I'm a long-time amateur astronomer and member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). My observing passions include everything from auroras to Z Cam stars. I also write a daily astronomy blog called Astro Bob. My new book, "Wonders of the Night Sky You Must See Before You Die", a bucket list of essential sky sights, will publish in April. It's currently available for pre-order at Amazon and BN.
Spectacular photo of Comets C/2012 X1 LINEAR (top) and C/2013 R1 Lovejoy taken with a wide field 4-inch telescope before dawn Feb. 9, 2014. Credit: Damian Peach
Remember comets Lovejoy and C/2012 X1 LINEAR? Wedropped in on them in late January. On Feb. 6 the two cruised within 2 degrees of each other as they tracked through Ophiuchus before dawn. Were it not for bad weather, astrophotographer Damian Peach would have been out to record the cometary conjunction, but this unique photo, taken two mornings later, shows the two comets chasing each other across the sky. Of course they’re not really following one another, nor are they related, but the illusion is wonderful.
Comets Lovejoy and X1 LINEAR are neighbors in northern Ophiuchus through Feb. 25. This map shows the sky facing east about 1 hour 45 minutes before sunrise shortly before the start of morning twilight. Tick marks show the comets’ position every 5 days. Detailed map below. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software.
Rarely do two relatively bright comets align so closely. Even more amazing was how much they looked alike. By good fortune I was able to see them both through a 15-inch (37-cm) under a very dark sky this morning. Although Lovejoy’s faint, approximately 20′ long tail was fanned out more than X1’s, both tails were faint, short and pointed to the west-northwest. Lovejoy’s coma was slightly larger and brighter, but both comets’ comas diplayed similarly compact, bright centers.
This deeper map shows stars to about magnitude 8. Although both comets appear to be getting lower every morning, the westward seasonal drift of the stars will keep them in good view for the next few months. Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
Lovejoy currently hovers around magnitude 8.1, X1 LINEAR at 8.8 – less than a magnitude apart. If you haven’t seen them yet, they’re still the brightest comets we’ll have around for another few months unless an unexpected visitor enters the scene.
After converging for weeks, the comets’ paths are now slowly diverging and separating. Look while you can; the waxing moon will soon rob these fuzzies of their fading glory when it enters the morning sky this coming Tuesday or Wednesday.
See this earlier article for more information on both comets.
Sunspot region 1967 is so big it easily popped into view through a "cloud filter" Sunday afternoon Feb. 2. The group is visible with the naked eye properly shielded by a safe solar filter. Details: 350mm lens at f/11, ISO 200 and 1/2000". Credit: Bob King
What a crazy sunspot cycle. Weeks go by with only a few tiny spots freckling the sun, then all at once a monster group big enough to swallow 10 Earths rounds the eastern limb and we’re back in business. I’m happy to report we’ve got another behemoth snapping and crackling with M-class (moderately strong) flares – Active Region 1967, a hunk-a-hunk of burnin’ funk that rounded the solar limb a week ago.
NOAA weather forecasters predict an 80% chance of continued M-flares and a 50% chance over the next 3 days for considerably more powerful X-class flares. This sunspot group has a delta classification magnetic field, the Facebook equivalent of “It’s complicated”.
Sunspots are made of a dark umbra and lighter penumbra. Very tiny spots with no penumbrae are called pores. A close up of the sun’s photosphere shows a finely granulated texture. Granules are cells of hot gas about the size of Texas that rise from below, cool and sink. Each lasts from 8 to 20 minutes. Credit: NASA
Sunspots have two parts: a dark core (or cores) called an umbra surrounded by a paler skirt of magnetic energy, the penumbra. They can look impressive like this one, but it’s hard to call a sunspot a “thing”. It’s really more of a locale on the sun’s bright white photosphere where bundles of powerful magnetic energy bob up from below the surface and insulate a region of the sun’s fiery hydrogen gas from the rest of the flaming globe.
We’re talking insulate as in staying cool. While the photosphere cooks at around 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit, sunspots are some 3,000 degrees cooler. That’s why they appear dark to the eye. If you could rip them away from the sun and see them alone against the sky, they’d be too bright to look at safely.
Close up of AR 1967 photographed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory at 8:45 p.m. CST Feb. 4, 2014. Credit: NASA
A delta-class spot group has umbrae of both polarities, north and south, corralled within the penumbra. Like bringing opposite poles of a two magnets so close they snap together, something similar can happen inside delta-class groups. Only instead of a snap, a titanic thermonuclear explosion called a flare goes kaboom.The biggest flares release the equivalent of a billion hydrogen bombs.
