The Spectre of the iPhone Spectroscope

UPDATE: Feb 27th 2016 I have got them calibrated now. The iPhone6 version calibration is still a bit rough. Lining up on the Helium Lines seems to produce the best results. The camera response is markedly different for the iPhone over the Cannon 550D. Now that I know what we are looking at here, next time I image I can make sure I get the image in a bit better focus. I have also found a way to reduce camera shake by delaying the shutter open until 3 secs after you press the shutter button. Whilst you can see visually the same lines, when extracted using Visual Spec the camera response seems a bit different.

UPDATE: Feb 22nd 2016 Well here is the comparison - again I am still very new at this and am still learning how to properly calibrate the specturm.

Colour, the final frontier. Of course if you want to be a "real astronomer" the visible spectrum is only a small part of the story. Much of our knowledge of astronomy comes from spectra and radio astronomy.

At the 2014 NACAA Conference I was drooling over Ken Harrison's amazing Spectroscopes after his talk and made the comment, it would seem so unfair to buy one off the shelf without going through the pain [Learning Experience] of trying to build one myself. So true to my word I had a go at the basic process of "getting colour".

I wasn't too concerned at this stage about quality, just some rational experimentation with the process to gain a deeper understanding. So I went off to the local hardware and bought a few bits and pieces and broke up a cd (carefully) and peeled the film back. At this stage it was unclear to me whether Barry Manilow CDs or Justin Beiber CDs would provide the best high or low resolution diffraction grating. Carefully pulling apart a three blade razor and using two of them to create a slit, challenged my dexterity. After tinkering away for a couple of sessions over a few weeks, I managed to come up with this monstrosity. Splits the light, can see colour, but probably absolutely useless for real science, but fun to play with and demonstrates the principle of a spectroscope well.

The first place to start this journey is with Ken Harrison's book Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs. It is well written but looks quite daunting when you first pick it up. However if you work through it bit by bit, its a great book with everything you need to know.

Feeling a little more confident, I invested in the next logical step - a Star Analyser 100. This is the entry level standard for beginners, and produces fine results as we'll see.

After passing it around the family to have a look at the cool effects looking at the ceiling lights, I lost the plot and departed from Ken's careful, meticulously presented steps, with the outrageous thought - I wonder how this baby would go on an iPhone! I am constantly amazing at STEM events and star parties how the "younglings" immediately are so amazed by what they see through the eyepiece they want to whip out the smartphone and take an image home with them.

Surely it couldn't possibly work. After all the iPhone 6 sensor is only 4.8mm by 3.6mm, it has a focal length of 29mm and is f2.2. But its an 8M pixel camera (said my evil twin subconscious), your Fingerlakes PL11000M is only 11M pixels so its only 3000 less pixels, how bad could it be....hang-on whats the pixel size ...ah 1.5um versus 9um, interesting. So the sensor is 3264 x 2448, interesting ..... iPhones do take good photos......on a sunny day.....not in the night sky. This went on for a while!

So in the end there was nothing else to do but try it, and learn from your spectacular mistakes!

The next problem was how do I keep the shutter of the iPhone open for long enough to take star photos on a guided telescope - this is not the moon, a great iPhone target normally, but with the standard phone settings thats all the iPhone seemed good for. So channeling my teenagers I thought, there must be an app for that. To my amazement I could not only find one, there was a choice of several apps and 645 Pro could even do it with an Kodak Ektrachrome 64 film "feel to it". NOTE: to those born after the 90's, can you imagine only getting 36 images on one roll of film and not being able "to delete the bad ones" until after you had paid $25 and sent it off to the developers and had it returned to your letter box. In those days the lens ONLY pointed away from you - THE HORROR! Anyway I digress. 645 Pro basically turns your iPhone into a simulated DSLR and enters the workflow of the photography before any JPEG compression. You can set ISO and shutter speed, bracket exposures do all sorts of things that you can do on a DSLR.

With my trusty new app, my camera adapter, my star analyser, a 25mm eyepiece, I was ready for action.

I started on Canopus, after the bright star align was completed, but was more interested in Betelgeuse. After slewing and removing the eyepiece and inserting my newly built contraption, I was sure it was the world's first ultra-low resolution Spectroscope. A quick google search showed I was in fact two years behind the times. However to my amazement I had colour and with some detail, I got "lines" as well. I messed around trying different settings and moved over to Betelgeuse and took some more and put the 2 x barlow in front of the Cannon 550D and tried that for comparison purposes. (See image - top of page)

As an experienced "normal" (although I know you are wondering by now how "normal" that is) astrophotographer I was keen not to overexpose the image - Hmmmm - I have no idea what the well depth of an iPhone sensor is, lets just take as many as we can and see how we go.

I must say the results amazed me. Punching the air in victory, my evil sub-conscious dredged up an "I am invincible" [from the Bond film Golden Eye].

By now it was approaching midnight, and quietly tiptoeing around my back yard I packed up the telescope and headed inside. Damn ... I was so excited, I forgot to change the camera settings to save in dRAW/TIFF - back to the drawing board! Well at least I have some nice completely useless JPGs, but what an exercise that was, one I know I will be able to use again and again.

