Asteroid 2011 MD on June 26 - Image by Nick James
Nick James from Chelmsford captured this fast moving near earth object on 2011 June 26. Images at 22:44 and 22:49 UT.
Closest approach will be at around 17:00 UT on the 27th June when the object will be around 8000 miles from the Earth.
More information about this interesting object can be found on the Sky and Telescope website.
If anyone else is successful in imaging this object, please email results to picture@britastro.org
Noctilucent clouds on the night of 2/3 June 2011, by Alan Tough, Elgin, Moray
The 2011 Noctilucent Cloud season is now underway, with a small display seen on the night of 2/3 June 2011. Alan Tough from Elgin captured this shot at 00:07 UT.
For more reports see the Noctilucent Cloud Observers’ Homepage.
ISS Transit - Nick James
Nick James writes:
“This is my first attempt at an ISS solar transit. I used Calsky for the track details and set up a portable system around 1km from the centreline just north of here. This used a Megrez 72mm refractor with a x2 Barlow and a Canon EOS550D running in HD video mode (1920×1080) at 30 frame/s. This image is the result of minimum stacking 45 video frames.
This wasn’t a very good pass since the ISS was a long way away (it can be twice this size at its closest) and I will try to use a longer focal length next time but it demonstrated that the Calsky predictions are right on.”
Sadr, Butterfly and Crescent Nebulae - Bob Winter
Imaged from a London rooftop, the Sadr, Butterfly and Crescent Nebulae in Cygnus taken on 25th May 2011.
Atlas and Hercules Craters - Damian Peach
Damian Peach took this image of the Atlas and Hercules craters on 2011 May 10 at 19:44UT from Selsey, West Sussex, UK.
M1 comparison using data from 2MASS - Graham Relf
Graham writes:
I have been pursuing David Boyd’s point in his 2010 Presidential Address (in the current Journal) that we amateurs could usefully work on the huge amount of data that is available on the Internet which the professionals do not have time to analyse.
The 2-micron all-sky survey (2MASS) was a professional project that ran from 1997 to 2001. Its images are available as FITS files on the Internet for anyone to download and process (go to http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Gator/). 2MASS imaged in 3 wavebands: Johnson H, J and K (respectively centred on 1.25, 1.65 and 2.17 microns) using two 1.3 metre telescopes in USA and Chile.
I have used 3 such images of M1, the Crab Nebula, to make a false colour image, treating the H band as red, J as green and K as blue. That is what you see in the left half of this image. (Original files aH_asky_971018n0810185.fits, etc, created on 1997 Oct 18 at 9:14 UT). Compare this with optical photos and you will see that the shape of the nebula is rather different at these infra-red wavelengths.
As created, my RGB image had 64 bits per colour channel and I processed it as such to make the version on the right. I did a wide radius unsharp mask by blurring the image and then subtracting a proportion of that blurred version from the original. That had the effect of exaggerating subtle details. It is known that M1 has strong magnetic fields (partly from photography through polarising filters at optical wavelengths) and so I suppose my result probably shows gas looping around the field lines. Maybe no-one has seen this particular view before.
M1 has been in the news recently because the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected gamma ray flares from it, which no-one can explain.
Who knows what awaits discovery in the vast online repository of unanalysed images?
Graham Relf
www.grelf.net
Jupiter from the Salmi Desert - Khaled Al-jamaan
Jupiter imaged on January 6 (inset) and 7 2011, from the Salmi Desert in Kuwait, by Khaled Al-jamaan, using a Celestron C11 with a NexImage camera.
Here’s a photo of Khaled with his scope:
Saturn on April 29th, by Gordon MacLeod
Taken with a 6 inch refractor, f/9, with a Celestron Neximager at approximately x480 magnification, from Hastigrow, Bower, By Wick.
I particularly liked this image because it gives an impression very much like a visual observation – Ed.
Active Region 1195 on 2011 April 23 by Dennis Boon
A white light image of AR 1195 made by Dennis Boon on 2011 April 23.
Dennis used an Orion Optics OMC200 telescope, Lumenera CCD camera, Televue 2X powermate and Baader AstroSolar Film.
Copernicus - Paul Brierley
Copernicus and Eratosthenes, and Carpathian mountains. Also visible in this picture are the craters Reinhold and Fauth. These are visible above and to the left of Copernicus. Reinhold is the upper crater.
The image was captured on 2011-04-12 during early evening (19:30), whilst the Moon was between Leo and Gemini.
Equipment:
SPX 250, 10″ F4.8 Orion Optics Newtonian, with a X2 barlow and a QHY5 camera, with a deep red W25 filter.
Paul writes “I have noticed how the seeing appears to be more stable, during the last hour before Sunset.”
@britastro