The huge sunspot group 1967 straddles the center of the solar disk on Feb. 3, 2014. The smaller group, AR 1968, lies to its north. Through a filtered telescope, AR 1967 is packed with fascinating details. Photo made with a 6-inch reflector, Baader solar filter, 1/2000 exposure, ISO 400. Credit: John Chumack
We thank our lucky stars for Earth’s iron heart, which generates our protective magnetic shield, and the 93 million miles that separate us from the sun. AR 1967 has paraded right in front of our noses as it rotated with the sun. Yesterday it squarely faced the Earth – a good thing when it comes to the particle blasts that fire up the northern lights. Let’s hope it showers us with a magnetic goodness in the coming days. I really miss seeing the aurora. You too? NOAA space weather forecasters are calling for a 25% chance of auroras in Arctic latitudes overnight Feb. 4-5. We at mid-latitudes will try to be patient.
At left, Photograph of Jupiter's enormous Great Red Spot in 1879 from Agnes Clerk's Book " A History of Astronomy in the 19th Century".
Watch out! One day it may just go away. Jupiter’s most celebrated atmospheric beauty mark, the Great Red Spot (GRS), has been shrinking for years. When I was a kid in the ’60s peering through my Edmund 6-inch reflector, not only was the Spot decidedly red, but it was extremely easy to see. Back then it really did span three Earths. Not anymore.
Drawing of Jupiter made on Nov. 1, 1880 by French artist and astronomer Etienne Trouvelot showing transiting moon shadows and a much larger Great Red Spot.
In the 1880s the GRS resembled a huge blimp gliding high above white crystalline clouds of ammonia and spanned 40,000 km (25, 000 miles) across. You couldn’t miss it even in those small brass refractors that were the standard amateur observing gear back in the day. Nearly one hundred years later in 1979, the Spot’s north-south extent has remained virtually unchanged, but it’s girth had shrunk to 25,000 km (15,535 miles) or just shy of two Earth diameters. Recent work done by expert astrophotographer Damian Peach using the WINJUPOS program to precisely measure the GRS in high resolution photos over the past 10 years indicates a continued steady shrinkage:
2003 Feb – 18,420km (11,445 miles)
2005 Apr – 18,000km (11,184)
2010 Sep – 17,624km (10,951)
2013 Jan – 16,954km (10,534)
2013 Sep – 15,894km (9,876)
2013 Dec – 15,302km (9,508) = 1.2 Earth diameters
Voyager 1 Jupiter time lapse animation, a reprocessed high-resolution view. Enlarge to full screen to see the GRS rotation best. Credit: NASA / JPL / Bjorn Jonsson / Ian Regan
If these figures stand up to professional scrutiny, it make one wonder how long the spot will continue to be a planetary highlight. It also helps explain why it’s become rather difficult to see in smaller telescopes in recent years. Yes, it’s been paler than normal and that’s played a big part, but combine pallor with a hundred-plus years of downsizing and it’s no wonder beginning amateur astronomers often struggle to locate the Spot in smaller telescopes . This observing season the Spot has developed a more pronounced red color, but unless you know what to look for, you may miss it entirely unless the local atmospheric seeing is excellent.
Reprocessed view by Bjorn Jonsson of the Great Red Spot made by Voyager 1 in 1979 reveals an incredible wealth of detail. The Spot is a vast, long-lived. hurricane-like storm located between opposing jet streams in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. Click to enlarge. Credit: NASA/
Not only has the Spot been shrinking, its rotation period has been speeding up. Older references give the period of one rotation at 6 days. John Rogers (British Astronomical Assn.) published a 2012 paper on the evolution of the GRS and discovered that between 2006 to 2012 – the same time as the Spot has been steadily shrinking – its rotation period has spun up to 4 days. As it shrinks, the storm appears to be conserving angular momentum by spinning faster the same way an ice skater spins up when she pulls in her arms.
Drawings by Cassini of what is presumably the Great Red Spot from 1665 to 1677. South is up. In size and shape it greatly resembles the current Red Spot. (From Amedee Guillemin’s “Le Ciel” 1877)
Rogers also estimated a max wind speed of 300 mph, up from about 250 mph in 2006. Despite its smaller girth, this Jovian hurricane’s winds pack more punch than ever. Even more fascinating, the Great Red Spot may have even disappeared altogether from 1713 to 1830 before reappearing in 1831 as a long, pale “hollow”. According to Rogers, no observations or sketches of that era mention it. Surely something so prominent wouldn’t be missed. This begs the question of what happened in 1831. Was the “hollow” the genesis of a brand new Red Spot unrelated to the one first seen by astronomer Giovanni Cassini in 1665? Or was it the resurgence of Cassini’s Spot?
14-frame animation showing the circulation of Jupiter’s atmosphere spans 24 Jovian days, or about 10 Earth days. The passage of time is accelerated by a factor of 600,000. Credit: Voyager 1 / NASA
Clearly, the GRS waxes and wanes but exactly what makes it persist? By all accounts, it should have dissipated after just a few decades in Jupiter’s turbulent environment, but a new model developed by Pedram Hassanzadeh, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, and Philip Marcus, a professor of fluid dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, may help to explain its longevity. At least three factors appear to be at play:
* Jupiter has no land masses. Once a large storm forms, it can sustain itself for much longer than a hurricane on Earth, which plays itself out soon after making landfall.
