Asteroid Vesta

The second largest asteroid, Vesta, is "close" to the Earth right now, as it orbits the Sun. Kind of like Mars will be at the end of July. They say that it can just barely be detected with the naked eye right now. Well, the sky was clear last Monday, so we zoomed out to a dark site to see what we could see. 

 

The moonlight was interfering until it set around 23:30. Then the clouds swarmed in. So we didn't get to see Vesta with the naked eye. We observed it in binoculars though. I snapped a couple pictures with the zoom lens at about 200mm. You'll need to click on the thumbnails to see much of anything in these images. 

 

The darker picture is a 58 second long exposure and shows fainter stars than we could see in the binoculars. The lighter picture is 96 seconds long and is starting to show the Milky Way star clouds. By now, Vesta will have moved towards the upper right side of the frame. If we ever get a cloud free night, I'll want to check it out again.

 

Oh, and that clump of stars to the upper left of Vesta is M23.

 

Mini Moon

 

The moon was "new" yesterday afternoon, so I was curious to see if I could see a moon sliver tonight. There was quite a bit of haze, but no clouds, and I was able to spot it. The Moon is a little easier to see in the photos than it was with the naked eye.

Sunrise Video Clip

Here is a short time-lapse sequence of the sunrise this morning.

Sunrise

I went out this am to get a sunrise sequence, based on yesterday's scouting trip.

I'll eventually have a 4 second time-lapse video. Here is an individual frame.

Moon Pix

While I was out taking pictures of Jupiter and Zubenelgenubi last week, I also took a few of the moon. I used the phone and a pair of binoculars on Wednesday night and the telescope and a camera on Thursday night.

I guess it is no surprise that the telescope and camera did better, but it was sure fun to mess with the phone and binoculars. Sometime I'll have to try the phone and the telescope.

With some work, both night's images could be made better, but there would probably always be a difference because of the difference in the raw images..

Jupiter and Alpha Librae part 2

I got the telescope out last night to take another look at Jupiter and alpha Librae. They just barely fit within the field of view of the f10 scope. Jupiter is at the top left of the frame and Zubenelgenubi a and b are at the bottom right of the frame.

For the second image, I centered Jupiter in the frame and cropped the heck out of the image so the moons were more visible. The top right moon is Callisto, Europa is between Callisto and Jupiter. And then during the time i was out there, Ganymede popped out below Jupiter.

That is what i like about observing Jupiter, one can watch the moons orbit around the planet, which by the way, was the beginning of the end for the theory that the Earth was the center of the Universe.

 

Jupiter and Alpha Librae

Jupiter is hanging our right next to Alpha Libra these nights. Alpha Librae is also known as Zubenelgenubi.  a-Librae is an easy binocular double star.

 

So last night I connected my cell phone to my binoculars to see what I could see. You can see Jupiter and some of its moons on the left side of the frame and a-1 and a-2 Librae on the right side of the frame.

 

I'm also going to include a screen shot from the Stellarium software. It identifies which of Jupiter's moons are which. The moon below Jupiter is lost in the glare of the planet. It looks like you'll need to click on the pictures to see the whole frames.

 

Radio World Article about TWR Bonaire

The May 9 issue of Radio World magazine has a well rounded story about the new TWR Bonaire transmitter.  You can read it here.

There are quotes from TWR President Lauren Libby, from Nautel, the TX manufacturer, and from Tom King of Kintronic Labs, who designed and built the antenna tuning systems.  They even have a picture of me in there, and used one of my night time shots, (not this one.)

Be sure to check it out.

Moon and Venus

The Moon and Venus made a nice pair in the evening sky last night. 

Here are a couple shots.

Those streaks aren't UFOs. I think there is some goop on the lens.

Moon, Saturn and Mars line up

From top to bottom, the Moon, Saturn and Mars were lined up nicely in the pre-dawn sky this morning. By tomorrow, the moon will be to the lower left of the planets.

