![\"\"](\"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/jupiter10fps_20121128_2314_42ganymeade.jpg\" "\\"jupiter10fps_20121128_2314_42ganymeade\\"")
<\/a>There are more meteor showers this month, specifically the Geminids.\u00a0 This should be a very good show this year and lasts from the 12th to the 14th of the month.\u00a0 What’s more the moon is out of the way.\u00a0 These meteors are a little different as most meteor shower are the remnants of comet’s tails.\u00a0 The Geminids are believed to be the remains of an asteroid type object called 3200 Phaeton.<\/p>\n
As it turns out the weather in December was pretty dreadful for observing anything with a lot of cloud and rain.\u00a0 There was some stable seeing – that is to say the air was steady but this was let down but poor transparency due to mist and fog.\u00a0 Let’s hope for better weather in January.\u00a0 Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy New Year to all.<\/p>\n
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It’s firework season in November<\/h2>\n
Who needs gunpowder treason and plot? November has its own fireworks with meteor showers for much of the month.\u00a0 The first shower peaks coincidentally on the 5th of November.\u00a0 These meteors appear to radiate from Taurus – which is hard to miss this year with Jupiter slap bang in the\u00a0 middle.\u00a0 This is only an effect of perspective and the meteors can be anywhere in the sky they just look as though they radiate from Taurus.\u00a0 Look after midnight for the best chance of seeing them.\u00a0 The moon is below the horizon by the 5th.\u00a0 Taurids have a reputation for being slow moving with some big fireballs.\u00a0 Not content with just one showing\u00a0 the Taurids will return on the 12th for an encore performance.\u00a0 Again they will seem to emanate from Taurus.<\/p>\n
On the Weekend of the 17th and 18th of November we have the Leonids putting on their show.\u00a0 The Leonids are famous for having some truly wonderful meteor storms in the past, 1833 was probably the best ever recorded and depicted in this 1889 print.\u00a0 Unfortunately such a shower is not predicted this year but still worth looking out for.\u00a0 They are fast meteors and can be seen from the 15th to the 20th of the month.\u00a0 They appear to emanate from the head of Leo.\u00a0 Although this radiant point will be hard to notice as Leo does not rise until around midnight in the East the meteors should certainly be in evidence.\u00a0 Again there is no moon.<\/p>\n
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Jupiter is now a magnificent sight, high in the South reaching almost 60 degrees at around 01:20 UT in the middle of the month.\u00a0 It is still in Taurus with the magnificent constellation of\u00a0 Orion beneath.\u00a0 Try looking for the Great Red Spot and his little friend Oval BA.\u00a0 The transit times for November are given below:<\/p>\n
1<\/strong>: 21:20; 2:<\/strong> 17:11; 3:<\/strong> 22:58; 4:<\/strong> 18:49; 6:<\/strong> 20:27; 8:<\/strong> 22:05; 9:<\/strong> 17:56; 10:<\/strong> 23:43; 11:<\/strong> 19:34; 13:<\/strong> 21:12; 14:<\/strong> 17:04; 15:<\/strong> 22:51; 16:<\/strong>18:42; 18:<\/strong> 20:20; 19:<\/strong>16:11; 20:<\/strong> 21:58; 21:<\/strong>17:49; 22:<\/strong> 23:36; 23:<\/strong> 19:27; 24:<\/strong> 5:23; 25:<\/strong> 1:14, 21:06; 26:<\/strong> 7:01, 16:57; 27:<\/strong> 2:53, 22:44; 28:<\/strong> 18:35; 29:<\/strong> 4:31; 30:<\/strong> 0:22, 20:13 <\/span><\/p>\n At the very end of the month Mercury puts in an appearance just before sunrise in the South East, but you will need a good horizon.\u00a0 If you decide to look for it be very careful indeed as it can be perilously close to the sun.\u00a0 If you accidentally point any optical instrument at the sun while you are observing you will without doubt damage your eyesight permanently.<\/p>\n November brings one of my favourite objects to prime position.\u00a0 Although circumpolar – meaning it never sets the double cluster in Perseus is truly beautiful.\u00a0 At this time of year it is overhead so a wonderful object to observe or photograph, as light pollution will be minimal.\u00a0 I say “object” in fact it is two clusters for the price of one, they lie in line of sight and look related but in fact are 800 light years apart and one is almost twice as old as the other.\u00a0 They are still quite young, the oldest is just under 6 million years old, still juvenile in stellar terms, the Pleiades is probably 30x older.\u00a0 You can find them as a faint milky patch visible to the unaided eye between Cassiopeia and Perseus.\u00a0 They look beautiful in binoculars but the higher the magnification the more detail you see.\u00a0 With a time exposed photograph one really begins to appreciate the number of stars involved.\u00a0 The picture below was taken from my observatory on the 13th September 2012, when it was a bit lower in the sky.<\/p>\n October can be a variable month from an observers point of view. The cool misty evening can be excellent for planetary observing but is usually difficult for deep sky observers. So far this year the weather has been pretty poor whatever the subject and when it has been clear the jet stream has been around. This leads to the shimmering effect that makes stars twinkle, more correctly known as scintillation it makes life very difficult when trying to capture images at high magnifications.