* Eat or be eaten: A large vortex or whirlpool like the GRS can merge with and absorb energy from numerous smaller vortices carried along by the jet streams.
* In the Hassanzadeh and Marcus model, as the storm loses energy, it’s rejuvenated by vertical winds that transport hot and cold gases in and out of the Spot, restoring its energy. Their model also predicts radial or converging winds within the Spot that suck air from neighboring jet streams toward its center. The energy gained sustains the GRS.
Feb. 1 photo of Oval BA, a.k.a. Red Spot Jr. It’s the first significant new red spot ever observed on Jupiter and located at longitude 332 degrees (Sys. II) The spot about half the width of the more familiar Great Red Spot. Credit: Christopher GoIf the shrinkage continues, “Great” may soon have to be dropped from the Red Spot’s title. In the meantime, Oval BA (nicknamed Red Spot Jr.) and about half the size of the GRS, waits in the wings. Located along the edge of the South Temperate Belt on the opposite side of the planet from the GRS, Oval BA formed from the merger of three smaller white ovals between 1998 and 2ooo. Will it give the hallowed storm a run for its money? We’ll be watching.
Time-lapse of Jupiter’s atmospheric motions centered on the Great Red Spot photographed by Paolo Porcellana. Each cylindrical/spherical map of the planet is a mosaic of 4-6 pictures made with 11 and 14-inch telescopes.
The sun seen in six different colors of wavelengths of light as the moon passed across from the perspective of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory this morning between about 7:30 and 10 a.m. CST. Credit: NASA
Call it the eclipse nobody saw. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) got its own private solar eclipse showing from its geosynchronous orbital perch today. Twice a year during new phase, the moon glides in front of the sun from the observatory’s perspective. Although we can’t be there in person to see it, the remote view isn’t too shabby. The events are called lunar transits rather than eclipses since they’re seen from outer space. Transits typically last about a half hour, but at 2.5 hours, today’s was one of the longest ever recorded. The next one occurs on July 26, 2014.
Today’s lunar transit of the sun followed by a strong solar flare
When an eclipse ends, the fun is usually over, but not this time. Just as the moon slid off the sun’s fiery disk, a strong M6.6 solar flare exploded from within a new, very active sunspot group rounding the eastern limb and blasted a CME (coronal mass ejection) into space. What a show!
Approximate view of the moon transiting the sun from SDO’s viewpoint. To make sure SDO didn’t run down its batteries when the sun was blocked, mission control juiced them up beforehand. Credit: NASA
SDO circles Earth in a geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles high and photographs the sun continuously day and night from a vantage point high above Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. About 1.5 terabytes of solar data or the equivalent of half a million songs from iTunes are downloaded to antennas in White Sands, New Mexico every day.
For comparison, the space station, which orbits much closer to Earth, would make a poor solar observatory, since Earth blocks the sun for half of every 90 minute orbit.
When you look at the still pictures and video, notice how distinct the edge of the moon appears. With virtually no atmosphere, the moon takes a “sharp” bite out of the sun.
SDO orbits about 22,000 miles above Earth, tracing out a figure-8 (called an analemma) above the Pacific and Mexico every 24 hours. Credit: NASA Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/#ixzz2ruidvZJ5
SDO amazes with its spectacular pictures of the sun taken in 10 different wavelengths of light every 10 seconds; additional instruments study vibrations on the sun’s surface, magnetic fields and how much UV radiation the sun pours into space.
Compared to all the hard science, the twice a year transits are a sweet side benefit much like the cherries topping a sundae.
You can make your own movie of today’s partial eclipse by visiting the SDO websiteand following these easy steps:
* Click on the Data tab and select AIA/HMI Browse Data
* Click on the Enter Start Date window, select a start date and time and click Done
* Click on Enter End Date and click Done
* Under Telescopes, pick the color (wavelength) sun you want
* Select View in the display box
* Click Submit at the bottom and watch a video of your selected pictures
Orion steps above towering spruce on a January evening. Credit: Bob King
Bitter cold lies ahead for many skywatchers in the U.S. and Canada in the coming week as the polar vortex swoops down from Santa’s village for round two this season. Will that stop you from going out to enjoy the winter wonders of Jupiter, the M82 supernova and Orion? It needn’t if you take the proper precautions.
In all honesty, you’ll probably still get cold if you attempt to observe on windy, subzero nights, but if you follow these helpful hints, you won’t get as cold. That said, there are two key ingredients to a successful and happy night under the winter sky: dressing well and planning in advance what you want to see.
I know it looks like an alien abduction with only the clothes left behind, but consider this an illustration of good nighttime winterwear. Credit: Bob King
Dressing well means having to accept the fact that even though you still feel warm walking out the door, 10 minutes later you won’t be. Always layer to the hilt. Insulated pack boots like those made by Sorrel or LaCrosse will keep your feet toasty for at least an hour of standing in place at the telescope.
