May 23 2010 Spos

-2.3 Magnitude SPO with another dimmer one

Three meteors ( all Sporadics) from above stacked frames. They all 'appeared' to come from the same radiant with the exception of the short one ( path length requirement).  2 trajectories so one backward projection intersect point ( RA 352.5 Dec=-42.3)...hmmm.
The 3 dotted stars on the mid right were Antares (SCO). VIDEO here

May sky.. a couple of SPO - a nice x1 posted

a -1.3 mag sporadic ( SPO) 0:51am Sunday May 16 '10

Cloudy in the last few nites, so the moment i saw Crux and Pointers around 11:30pm Sat night i put out my system. Not expecting much activities - May is a quiet month. Bright and/or SPO is the target.  The hunt continues

 

Couldn resist - another post of x1 SPO, this is brighter at -1.6

A good example of the benefit of using video. Imagine you are exposing using film, how do you know the background stars at time of exposure? In the video set up i always started with a few shots with background stars as reference... what if the sky was cloudy when i started the session?  Then the second best thing is to enable the software to take a frame at certain interval e.g every 15 minutes. So say the sky clears up when you sleep.. the sampling will capture those ( as well as other bright fast moving objects). All the above is NOT a problem if you system is permanently mounted ( i.e fixed azimuth, elevation) - you only do the background ONCE!  It still works for me in ad-hoc mode after all these years!! Video uploaded here.

Eta Aquarids May 7 2010 - bright ones in 5am-6am slot

 ( 5am - 6am) the captions should says 3,8mm f0,8 lens

See the negative magnitude eta Aquarids above!! video of these five here.

05:22:37 (-02), UT May 6 21:22

05:25:26(-1.4),UT May 6 21:25

05:32:49(-0.8),UT May 6 21:32

05:33:32(-2.0), UT May 6 21:33

05:55:35(-1.5). These are located in or near Sagittarius / Scorpion region. One overlay map plot below

6am - 6:30m ( above)

Before the Moon enter the video lens FOV ( 04 am- 5:00am slot)

 For comparison - you are invited to check out last year Orionids captured using the same setup. 

Orionids ( November)  and Eta Aquarids( May)  with similar parent body - Halley's Comet.

 

Eta Aquarid ( Halley's comet Debris ) may 6 2010 & iridium 33 flashes ( after collision with cosmos 2251)

Posting individual frames showing the verified eta Aquarids in reverse timestamps order. If not for the automated detection system i doubt any one will bother to waste sleep on week day night to watch this shower with lunar light interference

 

A eta aquarid grazer.

BONUS visitor :  Iridium 33 bright flashes after collision ( collided with Cosmos 2251 in 2009 Feb 10@ 1655UT over Siberia). Instead of total annihilation, the big piece of wreckage* still harbor the reflecting surface (MMA or solar panel that give rise to intense flashes) see in the above image. One tiny flash follow by a big one. *verified by ground level telescope imaging. Video of above flash.

Eta Aquarids May 5 am hours

Eta aquarids ( debris from Halleys' Comet )  streak through the moon lit sky.

03:42,04:53, 06:10, 06:23. ( .. its 3.8mm f0.8 lens, wrong caption in video)

Its 3:22 am... lets go nite flying in the moon light

Iridium Flare Outside my window - negative 5 magnitude

 

Found that there is a -5 mag iridium flare today and the evening weather looked promising.  In the distance kites were dotting the early evening southern horizon. But this iridium is @ high elevation and the azimuth is a bit hard to reach from my usual location. I pulled out the analog sony camcorder, fired up one still working lithium battery and i set up the video /tripod in the other window. Using the camcorder large LCD as montor i star hop from the compact trapezium of Corvus to expected flare location @ hydra. I replaced the camcorder with the USB-PC video cable and watch the pc screen running UFOcapture. My watch was synchronised to singtel time annoucement ($0.30 per call 1711). The Iridium Satellite came on time and the i hit the rec button...Watch the uploaded video Iridium 37 here

Eta Aquarid and glaring moon

A meteor originated close to the over saturated moon. The star near the meteor is antares (SCO).
Post processing of the meteors reveal x1 spo x3 etaAq - including the one above.

