AAVSO Alert No. 518

AAVSO Alert Notice 518
April 15, 2015

Observations of 2MASS J06593158-0405277 needed

Dr. Fabienne A. Bastien (Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow, Pennsylvania 
State University) has requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring the 
rare FU Ori object 2MASS J06593158-0405277 as part of a campaign to
observe this T Tauri star from the optical to the infrared in the 
coming weeks.  

Dr. Bastien writes: "Our goal is to obtain detailed outburst light 
curves and SEDs [spectral energy distributions] of the object before 
it goes behind the sun at the end of May to help us to place other 
observations in the context of the outburst. At the moment, only 
about two dozen of these objects are known, and we have very few 
constraints on what causes them to undergo their eruptions. This is 
also one of the brightest such objects that we have seen in recent 
times (K magnitude of 7.6 and V magnitude of 11.4 as of December 2014).

"...We would like to continue to monitor its behavior from the optical 
to the infrared (BVRIJHK and/or the equivalent Sloan filters) as it 
appears to be changing. At least one set of observations per week 
between now and the end of May would be ideal..."

BVRcIc and visual observations are requested every few nights from 
now through the end of May. 2MASS J06593158-0405277 is approaching 
conjunction and in Monoceros is low in the West by the end of 
astronomical twilight. It will become increasingly difficult to 
observe, but please keep going as long as possible. The high airmass 
will not be a problem for the required accuracy of the data - 10% 
photometry is fine. For the most accurate correlation with the 
spectroscopic data, it is important that the photometry be 
transformed.

Coordinates: R.A. 06 59 31.59  Dec. -04 05 27.8  (2000.0)

Charts with a comparison star sequence for 2MASS J06593158-0405277 
may be created using the AAVSO Variable Star Plotter (VSP, 
http::/www.aavso.org/vsp).

Please submit observations to the AAVSO International Database using
the name 2MASS J06593158-0405277.

This campaign is being followed on the AAVSO Observing Campaigns 
page (http://www.aavso.org/observing-campaigns).


This AAVSO Alert Notice was compiled by Elizabeth O. Waagen.

Partial Eclipse Leyland 20th March 2015

The eclipse has been and gone. The weather could have been better - most of the eclipse had some cloud - but still a good one. I set up my old ETX90 with my Sony camera yesterday and all was well then I noticed late last night  that there were some dust specks. I could see that they were actually on the chip and carefully tried to remove them - then accidentally tripped the shutter having forgotten to switch the camera off  - the result a damaged shutter! I will try to repair it if possible - otherwise I think a professional repair bill will exceed the value of an ebay replacement!! This is a shame because I had just fathomed out a way of using my modified Canon 40D camera for astronomy with my Sony fit 500mm lens that I use with my Sony Alpha for wildlife photography - I didn't want to have to buy a Canon lens so was quite pleased with that. I can still do that but I thought I had a nice solution to both Astronomy and Wildlife imaging! These things happen rarely thank goodness. So this morning I had to set up the Canon camera with the ETX90. A major advantage of my ETX is that I can flip the mirror to an eyepiece view to centre the Sun (using a white light filter) then flip back to the camera. Having the "Live View " option is a big advantage as seen in the images below, however the screen on the Sony can be flipped at right angles to the normal position which saves having to crouch down behind the camera which I have to do on the Canon. The hard bit is finding the Sun in the first place.t

Having done that a roughly set up tripod gives very reasonable tracking. This is the sky before the eclipse stared.

 Well - maybe I have darkened the sky a little! This is the setup:

 I used a mains to 12V dc converter to power the dummy battery in the camera and the telescope to avoid having to worry about batteries going flat during the eclipse. You will see from above that I used an f/6.3 focal reducer to fit the Sun onto the camera screen. 

I used SkyX software to let me see when the eclipse was due to start and how it was progressing.

The Canon camera worked well

This is the sequence of the eclipse from Leyland

The Coma Cluster

This morning,  (Sunday - I must admit to still being in bed when I pointed the distant telescope at my target), I used the T20 telescope in New Mexico to image some galaxies in the Coma Cluster. The target galaxy was NGC 4556 which is a small 13th magnitude elliptical galaxy in Coma with a major axis of 1.2 minutes of arc. Although this galaxy is not very exciting it sits between two "giants" in comparison - that I will come to shortly. 

This small section of my image shows NGC 4556.

I have named a few of the galaxies in this section of the image. This is a 300 second exposure using a 4 1/2 inch telescope yet galaxies down to 18th magnitude are visible in the image. 

For example the interesting little group of 14th and 15th magnitude  stars ( I have named this "The Hole Punch Asterism") at the top (North) of the image sits just above a galaxy PGC 4333526 which has a magnitude of 17.94. This is arrowed in the image on the left. This little galaxy has a major axis of around 24 seconds of arc and a minor axis of 12 seconds of arc. Not the easiest of targets! It is receding from us at a velocity of 38,665 km per second so assuming a value for Hubble's constant of 75km/second/Megaparsec this gives a distance of 516 Mparsecs or 1680 million light years. (Very approximately!!). This is too far to be a member of the Coma Cluster so is a background galaxy. It is a long way out bearing in mind the speed of light is 300,000 km/second. The "bright" galaxy at top left,IC 3560 or  PGC 3089322, has a magnitude of 16.39! It has a radial velocity of 7182 km/s giving it an approximate distance of 312 million light years on the same basis. This is about the distance accepted for the Coma Cluster so it is a cluster member!!

Less than one degree south of NGC 4556 on the same image there is the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4565 (below). This is also known as Caldwell C38 and was discovered by William Herschel. This is definitely one of my favourite galaxies. The galaxy to the lower right in this image is NGC 4562. Although C31 is in the constellation of Coma Berenices it is not part of the Coma Cluster and is less than one seventh of the distance to the cluster. NGC 4562 and NGC 4565 have similar radial velocities and are about the same distance away so NGC 4562 is much the smaller galaxy. 

Moving North from NGC 4556 by just over 1 degree finds another Caldwell object - Caldwell C36 or NGC 4559.

Reverend Webb and The English Mechanic

A few moments ago (literally as I start to write this) there was a knock at my front door and the postman handed me a parcel. I had forgotten that I was expecting a delivery from eBay of a bound copy of volume 19 of "The English Mechanic" from 1874. (A4 size hardback 679 pages- cost £9.75!) I opened the package and flipped through to page 66 (Issue 471 April 3rd 1874), where I noticed a letter entitled " Jupiter and his Satellites - Red Stars." I then noticed it was from a T.W. Webb, Hardwick Vicarage dated 26th March 1874. It then dawned on me that this was the Webb who had written "Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes" fifteen years earlier in the Hardwick Vicarage. if you are a BAA member you can download the 1975 (85,5) issue of the BAA Journal which has a good article about Webb by E. G. Moore.  This is a quote from that article:

  His letter to the English Mechanic was also about Jupiter and red stars.- in particular S Orionis!

Visit by Sharples School

I was visited last week by the steering committe of the Sharples School Observatory project.

Image courtesy of Sharples School. Here is an extract from their website.

"The Sharples Observatory Project continued this week with a visit by the steering committee to a 2.7m domed observatory in Leyland. Mr Singadia and Miss Molyneux accompanied Max (Year 6 pupil from The Oaks, who is joining Sharples in September), Lukman (current Sharples Year 10 pupil) and Roy Gibbins (Project Manager from the Rotary Club of Bolton le Moors) to Leyland to meet Len Adam who is an amateur astronomer and owner of the magnificent domed observatory in his back garden (see picture)!"

8th March 2015 - A bright Moon lights the sky

This was the Moon last night rising in the East at Leyland

To the Northeast - A setting of ISO 3200 brings out the stars but also the surroundings!

The constellation of Auriga  - the Kids showing clearly. 30second exposure, 20mm focal length, ISO 400 using my Sony Alpha 350 DSLR. The brightest star at the extreme left in the centre is Alhena in Gemini. See the chart below to identify the other stars.

Star Chart below - courtesy of Software Bisque names some of the stars in the above image. 

 Jupiter is in Cancer between Leo and Castor and Pollux in Gemini. This image shows Jupiter on the left and Castor and Pollux to the West. 29 second exposure, 20mm focal length, ISO 400 using my Sony Alpha 350 DSLR. 

This image shows Leo to the left of centre  (east) and Jupiter with the constellation of Cancer and Messier 44 to the west. 30second exposure, 20mm focal length, ISO 400 using my Sony Alpha 350 DSLR.

The Chart below, courtesy of Software Bisque, provides identification. Jupiter is highlighted.

When is that amateur astronomer's space telescope going to be launched?

This morning's "access" to remote telescopes. Closed observatories due to cloud or daylight!

Comet 32P Comas Sola imaged this morning imaged this a.m. from New Mexico re-imaged this p.m. from Siding Spring in Australia

I used telescope T30 at Siding Spring to image the comet.

 

C/2013 V2 (Borisov) imaged using T11 from New Mexico

As well as imaging Comet 32P Comas Sola this morning I used T11 in New Mexico to image C/2013 V2 (Borisov) which is much fainter than my software predicts. I only took a single image using a V filter. I have identified some galaxies in the image with their magnitudes for comparison. It seems to me that the comet is at least a magnitude fainter than the predicted 15.07

32P/Comas Sola imaged from New Mexico

I managed to get an image this morning of the 14th Magnitude Comet 32P/Comas Sola in the constellation of Leo. 

32P/Comas Sola 300 second exposure

I took another exposure  of 600 seconds just over half an hour later

Here are some close ups

300 second exposure600 second exposure

This is its location 

32P Comes Sola Chart Courtesy of Software Bisque.