I still wear blue jeans during winter, but when out getting a winter star tan, I pull on a pair of insulated snow pants. To keep heat from escaping the rest of the body, a flannel shirt, thick sweater and some kind of down or insulated coat will provide protection right up to your neck. Some folks like the all-in-one approach and don a snowmobile suit. Add a scarf, a bomber cap with furry ear flaps for the head region and lined mittens or gloves for your digits, and you’re almost ready to do battle. Assuming you still have energy left after building a fortress around your person.
Tuck chemical hand warmer packets inside your gloves or boots. Credit: Bob King
About gloves. I use lined deerskin gloves with chemical hand-warmers nestled in each palm. It’s so nice to have something warm to push your fingers into when they get chilled. Others prefer the wiser dual-glove approach – wearing a pair of thin gloves inside mittens that Velcro open across the palm. That way you use your fingers to adjust focus or check a chart and then safely tuck your hands back into the mittens.
On super-cold nights I’ll set the telescope up right outside the house so I can bail when necessary, but on exceptional nights when it might be well below zero but not windy, I’ll make the drive to the country for darker skies and set up on the proverbial road in the middle of nowhere.
I limit my observing to two hours maximum. Not because I have any control over time; that’s as much as this body can take when it’s -20 F. One little trick I’ve employed over the years to survive astronomical cold is to keep moving. I check charts constantly, set eyepieces down in the trunk of the car, then return to pick up a different eyepiece, take a short walk and even run in place. Hey, only the wolves are watching, so who cares? All this to keep the body moving to generate heat.
On very cold nights it’s a good idea to make a concise observing plan to efficiently use your time at the telescope. I grab a few charts and often take brief notes outside using a red flashlight. Credit: Bob King
If I do freeze, the car provides some solace. A typical drive home will find me steering with my inner arms, my crabbed hands straining to absorb every molecules of hot air blasting from the vents
The second key ingredient to a successful, soulful, subzero night is planning. If you prepare a short list either on paper or mentally of winter sky gems before you walk out the door, you’ll spend your stellar minutes more efficiently and return indoors a happy camper.
I keep it simple. If there’s a bright planet out, that’s always on my list. With Jupiter shining so enticingly these nights, how can you not go out to see what the weather’s doing on the solar system’s biggest planet? Relish the thought that the cloud tops you’re seeing are cold enough at -230 F (-145 C) to snow ammonia flakes. Makes 20 below almost seem like shirtsleeve weather.
A well-dressed stargazer relishes a night under the winter stars. Credit: Bob King
Add in a few variable stars, a supernova, maybe a comet and two or three deep sky objects and I feel a sense of connection and accomplishment by the time I return inside to what now feels like a Hawaiian vacation in my living room. Total time elapsed: maybe an hour. Too much? 15 minutes for a pretty double star and a current planet will do. Astronomy photos, articles and book are great, but we all need the real thing from time to time; there’s no substitute for a direct connection to the cosmic wilderness.
One crucial tip on doing astronomy in winter. Make sure your telescope is COLD. A spare meat locker for storage would be ideal. Barring that, place the scope outside and let it cool down before you begin your observing session. If it comes directly from the house, 45 minutes to an hour should be enough, depending on the temperature and aperture size. If you store it in a garage or shed, 20 minutes should do the trick.
A brilliant moonlit night in January with the Big Dipper rising in the northeastern sky. Credit: Bob King
Ready to zip up? Go for it! I ran into a woman a couple weeks back who told me she loved winter because the cold made her feel alive. Man, she hit it right on the head. I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite old-time authors, Joseph Elgie, an English amateur astronomer who wrote about the pleasures of the sky no matter the season in a book titled The Night Skies of a Year. This entry is from February about the year 1907:
“Shortly after nine o’clock Procyon could be seen through the openings in the flying clouds, not far from the meridian. The sky resembled a vast snow-field in swift motion – a snow field showing fleeting patches of blue, which were studded with sparklets of silver, and Procyon was one of those sparklets. In the sou’west too, I could discern a coppery gleam on the pale blue background of the sky. It was Betelgeuse. What pictures of tender loveliness were these!”
Comet Lovejoy still shows both an ion tail (blue) and dust tail in this photo taken Jan. 12 from Stixendorf, Austria. Credit: Michael Jaeger
My hands are still cold from the experience, but there’s no denying the pleasure I felt at seeing C/2013 R1 Lovejoy and C/2012 X1 LINEAR through the telescope this morning. Some comets fizzle, others fall apart, but these vaporous hunks have hung in there for months like steadfast friends that stick with you through hard times and good.While no longer visible with the naked eye, 50mm binoculars easily show it as a magnitude 7 fuzzy glow with a short, faint tail pointing up and away to the northwest. I had no difficulty seeing it even with a last quarter moon glaring in the south.
Comets Lovejoy and X1 LINEAR are neighbors in northern Ophiuchus this month and next. This map shows the sky facing east about 1 hour 45 minutes before sunrise shortly before the start of morning twilight. Tick marks show the comets’ position every 5 days. Click to enlarge. Detailed map below. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software.