Just a day ago I had  x3 sporadics SPO  and x1 etaAq. Increasing rate?

Labour Day May 1 early am meteors and glaring moon

A composite showing three meteors with the glaring moon(s). The trumpet-shapes on the lower left are reflections from the aspheric lens

Bright lunar and a meteor

Look at the flaring portion. Which direction do you think the meteor travelled from?  Top to bottom or bottom to top?  For this one the flaring occurs 1/3 of the flight and is travelling from top to bottom!

Wat's that star in the western horizon?

Venus

 International Space Station ISS ( karya) sailing pass Orion ( a series of dots near bottom) and entering earth shadow shortly after.

de ja vu

A similar multiple flares Lyrid again

Cloudy sky and Lyrids

At 0:48am .. a Lyrid was caught through clouds- terminal double burst seen ( near white building in image below).

another Lyrid caught close to dawn below

Return of meteor activities..

Video here Note in the video the last meteor (closest to the building in above composite plot) ended with a flash-like terminal burst.

A meteor crossing the FOV of 25mm f0.90 lens

 A meteor cross diagonally of the 25mm f0.90 aspheric lens 09-Apr-2010 02:13 am

Byte Size Astronomy : Venus & Mercury evening sky April 2010

   The bright object in the 06 April [7:39pm] evening sky was Venus and if you looked carefully you will find the elusive and dimmer Mercury nearby too. Taken with a hand held shot with  a point and shoot digital camera Nikon CP5100 in Shutter Priority. Here is the video with a little zoom in view.  Read more in S & T

Iridium 24 flashes again

The tumbling iridium IR 24 giving flashes here. Watch this video here

Meteor ( shooting star) appear to radiate out from the moon.. ( line of sight effect)

Iridium 24 - x2 flashes and a glaring moon

Two negative magnitude  flashes near the building, direction of travel : upwards

RA 17h31.9min, Dec -71.94, RA 17hr 32min Dec-56.58. Watch video here

Glaring ( over-saturated) moon near Sagittarius 

and the brightest flash with background star overlaid

A tumbling rocket body .. 85079B March 26 20:22:58

Ribbon traced out by a slowly tumbling space junk in Canis Major. 

I saw the object on screen and hit the button. Video here

'Light curve' in pixel units  using Subaru Image Processor - Makalii.

Object IDed - 85-079B

Mar 24 2010 Meteors AM hours and a locating the source of x1 flash

Must be CS ( clear sky) early am. Woke up and find these meteors got logged by the sky patrol system.
The 'untidy' dots near the building block were created by the Pointers to the Southern Cross, Crux. After mapping the background stars ( analysis indicated all were SPOs)  i realized the upper dots were created by red Antares in Scorpion -the Mar's rival.

 Here is an example how the background stars got mapped onto the 3.8mm single video frame using UFOAnalyser. On the lower right is a negative magnitude brightness meteor or shooting star.  Crux is seen near the mid top of the white building block. Constellation of Scorpion on mid top right.  [ at wide angle only brighter stars can be detected by the video]

 A satellite flash upper left .. RA18.1, Dec -14.25

To find the unknown flash

a) When - timing?

b) Where - position RA, Dec

c) What [objects] Get satellite two lines elements TLEs 

d) How - run a planetarium software in object vicinity

e) check for closest match [ time, position, direction of travel ]

Next a trip to www.space-track.org to grab the bulk TLEs.
Run Skymap66 and bring up the region of the sky. Park the '+' cursor at the flash point and ran the listings with +/- 1 minute of reported time. With a bit of luck you can eliminate other entries and pick the mostly one. 
 Cosmos 1523.

 see how many objects within 2 minutes crossing the sky