Star gazing

So do I It's the consequence of Sky Watcher not following through with kit to fit guidescopes onto a large SCT scope made by another manufacturer. Luckily[?], there are third party firms that have made kit to bridge the technical gap.....at a price.
The Skywatcher Guidescope mount is the key to it all and it allows the guidescope to be adjusted on all axis when calibrating it to the main scope which take the sting out of it.

 

Well, I've bought the Starlight Express Lodestar X2 guide camera for the Guide Scope which will also take images, stack them while also giving a live video view on the computer letting more than one person see what the scope is seeing.
But not all things go smoothly and last night was an example. While taking images on a short lived clear sky a power cable got caught while the mount and telescope were moving and it wrenched itself out of the power socket. That damaged the internal Motherboard and brought everything to a grinding halt That Motherboard controlled the movement of the scope, tracking and the Hand Control so I've had to order a new one (£110] which, hopefully, should arrive on Tuesday via a Courier. Luckily the electronics on a NEQ6 are modular so it's basically a case of taking out the old Motherboard and reconnecting the new one.......well, that's the theory

 

• Cassini prepares for mission’s end

Alison Klesman | Published: Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Cassini has begun its five final close passes of Saturn’s atmosphere.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is quickly nearing the end of its mission — and its life. Already in the aptly named Grand Finale portion of its mission, Cassini has begun its final five orbits around the ringed planet. The probe is also preparing for its final encounter with Saturn’s largest moon, Titan — an encounter that will seal Cassini’s fate.

On August 13, Cassini completed the first of five close passes over Saturn, skimming the giant’s atmosphere at a height of just over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). That’s close enough to require the spacecraft to utilize its thrusters to maintain its course as it travels through denser portions of the atmosphere than before. However, Cassini has had practice at such maneuvering, thanks to previous close passes over Titan, which itself is shrouded in a thick atmosphere.

Cassini’s last encounter with Titan will take place September 11, when the moon’s gravity will be used to tug the spacecraft into a trajectory that will end with its death plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn on September 15. That final encounter is the last chapter in a story that’s included numerous gravity assists from the moon, which have, in large part, made the mission what it is. Thanks to the ability of Cassini to use Titan’s gravity to modify its orbit, the spacecraft was able to carry less fuel and use that fuel more sparingly, increasing the science return possible from this landmark mission.


Saturn’s moon Titan is shrouded in thick clouds, but Cassini has revealed its surface throughout its 13-year mission.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
But Titan has provided more than a gravitational tool — it’s also been a primary science target throughout the mission, and the landing site of Cassini’s Huygens probe in 2005. During its time at Saturn, Cassini has revealed the surface of the surprisingly Earth-like moon, peering through the veil of its thick clouds to show mountains, dunes, and even seas of liquid hydrocarbons, where future probes may someday sail.

Cassini’s last close pass to the moon was April 22, when flew 608 miles (979 kilometers) above the surface to take radar data. That data added detail to the growing global picture of Titan, and included coverage of some of the very first terrain imaged during the spacecraft’s first flyby of the moon in 2004. Scientists will use the most recent radar data to measure the depths of some of Titan’s north polar lakes, as well as determine whether they contain liquid methane or ethane.

Even as the end of its mission nears, Cassini will continue to return never-before-seen information about Saturn to Earth. And during its September 15th swan song, its instruments will transmit data for as long as possible, offering a momentary glimpse beneath the tops of Saturn’s swirling clouds.

This false color view of Saturn’s clouds shows the interactions of various bands at the boundaries where they meet, creating turb

 

The FEDEX Courier arrived at noon and delivered the new motherboard for the NEQ6 mount. I delayed the job of replacing it as I had other jobs in the garden to do until around 3pm. The actual job of replacing the motherboard is quite easy, merely taking of the side panel of the mount, undoing the screws that hold the busted motherboard to the side panel and detaching it. I washed my hands, changed my T Shirt to avoid any dust or whatever settling on the motherboard and, wearing anti-static gloves, disconnected the old motherboard and reconnected the new one.
It took a little judicious gentle rerouting of the internal wiring loom back, with a insulated small screwdriver, into the mount. A quick test proved that power was back again but the mount wouldn't move in DEC or RA when the Hand Control was used. But a quick check of the internal connections proved that one wasn't fully home, and a gentle pressure clicked it in. Using the Hand Control again got the Telescope moving with a gratifying whine and all is well again. I've re-routed the external power cables so, hopefully, they won't get caught anywhere when the mount is turning in any direction. So all is well in the Observatory again!!

