Posts Made By: Dave Mitsky

It's not much but here's a shot of Mars that I took on Tuesday morning through the ASH 17" classical Cassegrain using eyepiece projection (26mm Tele Vue Ploessl) and my Canon EOS Digital Rebel SLR.

Dave Mitsky

Attention afficionados of paper atlases: the Millennium Star Atlas is going to be offered in a softcover version next January for a paltry (?) pre-publication price of $134.95.

http://shopatsky.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1108

Dave Mitsky

Here's a photo that I took afocally with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel 300D, 35m Celestron Ultima, and 40m f/10 Coronado PST on Thursday afternoon around 1630 UT.

Dave Mitsky

Here's an H-alpha light photo that I took afocally with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel 300D, 35m Celestron Ultima, and 40m f/10 Coronado PST on Thursday afternoon around 1630 UT.

Dave Mitsky

Here's my list of extended deep-sky objects for this month.

Dave Mitsky

Seventy-five deep-sky objects for October: NGC 7640, NGC 7662, NGC 7686 (Andromeda); NGC 7180, NGC 7183, NGC 7184, NGC 7293, NGC 7392, NGC 7585, NGC 7606, NGC 7721, NGC 7723, NGC 7727 (Aquarius); Cz43, K12, M52, NGC 7635, NGC 7788, NGC 7789, NGC 7790, St12 (Cassiopeia); B171, B173-4, IC 1454, IC 1470, K10, Mrk50, NGC 7235, NGC 7261, NGC 7354, NGC 7380, NGC 7419, NGC 7510 (Cepheus); IC 1434, IC 5217, NGC 7209, NGC 7223, NGC 7243, NGC 7245 (Lacerta); NGC 7177, NGC 7217, NGC 7320 (the brightest galaxy in Stephan’s Quintet), NGC 7331, NGC 7332, NGC 7339, NGC 7448, NGC 7454, NGC 7479, NGC 7619 (the brightest member of Pegasus I), NGC 7626, NGC 7678, NGC 7742, NGC 7769 (Pegasus); NGC 7541, NGC 7562, NGC 7611 (Pisces); IC 5156, IC 5269, IC 5271, NGC 7172, NGC 7173, NGC 7174, NGC 7176, NGC 7201, NGC 7203, NGC 7214, NGC 7221, NGC 7229, NGC 7314, NGC 7361 (Piscis Austrinus); NGC 7507, NGC 7513, NGC 7713, NGC 7755, NGC 7793 (Sculptor)

Challenge deep-sky object for October: Jones 1 (PK104-29.1)

Numerous reports about the dust storm emanating from Chryse have been circulating for the past few days. Unfortunately, the storm appears to be expanding. There are images at the following web pages:

http://www.astrosurf.org/pellier/nilokerasdust

http://www.cyberus.ca/~ec088060/pages/mars05.html

http://hometown.aol.com/frankj12/mars2005index.html

http://members.verizon.net/~whd/images/20051019_whd.jpg

http://marswatch.amaonline.com/10-18-052350.jpg

http://www.arksky.org/smf/index.php?topic=827.0

http://home.houston.rr.com/gschaeffer/marsduststorm.jpg

I hope that this isn't the beginning of a repeat of 2001.

http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mars/MarsThePlanet/MarsDustStorms.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010727.html

Dave Mitsky

Numerous reports about the dust storm emanating from Chryse have been circulating for the past few days. Unfortunately, the storm appears to be expanding. There are images at the following web pages:

http://www.astrosurf.org/pellier/nilokerasdust

http://www.cyberus.ca/~ec088060/pages/mars05.html

http://hometown.aol.com/frankj12/mars2005index.html

http://members.verizon.net/~whd/images/20051019_whd.jpg

http://marswatch.amaonline.com/10-18-052350.jpg

http://www.arksky.org/smf/index.php?topic=827.0

http://home.houston.rr.com/gschaeffer/marsduststorm.jpg

I hope that this isn't the beginning of a repeat of 2001.

http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mars/MarsThePlanet/MarsDustStorms.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010727.html

Dave Mitsky

After visiting the White Sands Missile Range Museum and the White Sands National Monument (browse http://www.wsmr-history.org/ and http://www.nps.gov/whsa/ for further information) on Friday morning and afternoon, both of which I highly recommend seeing, my friends Tony Donnangelo, Tom Bakowski, and I drove from Alamagordo northward into the Sacramento Mountains to the New Mexico Skies astronomy guest observatory (see http://nmskies.com/index.html for more on New Mexico Skies).