 

I shot this with a 85mm lens so we are looking more "zoomed in" than my previous shots made with a 35mm lens. The darker picture is a short exposure so that the moon isn't blown out.

 

The longer exposure shows more stars. I labeled some of the Messier objects in the frame. Most of them have cool names in addition to their "M" numbers. You can Google them if you'd like to see more.

 

Big Fire

It appears that there was a pretty big fire east of Antriol, here on Bonaire, this morning

 

While I was watching the thick black smoke started changing to grey and white, which I took to be a good sign.

 

Planets Update

Mercury is gone from the evening sky, but Venus is impressive.

 

In the pre-dawn sky, Mars has been "zooming" to the East and is closing in on Saturn. They will be even closer on Monday-ish.

 

Here is a shot from 05:45 this morning. The lines point to Saturn, on the left. Mars, in the middle, and on the right is where Mars was 10 days ago, right between the Lagoon Nebula and the Triffid Nebula. I have a picture of that too, but it is grainy.

 

On this shot, I drew in the Teapot of Sagittarius. To the right of the spout, open cluster M7 is quite visible with fainter M6 to its upper right.

Moon, Venus, Mercury

The Moon, Venus, and Mercury made a nice horizontal line in the evening sky tonight

 If you live west of Bonaire, which is most of N. America, you might still be able to run outside and see this.

Moon and Planets Sunday Morning

Happy daylight savings time to those of you in the USA.  Bonaire time is now the same as the time on the East Coast.  whoo whoo

If any of you are early-birds and see this post while it is still dark out Sunday morning, here is what the moon and planets look like before dawn

 

From lower left to upper right, you can see the Moon, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. You can also see the fishhook shape of Scorpius and the teapot of Sagittarius, sitting below the line of planets.

 

 

Three Morning Planets

While Mercury and Venus grace the early evening skies, there are three bright planets lined up in the pre-dawn hours.  This week, the moon is moving among the planets.


I shot a picture of the moon and planets lurking between the clouds this morning at 6:15. (March 8)  I've included lines to show where the planets are. The sky is light enough around 6am, that only the planets are visible. From left to right, the planets are Saturn, Mars and Jupiter


I'm also including three screen grabs from Stellarium that show where the moon was compared to the planets this morning, and where it will be Friday morning and Saturday morning. So if you have clear skies, you can go out before dawn and use the moon to lead you to three planets. You'll no doubt want to view these images at full size to be able to spot the planets.

Full Moon Rise

The moon was full back on Thursday, and the sky was pretty clear. I think the rainy season might be finally ending. So I zoomed down south to see if I could do a moonrise time-lapse.

 

I didn't get the shots I wanted, but it was close enough to whet my appetite. The photo shows the moon right behind the lighthouse keeper's house, and the video clip shows the moon rising.

 

The moon rose just a few minutes before the sun set. I saw the best green flash I've seen in years in the West, while my camera was merrily snapping away in the East.

 

 

Venus and Mercury

We've been watching Venus and Mercury in the west, right after sunset.


Tonight the two planets are at their closest together configuration.

The cropped photo shows the planets better. Once you know where to look, you'll probably be able to spot them in the full photo.

March 7 update:  Mercury has now moved from the lower right of Venus to the upper right of Venus

New Bonaire Transmitter is on the Air

We've heard encouraging reports from listeners in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Brazil.

Here are 2 links to pictures of the TX Dedication and of other events that took place last week.

TWR transmitter dedication event to be on Facebook Live

We're planning to stream on Facebook Live on Tuesday, Jan. 30 beginning at 2:30pm EST.  (3:30 Bonaire time)

https://www.facebook.com/twr.bonaire/

Awesome Aerial Views of the TWR Office - New Mural

Hi,
Just saw this on YouTube.  Very nice imagery shot at that perfect time of the day.  There are also some nice views of 1000 steps by the same person.