<\/p>\n In the middle of October Jupiter rises at around 8 pm in Taurus, but is not really high enough to observe well until around midnight. The picture below was taken on the 13th October 2012 at about 6:40 am when there was a bit of clear seeing.<\/p>\n It clearly shows the Great Spot to the lower right with the smaller \u201cjunior\u201d red spot, or Oval BA to give it its more formal name. Notice the long tail of turbulence following them around the planet in the South Equatorial belt. The Great Red Spot has been followed by observers for at least 300 years, whereas the Oval BA only formed in 2000 when three smaller white spots merged. These features are huge anticyclones in the planet’s atmosphere.<\/p>\n The picture below is an animation comprised of around 4 hours of frames and showing the rotation of the planet. This was taken on the 22nd<\/sup> September.\u00a0 Click the image to see the animation.\u00a0 Look carefully to the lower left and you can see Ganymede tucking in behind the\u00a0 great planet.\u00a0 This sequence also shows quite nicely how seeing conditions can change and there is a clear improvement near the end of the sequence which was just before dawn; after the air and ground have had a chance to cool off and the convection currents stop at this time – not advise if you have work the next day though!<\/p>\n Jupiter is a fascinating planet to observe as it constantly changes the picture below shows how it looked last year compared to this year. The difference in the equatorial belts is obvious. The bands come and go as high level clouds of gases such as ammonia cover up the darker bands before clearing away again over a period of months.<\/p>\n Jupiter really requires quite high magnifications to see at it best, although even binoculars will easily show the 4 Galilean moons, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io.\u00a0 They will also show the bands.\u00a0 An 80mm ( 3″ ) refractor is capable of showing the Great Red spot but “Junior” is much harder to resolve and at the moment and looks just like part of the GRS.\u00a0 These pictures were taken with a 200mm (8″) Maksutov catadioptric telescope.\u00a0 Even a 150 mm (6″) Newtonian will show some detail in the clouds<\/p>\n Also worth looking out for is Venus which this month appears as an intensely bright morning star, just before sunrise in the South East.<\/p>\n I always think that first sign that summer has come to an end is when I see the Pleiades rising in the north east soon after the sun has set and by the middle of the month that is happening less than an hour after it gets dark.\u00a0 This picture was taken from Abergavenny by the author on the 13 September.\u00a0 Notice the nebulosity surrounding the stars, this material glows by reflecting the light of the bright blue young stars.\u00a0 This picture was a 1 hour exposure using a very modest 5 inch reflecting telescope, worth around \u00a3100 when new.<\/p>\n By 11 pm, Taurus the bull rears its head over the horizon, followed closely by Jupiter. But for much of the month Jupiter is too low to observe well before midnight. There are a couple of other gas giants to look out for though. Neptune is high in Aquarius. It can be seen even in fairly small scopes but its apparent diameter of about 2.4 \u201c means you will probably need a 6\u201d reflector or equivalent to make out the disk, it has a magnitude of 7.8 so is not visible to the unaided eye.\u00a0 Uranus is a much easier proposition. Presently in Pisces and with a magnitude of 5.73 it can at least in theory be seen with the unaided eye. At 3.7\u201d diameter the disk is relatively easy to see, even in a small telescope. It has a greenish-blue colour from its methane atmosphere but you will not seen any details on it featureless face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n September and October evenings have a habit of been damp and misty with heavy dews. This can be a nuisance with dripping optical surfaces and poor transparency, but it can give very steady seeing for planetary observers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deep sky observers will have a hard time until around the 12th<\/sup> of the month as the new moon is on the 31st<\/sup> August and rises prominently in the early evening for the first week or so. After the 12th<\/sup> it is tucked away and all we can do is hope for some clear skies. This is a great time for looking with binoculars especially to the East. The Andromeda Galaxy M31 is a classic, nestling between Pegasus and Cassiopeia it is an easy naked eye object on a good dark night and looks better in binoculars than it does through a telescope. My other favourite the double cluster is also high in the sky between Perseus and Cassiopeia. Another naked eye object it looks great in binoculars but even better with a telescope and high power shows more and more detail.<\/p>\n<\/a>Return of the King in October skies<\/h2>\n
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Return of the Pleiades in the September skies<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nNature’s fireworks in the August night sky<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
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