UPDATE: 09:30pm Local Time. The weather is not good, the sky has cleared but the Humidity is up to 88% from 87% in the past 10 mins. So the observatory can't open yet!!! Need a nice gust of drier air from the south ;-)
Its been a big month for comets but today all eyes turn to the monster asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 which makes its closest approach to earth this decade.
Its not every day you get a binocular visible asteroid streak across the night sky. 2004 BL86 has been approaching from the south and has been tracked this week at -71 degrees declination where it was Magnitude 17 and will brighten tonight and in the early morning to magnitude 9 as it passes near Jupiter and Sirius.
I captured the approaching asteroid for the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids Mission and collected some astrometry and photometry on Jan 19th.
120 Sec image on T27 at 0.53 arsec/pixel Jan 19th 2015 (c) P.Lake
Again on the 25th of January, one day out, you can see that it is speeding up and travelling very fast with reference to the background stars.
You can see the asteroid streaked in this 30 sec image.
30 Sec image on T12 at 3.5 arcsecs/pixel Jan 25th 2015 (c) P.Lake
I will be obtaining further data tonight (weather permitting) just before its closest approach at 3 lunar distances. It will be travelling at 160 arcsecs per minute at closest approach around 2am. I won't be up that late. I will upload an animation of the footage compiled into a nice video of its approach.
As the European Space Agency's Rosetta Mission ramps up in a busy week of astronomy, Observatory W96 and Observers A. Maury, J.-G Bosch, J.-F. Soulier were the first amateurs to report positions of 69P (this apparition) to the MPC. Amateur images of Comet 67P have also been acquired by the Professional-Amateur Collaboration in Astronomy (PACA) for comet 67P led by Dr Padma Yanamandra-Fisher in partnership with Amateur Astronmers. The PACA group uses social media to connect amateur and professional astronomers to provide observation follow-up, monitoring and collaboration on science missions.
Comet 67P is about to be visited by the Rosetta Probe and ESA released their first photos, 2 weeks ago, of the comet starting to come to life as it heads on in towards the sun. The Rosetta mission is to follow the comet round the sun during the part of its orbit where the ices and dusts begin to discharge and form the tail. In november 2014, Rosetta will deliver a landed named Philae that will touch down on the nucleus of the comet to sample the particles as they become active.
Pictured here at a very faint magnitude 21.2 you can see Comet 67P, and the position of the Rosetta spacecraft is also marked (even though it is way too faint to see). ESA this week began a number of engine burns to slow the spacecraft as it approaches the comet.
The star field is quite crowded, and one of the most interesting parts of the video is the amount of "traffic" in this part of the sky. There were about 6 clearly identifiable asteroids in the full field of view, I have labelled a couple of the closer ones for reference. One asteroid in the field of view caught my eye as it seemed to dip in brightness, so it has been noted for further follow up as it approaches opposition in July.
Capturing the comet at such a faint magnitude required a deep "stacking" of images to account for the movement of the comet. "Stacking" is a process used to add a number of images together to improve the signal to noise ratio of the target. The comet was travelling so slowly relative to our point of view that I was able to resolve it with 12x300 second images. These images were then stacked in three groups of 4 at the movement of the comet - 0.16arc"/min at a position angle of 226 degrees. My images were quickly followed up by Rolando Ligustri, Bacci Paolo Backman. The astrometry (positional information) was included in MPEC 2014-K54
Previously in 2012, amateurs using the the Faulkes Telescopes had photographed 67P at aphelion (its furtherest point from the sun), also a remarkable effort!. In January 2014 the large telescopes in Chile, European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) recovered 67P and have been following it regularly, this was the first occasion that amateurs had obtained images on this apparition.
For more information about the program check out the Year of Southern Comets article at iTelescop.net. PACA has a Facebook and Flikr group for members and a website under construction, it is open to any amateur astronomers who have their own telescope, are familiar with photometry and astrometry, are members of iTelescope.net, or have access to other telescope facilities and are prepared to work as a team on the science effort.