Asteroid 2016 BE Virtual Impactor for now in 2053

UPDATE 31/1/2016: The 2053 pass has been eliminated as a risk. There are still 5 virtual impacts from 2076 - 2111. These will also likely be removed as the precision of the orbit is improved.

Tonight, tracking potential virtual impactor Asteroid 2016 BE. Its a 79m wide Asteroid discovered on Jan 16th by the Catalina Sky Survey(703).

78 positions have so far been reported from 18 different observatories, including both H06 and I89, the iTelescope.net observatories. I managed to grab another 3 positions tonight. The asteroid is starting to speed up (in terms of relative velocity against the background stars) and tonight is moving quite quickly at 19 Arcsecs per minute. As a result of the fairly bright magnitude and the fast speed, you need to take as short an exposure time as possible. However the full moon is still pretty bright I had to use 30 sec images which means the asteroid is still slightly streaked. I have used a stacking technique to make sure my residuals are still reasonably good (given it is travelling at fairly high speed).

So what actually is a "Virtual Impactor". As asteroids are tracked the length of the recorded "arc" increases - now 10 days for 2016 BE. Of course the level of precision for future positions of the asteroid increases the longer the "known arc" and therefore the ability to determine future positions of the asteroid improves as the "zone of uncertainty" reduces. As long as the "zone of uncertainty" overlaps the earth's future orbit position, the object is listed as a virtual impactor for that pass. This happens from time to time without much concern, because as the precision of the orbit improves with more observations, the object usually drops out of the risk table quite quickly.

Whilst the asteroid will make a moderately close pass in the first week of February at 5.7 Lunar distances, its important to understand that the "virtual impact" currently listed in the Sentry Risk Table is for the 3rd February 2053 .... NOT ON THIS PASS!!!! As you would expect the "zone of uncertainty" for 2053 is much large than the "zone of uncertainty" for next week. So it will take many further observations before it is (most likely) removed from the risk table. Its current risk table score of Torino-0 just means that at this point the chance of a collision in 2053 has not been able to be eliminated at this stage.

Measured position:

K16B00E KC2016 01 28.46044 12 04 01.15 +65 50 49.0 16.9 R H06

K16B00E KC2016 01 28.46319 12 04 09.44 +65 49 54.8 17.3 R H06

K16B00E KC2016 01 28.46604 12 04 18.01 +65 48 58.7 17.4 R H06

Asteroid 2015 TB145 (PHA) close and bright flyby Oct 31

UPDATE: Oct 31st, 2015. Live coverage of Asteroid 2015 TB145.

Image Credit: P.Lake 10 Sec image from U69 T24 - travelling at 115 arc"/m at PA 35.4 07:00 UT (Available for media use with attribution to this blog)

Compare the two images - Above a 10 sec image, Below a two minute image which was stacked for movement of the asteroid.

UPDATE: Oct 31st, 2015 - From the NASA Press release this morning the amazing radar images have shown a dark dead comet,(and I am not making this up) looks not unlike a skull. The radar run went well getting down to a resolution of 7 meters per pixel. Its interesting those depressed areas are likely impact craters or collapsed areas from which the jets emerged when the comet was active. Recent studies of 67P by Rosetta have shown collapsed areas on Comet 67P where jets seem to originate from. This comet has been long dead, some studies have already been done to check for past meteor showers originating from its orbit - see the post on the SETI Institute Blog. Also from the press realease: "NASA values the work of numerous highly skilled amateur astronomers, whose accurate observational data helps improve asteroid orbits....". I hope to have more images tonight (weather permitting) - stay tuned.

Image credit: NAIC-Arecibo/NSF

UPDATE: Oct 27th, 2015 - Great set of images last night in the pre-dawn sky from New Mexico. The asteroid has brightened to Mag 15.8 and its apparent speed across the sky is starting to increase as it gets closer. [Also I should probably point out the faint halo you may be able to see is due to the strong moonlight reflecting off some dust on the primary mirror - the full moon was only 36 degrees away]

UPDATE: Oct 24th, 2015 - Finally got some images. The asteroid has brightened considerably to Mag 16.8/9 ish. No signs of cometary activity at this point. Its moving at 0.39arc"/m in a 120 sec image (so 0.78arc" in the image)and the pixel plate scale is 0.53 arc"/pixel so you can see a hint of softness on the trailing side. Definitly no cometary activity though - that's as close as I can go to getting it as sharp as you can get it.

Image Credit: P.Lake 2015 TB145 9x120 secs on the 0.7m Burnell, Cannon, Leavitt Telescope (BCL) T27 at Q62, SSO.

UPDATE: Oct 22nd, 2015 - Getting frustrated, the observatory has been closed due to bad weather for 4 nights.

UPDATE: Oct 17th, 2015 - NASA have updated details of the planned radar runs and expect to be able to get images with a resolution of 2 meters per pixel, they expect it to be the best radar run of the year. Also one other interesting aspect is the Tisserand parameter has been calculated at 2.937 which is just lower than the theoretical "boundary" (of 3.0) between Asteroid and Jupiter Family Comets. The other target of a radar run on 29th is 2009 FD, a well studied Apollo Asteroid, has a Tisserand parameter of 5.295. The seeing was a bit poor on the 14th so the image wasn't strong enough. The relative speed (across the camera chip) will slow to only 0.17 arc"/min on the 19th so I'll be able to stack the images really deep and get a good look at it. If the seeing is better tonight we might even get some more detail. I did look a bit fuzzy the other night but as you can see in the video the satellite that trailed through was very fuzzy as well - so I'm not reading to much into that at the moment.