Rising around 3 a.m., Lovejoy is best placed for viewing just before the start of dawn when it climbs to about 30 degrees altitude in Ophiuchus. Lucky for us, Lovejoy will spend the next few mornings very close to the easy naked eye star 72 Ophiuchi, located 3 fists held at arm’s length to the lower right of brilliant Vega. It’s not often that a fairly bright comet passes this close to a helpful guide star. Don’t miss this easy catch. Soon the moon won’t be any trouble either as it skedaddles eastward and dwindles to a crescent in the coming mornings.
This deeper map shows stars to about magnitude 8. Although both comets appear to be getting lower every morning, the westward seasonal drift of the stars will keep them in good view for the next few months. Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
Telescopic views of Lovejoy show a much diminished coma and tail compared to its heyday in early December. Still, the nucleus remains bright and very condensed within the 3′ diameter gauzy coma; a faint and silky tail 2/3 of a degree long flowed across the field of view of my 15-inch (37-cm) reflector like a bride’s train. According to the excellent Weekly Information about Bright Comets site maintained by Seiichi Yoshida, Lovejoy should glow brighter than magnitude 8, what I consider the “bright” comet cutoff, through early February. Given that Lovejoy remains the brightest predicted comet visible till summer, show it some love the next clear night.
Comet C/2012 X1 LINEAR shows a green coma from fluorescing gases and a short tail in this photo made on Jan. 15, 2014. Credit: Rolando Ligustri
If Lovejoy’s a fading celebrity, X1 LINEAR suffered a mid-life crisis and snapped out of it with a whole new attitude. Like Comet Holmes in 2007, it catapulted in brightness overnight in last October, blossoming from a 14th magnitude blip into a bright, expanding puffball briefly visible in ordinary binoculars. As expected, the comet soon faded. But on its return to obscurity, X1 surprised again, re-brightening and growing a short tail. Now it’s humming along at 9th magnitude thank you very much. You’ll find it gliding across northern Ophiuchus not far from Lovejoy (more about that in a minute).
Very different appearance of C/2012 X1 LINEAR during outburst on Oct. 21, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido, Martino Nicolini & Nick Howes
My binoculars won’t show the comet but a 6-inch telescope will do the trick. Overall weaker in appearance than Lovejoy, X1 LINEAR has a slightly larger, more diffuse coma, brighter core and a short, faint tail pointing to the northwest. The comet will remain a fine target for smaller scopes through early March when it’s predicted to glow between magnitude 8 and 9.
Comets Lovejoy and X1 LINEAR will be closest together on the morning of Feb. 6 CST. A plethora of deep sky objects near them will make for a complete morning’s worth of sky watching! Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
Looking at the maps, you’ll see that our two comets’ paths intersect. While they won’t overlap on the same morning, Lovejoy and X1 LINEAR will be in conjunction on Feb. 6 when they’ll be just 2 degrees apart. Get that camera ready! Guided telephoto and wide-field telescopes will be perfect for catching this unusual duet.
Before I sign off, don’t forget all the other good morning stuff: Mars hovers above Spica high in the south-southwestern sky, Saturn invites inspection in the southeast and Venus is back in view in the east-southeast 45 minutes before sunup. A delicate crescent moon shines near Venus on Jan. 28 and 29. Such riches.
Before and after photos of the bright galaxy M81 showing the appearance of a brand new supernova. The object is located 54" west and 21" south of the galaxy's center. Credit: E. Guido, N. Howes, M. Nicolini
Wow! Now here’s a supernova bright enough for even small telescope observers to see. And it’s in a bright galaxy in Ursa Major well placed for viewing during evening hours in the northern hemisphere. Doesn’t get much better than that! The new object was discovered last night by S.J. Fossey; news of the outburst first appeared on the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams “Transient Objects Confirmation Page”
An animation showing a comparison between the confirmation image of supernova in M82 by the team from the Remanzacco Observatory and archive image by a 2-meter telescope FTN – LCOGT from November 22, 2013. Click on the image for a larger version. Credit: E. Guido, N. Howes, M. Nicolini.
Astronomers are saying this new supernova is currently at magnitude +11 to +12, so its definitely not visible with the naked eye. You’ll need a 4 inch telescope at least to be able to see it. That said, at 12 million light years away, this is (at the moment) the brightest, closest supernova since SN 1993 J kaboomed in neighboring galaxy M81 21 years ago in 1993. M81 and M82, along with NGC 3077, form a close-knit interacting group.
Another view of the galaxy M82 with the new bright supernova photographed earlier today. M82 glows at magnitude 8.4 and a popular object for telescopes of every size. Credit: Leonid Elenin
It’s amazing it wasn’t found and reported sooner (update — see below, as perhaps it was!). M82 is a popular target for beginning and amateur astronomers; pre-discovery observations show it had already brightened to magnitude 13.9 on the 16th, 13.3 on the 17th and 12.2 on the 19th. Cold winter weather and clouds to blame?