The Rosetta Spacecraft was named after the Rosetta Stone which assisted historians and archeologists decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, scientists hope that in the same way the data gathered will assist in our understanding of the early solar system.
Comet Lovejoy is determined not to be outdone by Comet ISON. However, reports circulating through social media this morning that Comet ISON has now reached magnitude 4, will make sure it has more work to do - as if comets had opinions anyway.
Comet Lovejoy continues to brighten and its ion and dust tails continue to grow. It's coma is a massive 3.7 arcmins now in a 180sec image, which is probably closer to 2 arcmins in reality as the movement probably overstates it a little. It is very hard to make a magnitude estimate now from CCD images. Magnitude estimates are now best made by binocular observations and comparing the brightness with the known brightness of nearby stars. Comet ISON is now a naked eye object. Lovejoy, I suspect is not far away either.
The encroaching moonlight was not very kind to last night's attempt to capture a nice shot. Early this week Rolando Lingusti took a brilliant shot of Comet Lovejoy that was featured in Tony Flander's article in Sky and Telescope.
Comet Lovejoy was discovered by Australia's talented and "best practice" comet hunter Terry Lovejoy, who was a speaker at this year's Advanced Astro Imaging Conference on the Gold Coast. As a keynote speaker he outlined his search methods, which were, I have to say very comprehensive and methodical. Catching two brilliant Christmas Comets in three years is not a fluke, its through sheer hardwork and relentless persuit of what the Oort Cloud throws up each year.
Image Credit: P.Lake 3 x 180sec R,G,B T11 iTelescope.net
I found it a bit easier to observe the details in the tail in the individual subframes Luminance channel, which I didn't use in the R,G,B image as I ws getting too much light to manage with the intruding moonlight.
Image Credit: P.Lake 180 sec Luminance T11 iTelescope.net
I refered to Comet Lovejoy as the "one wood" comet (golf club) earlier this week in reference to its slightly out of shape coma. This can be mainly attributable to the fast speed of the Comet travelling at 9 arcsecs per minute in a direction of about 35 degrees across the line of its tail. Its pretty hard to pull up that speed at 0.81 arsces per pixel
Comet Siding Spring continues on its merry way.
Currently overshadowed a little by the 2012 comets, ISON, Lovejoy, Linear 2012 X1 and Enke all feature this month in the northern skies. Siding Spring will have to wait till next year for its fanfare as it does a very close approach to Mars just after the MAVEN space mission arrives to sample Mars atmosphere.
None the less - Comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is again high in the southern skies after midnight. These images are stacked in groups of 6 for the movement of the Comet to get a nice tight coma for astrometry.
All the iTelescope.net scopes haev been very busy chasing the morning comets so I thought tonight after I collected my 2013 TV135 data for MPC, I'd jump onto T31 at Siding Spring and chase it's namesake comet.
ENJOY!!!!
UPDATE 2: 19/10/2013.
Last night I got another 6 images of asteroid 2013 TV135. I have stacked them here at 1.4 arcsecs/m at Position Angle 210.3 allowing for the movement of the asteroid. This is a technique astronomers use to build the signal to noise ratio and derive a more precise position.
Image Credit: P.Lake 6x120sec images stacked. T11 H06.
Asteroid 2013 TV135 images from H06 at iTelescope.net. I managed to grab 6 images and stack them. I was hoping for a few more but the roof closed due to weather .
Discovered by G. Borisov & T. Kryachko of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Observatory, Nauchny, (095) on October 8th. Initially it is listed as a "Virtual Impactor" on Sentry JPL with a Rating of 1 on the Torino Scale. This is NOT that unusual for a new PHA, as at the time these measurements were taken there was only 8 days of arc available. It is expected that further observations will move this off the Torino Scale back to Rating 0 as the precision of the orbit improves over the next few days.
Asteroid 2013 TV135 will make a close approach to earth in the Year 2032 and is 410meters in diameter and is currently attracting a bit of media interest.
Its important to remember that new asteroids (this one has only 9 days of arc) usually don't stay on the Torino Scale (the risk register) for long, as further data updates increase the precision of the orbit, and usually quickly remove them as potential impactors.