Image/Video Credit: 2015 TB145 from H06, 12 x 180 sec exp stacked 4x3, 0.5m Planewave October 14th - P.Lake

A couple of times a year, the asteroid surveys throw up a surprise, with a large asteroid approaching very close to the Earth, with little advance notice. After last week's blog post about the Blogsphere overeacting to an Asteroid that astronomers knew about for 15 years passing at 65 Lunar Distances (LD), the "surprise" of course had to happen this week.

This will be an interesting two weeks, as Asteroid 2015 TB145 will cruise by Earth just outside 1 Lunar distance (1.3 LD). The asteroid is a target of the Arecibo Observatory (that big antenna that rose out of the lake in the majestic James Bond scene), and to get some really great radar tracking and detailed images, the ephemeris and position of the asteroid needs very high precision.

To give you an idea of the type of imaging to be obtained (see below), a similar situation occured last year for 2014 HQ124. These were some of the best radar images ever recorded, and some of my data was used to refine the orbit for targeting on that occasion.

Image Credit: Asteroid 2014 HQ124 Radar images from Goldstone - NASA/JPL

This asteroid is twice as big (between 290 and 650 meters diameter - most astronomers are calling it about 480m) and twice as close as 2014 HQ124, so you can only imagine how good the images should be. Professional Observatories and amateur astronomers will be tracking it closely to improve the precision of the orbit as it approaches.

I was quite chuffed when tracking 2014 HQ124 that my light curve had a few bumps in it and I made the call it was "not round" which was subsequently confirmed by the radar images.

So who knows what the next two weeks will turn up? What we know at this stage is that is going to be quite bright and could be visible in binoculars. Also its speed is very fast, but its moving slowly across the images at the moment as you can see, because of the angle its approaching us at. As it makes its close approach its going to do a nice "flyby" of the Crab Nebula M1 for Northern Hemisphere viewers on Oct 29th/30th Ian Musgrave has details on his blog shortly.

So stay tuned, I'll be following it closely and providing some regular updates.

Media "crying wolf" about Asteroid (86666) 2000 FL10 !

No, this is not a "surprise", has not been "just announced", is not a "near miss", is not a "shock". [Update 14th Oct: 2015 TB145 might have been worthy of that title but not 86666] However it is interesting due to its size ...... so lets have a sensible discussion.

As someone who is corporately qualified in Management of Risk (MoR) Framework, I fully appreciate the risk assessment process and freely admit to being constantly fascinated by applying this to my asteroid work. NASA and the other Space Agencies do this very well also. Last year at the Planetary Defence conference in Frascati, Italy, the key stakeholders in Asteroid research gathered for a conference that role-played an impending impact event, which everyone hopes will never be required. So there is a good deal of risk management going on.

So lets be controversial for a minute. Catastrophic climate change is a basket of risk that MUST include ALL the risks, not just the ones designed to shut down the coal industry. If a "continent cracking" asteroid were to hit earth, there would be alot of cranky people retrospectively assessing whether we spent too much on the wrong risk. In 2011, a 10m tsunami washed away a good portion of the coast of Japan triggered by one of the other big risks, catastrophic tectonic plate shift. An asteroid strike would create much more widespread damage and much larger tsunamis.

So how do asteroids fit in this risk picture and how did this all start?

In 1989, the asteroid now known as Ascelpius (4581) 1989 FC, occupied the same point in space that earth occupied 6 hours hours later, astronomers found this out 3 days AFTER it had passed. That was a close call! At 300m diameter it would have created enormous damage if it had hit. That was a surprise, that was a shock and immediate action followed. NASA/JPL began a 10 year mission to find 90% of all known asteroids by the end of the next decade. Whilst an awarness of the asteroid belt existed, after all (29075) 1950 DA was already a known risk and still occupies the number 1 position on the Sentry Risk table to this day. One of the major discoveries which was also unexpected was the amount of asteroids found in the range of 100m to 1Klm diameter. The Sentry Risk Table is now maintained by the NASA/JPL and tracks potential collisions there are 575 entries in the table.

Today there are 693000 known asteroids, 13000 of which are Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), 17 of which have been discovered this month. So the risk is there, and after a decade of research, the scale of the risk had been under estimated.

Potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are asteroids that come within 0.05 AU, or 5% of the earth-sun distance, and are greater than 100m diameter. The theoritcal "simple atmospheric physics" suggests that anything less than 80m diameter should "mostly" burn up in the atmosphere. However after the widespread damage caused by the Chelyabinsk Meteorite in Russia in 2013, which is thought to have been about 15-20m diameter, this threshold is now being re-assessed.

Its a fine line between education about risk, and overstating the risk of a particular event. Whilst each close pass can be used to build understanding of the risk and rally resources towards the efforts required to quantify the risk - its difficult.