This is the starburst galaxy M82 imaged by Hubble in 2006, with approximate location of the new supernova noted. Image credit: NASA/ESA and the Hubble Heritage team, image notation by Jason Major.
M82 is a bright, striking edge-on spiral galaxy bright enough to see in binoculars. Known as the Cigar or Starburst Galaxy because of its shape and a large, active starburst region in its core, it’s only 12 million light years from Earth and home to two previous supernovae in 2004 and 2008. Neither of those came anywhere close to the being as bright as the discovery, and it’s very possible the new object will become brighter yet.
Evolution of a Type Ia supernova. A superdense white dwarf star draws matter from a companion star, reaches a critical limit and then burns catastrophically. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
PSN J09554214+6940260 is a Type Ia supernova. Type Ia (one-a), a dry term describing one of the most catastrophic events in the universe. Here a superdense white dwarf, a star only about the size of Earth but with the gravitational power of a sun-size star, pulls hydrogen gas from a nearby companion down to its surface where it adds to the star’s weight.
When the dwarf packs enough pounds to reach a mass 1.4 times that of the sun, it can no longer support itself. The star suddenly collapses, heats to incredible temperatures and burns up explosively in a runaway fusion reaction. What we see here on Earth is the sudden appearance of a brand new star within the galaxy’s disk. Of course, it’s not really a new star, but rather the end of an aged one.
This map shows the sky facing north-northeast at 8 p.m. local time in late January. The supernova is located about a “fist” above the Dipper Bowl in M82. Right next door is the equally bright M81 galaxy. It’s easy to tell them apart. M81 is round with a bright core; M82 looks like a streak mark. See detailed map below. Stellarium
I know you’re as excited as I am to get a look at this spectacular new star the next clear night, so I’ve prepared a couple maps to help you find the galaxy. The best time to see the supernova is as soon as the sky gets dark when it’s already up in the northeastern sky above the Dipper Bowl, but since it’s circumpolar for mid-latitude observers, you can check it out any time of night.
To find M82, look about 7 degrees (not quite a fist held at arm’s length) above the Bowl to find 23 UMa, an easy naked eye star. From there you can star hop to a little triangle and over to a pair of stars (the “line”). M82 and M81 are about half a degree below the line. Stellarium
My maps show its position for around 8 o’clock. When you dial in the galaxy in your telescope, look for a starry point along its long axis west and south of the nucleus. All the fury of this fantastic blast is concentrated in that meek spark of light glimmering in the galactic haze.
UPDATE: Sketch of M82 and its supernova, now designated SN 2014J, made at 9 p.m. CST Jan. 22 with a 15-inch (37 cm) telescope. A perfect arc of 3 stars (left) takes you right to it. The object is the only bright star shining in the galaxy. Amazingly easy to see. Numbers shown are magnitudes from the AAVSO – use them to help you gauge 2014J’s brightness changes. Credit: Bob King
UPDATE: Fraser and team from the Virtual Star Party actually imaged M82 on Sunday evening, and you can see it in the video below at the 22 minute mark. It really looks like a bright spot is showing up — and that’s about a day before it was announced. Did they catch it? In the video the galaxy appears upside down as compared to the images here:
Screenshot from the January 19 Virtual Star Party (right) compared to image from Meineko Sakura of the Tao Astronomical Observatory of the new supernova.
Little by little we’re getting sharper, clearer pictures from the Chinese Chang’e 3 moon mission. Yesterday the lander beamed back a series of new photos taken with its panoramic camera. Stitched together, they give us a more detailed and colorful look of the rover’s surroundings in northern Mare Imbrium. I’ve ordered the images starting with a nice crisp view of the Yutu rover; from there we turn by degree to the right across the five frames. The final mosaic unfortunately doesn’t have the resolution yet of the other images. Perhaps one will be published soon.
The lander’s solar panels stand out in the foreground with a smattering of small craters nearby. Credit: Chinanews.comRight of the rover we see more panels and a radio communications dish. Credit: Chinanews.comA larger crater surrounded by what appears to be excavated impact ejecta is visible near the horizon at upper right. Credit: Chinanews.comYutu’s tracks and another crater with ejecta stand out in this final image. Credit: Chinanews.com
Complete, if small, panorama stitched from the single images. Credit: Chinanews.com
One thing that stands out to my eye when looking at the photos is the brown color of the lunar surface soil or regolith. Color images of the moon’s surface by the Apollo astronauts along with their verbal descriptions indicate a uniform gray color punctuated in rare spots by patches of more colorful soils.
Apollo 15 astronauts salutes next to the American flag in 1971. The moon’s regolith or soil appears a variety of shades of gray. Credit: NASA
The famous orange soil scooped up by Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan comes to mind. Because Apollo visited six different moonscapes – all essentially gray – it makes me wonder if the color balance in the Chinese images might be off. Or did Chang’e 3 just happen to land on browner soils?
