NEW ASTRONOMERS GROUP 22 June 2010

Picture I took of Mars in 2009 With A Digital CameraRoy Jordan

Observing Session Friday Night

Observing Session Friday Night

Left my best lenses at home .

But I do have my 32 mm lens !

Is this a planet or a star?

....Maybe I need to collimate my telescope

Zoomed in My Go-To Telescope tells me this is Saturn.......

But I don’t see the rings with my 32mm lens ..........

Zoomed in

What will I do !

Barlow LensIn its astronomical use, a Barlow lens may be placed immediately before an eyepiece to effectively decrease the eyepiece's focal length by the amount of the Barlow's divergence.

Astronomical Barlow lenses are rated for the amount of magnification they induce. Most commonly, Barlow lenses are 2x or 3x but adjustable Barlows are also available

Barlow Lens

Astronomical Barlow lenses are rated for the amount of magnification they induce. Most commonly, Barlow lenses are 2x or 3x but adjustable Barlows are also available.

The power of an adjustable Barlow lens is changed by adding an extension tube between the Barlow and the eyepiece to increase the magnification.

If you have 2 Barlow Lenses that came with your telescopes...... You will probably only need one of them.

You can convert the 2nd Barlow Lens into an extension tube.

Remove the glass lens from the 2nd Barlow and this will leave you with a hollow extender tube.

Place this between the Barlow and the eye piece to extend your magnification.

View of Saturn With eyepiece and Barlow

View of Saturn With 32mm eyepiece and Barlow and an extension tube

Connecting Cameras to Telescopes

Connecting Cameras to Telescopes

Some Cost $5000 plus

If you are new to astro photography,You may not want to start off by paying a fortune.

And include all the bells and whistles

Connecting Cameras to Telescopes

You can start off with a cheaper option without the bells and whistles.

Connecting Cameras to Telescopes Demonstration

Do you have an iPhone?

You can buy an adapter for the iPhone as well to connect to your telescope

Observing the Sun

What is H-alpha?

Hydrogen-alpha (or H-alpha) filters are so-called because they transmita specific wavelength of light in the far red end of the spectrum called the - you guessed it - hydrogen-alpha line.

You need an H-alpha filter to view the Sun as shown above

Observing the Sun

High Quality

Cost : Several Thousand

SolarMax 60

Observing the Sun

Good Quality – Not as much Detail

Cost : $US 499

Personal Solar TelescopePST

Observing the SunPersonal Solar Telescope

PST

The PST represents the same technology and quality that goes into a SolarMax series telescope but with a few unique design characteristics that allow us to offer it for less than some premium eyepieces. The PST will show prominences, active regions, filaments, as well as other surface details. At <1.0 angstrom it will not reveal as much surface detail as the SolarMax series telescope and filters but it certainly doesn't disappoint.

Product Specifications

Aperture:40mmF/L: 400mmF/Ratio: F/10Bandwidth: <1.0Å - <0.6ÅThermal Stability: 0.005 A/CBlocking: Full blocking >105 from EUV to far IR

H-alpha View of the Milky Way

Objects to View in next 4 weeks

Objects to View in next 4 weeks

Objects to View in next 4 weeks

Objects to View in next 4 weeks

Jupiter Impact – July 09

Another Jupiter Impact? – June 10On June 3rd, 2010, something hit Jupiter. A comet or asteroid descended from the black of space, struck the planet’s cloud tops, and disintegrated, producing a flash of light so bright it was visible in backyard telescopes on Earth. Soon, observers around the world were training their optics on the impact site, waiting to monitor the cindery cloud of debris which always seems to accompany a strike of this kind.

“It’s as if Jupiter just swallowed the thing whole,” says Anthony Wesley of Australia, one of two amateur astronomers who recorded the initial flash. The other, Christopher Go of the Philippines, says “it was thrilling to see the impact, but the absence of any visible debris has got us scratching our heads.”

What was the Flash?A mysterious flash of light seen on Jupiter early this month was likely caused by the disintegration of a meteor in the planet's upper atmosphere, Hubble Space Telescope images show. Astronomers had originally speculated that the culprit was a much larger asteroid or comet.

The Hubble found no trace of a dark debris field following the distinctive burst, which appeared for two seconds on June 3

Astronomers suspected that a large meteor or comet had hit the gas giant, based on the fact that the Earth-size fireball was visible through backyard telescopes more than 470 million miles (770 million kilometers) away.

Another mystery on Jupiter

Jupiter’s belt mysteriously disappears

Amateur astronomers discover the Jovian planet has lost a major stripe for unknown reasons

Hubble Finds Jupiter’s Missing Stripe

The gas giant’s characteristic band of dark clouds started fading late last year and had vanished completely by early May, 2010. Images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on June 7 — just over three days after an unknown object smacked into the planet — found a layer of white ammonia ice crystal clouds. The ammonia clouds float at a higher altitude than the missing brown clouds, obscuring them from view.

The images show a preview of what’s to come for the dark stripe, too. A chain of dark spots along the boundary of Jupiter’s south tropical zone peek through the white cloud layer as the ammonia thins and dissipates.

“The Hubble images tell us these spots are holes resulting from localized downdrafts. We often see these types of holes when a change is about to occur

NSAS Observing Sessions

Northern Sydney Astronomical Society will hold it’s regular sessions at Northern Turramurra Golf Course in July.

Despite poor weather in June we managed 2 observing sessions at NTGC which were pretty rewarding for those who attended.

We had some good views of Jupiter and Saturn for example and also tried to find Pluto... But it was a little too low to the horizon to see. Star Clusters and Nebulae were also popular targets for the nights.

Observing sessions will also be held at the next NAG meeting in July if weather permits.

Question and Answer Section