Enter the modern media - recently distrupted by internet technology which fundamentally changed their engagement models and revenue streams. Often the journalists put up a sensational headline to get the click through to an article, which once you get past the headline, isn't quite so bad. This week we have seen a combination of these issues around Asteroid (86666) 2000 FL10. Now we also have the "Doomsday Preppers" and end of the world and conspiracy bloggers weighing in, with their own exaggerations and at times outright mis-information. What drives their interest in all this?

Escatological bible students have long been aware of a passage in Revelation of St John's vision of a "star falling from heaven and consuming a 1/3 of the land, sea and rivers", this star is given the name Wormwood. Learmonth Observatory has a Project Wormwood which is loosely derived from that text. However the leap to "number of his name (666)" later in Revelation and tying it to this asteroid, its beyond ridiculous, even for bible scholars. It is interesting however, that culturally, this is what drives the interest of "end-timers" and "doomsday preppers" in asteroids that come near the earth.

If only they could use their internet skills to actually help and track the asteroids through one of the many citizen science projects.

So that brings us back to "crying wolf". Asoep's famous fable (at least in western culture) about the shepherd boy who "cried wolf" when he got bored and wanted to see some action. The town's people would come running out to come and investigate and found no risk to the flock. After a while people began to ignore him and the inevitable happened, a real wolf showed up.

The questions the media should be asking:
1) what is being done to further research the apparent "cluster" of large asteroids coming inside the earth-moon distance [1 Lunar distance (LD)] between 2026 and 2030
2) What is being done to research the number of >300m near earth asteroids listed as "Lost"

There are many good things happening in asteroid research. Professional scientists are investing in new surveys, Panstarrs Survey is now fully operational. Amateur Astronomers regularly collaborate with professionals and do amazing follow up work. The gap in the southern sky above 30 degrees south declination left by the closure of the E12 Survey at Siding Spring has been picked up by, Panstarrs reaching further south, a repurposing of the WISE Space telescope, the Sonear Observatory in Brazil, the new ISON-South telescope, and the amateur astronomers who use iTelescope.net's Siding Spring Observatory telescopes.

So let's not cry wolf, let's educate and understand, let's progress our knowledge and support the effort to protect our home by getting positively involved. I am certain there will be more than one "end of the world" party on Friday April 13th 2029 when asteroid Apophis (2nd on the Sentry Risk Table) misses Earth by about 200 thousand kilometers and streaks across the sky as a naked eye object. You will be able to pull out the deck chair and pop the bubbly, safe in the knowledge that scientists that you funded have done the math, and you'll be able to relax and enjoy the spectacle.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4531

https://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-data-hunter-challenge-0

http://www.asteroidmission.org/get-involved/target-asteroids/

Australian Science Week - its a wrap!

Science week this year went to a whole new level in Australia. Following the lead from Prof Ian Chubb's STEM Strategy white paper, people really rolled their sleeves up and exceeded all expectations - and claimed two world records!

On Aug 12th, I was in Canberra for work and snuck out in the evening to catch the Science in the Pub sponsored by the ANU and the Australian - American co-operation through the US Embassy. The session was led by Prof Brian Schmidt (ANU), Dr Alan Duffy (Swinburne) and Glen Nagle (CSIRO/ANTF). An amazing session debriefing all the latest data from the NASA New Horizons, Pluto mission. If you had told planetary scientists only 6 weeks ago there was frozen nitrogen glaciers filling in old craters on Pluto, it would have been beyond their wildest dreams, yet that is exactly what they have found.

Friday 21st Aug The ANU/RSAA Stargazing night smashed two world record's for single-site and multiple-site observers with telescopes observing the night sky for 10 consecutive minutes. We were all a bit nervous about the weather, but the clouds cleared out just in time to ensure the night was a great success and everyone had a great time observing some fantastic sights through the larger telescopes. 76 people from the school community and nearby residents came out for one of the many local Melbourne sites at Norwood Secondary College in Ringwood. My trusty 14inch dobbie (dobsonian) was a hit, with people stunned and amazed looking at individual craters on the moons and counting the moons of Saturn which could be seen beyond the glare of the magnificent rings.

Mt Stromlo observatory in Canberra smashed the single-site Guinness Book of Record with a massive turnout of 1800 observers. The tally for the multi-site is still being finalized but was believed to have been over 10,000 people around the country. Once official it should easily eclipse the previous record of 3006 set in April 2013 in Mexico. Go Aussie!

Saturday 22nd Aug was a great night as well. The Scienceworks' Festival of Astronomy and Light opened up Scienceworks into the evening and I took the dobbie along again as one of the astronomers providing telescopes for viewing by the general public. Its amazing to watch kids who have never seen a telescope before walk up to one and try and work out which end/lens/mirror to look through. All are completely amazed at whats going on with all the lens and mirrors and when they see a crater on the moon as big as Tasmania it just blows them away. I have often described Astronomy as the "cupid's arrow of science", because of the emotional impact on people the first time they see the rings of Saturn or the craters of the moon. [That's original you have to quote me ;-) ]

As a veteran of many starparties it takes a bit to impress me, however I was not to be disappointed ........ a WORKING Tile from the Murchison Array had me fan-boying with selfies. It was sitting there on the grass collecting signals from the universe quite happily. Some 128 of these tiles currently form the Murchison Array, and will be a key part of the Square Kilometer Array that will put Australia at the forefront Astronomy research. If your dream is to win the nobel prize for Astrophysicis - Get into astronomy, go to the ANU or Curtain Uni in WA, and get onto the SKA (once built) and start data mining!!!!

