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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Venus and the Seven Sisters meet

02 April 2012

Take a moment to look to the west this evening after sunset...and catch the Pleaides and the planet Venus in close conjunction.

Chicago skies look good for this event, so grab a scope or binoculars and enjoy this gathering...lest you wait 8 years for the next one.

[Centaur]

Thanks for the reminder, Joe. As you may recall, I provided a distant heads-up for this conjunction in a post here seven years ago. My how time flies! It’s also noted on my April astronomical calendar www.CurtRenz.com/calendar , which has not yet been posted on this message board. Enjoy the pretty sight!

The Subaru (Japanese for Pleiades) automobile logo seen below is a stylized version of Venus passing through the Pleiades. I strongly suspect that the ancient Sumerian relief seen further below depicts essentially the same event while astrologers counsel the king. Venus was an important part of Sumerian astrology. There is no need for farfetched explanations.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Catching the Venus & Plaides conjunction

02 April 2012

We were fortunate to have a clear sky to catch this rare celestial event. C.A Bill called to see if I would be free this evening. Making calls and adjusting the schedule - I was a go. C.A. Steve also joined us for this last minute observation session of the conjunction...

Steve and Bill setting up their near 4" tubes and I with the 90mm trusty refrsctor - which also serves as a finder scope for the C11 beast. Quickly setting up and using almost similar mounts, we anticipated our clear skies, which earlier threatened the outing.

Arriving at our private Chicago Astronomer site, we set up about 7:00 pm and set up our scopes. We all brought out our refractors, but I also carried along the 5" SCT Celestron scope. I feel no need to bring along the C11 for the big arc minute event...

The western sky was still pretty bright out as I started to capture the meeting of planet and stars. I found that the refractor is much more user friendly than the 5" SCT for imaging and most of the images here, were taken through it...

Starting out with a 56mm 2" eyepiece, I found that the 40mm was more comfortable and framed the event nicely. Bill's 32mm 70 degree wide field provided a great comfortable view - which made my eyepieces look like I was peering through a straw!....


But, we continue imaging the western event....

With longer exposures over 4 seconds, I was starting to get trails. With a quick polar alignment and switching on the tracking...this little mount carrying the 90mm refractor kept the images steady - even at 15 seconds exposure...

Although the conjunction was a beautiful sight to experience, there were a host of other targets to enjoy...

Slewing Moonway, I captured some quick and dirty pics while on my way to Mars...

Not too shabby for the limited aperture of the 90mm! I like the first Mars pic...floating in the vacuum of space.

Bill spotted Saturn down low in the east and it was worth taking a peek...

Jupiter was also available, but being so low now to the horizon...Jupiter is dead to me...

The trio of Astronomers spent 2 1/2 hours having a good time and self-indulgent - not attending to mass crowds or being cosmic instructors for the evening. Private solo session are too few in between for the Chicago Astronomers...but very much desired. I will try to schedule more in the near future for the crew. A very enjoyable time with friends an scopes...

[erikruud]

Yikes! This thread needs more carriage returns!

The way the pictures are posted in this thread, the page is three times the width of my widescreen monitor at 1680x1050!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Erik,

You are the second person to mention this - not just on this post, but the site in general.

Nothing different was done in the posting of the pics, place in a center position as usual. On both my laptops and tablet, the layout is sound. I'm wondering if other visitors of the Chicago Astronomer Forum are experiencing similar skewed pics?

What browser by chance are you using Erik?

[Centaur]

Apr 3, 2012 16:33:33 GMT -6 Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe said:

I'm wondering if other visitors of the Chicago Astronomer Forum are experiencing similar skewed pics?

Joe, for a post in this thread I see numerous squares labeled "This image or video has been moved or deleted - PhotoBucket". However, in the past many of your posts have resulted in pictures going far beyond the width of my 1680 pixel screen. That results in all of the posts in the "most recent posts" section similarly widened and requiring use of the horizontal scroller to read everything.

As my photography professor often stated, "Less is more", i.e. unrestrained editing is crucial - only display the very best or you'll lose the interest of the viewer. My late mother never learned that lesson, so my brothers and I now have many large cartons of photographs stashed away that no one will ever see again.

[atomant]

Hey Joe,

It was definitely a pleasant surprise to see the skies open up nicely to allow us to view this wondrous splendor: "Metallic star" aka Venus and Subaru.

Very sweet images captured by the understated Meade 90mm refractor.
I can see the slowly shrinking "teat" on Mars.
And that's more than just "ears" on Saturn, even in the muck.
Please do post your photos specs.
Especially the various frames of Venus caught in the act.

Every hardcore astronomer should have a nice contrasty wide field grab-n-go refractor in their arsenal.

Hope skies open up tomorrow for the final act.

By the way, the posting fit nicely in my netbook and iPhone. No prob here.

[erikruud]

Apr 3, 2012 16:33:33 GMT -6 Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe said:

Erik,

You are the second person to mention this - not just on this post, but the site in general.

Nothing different was done in the posting of the pics, place in a center position as usual. On both my laptops and tablet, the layout is sound. I'm wondering if other visitors of the Chicago Astronomer Forum are experiencing similar skewed pics?

What browser by chance are you using Erik?

It was more or less the same from Firefox 12 and IE 8.

Looking at it now from home it looks fine, which is slightly odd because it's the same laptop and browser. Sometimes thing behave weirdly at work due to all the layers of security.

Basically the photos were lining up horizontally, instead of vertically, between lines of text.

[erikruud]

Curiouser and curiouser. Before I made the last post, I could see the pictures fine. Not that I posted the reply, I am getting the Photobucket "This pictures has been moved or deleted" image.