UPDATED: October 19
Leonid Elenin makes the point on his blog (in Russian) that the current zone of uncertainty is about 1/5th of its orbit, so its way to early to be talking virtual impactors. Leonid's best estimate at this stage is an approach of about around 0.0077 AU which is close to about 1 Lunar Distance.
The most interesting aspect of the orbit, in the discussions I have seen, is the inclination to the ecliptic of 6.8 degrees and that it tracks close to Earth for a couple of hours. Removing the uncertainty around this time period will be the task facing observatories over the next few days/months.
Footnote: The 6 images here shown in the video had quite low signal to noise ratio which I improved a bit by stacking them in three pairs to improve the Signal to Noise ratio enough to get a good measure on them. This is partly due to the current full moon.
Hi and welcome Plussers!
Today, its the weekend and we have a 2.7 klm Asteroid making its closest approach to earth for the next 200 years (therabouts), so I thought a good chance to brush up on the G+ Hangout skills.
I am a bit slack I don't have any special guests or anything for you. I just thought I might do a little live broadcasting of the action.
Enjoy!
Here is the image from the session. I'll create a couple of annimations from the rest of the session as soon as I download all the images.
I have down loaded all the images now and used the Google Plus Auto-Awesome feature to create an animation of the asteroid. I think there is a slight glitch as it has one of the photos out of order but it does a great job. Also captured here is something that I need to have a closer look at, it seems to a be a sun glint from a satelite. I have checked the original image its too big to be camera fault or a cosmic ray hitting the CCD chip, as it looks solid and fuzzy enough to be outside the atmosphere.
(Note Cosmic rays are usually dead give aways as the are very pixelated and that looks way bigger than anyone I have seen before).
Cheers.....thanks for joining us.
I will be following this fairly closely now, as most of the northern scopes are out of action as its too low to the horizon in the northern hemisphere now, but still high in the southern hemisphere.
Where else would you go but to Siding Spring itself and the 0.5m planewave at iTelescope.net.
This image was taken last night and shows a 3-4 arc-sec tail, still not much more than a fuzzy dot.
Potentially hazardous asteroid 99942 Apophis passed earth this week allowing astronomers a window of opportunity to get some radar data (highly accurate) on it pass.
Astronomers from NASA, JPL and MPC announced that Apophis will miss the earth in 2036, something they were unable to definitely say previously.
I captured these images from the new iT30 0.5m Planewave at iTelescope.net's new SSO observatory.
Also there is a little bonus at the end of the video with a scan code for a free download of my signature shot of the Swan Nebula. Enjoy!
Also please vote in my poll on how bright will Comet ISON be in 2013/2014. (see right hand side bar). I am going to try and up the level of interaction and rate of posts this year, as I am getting so much great feedback from you all.
Today we are broadcasting live an interview with Carl Hergenrother and several astronomers across Asia.
Comet 168P Hergenrother has gone into outburst, and brightened several magnitudes. We take a look at a number of great images of the comet and discuss with Carl why this might have happened.
Carl was on the Catalina Sky Survey team and is now the Co-Lead Staff scientist on the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroid mission.
Asteroid 2012 LZ1 was discovered by Robert McNaught on the evening of the 12 June 2012. An asteroid moving past earth at 12 lunar distances is not necessarily noteworthy even for a potentially hazardous object (MOID= < 0.05AU).
What was noteworthy is the professional surveys have already found over 90% of objects over 1 klm wide, this one at 500-700m is very large for a new discovery, basically because it is in a highly inclined orbit and was detected at -61 Declination in the southern hemisphere - ie in Robert's favourite comet hunting territory.
What does this mean - basically that it is on a highly inclined orbit, not un-heard of but not common. The inclination is why it would not have been picked up as part of the more than 90% of big asteroids already detected, more commonly along the plane of the solar system.
Welcome to the Carnival of Space where we feature the very best of Space and Astronomy blogs each week. Also, I thought I'd share with you the latest fancy internet widget from Infomous [above]. Check it out, but make sure you come back and read our great line up today, with lots of great Solar System articles, and entries from a number of Continents. As it hosted from Australia this week - lets start in Sydney.
