New widefield Lens on trial

 

Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Altair - Sigma 10-20mm widefield lens on a tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR. A stack of 10x30 second lights at ISO1600 and f=16mm. Credit: KurtThrust.

" Our sponsor Anita Roberts has provided the cash to enable the purchase of a recycled widefield lens for the 600d Canon Camera. Weather permitting we will use this excellent piece of  Japanese glass to capture Perseid meteors later in the week". Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Arcturus through Noctilucent Clouds - Thrust pulls it off and keeps his job!

 

The star Arcturus shining brightly in the Constellation Bootes and through Noctilucent Clouds. One off RAW image taken with the Canon DSLR at f=18mm.and ISO800. Credit: Pip Stakkert.

"I should like to thank all the many followers of the Jodrell Plank Observatory for contacting our Outreach Coordinator Karl Seguine and expressing their support for our current Director Kurt Thrust. The Board of Trustees met on the 5th of August 2021 and a majority decision was made by the Trustees to issue Kurt with a written warning. He will also be offered counselling and a high-viz vest." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory, for and on behalf of, Doris Jansen Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Kurt's job hangs by a thread

 

Milky Way - Altair the bright star at bottom right. Reprocessed by Pip Stakkert

The Veil Nebula and meteor. Reprocessed by Pip Stakkert

" The Board of Trustees have been asked to consider Kurt Thrust's status as current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory. The last post on this blog  contained unacceptable errors in which two of  the stars were named wrongly as Deneb and Vega. In fact only one of the three stars of the Summer Triangle was visible in this image. 

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

The trouble with our image was that it wasn't large enough to contain a large asterism like the Summer Triangle and sadly Kurt and Pip just got it wrong.

But in addition, Pip Stakkert's image processing of both the images was considered below the required standard and this reflects badly on Kurt's leadership and quality control. The recent problems encountered with the renegotiation of the Observatory telephone contracts have hopefully been the last of the problems relating to Kurt's current tenure of the top job at Jodrell Plank. Several Trustees have openly questioned whether Kurt has just got too old for the job! The next Board Meeting in August will be make and break for Kurt." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Summer nights have arrived at last

 

The Summer Triangle - Canon 600d on Star Adventurer MountStack of 2 minute lights at .f=18mm and ISO 1600. Cropped from a widefield image.; Credit: Pip Stakkert.
 

" The weather took a turn for the better, so the whole Jodrell Plank Observatory team spent  Friday evening taking snaps of the starry Universe. All the summer favourites were on display including the asterism, 'The Summer Triangle'. An asterism is a pattern of stars that is readily visible and identifiable. For example, The Plough is an asterism made from the brighter stars in the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear. The Summer Triangle is very obvious in the northern hemisphere summer sky and has the alpha stars from three separate constellations. Deneb from Cygnus the Swan, Vega from the Lyre  and Altair from Aquila the Eagle. These three prominent stars are bright and clearly visible to the naked eye as soon as darkness falls. So why not go out and see if you can identify them?". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The Veil Nebula with Meteor- Canon 600d on Star Adventurer Mount

            Stack of 2 minute lights at .f=90mm and ISO 1600. Credit: Pip Stakkert.                                                  

                                           Plate Solving by Astrometry Net

"Between 10 and 20 thousand years ago a star twenty times more massive than our Sun ran out of fusible elements and exploded in a massive core collapse supernova. The Veil Nebula is the remnant cloud of ionised gas and dust that has expanded over time to cover an area of the sky some thirty-six times the area of the Moon. This area is based upon a recent estimate of its distance from the Earth of 2400 light years. It is calculated that the nebula is expanding at 1.5 million kilometers per hour! The Veil Nebula was first discovered in 1784 by the astronomer William Herschel.

The attractive open star cluster NGC 6490 can be seen in our image and to the right of the Veil. NGC 6490 is in the adjoining constellation Vulpecula the Fox. The cluster is a billion years old and approximately 2500 light years distant.