Image: Selfie with "Popup Radio Telescope" - one tile of the Murchison Array actually working at Scienceworks.

What better way to wind up the week on 23rd Aug with some actual science supporting NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission working with University of Arizona's Citizen Science Project - Target Asteroids. Laneway Learning, a novel idea that started as a way to increase traffic to a little coffee shop called the Little Mule Cafe (in a dead end laneway), has now gone global due to its outstanding success. Laneway Learning run eccentric little classes on just about anything to promote community engagement and sharing of ideas. I have run three "Asteroid Hunting" classes and become a regular at their Sunday Science Spectacular during Science Week.

Over a couple of hours about 10-20 people helped classify and record the photometry of asteroid Magellan, an analog of asteroid Bennu, the target of the 2018 OSIRIS-REx NASA New Horizons Mission. Asteroid Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid and 3rd on the Sentry Risk Table that requires careful watching by amateur and professional astronomers alike. Bennu is a 492m asteroid that (at this stage) will pass at about 1/3 the distance to the moon in 2182. Saving the lives of your great grandchildren on a Sunday afternoon during science week - what could be better than that!

This is a photo of my little booth at Captain Melville's for the Sunday Science Spectacular.

All in all a great effort, thanks to Norwwod Secondary College, Mount Burnett Observatory, Scienceworks, Captain Melville's and Laneway Learning for putting up with me enthusiastically waving my arms about and carting large telescopes, screens and computers around.

Asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 close approach on Australia Day

UPDATE: 09:30pm Local Time. The weather is not good, the sky has cleared but the Humidity is up to 88% from 87% in the past 10 mins. So the observatory can't open yet!!! Need a nice gust of drier air from the south ;-)

Its been a big month for comets but today all eyes turn to the monster asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 which makes its closest approach to earth this decade.

Its not every day you get a binocular visible asteroid streak across the night sky. 2004 BL86 has been approaching from the south and has been tracked this week at -71 degrees declination where it was Magnitude 17 and will brighten tonight and in the early morning to magnitude 9 as it passes near Jupiter and Sirius.

I captured the approaching asteroid for the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids Mission and collected some astrometry and photometry on Jan 19th.

120 Sec image on T27 at 0.53 arsec/pixel Jan 19th 2015 (c) P.Lake

Again on the 25th of January, one day out, you can see that it is speeding up and travelling very fast with reference to the background stars. You can see the asteroid streaked in this 30 sec image.

30 Sec image on T12 at 3.5 arcsecs/pixel Jan 25th 2015 (c) P.Lake

I will be obtaining further data tonight (weather permitting) just before its closest approach at 3 lunar distances. It will be travelling at 160 arcsecs per minute at closest approach around 2am. I won't be up that late. I will upload an animation of the footage compiled into a nice video of its approach.

iTelescope.net Live Hangout from SSO

In a live G+ Hangout, Pamela Gay joins us at iTelescope.net for a live broadcast from Siding Spring Observatory on the day of the official opening of iTelescope.net. Amanda Bauer drops in for a chat. Peter Lake and Neil Shaw share their passion for astronomy.

The expert panel, Amanda Bauer, Pamela Gay and Neil Shaw.

Asteroid 2014 RC Live coverage

Update: Three pane comparision of "relative" speed across the CCD.

Update 1430 UT (12:40 am Local time) I am off to bed now as the weather is closing in. The scope will grab a few more images around the closest approach at which time it will be a long streak right across the image. I'll have some more images and some mosaics and video uploaded tomorrow. Thanks for following the action.

Update 13:35 - Starting to motor now ..... 191 arcsecs per minute. Starting to brighten up now as well. Next shot at 14:00 UT or Midnight local time, where it will be absolutely flying at 214 arsecs per minute.

Update 12:45 UT Travelling at 177 Arcsecs per minute now. Including Animation!

Update 11:30UT (09:30pm Local) Really starting to pick up speed now travelling at 97 arcsecs per minute. I'll have an animation of this one shortly and a video eventually. Check back regularly as I am updating the images quickly now each 30-40 mins.

Update 10:35UT - Another 30 Sec image you can see the "streak" of the 30 seconds of movement getting longer as it covers more sky in each 30 sec frame. Travelling here at 87 Arcsecs per minute.

Update 10PM local time: Here is the first image, this is about 2 hours back now. I'll punch them out a little quicker now. This was at 10:00 UT or 8:pm Local time. You can see the moon is seriously messing with this image but we still managed to get it. There was some thin cloud drifting through as well. More soon.

Update: 09:30pm Local time 11:29 UT. It Looks like daylight under that nearly full moon at Siding Spring. The telescope I am using is front right in this image. Its going to be a tough get only 20 degrees away from the full moon.

Asteroid 2014 RC was discovered on the 31st of August by the Catalina Sky Survey and the Panstarrs Survey on consequtive nights. The Minor Planet center took a day or so to collate the observations and confirm they were the same object, publishing the MPEC 2014 R26 on September 3rd.

