pointed to, remaining only the planet Saturn, the Moon and one or another planetary nebula. The turbulence removed the will to dedicate to the separation of multiple stars, with the night's first hours essentially filled with a snacks barbecue and chatting and watch what the rest of companions were doing (Barros, Hugo e João Nuno).
Then I decided to go to take some photographs the groups of bright galaxies, objectiv that is a bit nonsense with such moonlight but in the reality little else was possible to do without having to use narrowband filters due the surrounding light.
The Lion's constellation at this moment seems to want to eat Saturn was already well launched to the meridian having chosen its posterior part and more moved away from the Moon where is located the Messier M65/M66/NGC 3628 group, distant on average 50 million year-light together with the well far more away (in the reality another 170 million light years away) NGC 3593, being this last a member of NGC 3607's group of galaxies, and with all belonging to the Leo I Galaxies Cluster . See the latest values at NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) . The north is at 11 hours.
This is a very popular Spring's trio of spiral galaxies , that can seen simultaneously with the right combination of a widefield eyepiece - on this night they were very close to the invisibility.
Using the MSA and with the aid of a frame card with the dimension resultant of the field combination by Nikon D70 with the Takahashi Sky90 , I adjusted the image below that still has much moonlight on the mixture, only 4 minutes were enough to get a saturated white image. The result below is from 10 two minutes exposures, as usual not guided and focused by eye.
 (clique na imagem - click on the image) |
Below it is the photograph of the M81's group , this group is closer only at 20 million light years. The image covers about 3 degrees in the diagonal that corresponds the 1 million light years at the average distance of this group ( see here the formula). This time I decided to use to advantage the moonlight absence and the 0 degrees of ambient temperature and not to such a miser on exposures times, so I had the questionable pleasure to shut the camera 30 times (and of also recycling it the same number), patiently chronometering the 2 minutes of exposure suming the great total of 1 hour.
Did I ever mentioned that I love this mount ? ;) - one shot, one bird - all the photos are sharp, 2 minutes is not even a great challenge for that swiss watch.
This image contains galaxies for all levels of patience , from the immediates M81, M82, NGC 3077 and NGC 2976, passing by the small but still present NGC 2959, UGC 5302 and UGC 5247 PGC 27688, to the almost drowned in the noise irregular dwarf galaxy and at last M81's satellite UGC 5336 also called Holmberg IX, this last one has a very low surface brightness and it is for specialists because it can be confused with a screen fingeprint . The North is at 5 o'clock.
 (clique na imagem - click on the image) |
The next image has the center of mass between the globular cluster Messier 3 and the aparent nearby magnitude 6 red giant, also showing the small and faint galaxy NGC 5263 . This bright globular is located in the middle of the line traced by Boote's Arcturus and the Hunting Dogs Cor Carolli, this cluster is located in an relatively bright stars unpopulated area but with the forementioned trick it is easy to find, being immediately visible with any binoculars. These is the result of 10 two minutes images with the North at 10 o'clock.
 (clique na imagem - click on the image) |
Also saw some relatively bright meteors that seemed to be the radiating from the quadrantids. The image show two very faint one's that apparently shared the exactly the same entrance in our atmosphere.
The night finished at 5:20AM already with the primaveral constellations, Hercules and Lyra quite high at the East.
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Pátio 240
Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) III
2007.01.13
Pátio (Leiria 39.75N 8.82W alt:60m)
I am starting to develop some antipaty against the clouds! Today it would be probably the best day to see this comet with the Sun still above of the horizon. With the binoculars 7x50 there it was, sharing the binocular field of view with the red smash potatoe Sun. If this comet isn't one of brightest, it surely has an assured place at the podium. The photograph below was taken with the Sun half degree above the horizon but covered by a cloud front. The circle mark the comet in these adverse conditions, and in truth I know that that half dozen slightly lighter pixels because I remember the position in relation to clouds. It was unfortune meteorology didn't help.
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Capuchos XII
Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) II
The clouds again! but still it gave to give another look at one of brighests comets in decades, and take another photo. Again it was perfectly naked eye as bright whit spot with little tail, again very similar to a contrail. Today I it approached the Venus brightness.
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Sra. do Monte X
Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught)
2007.01.11
Sra do Monte - Cortes (39.68N 8.75W alt:395m)
After almost all the week trying to observe this comet, finally the clouds had given a break before this one was too much close to the Sun.
As expected, the Sun disappeared from the horizon at 17:30 and soon I started to search the sky with the 7x50 binoculars, immediatly catching Venus, and sighted the comet only 10 minutes later.
The coma was extraordinarly condensed and bright with a initially estimated tail of about half degree, but the most impressive was it still in a quite blue sky area, in plain broad daylight with the Sun to practically shining 9 degrees below (a closed fist at a arm's length).
10 minutes later at 17:50, I observed it with the naked eye, no way would somebody look twice if it did not know that it was the comet, would judge that it was more like a small “contrail”.
With the binoculars the tail grew more than for 1 degree of extension. I've followed its descending to the twilight red/orange regions with the binoculars with the comet slowly getting a golden tenure. To have an idea of the comet's intensity and relative size click here and good luck finding it (at upper left it's Venus).
It was 18:10, thirty minutes after the first sighting and the comet vanished in the fog.
click on the image to see the comet at higher resolution.
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report written and images processed with the help of:
- Sinfonies nº25, nº28 e nº29 by W.A.Mozart (Mackerras,Telarc)
- Sinfonies nº5 and nº7 by Beethoven, nº4 by Brahms, nº8 by Schubert (Kleiber, Deutsche Grammophon)
- Octet and Septet by Beethoven, Octet by Mendelssohn- Bartholdy, Octet by Schubert (Melos Ensemble, EMI Classics)
- Preludes (Arrau), Nocturns and Balades (Ashkenazy) by Chopin (Decca)
- Verklãrte Nacht, Pelleas und Melisande by Schoenberg (Karajan,Deutsche Grammophon)