The orange soil found by Apollo 17 astronauts really stands out against a uniform gray moonscape. Credit: NASA
John Dobson, amateur astronomer and astronomy popularizer, died Jan. 14 at 98 in Burbank, Calif. Credit: Wikipedia
The cosmos lost a good soul Wednesday. John Dobson, famous as the creator of the simple, low-cost Dobsonian telescope, passed away on Jan. 15, 2014. His obituary appeared on the website of the Sidewalk Astronomers:
“It is with heavy hearts that we must report the passing of John Dobson. He died peacefully this morning, Wednesday, January 15th, in Burbank, California. He was 98 years old. He leaves behind a son, numerous close friends, and fans and admirers worldwide.
On March 8th, in honor of John, this year’s ISAN (International Sidewalk Astronomy Night) will be dedicated to his memory. Amateur astronomers around the globe can join in and celebrate John’s life and continue to carry the torch that he lit back in 1968 when he co-founded the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers.”
John Dobson tugs on his ear to make a point during a lecture as guest speaker during Northwoods Starfest near Eau Claire, Wis. U.S. in August 2000. Credit: Bob King
Dobson was born in Beijing, China but moved with his parents to San Francisco in 1927. After spending 23 years in a monastery, some of which time was spent sneaking out to build telescopes and observe the night sky, he left to co-found the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers in 1968, a group dedicated to showing people on the street the wonders of the night sky using large (for the time) telescopes.
Dobson’s interest in astronomy started in the early 1950s when he built a small telescope using spare parts found in a junk store. He wanted to see for himself what the universe looked like. By 1956, John got a hold of a 12-inch slab of porthole glass and ground it into a mirror following instructions from Allyn J. Thompson’s classic book Making Your Own Telescope. His first look at the last quarter turned him into an astro-evangelist:
“It looks like you’re coming in for a landing,” he wrote in his own telescope making book many years later. From that moment on Dobson felt “that everybody who lives in this world has to see that.”
The writer with his 10-inch Dobsonian reflecting telescope. The scope breaks down into two pieces like John Dobson’s original design – a cardboard tube with the optics and a cradle. See photo below to see how a “Dob” works. Credit: Bob King
Toting beat-up, monster telescopes everywhere from downtown San Francisco and to national parks across the country, Dobson made good on his promise. He lectured widely on astronomy and cosmology, rejecting the Big Bang Theory for his own Recycling Steady State Theory.
Agree or not with his cosmology, Dobson shook up the amateur telescope making universe with an innovative telescope design based on simplicity. Most telescopes of his day were small refracting telescopes or small to modest-sized reflectors with metal tubes and heavy equatorial mounts. Neither was exactly user-friendly nor offered much light gathering ability.
The mount is a simple altitude-azimuth or “alt-az” design. The scope moves up and down (altitude) against teflon pegs (right) and turns through in a circle (azimuth) on teflon pads against a laminate surface on the base. Credit: Bob King
John used simple materials like porthole glass, cardboard tubes and wooden altitude-azimuth (alt-az) mounts to build incredibly easy to use large telescopes. However primitive, his instruments delivered bright and satisfying images of all the cool, faint stuff in the sky to the average Joe and Jane. Each telescopes had its own name: Little Bertha, Delphinium, Stellatrope, Little One (an 18-incher).While alt-az mounts were nothing new, Dobson combined cheap materials, large mirrors and a simpler approach to mountings that made his telescope style unique. Too unique for some.
Get to know John Dobson a little better in this video titled “Have Telescopes, Will Travel”
In the summer of 1969 Dobson pitched his simple ideas to Sky and Telescope magazine. Then-editor Charles Federer wrote back a polite rejection, stating that Dobson’s techniques weren’t up to standards and “could hardly lead to satisfactory instruments in the kind most amateurs want in these large sizes.”
How wrong this early assessment would turn out to be! His ideas became widely adopted starting in the early 1980s, when Coulter Opticalbegan manufacturing 13.1-inch and 17.5-inch large reflecting telescopes with inexpensive mirrors and simple alt-azimuth mounts that soon were called “Dobsonian” because they were based on John’s original designs.
John Dobson’s book on how to build your own telescope featured a unique cover made of plywood, a favorite material for building Dobsonian mounts. Credit: Bob King
These days, Dobsonian reflecting telescopes have gone viral. There are how-to books on how to build everything from simple to sophisticated Dobsonsians , including Dobson’s own unique plywood-bound How and Why to Make a User-Friendly Sidewalk Telescope. Don’t want to build one yourself? Most telescope outlets sell several lines of Dobsonians. Heck, my 10-inch and 15-inch reflectors, the most used of my instruments, originate from John’s genius.
When someone asks me to recommend a telescope, I always say “Get a Dobsonian!” They’re extremely portable, very stable, quick to set up and take down and the least expensive per inch of aperture of any scope out there.
John Dobson’s signature in his book on telescope making. Click image for more on Dobson’s life and writings. Credit: Bob King
Dobson wanted everyone to share in the universe’s bounty, the better to appreciate our lives and our world. The next clear night tilt your head back, gaze up at the stars and imagine John up there smiling. What an incredible view he must have.