It was clear from the outset that this 15-26m object was going to make a very close pass, and tonight as Daniel Ricciardo lines up on the grid in the Italian Grand Prix, the asteroid will make a very close pass at 40,000 klms over Australia and New Zealand. It is thought to be about the same size as the Chelyabinsk meteorite.

Its Father's Day here and I have had a great day, and all the teenagers have retreated to work on their STEM elements of their education. So whilst Daniel Ricciardo battles it out with the William's boys I'll be drive another advanced piece of technology, targeting something travelling MUCH, MUCH, FASTER!!!!

The first set of images are in an will be posted shortly.

The aim is to show the rapid "apparent acceleration" as it whizzes past earth. Of course the speed of the asteroid doesn't change, just its apparent relative velocity appears to increase as it passes (like watching a car travelling at 100 klms per hour approach from a distance)

Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko - First amateur images 2014

As the European Space Agency's Rosetta Mission ramps up in a busy week of astronomy, Observatory W96 and Observers A. Maury, J.-G Bosch, J.-F. Soulier were the first amateurs to report positions of 69P (this apparition) to the MPC. Amateur images of Comet 67P have also been acquired by the Professional-Amateur Collaboration in Astronomy (PACA) for comet 67P led by Dr Padma Yanamandra-Fisher in partnership with Amateur Astronmers. The PACA group uses social media to connect amateur and professional astronomers to provide observation follow-up, monitoring and collaboration on science missions.

Comet 67P is about to be visited by the Rosetta Probe and ESA released their first photos, 2 weeks ago, of the comet starting to come to life as it heads on in towards the sun. The Rosetta mission is to follow the comet round the sun during the part of its orbit where the ices and dusts begin to discharge and form the tail. In november 2014, Rosetta will deliver a landed named Philae that will touch down on the nucleus of the comet to sample the particles as they become active.

Pictured here at a very faint magnitude 21.2 you can see Comet 67P, and the position of the Rosetta spacecraft is also marked (even though it is way too faint to see). ESA this week began a number of engine burns to slow the spacecraft as it approaches the comet.

The star field is quite crowded, and one of the most interesting parts of the video is the amount of "traffic" in this part of the sky. There were about 6 clearly identifiable asteroids in the full field of view, I have labelled a couple of the closer ones for reference. One asteroid in the field of view caught my eye as it seemed to dip in brightness, so it has been noted for further follow up as it approaches opposition in July.

Capturing the comet at such a faint magnitude required a deep "stacking" of images to account for the movement of the comet. "Stacking" is a process used to add a number of images together to improve the signal to noise ratio of the target. The comet was travelling so slowly relative to our point of view that I was able to resolve it with 12x300 second images. These images were then stacked in three groups of 4 at the movement of the comet - 0.16arc"/min at a position angle of 226 degrees. My images were quickly followed up by Rolando Ligustri, Bacci Paolo Backman. The astrometry (positional information) was included in MPEC 2014-K54

Previously in 2012, amateurs using the the Faulkes Telescopes had photographed 67P at aphelion (its furtherest point from the sun), also a remarkable effort!. In January 2014 the large telescopes in Chile, European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) recovered 67P and have been following it regularly, this was the first occasion that amateurs had obtained images on this apparition.

For more information about the program check out the Year of Southern Comets article at iTelescop.net. PACA has a Facebook and Flikr group for members and a website under construction, it is open to any amateur astronomers who have their own telescope, are familiar with photometry and astrometry, are members of iTelescope.net, or have access to other telescope facilities and are prepared to work as a team on the science effort.

The Rosetta Spacecraft was named after the Rosetta Stone which assisted historians and archeologists decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, scientists hope that in the same way the data gathered will assist in our understanding of the early solar system.

#GRBm31 a teaching moment in the internet of things

Any doubts that the Internet of Things had arrived these were dispelled in an instant today. The Swift space telescope, the senitnel for detecting Gamma Ray Bursts raised an alert on the Gamma Ray Co-Ordinates Network, and slewed to the target to begin imaging. Astronomers around the world scrambled for their personal devices, re-tweeting their excitement, rallying the observational firepower available to image a tiny area in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

Image Credit: Swift Spacecraft, computer generated drawing. NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonet.

#GRBm31 surged to the very top of Twitter's trending list and the "lightcurve" of social media activity almost matched the supposed outburst of Gamma rays or Ultra Luminous X-rays (ULX) heading our way. [See Scott Manley's amusing tweet.] The whole event of course prompted the usual round of "milli-second humor" and hilarious tweets. Like: "What, something in a galaxy far, far away just blew up" and the usual round of deathstar references and starwars humor.

What happened will be discussed energetically over the next weeks, but it appears it was what the IT Industry would call a false positive, but not necessarily a bad thing.

Social media and the Internet of Things (IP devices intelligently wired to elevate raw data to the status of information, knowledge and wisdom that can be acted on) has the benefit of the instantaneous alert. However these alerts require context and verification. In this case scientists around the world rallied to verify the result using their standard methods and found a perfectly logical and rational reason as to why the alert was triggered, but there was no GRB or ULX event. The science team for the LIGO Gravity Wave detector, which was was offline for an upgrade, were relieved they hadn't missed anything.

