Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko - First amateur images 2014

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.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 (PHA)

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.

Live G+ Hangout on Air - (285263) 1998QE2 pass

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.

Massive Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2 approaches at a close but safe distance

Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2 will pass by earth on May 31st 2013 at 14-15 Lunar distances. It is a massive 2.7 Kilometers wide (1.7 Miles). It is classed as a potentially hazardous asteroid as it's closest approach distance is less than 5% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun, ie. less than 0.05 AU (Astronomical units). This is it's closest approach for 200 years.

In spite of the naming convention, there is no connection between it and the Cruise Liner the QE2, although some in the media are having some fun measuring its width in end to end Ocean liners.

Note: there is no cause for alarm as the orbit has been well established for over a decade and posses no threat to earth in the next few centuries.

I photographed it tonight remotely from iTelescope.net's iT30 at Siding Spring (Q62). Its already very bright even though it won't be passing earth until the 31st. So its a great easy target for all the scopes.

Also using the Auto-Awesome feature of the new Google+ Photos, it automatically creates animated GIFs of similar photos and did a great job on 5 frames of the Asteroid images.

Latest Aircraft Contrail Meteor Hoax, Cusco, Peru

CBS is carrying footage of a supposed Meteor streaking across the skies of Cusco, Peru.

Its great footage, but its not a meteor and its not setting fire to the forests in Peru as is being suggested by other sites.



Its all about angles and perspectives, and reflected sunlight.

Contrails are created by aircraft traveling at cruising altitude and causing the moisture in the atmosphere to condense into a denser state, whereby the light reflects off them, lighting them up where they can be seen for many miles.

We have all seen them, but at dawn and dusk the angle of the sun is very low and this is when they light up and look like what you see in this footage.

Lets pay some credit here, it is really interesting footage and very spectacular, but its a jumbo jet.

Hohmann Transfer website regularly collects images of illuminated contrails and I made my own contribution to their collection back in 2005.


In this photo below you can see three such contrails in the one photo. I was fly fishing at dusk about 30-40 klms east of the main flight path between Brisbane and Melbourne.

As someone who has personally seen a bolide travel across 30% the entire sky and cross the horizon line in less than five seconds, any thing that you can photograph for that long that hasn't moved much is traveling pretty slowly (by comparison).

So thanks for the great footage, but lets not get too over excited.

HD Video of M17

The array of desktop tools available to the home user today is nothing short of amazing. HD Video editing packages, access to media sharing sites like Youtube and social networks, and a market place of over a billion people.




The notion from the 60's of Governments allocating Radio and TV broadcasting licences seems positively ridiculous, compared to today's media rich world.

Anyway, my little contribution for today - A short HD Video tour of the M17 Nebula, following up my earlier post this week.



Of course one of the little quirks of Newtonian astrographs is they view everything upside down. So for those of you still looking for the Swan....try this way up! However my son said "thats not a swan thats a Dingo"! (if the white bit is the gnarling teeth and the black patch the nose then.....ah....yep....there's a dingo in there too, perhaps even a crocodile!!!! Maybe why this fine emission nebula has more than one name.



Enjoy.....Cheers
Peter