We checked in and before too long we began observing at an altitude of 7,300 feet with the 30" f/5 Tectron Dob that we had reserved. We looked at a great many new objects including many galaxies in Grus, Sculptor, Cetus, Fornax, and Eridanus. I don't have time to list all the objects that we viewed, but here's a short list of the hightlights: IC 5148 (a great annular planetary nebula in Grus), a bright galaxy group (NGC 7599, NGC 7582, and NGC 7590) in Grus, the major galaxies in Sculptor (including NGC 55, NGC 134, NGC 150, NGC 253, and NGC 300), the wonderful Fornax 1 galaxy group and the great barred spiral NGC 1365 in Fornax. My night ended with the double quasar Q097+561 A/B in Ursa Major. That's eight billion light years, folks!

Familiar objects took on a whole new look with the extremely dark and transparent skies and 30 inches of aperture. The globular cluster NGC 288, NGC 2261 (Hubble's Variable Nebula), NGC 2359 (Thor's Helmet), NGC 2438 (the planetary nebula "in" M46), NGC 2024 (the Flame Nebula), B33 (the Horsehead Nebula), and M42 were all simply fantastic. I also did a fair amount of binocular observing and was able to see the Rosette Nebula through my Celestron 8x42 binocular.

Stay tuned for further reports.

Dave Mitsky

Seventy deep-sky objects for November: M31, M32, M110, NGC 252, NGC 404, NGC 752 (Andromeda); NGC 680, NGC 691, NGC 697, NGC 772 (Aries); Cr 463, IC 1747, K14, M103, NGC 129, NGC 133, NGC 146, NGC 185, NGC 225, NGC 281, NGC 278, NGC 381, NGC 436, NGC 457, NGC 559, NGC 637, NGC 654, NGC 659, NGC 663, Tr 1 (Cassiopeia); NGC 40, NGC 188 (Cepheus); NGC 151, NGC 175, NGC 178, NGC 210, NGC 227, NGC 245, NGC 246, NGC 247, NGC 274, NGC 337, NGC 578, NGC 584, NGC 596, NGC 615, NGC 636, NGC 681, NGC 720, NGC 779 (Cetus); NGC 7814 (Pegasus); M76, St 4 (Perseus); M74, NGC 128, NGC 194, NGC 488, NGC 524 (Pisces); NGC 24, NGC 55, NGC 134, NGC 150, NGC 253, NGC 254, NGC 288, NGC 289, NGC 439, NGC 613 (Sculptor); M33, NGC 672 (Triangulum)

Challenge deep-sky object for November: IC 59 (Cassiopeia)

Seventy binary and multiple stars for November: Otto Struve 514, Alpha Andromedae (Alpheratz), Struve 3, h1947, Struve 19, Struve 24, 26 Andromedae, Struve 40, Pi Andromedae, Delta Andromedae, Struve 47, Eta Andromedae, Struve 79, Beta An dromedae, Struve 108, Struve 179, South 404 (Andromeda); 1 Arietis, Struve 178, Gamma Arietis, Lambda Arietis (Mesarthim) (Aries); Struve 3053, Struve 3057, Struve 16, Struve 30, Otto Struve 16, Alpha Cassiopeiae (Schedar), Struve 59, Eta Cassiopeiae, Burnham 1, Struve 70, Otto Struve 23, h1088, Struve 163, Struve 170, Struve 182 (Cassiopeia); 34 Piscium, Struve 8, 35 Piscium, Struve 15, 38 Piscium, 42 Piscium, 49 Piscium, 51 Piscium, 55 Piscium, 65 Piscium, Psi Piscium, Otto Struve 22, Struve 98, Otto Struve 26, Phi Piscium, Zeta Piscium, h636, Otto Struve 30, Struve 122, Struve 132, Otto Struve 31, 100 Piscium, Struve 145, 107 Piscium, h644 (Pisces); h5440, Kappa-1 Sculptoris, h1949, h3442, h3379, Tau Sculptoris, Epsilon Sculptoris (Sculptor); Struve 143, Struve 183 (Triangulum)

Challenge binary star for November: 36 Andromedae