The Smallest Telescope Detects the Largest Cosmic Explosion

Good things do come in small packages.

A small telescope, with a 71mm (2.75") aperture (diameter) is responsible for detecting a star explosion and resulting Gamma Ray Burst (GRB). The GRB, registered as GRB080319B occurred 7.5 Billion light years across the known universe and was discovered by an organization called "Pi of the Sky", a group of Polish Physicists, mathematicians, and graduate students that look at specific portions of the sky for GRB events. The operation is managed in Warsaw, Poland, but the cameras are physically located at the Las Campanas, Chile observatory.

'Pi of the Sky' currently covers a 20 deg. X 20 deg. portion of sky, but has plans to extend optical capabilities to simultaneously cover 1/3 of the visible sky.

Here is the Internet link to the 'Pi of the Sky' news release with an animation of the GRB event:

http://grb.fuw.edu.pl/pi/index.html


METEORITES!!! @ @ @


@ NEW Telescope Curse !

I have been hit by the NEW TELESCOPE curse. In other words: "It has been cloudy every night I have been home to use my telescope since First Light". Hopefully, I will be able to get out soon. I am trying to capture a picture of the "Leo Triplets" (three galaxies, including M66, located in the constellation Leo) to enter in a photo contest. The contest closing date is 03/31/2008.

@@ Almost Heaven Star Party 2008

Yeehaw! Git yer campin' gear reddy and dust off the John Denver 8-tracks, cuz the Almost Heaven Star Party (AHSP) 2008 has been announced.

Every year, a conglomeration of amateur and profession astronomers gather at Spruce Knob, West Virginia for a 4 day/3 night star party. This year's event will be held from July 31st to August 3rd, 2008 (Thursday-Sunday). I plan to attend August 1st -3rd. It will be my first star party, and I hear it is not for the faint of heart. Spruce Knob has rugged amenities, (in other words tent camping with no electricity), so this event is not for everyone. At least they have hot showers, hot meal service and conveniently located out houses.

Check the AHSP website for more information:

http://www.ahsp.org/index.html


Until The Skies Clear !

StarPilot

YIKES! Death Star Taking Aim At Earth

Long story short ...


A 'real' Death Star, not the fictional one from Star Wars is taking aim at Earth according to the March 1st issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Recent images from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii indicate that a pair of stars locked in a death spiral are tearing each other apart. One of the stars, called a Wolf-Rayet is in the 'Winter' season of its life and will eventually lose its mass and go supernova. The unfortunate thing for Earth is that when the star explodes, the axis, which happens to be aimed right at us, will shoot a Gamma Ray burst in our direction.



Good News! Bad News!

Good News: The star may not explode for another 100,000 years and is 8,000 light years from Earth.

Bad News: Unlike the moon-sized Death Star from Star Wars, which has to get close to a planet to vaporize it, this blazing spiral has the potential to burn worlds from thousands of light-years away.

Good News: We will have some warning before the star explodes.

Bad News: Uhhh ... Maybe a moments warning, because Gamma Rays travel at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second.

Good News: Gamma Rays do not vaporize worlds as depicted by the fictitious Death Star.

Bad News: A Gamma Ray burst directed at Earth could damage chemicals in the Stratosphere, thereby depleting up to 50% or more of the Ozone layer. What's wrong with that ? The Ozone has 3-4% depletion at present, so a 50% depletion would drastically change our atmosphere for decades. In other words, such a 'raking' of the Ozone layer would lead to extinction of most living things within months".


Help Me Obiwan Kinobe, You're My Only Hope!

Heyyy! ... Maybe our fictitious Star Wars friends can help us build a BIG shield to protect against Gamma Ray bursts. Sorry! In this case, not even Ole' Ben Kinobe can help us. You see, Gamma Rays travel 'through' stars, planets, galaxies, big-honkin' shields, and so on. Get the picture ? Gulp!


Oh, That's Not Good ... What Can We Do ?

Nothing we can do, really. WR104 is the first star astronomers have detected that has its destructive sights set on us. There may be dozens, hundreds or thousands more undetected Wolf-Rayet type stars ready to blow their tops and shoot Gamma Rays at us.


My Humble Perspective ...

You see, we are here by design. It was NOT by chance or luck that we exist. We have a Creator who placed us here for a reason, and I for one am not worried about some star losing its cookies and depleting our Ozone or any other atmospheric layer.

The more I realize how inhospitable other parts of the 'known' universe are, the more I marvel at God's grand design in putting us on this planet, in this solar system, in this galaxy and in this part of the local galactic neighborhood.

I am just going to enjoy the life I have been blessed with and leave management of 'Space Stuff' to the Creator.

The Heavens Declare His Glory!

StarPilot

P.S. - Here are some WR104 resources for you to check out:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080310/sc_space/realdeathstarcouldstrikeearth

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23311578-2,00.html

Beginners Luck

I had a chance to try out my new telescope on the evening of March 2nd. Saw a lot of cool looking celestial objects. Here are pictures I took of a few of my favorites.



M42 - Orion Nebula (Wide Field Photo with airplane entering frame at upper left)




M42 - Orion Nebula (Zoom Photo)




M44 - Beehive Star Cluster




M45 - The Pleiades Star Cluster (The seven bright stars are called the seven sisters)




M81 & M82 - Galaxies




NGC869 & NGC884 - Double Star Clusters (in Constellation Perseus)



I plan to dedicate an entire post to the Orion Nebula (my favorite constellation), so check back soon.



Clear Skies!


StarPilot

My New Baby

Orion 80mm ED with SkyView Pro mount


Comupterized Hand Controller (13,564 object database)


Orion 80mm ED Optical Tube Assembly (OTA)


Well gang, here is the new telescope. I sold both my ETX-125 and my 8" StarHopper Dobsonian to buy this one. Both other scopes were stellar viewing scopes, but I wanted something that I could use for long-exposure astrophotography.


