Failand Observing Saturday 12th December

[JohnWillis]

Metcheck is promising a clear sky so lets hope we can finish off the IYA with a clear observing session.

The moon will be out of the way so a good night for deep sky observing.

If I can get the 18in over I will have ago at G1 / MayalII the bright globular in Andromeda. There is a finder chart on
http://deepsky.astronomie.info/And/g1/index.en.php
G1, also known as Mayall II or Andromeda's Globular, is a globular cluster which belongs to the famous Andromeda Galaxy M31. It was discovered in 1953 by the astronomers Nicholas Mayall and Olin J. Eggen. G1 consists of at least 300'000 very old stars (one million according to other sources) and lies about 130'000 light years away from its mother galaxy M31 which is located at a distance of 2.36 million light years from Earth. From our perspective this globular cluster appears to lie outside M31: Its angular distance is 2.5 degrees from M31's central core. With an apparent magnitude of 13.7 it is the brightest known globular cluster beyond our galaxy. Its absolute magnitude is given as -10.9 mag which is approximately twice as bright as Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) in our Milky Way. G1 has a spectral type of G0 and a yellowish color index (B-V) of 0.84. CCD images made with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope showed that G1 is slightly elliptical with an axis ratio of 4:5. [st157, st183, si2]

and try to see more of the lanes in Andromeda.

Plenty of other targets, add your wish list to this topic.



U.S. Naval Observatory
Astronomical Applications Department

Sun and Moon Data for One Day

The following information is provided for Bristol (longitude W2.0, latitude N31.5):

Saturday
12 December 2009 Universal Time

SUN
Begin civil twilight 06:31
Sunrise 06:58
Sun transit 12:02
Sunset 17:06
End civil twilight 17:32

MOON
Moonset 13:25 on preceding day
Moonrise 03:06
Moon transit 08:36
Moonset 14:00
Moonrise 04:08 on following day



Phase of the Moon on 12 December: waning crescent with 16% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Last quarter Moon on 9 December 2009 at 00:14 Universal Time.

[JohnWillis]

NGC206 probably the largest star forming region in the local group.

Micro quiz
Who took the first photograph of Andromeda, when, and where, and why does our head of armchair observing probably (almost certainly) know the answer.

[JohnWillis]

Metcheck are more pessimistic now predicting 80% cloud.

Couldn't find finder charts for other globulars in Andromeda so decided to update Cartes Du Ciel which hasn't worked properly since upgrading the computer and installing Vista. Downloaded the V3 beta and will try the new catalogue.

This post has only had 7 views I must have used 4 of them so less people are using the forum than complained about it at the recent meeting. If you the only reader, please post a reply.

[JohnWillis]

37 asterism

ngc2169_20060315_5cfrm.jpg (31.11 KiB) Viewed 338 times

I thought I would try adding an attachment. Assuming it is visible, where can you find it?

We can see it on Saturday if Metcheck is wrong in its cloud predictions.

[JohnWillis]

Almaak Gamma Andromedae more or less as I remember the colours.

Gamma_Andromedae.jpg (20.96 KiB) Viewed 337 times

[JohnWillis]

Finder chart for G1
A blatant attempt to gain support for fixing C

g1_chart.gif (16.04 KiB) Viewed 337 times

yrils mirror

[JohnWillis]

Clear earlier but patchy cloud outside at 6:15 pm.
The Bristol weather site indicates cloud by 21:00
The IR satellite indicates cloud coming in from the north east.

No observing tonight.

The G1 finder chart came form http://deepsky.astroinfo.org/And/g1/index.en.php

[JohnWillis]

I found a detailed atlas of Andromeda last year, but forgot where I got it form, its http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/A ... rames.html
I will use it to start a thread in the observing forum "Targets for the 18"

John