Astropixie this week covers the Astronomy conference in Sydney "Supernovae and their host galaxies". The event was sponsored by the AAO Australian Astronomical Observatory and the CSIRO. Amanda provides overviews of the conference presentations, top of mind was the very recent Supernova in M51 and the methods of observation required after such events.
At the Next Big Future, true to form, Brian covers all the stuff our grandchildren will take for granted. Keith Henson's studies of space-based solar power issues. Henson recently published a proposal to reduce the cost of getting payload to orbit by orders of magnitude . In an interview with Sander Olson, Henson describes using skylon rocket planes to release payloads at high altitudes. Are launch costs of $100 per Kilo possible - Henson thinks so!
NASA Engineer John Chapman has an aneutronic fusion reactor scheme, a commercially available benchtop laser starts the reaction. A beam with energy on the order of 2 x 10^18 watts per square centimeter, pulse frequencies up to 75 megahertz, and wavelengths between 1 and 10 micrometers is aimed at a two-layer, 20-centimeter-diameter target. Each pulse of the laser should generate roughly 100 000 particles. Read the article and find out just how you might generate 1 Megawatt per second.
Moon Express, Inc. (MoonEx) is targeting mining the moon. CTO Barney Pell gave a talk about the vision recently. Sounds like its only a matter of time before we have protesters throwing themselves in front of space tractors. ;-)
Speaking of Moons.....Jupiter is just showing off. The Urban Astronomer reports on the discovery of two more Jovian satellites taking the total to 65! That's enough for whole inter-lunar football league, with enough left over for an Ice Hockey league! I can see it now....the Europa Enforcers! Seriously though, the new moons are S/2010 J1 and S/2010 J2 and are unusual, so you have to visit the blog to find out why.
Still on Moons, Enceladus - now there is a place you could play some serious Icehockey! The Meridiani Journal looks into further evidence that salty oceans exist beneath the surface feeding its famous Geysers. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute]
Onto Mars now, and Vintage Space reports on Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society suggesting that we are more ready to go to Mars now than we were to go to the moon in 1961. A closer look comparing lunar readiness then and Mars readiness now suggests that maybe we aren't.
The Panstarrs Blog covers some of their science strategies. Harvard postdoctoral researcher Darin Ragozzine describes the search for icy bodies in distant reaches of the solar system using Pan-STARRS1.
On a side note to this, the ubiquitous platform for Citizen Science - Zooniverse has added IceHunters to search for a suitable Kuiper Belt object for the New Horizions mission to go to after it passes Pluto. (So if you are bored with the ice at your local rink ..... alright enough on the Ice hockey analogies already!!)
The big news of the week, which made the mainstream media, was the close passage of tiny asteroid 2011 MD which passed at a very close distance of 1.8 earth Radii. Astroblogger provides commentary and discusses some of the images and techniques for capturing the near earth visitor.
Ian O'Neil writing for the Discovery News asks the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger question" protesting that he wished that 2011 MD had hit us, yes he's serious. He goes to great lengths to explain why - perhaps then there would be more serious funding from governments to address the problem.
Just in from our Spanish Desk: Vega 0.0 reports on the co-ordinates and skychart for observing Comet Elenin in October. Elenin is now a tough assignment as it is only about 30 degrees above the horizion at sunset.
Indian space entrepreneur, Susmita Mohanty gave a talk on the end of the Shuttle era at the American Center in Mumbai, India. Pradeep's Blog Pradx takes a look at the talk and the response from the Mumbai crowd. Thanks Pradeep, great to get some local news from Mumbai.
Weirdwarp poses the question, "What could an alien civilisation be able to do"? Well, as we have not found any alien civilisations then everything is guesswork based on the laws of physics and our experiences here on earth. This could be completely wrong or it could be completely right or it could be somewhere in between. Only Chris can stack rank an alien civilization!
Finally I leave you with my own video of 2011 MD as we wrap up this Solar System oriented webisode of Carnival of Space - 204.
The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace@gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.