What we actually had was a great teaching moment.SpaceI09 Blog was quick out of the blocks with a brilliant article on GRBs and what was happening. Science as always requires confirmation of results and over the next few hours alot of effort and comparison of results identified that a known Xray source had popped up above a detection threshold, possibly due to a nearby "hot pixel" in the image.

Nick Howes from the Faulkes Telescope Project suggested on Twitter "the neat thing about it was now lots more people know about GRBs an ULXs", and I certainly concur.

The lesson here is that instantaneous alerts come with their own set of risks, but if the communication flow is well managed and carefully explained to everyone, a situation like this can be a great opportunity to build a broader awareness of what has transpired.

Image Credit: P.Lake 300 Sec Luminance of the area in M31 concerning the alert.

Essentially an alert was triggered in the area between the two marked stars.

Of course there are the naysayers who have instant opinions as well and criticise organisations like NASA in situations like this. If a very bright GRB had gone off in Andromeda, astronomers would have years of data laid down for research over the coming years that would have had very broad implications particularly in gravity waves, neutron stars and black hole research. If it had gone off in our galaxy it would have been very, very serious situation indeed.

There will be a round of investigations and review and the process of teasing out the knowledge and wisdom derived from the raw data and the alert process will be better for it.

Asteroid Polana appulses Mag 16 Star

IMAGE CREDIT: P.Lake H06 T11 - Asteroid Polana appulses 16th magnitude star

The Target Asteroids mission continues strongly, plotting the albedo vs phase function for asteroids that are analogs of Bennu or likely future sample-return mission targets.

It has produced some great science, leverged the skills of the amateur community, and resulted in a trip to the White House by one of the lead scientists.

Along the way it has produced some great little unexpected moments of interest. You will recall one of my previous videos where Asteroid 2010 AF30 disappeared in front of a Magnitude 12 star for near 12 minutes.

IMAGE CREDIT: P.Lake Q62

Chasing 2010 produced a new discovery as well. 2013 PJ40, now recovered in 4 previous oppositions by careful study of catalog images, the provisional designation has held up as it was only captured on one night by the survey observatories.

IMAGE CREDIT: P.Lake Q62

So the Target Asteroid Mission has bought great personal satisfaction as well as making a significant contribution to the scientific effort.

Chasing the Gaia Glint

IMAGE CREDIT: Dr Scott Ferguson Capture the Gaia tilt back (8th March) from T31 at Q62 Siding Spring, NSW, Australia.

UPDATE: 8th Mar: Gaia glints again. Today the Gaia mission controllers tilted the spacecraft again from 45 degrees to 42 degrees then 0 degrees and back again. It was tilted more slowly this time to allow astronomers to get a more detailed light curve of the tilt. Mission controllers are problem solving a stray light issue that was picked up during commissioning tests.

UPDATE:28th Feb: Patrick Wiggins animated gif of Gaia.

Image Credit: (C) Patrick Wiggins

UPDATE 27th Feb: I missed it on both 26th and 27th due to cloud. However Scott Ferguson captured one image of it on 27th before also losing out to cloud. Patrick Wiggins has captured it and had it verified by other notables on the Minor Planet List.

Image Credit: Dr Scott Ferguson 2014-Feb-27 08:52 09h 50m 24.95s, +17d 32' 30.5" 8:52 UT from Observatory H06. Note the above plot is for Modesto California so the position is a lttile off in the map. The JPL Ephemeris tool for the LAT/Long of H06 was for 2014-Feb-27 09:00 09 50 24.95 +17 32 21.8 which is just a couple of arcsecs off. Given he only had one image, Scott also verified the position with a previous Mt Palomar plate of the location.

Image Credit: ESA GBOT (ground based observation tools) FOV output for the 2nd tilt on 27th Feb developed by S. Bouquillon & T. Carlucci utilizing Stilts , Aladin , ESO online digitized Sky Survey , CDSclient.

Amateur astronomers tonight are chasing the Gaia Glint.

As the Gaia spacecraft rounds the L2 Lagrange Point tonight on its mission to create a 3d map of our solar system, around 10:45 Local time [11:45 UT] the solar panels will turn back around to "flash" earth for about 24 hours.

Sadly the weather is looking poor at two of iTelescope.net's sites.

The ESA mission controllers have asked for a light curve of the turn. Easy peasy .... or so it seems.

The targeting is not the issue, the spacecraft will cruise in at Mag 20 to 20.5 and then over a period of 15-20 minutes will brighten to magnitude 15. Whilst magnitude 15 is within reach of most amateurs with sophisticated goto scopes, Mag 20.5 is a different prospect, requiring probably a few stacked images as it brightens. So its going to be hard to make it look any different to "off" & "on" and trap the subtelties of the rising magnitude.

Never one to shirk a challenge we'll give it a go. If not we can have another go tomorrow night as the spacecraft turns again and the reverse happens (fades from Mag 15 to 20).

I'm sure someone will catch it, there are a couple of others I know who are chasing it.

The spacecraft is going through some very detailed and precise commissioning tests as it orbits the L2 Lagrange point. When fully operational the spacecraft is required to maintain a constant spin rate of 0.016656 degrees per second, which is one rotation every 6 hours & 14.23 seconds. One of the comissioning tests was to put the spacecraft through a tilt from 0 to 45 degrees and back again, and like all good scientists they wanted an independent source of data to confirm the tilt process was completed properly and smoothly, and confirmed by their on board instruments as well as visually. Amateur astronomers are always up for a challenge and like to assist and be involved in the mission.