Whilst  we were imaging this area of sky we noticed a number of meteors one of which is visible in our image of the Veil and to its left. For some days, The LVST radio telescope has been recording increasing numbers of meteor radar reflections. We await the Perseid Shower with added excitement, as this year, visibility will not be limited by moonlight. Let's keep our fingers crossed for good weather on the 12th and 13th of August and an excellent display!"  -  Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Messier 29 Open Star Cluster in the Constellation Cygnus the Swan

 

Cropped images from a widefield compilation of stacked lights taken with 66mm Altair refractor and 0.6x focal reducer and field flattener using the Canon 600d DSLR. - Credit: Kurt Thrust

" Our elderly but kindly sponsor George Roberts recently acquired Professor Ian Morison's excellent book 'The Art of Astrophotography' and very helpfully placed it in the Jodrell Plank Observatory's Library for reference.  We have long admired the  Professor's widefield astrophotography and have used the excellent  advice given in his book to process the data for the above image.

The image shows the open Star cluster Messier 29 set within the wider context of the sky near P Cygni and Sadr in the constellation Cygnus. The inset image is a cropped enlargement of the cluster itself.

Messier 29 is thought to contain 50 or so stars and shines with a luminosity equal to 160,000 suns. It is has an estimated age of 10 million years as its five brightest stars are all Blue Giants. One of its stars is thought to be a binary Wolf-Rayet and Be pair. A very rare and exceptionally hot duo! It has a linear diameter across the cluster of approximately 11 light years and is thought to be between 4000 and 7200 light years distant from the Earth". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Giant Sunspot Group

Solar Cycle 25 - Sunspot Group - Captured 08 June 2021. Altair Astro 66mm Refractor on Star Adventurer Equatorial Mount. QHY5-11 mono camera. Stack of two SER videos. Credit: Pip Stakkert.

"Pip recently processed data captured earlier in the month and has managed to bring out some of the detail in this giant group of sunspots pictured close to the solar limb. The image shows some surface granulation of the photosphere and the darkening of the solar disk towards the limb. To give some idea of scale, the big sunspot group near the top of the enlarged view below, is roughly the size of the Earth!" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

" The enlarged view of the sunspots provides hints of the churning convection cells that make up the photosphere which is visible in white light. The Sun's photosphere is composed of convection cells named granules, which are rising columns of superheated (5,800 °C) plasma. Each cell is about 1,000 km in diameter.  You can observe the the same granulation in the surface of  boiling liquids on Earth but on a much reduced scale. The solar plasma cools as it rises and then descends in the narrow spaces between the granules. This rise and fall  is repeated over and over again" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory..

Revenant of the Swan

 

P Cygni (34 Cygni) and also known as the ' Revenant of the Swan' - Hyper Giant Blue Variable Star in the Constellation Cygnus the Swan - 66mm Altair Starwave refractor with 0.6 x focal reducer and field flattener - Canon 600d DSLR at ISO 800. 3 minute RAW exposures. Credit: Pip Stakkert.

Plate solving. Credit:  Astrometry.net

"This interesting and highly luminous star is located between 5000 and 6000 light years distant and is moving away from us at nearly 9 km/sec. The star has a current magnitude of  4.8  (Absolute Mag -7.9) and may be seen from a dark site with the naked eye. This is incredible considering its vast distance from our Solar System.  P Cygni is extraordinary in many ways! It has a mass 37 times  and radius 76 times that of our Sun. It is 610,000 times more luminous than the Sun and this is the reason it can be seen from such a great distance. It is one of the most luminous stars known in the Milky Way.

The star is an irregular variable and has, over the past 500 years, shown major brightening. In recent times the variability has been less extreme and visual brightening is occurring at 0.15 of a magnitude per century. P Cygni is thought to be burning hydrogen in a shell around its core and if so is moving from hyper giant blue to red super giant stage all part of an evolutionary process as the star moves closer to its likely supernova. The life of a blue hyper giant star is short and violent and measured in millions rather than billions of years when compared with our Sun.

Because of its variability and extreme outbursts in the 17th century, the star was thought to be a recurring nova. Presumably it was named the the 'Revenant of the Swan' because it exhibited a repeated and unexpected return to life after multiple deaths or novae.

P Cygni gives it's name to a type of stellar spectrum that shows both absorption and emission in the profile. The emission line arises from a dense stellar wind near to the star, while the blue shifted absorption lobe is created where the radiation passes through circumstellar material rapidly expanding in the direction of the observer. As the star is quite bright we are hoping to use our transmission grating to obtain a spectrum later in the summer when Cygnus is on the meridian". - Kurt Thrust Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.