[-=CROMAN=-]

Joe... I have the time when you are ready

[atomant]

Well, the winds were gusting over 20mph on the rooftop tonite.
Pulled out my 150mm f/5 newt on AT alt/az mount; was able to catch Venus in the act again just before the cloudy mess overran the skies.


1sec, iso800, 750mm

Here's another look before the soupy mess.

2sec, iso640, 750mm

Hoping for one more try tomorrow!

[magic612]

I haven't had any issues viewing the pictures Joe. I'm using Google Chrome, if that helps.

[Paulie pchris00]

Nice pics, guys. Thanks for posting them so I could vicariously see this. Overslept Monday night. When I left for work, I pulled out my finder scope (it was a little more accessible for quick use than my binoculars). This was around 10:30 PM, the sky was becoming overcast, and Venus/Suburu was deep in the muck. I could catch a brief glimpse of a few of the Sisters, but not like the pics above. It was disappointing, to say the least. Last Wednesday from Valpo's Central Park Plaza, I was able to catch the pair through my finder scope once they had dropped out of the immediate glare of the surrounding streetlights.

And the pictures are showing up just fine on Chrome.

Curt, any idea where that old thread on Venus and the Pleiades is? I remember reading it once upon a time. I'll have a look around again for it.

[patrickm]

NICE pics. Thanks for posting. I miss astronomy.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I too use Chrome, almost exclusively.

Dang Curt...seven years ago! Very cool.

I may do some solo observing outside of the garage this night as well.

[erikruud]

Just testing something.



i46.photobucket.com/albums/f101/chicagoastronomer/Astronomical/Observation%20Sessions/2012/April 02/024.jpg[/IMG]

i46.photobucket.com/albums/f101/chicagoastronomer/Astronomical/Observation Sessions/2012/April 02/024.jpg[/IMG]

Ok, It is somehow related to the spaces in the file names. Standard URL encoding allows using a %20 to represent a space. The problem is coming from the file folder name "April 02", which ends up looking like April%2002. I am guessing the Firefox is seeing the %2002 as something other than a space followed by a zero and a two.

The first image link in this post does not display for me, but the other two do. The do not have the %20 coded in the April 03 folder name.



---------------------------

(To add on to Erik's test...

Perhaps, Proboards/Photobuket does not like the "02". There have been time in the past where an underscore in the pic name would slap up a "Unavailable" graphic from Photobucket.


Hmmmm.....

Do let me know when this or other hiccups occur again. )

[atomant]

From a rooftop in the very very Windy City, I was able to catch Venus in the final act pulling away from Pleiades.
Tonite, I chose the 120mm f/5 refractor for a wider frame, mounted on grab-n-go alt/az mount.


1.6sec, iso800, 600mm

Onward to the transit!

[tomlee]

I thought I missed out on this totally but why not give it a try since Bill is still doing it and I wish I have time to take one with a telescope. This one is all DSLR, most of Taurus, entire Pleiades and Venus.

The light bar is an aircraft making a streak of light and the 4 dots on each side are from the blinking lights.


IMG_0002 by t m l, on Flickr

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Tom,

I dig your pic.

But, how come Venus is displaying differential spikes...something akin to Newtonians and the secondary holder vanes?

[tomlee]

Apr 5, 2012 2:43:00 GMT -6 Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe said:

Tom,
. . . how come Venus is displaying differential spikes...something akin to Newtonians and the secondary holder vanes?

Thanks Joe, that's not exclusive to Newtonians or holders though as anytime you put a cross object in front of the lens it tends to create one, more or less severe. Mine was created by using a filter which soften images by etching criss cross lines on it and that also give the spike effect. The effect can be controlled by rotating the filter. Hence, it's also called a "star filter", how appropriate to use it for astrophotography ;D.

The idea behind it was not really to create cross/star effect (luckily it turns out ok-nice). I used it to soften the brightness (plus some disguising to deceive viewers) on Venus so to bring the dynamic range of the lights from Venus and stars across the field closer. Otherwise it would be worse than now and either would not even have any faint dots or Venus would get washed out quite badly.

The streak just happened and it doesn't bother me enough to get rid of it.

[Mark Ross]

I had never heard of the subaru logo being the Pleiades before. A little googling shows this to be the case though.

Here is a typical explanation: www.worldcarfans.com/10603087580/subarus-six-star-badge

Live and learn.

[Paulie pchris00]

Those are both awesome images, and I caught the same thing Wednesday night.

Tom, yours particularly is publication worthy. Can you perhaps manipulate it a little to bring out the Pleiades more? It's a great shot to submit to "Astronomy" or "Sky & Telescope" magazines. It would be great to see either of them publish a shot from Chicago, and help dispel the idea that urban astronomy is not worth the effort.

[tomlee]

Apr 6, 2012 6:44:02 GMT -6 Paulie pchris00 said:

Those are both awesome images, and I caught the same thing Wednesday night.

Tom, yours particularly is publication worthy. Can you perhaps manipulate it a little to bring out the Pleiades more? It's a great shot to submit to "Astronomy" or "Sky & Telescope" magazines. It would be great to see either of them publish a shot from Chicago, and help dispel the idea that urban astronomy is not worth the effort.

Thanks Paulie, I did try already and there ain't much more of it. Then, the thing is that I don't think the shot is all that worthy for anything, be it technical, informaitonal, illustrative or aesthetic. May be in the unlikely event that a publisher or editor actually like the photo as a whole, may be as a documentary, just may be. With that said however, I am taking your advise and will do more of this type to see if any of them will be a good match for some editorial pieces. If you want to do any project and can use some illustrative photos just let me know.