New LED lighting along Michigan Street in downtown Duluth, Minn. has brightened and whitened up the area considerably compared to the days of high-pressure sodium lighting. Credit: Bob King
You may have noticed a change underway in your city lighting. High pressure sodium lights, with their familiar orange glow, are quickly being replaced by new, energy efficient blue-white LED (light emitting diode) lighting. Is this the beginning of a new assault on the night or an opportunity to use light more wisely? Many of us first became aware of LEDs in amplifiers, computers and the flashlights we use for seeing our star charts at night. More recently, LEDs became a big hit with Christmas lighting. And why not? Although they cost considerably more, the bulbs last much longer, use a fraction of the energy compared to incandescent and sodium lighting and don’t contain materials like mercury – common in fluorescent lighting – that can harm the environment. A typical incandescent bulb lasts about 750 hours while an LED bulb can glow for up to 50,000 hours. What’s not to like?
Small individually colored LED lights. LEDs light up when an electric current excites electrons inside a semidconductor to produce photons of light. Click to learn more. Credit: Piccolo Namek
The changeover to LED street lighting is already underway in my own city of Duluth, Minn. U.S. I noticed this one night this fall while driving home from work. Buildings and intersections that had been orange the night before were bathed in a far more intense blue-white light. Don’t get me wrong. Our city engineers deserve high marks for adhering to good lighting standards by packaging the new lights in shielded housings with minimal light spill upwards and to the sides. Light in those directions not only creates unwanted glare but seriously brightens the night sky, robbing many of the joys of stargazing.
Comparison of lighting colors and intensity of the new LED streetlights (left) and the older high-pressure sodium vapor lamps.
Still, everything was not OK. The LED street lights were INTENSELY bright, much more so than the “old-fashioned” sodiums. Looking up was like staring into the sun. If you have the opportunity, step under an orange sodium street light and then under an LED. You’ll be amazed at the difference in light intensity. To gauge the approximate difference in brightness between the two, I pulled out my camera and took a light meter reading on the pavement beneath an LED lamp and then under a high-pressure sodium lamp. The LED was brighter by more than more than one camera “stop” or more than twice as bright.
You can’t complain about the color rendition – the whiter LED light is far better – but the increased intensity doesn’t bode well for stargazers.
Direct comparison of two consecutive light standards – LED in the foreground, high pressure sodium behind it. Notice that both lights are well-shielded, ie. no part of the bulb extends beyond its housing. Credit: Bob King
As long as LEDs are shielded, light spill and glare are relatively well-controlled, but light reflected from the ground also goes up into space to light the sky. Here in the northern U.S. where snow typically covers the ground from November through March, winter night skies are the most light polluted; LED street lighting will only exacerbate the situation.
Inexpensive LED wall pack lighting lights a sidewalk and produces large amounts of glare and wasted light. Credit: Bob King
In the big picture however, that’s only a minor headache. LEDs are a wonderful technology, but the benefits they provide in cost savings and long life ultimately guarantee their proliferation in ornamental, building and parking lot illumination. Much of that lighting is unshielded and heavy on glare, making driving at night more difficult, wasting energy and preserving what dark sky remains more challenging. Indeed, the transition is already underway.
Brilliant, unshielded LED ornamental lighting at a new housing development. The full moon is seen at top. Credit: Bob King
Like an outbreak of mushrooms, LED “wall pack” lights – the ones that shine directly outward without any shielding – have started to appear on the outside walls of buildings as a cheap solution for lighting up walkways and parking lots. They’re replacing the equally bad but half as bright sodium lamps. Ornamental LED lamps in a new housing development in town recently turned night into day. Residents complained and wrote letters to the editor. To their credit, the owners dimmed the lights, but the fixtures were poorly designed to start and still too bright for many.
Closeup of LED ornamental light fixtures with little shielding. Credit: Bob King
One additional issue with LED ornamental and street lighting has to do with color. Although natural color LED lighting is available, high-efficiency LED lights emit a much bluer light than sodium vapor. Blue-rich light not only increases the amount of glare sensed by the human eye but also the amount of visible light pollution. Other effects of light trespass and glare include sleeping problems and even an increased risk for certain cancers. We humans need the night more than we know.
LEDs are only part of the problem of course. The real issue is the ever-increasing amount of light pollution worldwide and the potential for new LEDs to make it worse. True, we can take advantage of the ability to adjust and dim current lighting to more suitable levels. LEDs are also highly directional, making it easy to point them just where they’re needed. Finally, new high-efficiency more natural (less blue) LEDs are now available that can help reduce light pollution.
First electric lighting: New York City around 1880.
I encourage everyone to learn all you can about the new lighting and work with you local city councils and town boards to use the light wisely, particularly in new developments, parking lots and for building illumination. There’s no question that LED lighting can be used wisely to make everyone happy – stargazers, drivers, shoppers and walkers. For help and more information, the International Dark-Sky Association(IDA)is a great place to start. Here are some additional resources:
