Comet Lovejoy C2014/Q2 on the 24th January 2015

The comet from our Backyard on the 24th of January 2015 (through my 127mm refractor)

Moving against a starry sky (Canon 600 DSLR on a driven mount)

The comet is moving away from our Sun and over the next few weeks it will become more remote and faint. It will leave our Solar System, probably never to return, so if you want to see it through binoculars your best opportunity is within the next couple of weeks, sooner rather than later and don't forget to wave goodbye.

A unicorn, I am told, is not magical but instead

Its just a plain old horsey with a swirly stick upon its head

So a comet may not have a tail or be a visitor from afar

It might be much more common place, a lonely hairy star.

"Comets are like cats, they have tails and they do precisely what they want"

A widefield view of Comet Lovejoy C2014/Q2 moving through star fields on the borders of constellations Eridanus and Taurus. The base image was obtained from our backyard on the 10th January 2015.

Taken with my Canon 600D DSLR with a telephoto lens at f=300mm. all on a driven mount. The image is the result of many image frames stacked using DeepSkystacker software. The nucleus detail is enhanced by adding in data obtained through my telescope.

A reworking of data obtained on the 6th of January 2015, showing more detail around the nucleus and the base of the tail.

Credits: "Comets are like cats, they have tails and they do precisely what they want" David H. Levy.

The Great Orion Molecular Nebula -Messier 42

A composite of two images taken with my 127mm Meade apo-refracting telescope and Canon 400D and 600D DSLR cameras

After I finished imaging Comet Lovejoy, I decided to take a few frames of the wonderful Orion Nebula.

Messier 42 (aka. NGC1976) is an enormous cloud of diffuse gas and dust lying some 1350 light years distant from Earth. Imaging M42 is difficult because a time exposure long enough to capture the wispy filaments of nebulosity results in burn out of the brighter core and the cluster of bright young stars at its centre, known as the Trapezium.

The Trapezium star cluster - my image using ESO data

The Nebula is part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex extends throughout the constellation of Orion and includes Barnard's Loop, the Horsehead Nebula, M43, M78, and the Flame Nebula. Stars are forming throughout the Orion Nebula, and due to this heat-intensive process the region is particularly prominent in the infrared.


 The nebula forms a roughly spherical cloud that peaks in density near the core. The cloud has a temperature ranging up to 10,000 K, but this temperature falls dramatically near the edge of the nebula. If you were flying through this gas and dust cloud in your spacesuit  you would not be incinerated. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the particles of dust and gas molecules in the cloud. It is not a measure of heat.  Because the gas is so diffuse and although the energy of its constituent particles is high, localised levels of heat within the nebula are very low. It would be good however, to keep well away from the young blue stars of the Trapezium star cluster as they are beaming out copious amounts of ionising ultra violet radiation.

Unlike the density distribution, the cloud displays a range of velocities and turbulence, particularly around the core region. Relative movements are up to 10 km/s (22,000 mi/h), with local variations of up to 50 km/s and possibly more.

The current astronomical model for the nebula consists of an ionized region roughly centered on Theta¹ Orionis C, the star responsible for most of the ultraviolet ionizing radiation. (It emits 3-4 times as much photoionizing light as the next brightest star, Theta² Orionis A.) This is surrounded by an irregular, concave bay of more neutral, high-density cloud, with clumps of neutral gas lying outside the bay area. This in turn lies on the perimeter of the Orion Molecular Cloud.

Observers have given names to various features in the Orion Nebula. The dark lane that extends from the north toward the bright region is called the "Fish's Mouth". The illuminated regions to both sides are called the "Wings". Other features include "The Sword", "The Thrust", and "The Sail".

The Orion Nebula is an active nursery for the birth and early development of stars. Professional astronomers have found stars and planetary systems emerging from gravitationally collapsed and denser parts of the cloud.

 M42 is a fantastic and fascinating locality within our amazing home Milkyway Galaxy and you can see it, on any moon free clear night, just below Orion's three belt stars, with your naked eye!

Credits: Wikipedia and ESO - The European Southern Observatory

Comet Lovejoy C2014/Q2

The Comet as photographed from our backyard at 10.00pm on Tuesday the 6th of January. Used my Canon 600D DSLR fixed to my 127mm Meade Apo-refracting telescope . (Hints of two tails are visible to the left of the comet's head).

The comet is visible from the UK using binoculars and indeed Toot and I together with our friends Sheena and Dick watched it from our backdoor through my 11x80mm binoculars . The comet is visible as a fuzzy blob, above the southern horizon in the constellation Eridanus, which is to the right of Orion.  Comet Lovejoy is rising and moving slowly towards the constellation Taurus. Catch it while you can as it will soon be heading out into deep space.

A short film clip of the comet compiled from time lapse still images I took through my telescope,  showing how far it moved in approximately 8 minutes as viewed through the eyepiece.

Credit: Sky chart Sky and Telescope

Looking forward to 2015

Credit for image: Dr Alex Harrison Parker supporting NASA

In the July 2015 the New Horizons space-craft will have its closest encounter with the minor planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon.
I for one, am looking forward to the viewing the closest  images ever seen of these distant and cold worlds at the edge of our solar system.

Images of Pluto and its moon Charon moving 
around the binary system's common centre of 
gravity, captured by the space-craft in July 2014
using its best telescopic camera
 Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University 
Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Pluto and Charon are a very long way away and very small. Pluto has a diameter roughly two thirds of our Moon and a mass less than 0.24% of Earth. Charon is even smaller at roughly half Pluto's size. However, in terms of relative size, Charon compared with Pluto is the largest known moon in the solar system. The common point of gravity about which both move is therefore somewhere in space between the two bodies but closer to the larger body of Pluto. In the above movie clip you can clearly see that as Charon revolves, so  does Pluto. The physics of gravity in action, how brilliant is that!

Our Earth is also part of a binary system with our Moon but because our Moon has a mass significantly lower than that of Earth, the common point of gravity about which both revolve remains inside the Earth's crust . It is however, not located at the Earth's centre but displaced  towards the Moon along a line that runs between the Earths centre of mass and the Moon's centre of mass . So in a sense the Moon does not revolve about the Earth!