Supernova 2014J in M82 - Super Stuff!

Well its Supernova Week! There's science going off everwhere! Why watch endless hours of Sci-fi when you can watch stars blowing up live!

After last week's excitement of a nice Type IIn supernova in NGC 3448, there is breaking news tonight with a bright Supernova going off in M82.

Image Credit: P.Lake H06 0.5m f/4.5 Planewave +CCD

UPDATE 3: Clint Whittaker iTelescope member photographed SN 2014J on the 15th of Jan at 16:40 UT.

Image Credit: C. Whittaker

UPDATE 2: A careful review of some of the iTelescope.net's member images of M82 show the brightening commenced sometime between 13th and 15th of January. The earliest image of this event now stands at 2014 01 15.571 by K Itagaki from an earlier survey. I have added a link to the discovery circumstances (below) - What a story that is, they'll be dining out on that for years.

UPDATE 1: It looks like Fraser Cain's Virtual Star Party photographed the SuperNova back on Sunday night US time, not realising it at the time. Tom Nathe broadcast a live photo of M82 into the Virtual Star Party with the Supernova clearly in view, but operating under the pressure of a live broadcast, didn't realise it at the time.

As usual the iTelescope.net community has been involved in prompt follow up action with the on-demand telescopes swinging into action.

So what's going on, how does all this happen, what are the reporting processes involved and how do Amateur Astronomer's make a contribution. All good questions!

Stars blowing up are more common that you think. Whilst the mainstream media usually only pick up on a couple of Supernovae per year (usually the bright ones in well known galaxies), astronomers detect over 400 novae each year, which is more than one per day. Amateur astronomers make a significant number of these discoveries, and several teams have developed advanced techniques, processes and teamwork to systematiclly go after these interesting events.

One great leader in this area of the amateur community is the BOSS team (Backyard Observatory Supernova Search) who have discovered 83 supernovae, one of which has rocked the astronomy community and resulted in the Hubble Space Telescope being swung into action for follow up measurements. Other regulars are a dedicated group of Japanese astronomers who hardly miss a trick: Koichi Itagaki, Meineko Sakura, Seiichiro Kiota (and their teams - appologies for not mentioning everyone), do great work. On the 14th January Mr Itagaki discovered a Supernova in NGC 3448. Well known amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins also photographed it independently, quite by chance, without a targeted search. I assisted Patrick with his follow-up images, and Patrick later found Mr Itagaki was awarded the discovery as he had an earlier image from the night before.

Image Credit: P.Lake H06 0.5m f/4.5 Planewave +CCD

Many of these dedicated teams have advanced scripting techniques with systematic searches that can cover up to 200 galaxies per night. The 6 members of the BOSS team also leverage the time zones from New Zealand, to the east coast of Australia, and across to the west coast of Australia. Each part of the team performs different steps, photographing, processing, researching, following up and reporting. They have built strong partnerships with professional observatories who provide the spectral analysis, to quickly identify the supernova type. The BOSS team pride themselves on having never having submitted a false-positive report.

Using a sophisticated DSLR camera on a tripod and subtracting images from night to night, comparing the differences, is another method used by amateur astronomers. This is surprisingly effective method for transient nova in the southern hemisphere.

Tonight's discovery of the supernova in M82 was reported to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams [CBAT] by S.J Fossey and his class of students it was confirmed by Seiichiro Kiota and followed up by the MASTER Team in Russia, and Leonid Elenin from the ISON Team. The MASTER team are also great leaders and made 210 transient (includes supernova, nova) discoveries in 2013.

So if I am photographing a galaxy and think I can see something different, what should I do, how do I check, who do I tell, if I think I might have found a Supernova/Nova event?

Step 1 - Re-photograph the area and check for asteroids and or artifacts in your image

Step 2 - Check a previous known image of the same area and compare to make sure nothing was there previously. You need to be careful doing this as other images may have a different orientation to your's depending on the Position Angle of the camera they were taken with. It may be flipped horizonally and vertically to your image. One such site where you can get easy access historical images is the CDS (Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg) Portal which has a searchable web interface for various star Catalogs (just enter the exact RA and Dec).

Step 3 - Once you believe you have something - alert some of your collegues and get them to obtain some confirmation images.

Step 4 - Report to CBAT with the exact postion to the nearest arc-second with an estimate of the magnitude and your location, telescope details, and discovery circumstances (eg PSN J09554214+6940260 where "Possible Super Nova" is RA is 09 55 42.14 and Dec +69 40 26.0).

Step 5 - Wait and hope you are the first in - but you'll have to be quick ;-) Its always a great idea to get someone to check your work so you avoid embarrassing mistakes.

Step 6 - Then sit back and wait for other astronomers with spectroscopic capabilities to confirm the Supernova type by assessing which Balmer Lines are present in the spectrum.

Even though you might not hear about every supernova, this is a vibrant area of constant research that creates great excitment through the thrill of the chase for amateur astronomers and professionals around the world.