Enter the Orion 80mm ED telescope sitting atop an Orion SkyView Pro Equatorial mount. The scope is just over 3 inches in diameter, but it works better with my camera for photographing Deep Space Objects such as: galaxies, nebula and star clusters.


When the weather clears this weekend, I will attempt to snap some celestial pictures.


Until the next time!


StarPilot

First Light ... A Time Honored Tradition

M42 - Orion Nebula (from picasaweb.google.com)



M44 - Beehive Star Cluster (from http://www.astropix.com/)



M45 - The Pleiades Star Cluster (from http://www.astropix.com/)



M81 & M82 Galaxies (from http://www.astropix.com/)



Saturn (from apod.nasa.gov)



IC434 HorseHead Nebula (In Orion) (from http://www.astropix.com/)

First Light is a "time honored" tradition carried out by Backyard and Amateur Astronomers. It is marked by the first night an astronomer 'gathers light' , or looks through a new telescope. You can read all the reviews you want, but you never really know how a scope is going to perform until you point at a celestial object and look through the eyepiece.

On February 25th at 7:30PM I gathered 'First Light' in my new Orion 80mm ED on a SkyView Pro Goto mount. There was a narrow period of 'somewhat' cloudless skies between frontal systems, so I took advantage of the opportunity before the 'white puffies' moved back in.

I performed my first-ever polar alignment (pointing the telescope at Polaris), then let the Goto mount do the rest. I dialed in Messier Object M44 (Beehive Star Cluster) into the computerized hand controller and pressed 'Enter'. The motors quietly whirred for 30 seconds or so, then the hand controller 'beeped' to tell me I had arrived at my celestial destination.

As I looked into the 25mm Sirius Plossl eyepiece, M44 was glistening at me with a cluster of bright and faint stars.

After observing M44 for a time, I took a tour of the sky to view other familiar space objects. Here are the highlights of what I observed:

- M42 (Orion Nebula) looked light-gray and pale-blue. I was able to resolve the four major and two faint stars of the trapezium, which looked razor-sharp. I stared at it for several minutes.

- M45 (The Pleiades) looked grand as ever, and I was surprised to see some nebulosity surrounding the 'Seven Sisters' with the telescope aided eye.

- M81 and M82 (Galaxies) looked great. Just as I thought they may appear through an eyepiece. I will have to study the galaxies individually some time.

- Saturn looked like someone painted the ringed planet onto the end of my scope. I saw faint hints of the Cassini Divide, but clearly saw lines in the planet's atmosphere and even saw the black of space between the rings and the planet.

- However, when I dialed up IC434 (Horsehead Nebula) clouds moved in and ended my session after 45 minutes. It was a memorable 'First Light' with my Orion 80mm ED.

I look forward to many more viewing and astrophotography sessions with my new scope. I didn't do any astrophotography this night, because I just wanted to enjoy the view of celestial objects from the new scope.

Question: You may wonder why I didn't do a 'First Light' report when I bought my ETX-125 ?
Answer: I didn't know about First Light, and I wasn't running a BLOG.

Personal Observation: I become concerned when I ask myself a question, and then answer it. I will really become concerned if I give myself the 'silent treatment' for taking one position, rather than the other when answering a question. :)

The pictures are stock photos from the Internet. (Most are from http://www.astropix.com/). I posted them to give readers a sample of the views I saw through my telescope eyepiece. Most pictures are representative of what I saw, exept for the starbursts in M45 and the detail in Saturn.

I plan to take high quality pictures of these heavenly objects some day, but I didn't want to complicate the experience of 'First Light' with my new scope and mount.

Thanks for Checking In!

StarPilot

Good Bye Ole' Friend

Ready to explore the heavens!!!

This is a picture of my ETX-125 all packed and ready to go to its new home :(

Well, I did it! I sold my ETX-125 telescope to another person interested in Backyard Astronomy. I will miss my ETX, because celestial objects were sooooo easy to find and track with it.

But ... my interest in the hobby has changed to where I want to do more astrophotography than casual viewing.

My first goal is to photograph as many of the Messier Objects as one can see in the Northern Hemisphere. It will take time, persistence and patience, but that is half the fun.


I installed the motors and computer on the new telescope this weekend (Orion 80mm ED with SkyView Pro GOTO Mount), now I am waiting for the clouds to part so I can actually use the scope. I will let you all know how that goes.

Clear Skies!


StarPilot


P.S. - To the ETX-125's new owners: "It doesn't need a night light. My experience has been that it prefers the dark". (May you get the enjoyment out of the scope that I did, and did I ever enjoy it)

Lunar Eclipse 02-20-2008

I had the pleasure of viewing a Lunar Eclipse on Wednesday February 20th. It was a miracle we in Northern Virginia were able to see it. Snow was falling until 7:00PM. I was shocked to see the skies clear off so quickly, but who am I to complain.

I scurried around to deploy my telescope and tripod and readied myself for my first Lunar Eclipse as a backyard astronomer.

I drove my family crazy running in and out snapping pictures of the eclipse during commercial breaks while watching American Idol.

I initially had trouble focusing the camera on the telescope, but eventually figured it out. I have a new telescope (an Orion 80mm ED OTA with a SkyView PRO Equatorial mount) and was unfamiliar with it.

Some pictures were taken using a camera on a tripod, but a majority were taken the camera attached to the telescope. I froze my bottom off, but had fun taking the pictures and enjoying a lunar eclipse that wasn't in the middle of the night.

Enjoy the pictures.

StarPilot

P.S. - After the skies clear this weekend I'll have my new telescope back out learning how to use it. Soooooooo, hopefully there will be many more descent quality pictures of celestial objects to follow.