 

Absolutely true, Sheal, but the actual satisfaction of getting the mount and the telescope working properly again has made up for the inevitable clouded skies tonight You've got to be an Optimist to be a Astronomer, I guess

 

Antares Image Reveals Chaotic Surface




Researchers have constructed a detailed view of the surface of red supergiant star Antares, revealing a chaotic atmosphere powered by mechanisms that are still poorly understood.


Astronomers obtained this unprecedented image of the red supergiant star Antares using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile.
ESO / K. Ohnaka

An international group of astronomers has mapped the surface of red supergiant star Antares, one of the brightest stars in the sky.

The image shows the star’s surface with sufficient detail to reveal two large bright spots. Researchers also identified several clumps of gas moving up and down within the atmosphere at speeds of 20 kilometers per second (45,000 mph). The results appear in the August 16th Nature.

Antares is a massive star nearing the end of its life, with 15 times the mass and 10,000 times the visible luminosity of our Sun. It’s located 550 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Scorpio. With 883 times the girth of our host star, Antares is big enough to fill the solar system beyond the orbit of Mars.

Even though it’s not exactly close to Earth, Antares appears large and bright in the sky, making it an ideal candidate for direct imaging to resolve its surface features.

To achieve the unprecedented view, Keiichi Ohnaka (Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile) and colleagues observed Antares for five nights using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer at Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VLTI can combine the light gathered by its four 8.2-meter telescopes, or even its four 1.8-meter auxiliary telescopes, to achieve incredible spatial resolution. In this case, Keiichi’s team used three of the smaller auxiliary telescopes, achieving the sharpness equivalent to an 82-meter telescope. The researchers also used VLTI’s near-infrared instrument AMBER, which allowed them to make measurements over a small range of wavelengths.

These observations offer an unprecedented view of the surface of a star other than our Sun. Red supergiants like Antares are constantly expelling atmospheric material out into space, revealed in the powerful up-and-down motions of gas clumps.

“The star [Antares] is not expelling the material in an ordered, laminar, and spherical way, but in a turbulent, random way”, says Ohnaka. “Our velocity map shows that the gas motion is chaotic, turbulent, with many large gas clumps like turbulence air pockets you feel during an [airplane] flight.”

The mechanisms that govern the choppy stellar wind are poorly understood. The new observations could help link the forces that power the turbulent gas motions and ultimately expel material. These forces “may be related to magnetic fields, like in the Sun, or something else. But these ideas have yet to be tested observationally,” says Ohnaka.

In the future, Ohnaka’s team intends to create additional velocity maps at different depths in the star’s atmosphere in order to construct a three-dimensional view of the stormy atmosphere.

 

Amazing Views of the Solar Eclipse From Earth… and Space




Satellites, aircraft, and the International Space Station provided great views of yesterday's solar eclipse, near and far.


The August 21, 2017 eclipse during totality as seen from onboard a NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Gulfstream III flying 25,000 feet above the Oregon coast.


Did you see it? Millions of viewers stood in the path of totality yesterday, as the shadow of the the Moon rolled over the United States from coast to coast for the first time in nearly a century. But while eclipse pilgrims and casual observers alike across the Americas were turning solar-viewing gear skyward to watch the eclipse, eyes in space — both human and electronic — were watching the spectacle unfold from above.

These "eyes" always give us a unique perspective for any eclipse — lunar or solar — a view from a much loftier vantage point.

Chasing the Eclipse
As promised, the crew aboard the International Space Station did indeed witness the dark umbra of the Moon sliding across Illinois and Kentucky around mid-eclipse yesterday at 18:24 Universal Time. For context, the ISS races around the Earth at 17,000 mph, while the umbra was moving at 1,400 mph near mid-totality.


The umbral shadow of the Moon (the dark patch to the upper center on the limb of the Earth) as seen from the International Space Station.
NASA / Randy Bresnik

There's no word yet if ISS astronauts caught the “eclipsed crescent sunset” on the final pass, though earlier on flight engineer Randy Bresnik caught a partially eclipsed Sun:


A brief partial solar eclipse as seen from the International Space Station.


It's great to have a skilled astrophotographer aboard the International Space Station again!

Eyes on Earth also kept watch for the ISS as well as it flitted across the face of the partially eclipsed Sun:


This composite seven frame image shows the International Space Station as it transits the Sun during the partial phase of Monday's solar eclipse as captured from near Banner, Wyoming.


Farther out, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-16 satellite caught sight of the umbra from its vantage point in geostationary orbit, 26,200 miles distant.


GOES-16 spies the Moon's umbra (upper left of the Earth's disk) during Monday's eclipse.
NOAA/GOES-16

Meanwhile, NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory DSCOVR satellite had an amazing view looking back at the Earth from its perch a million miles distant at the sunward L1 Lagrange point:


A timelapse from DSCOVR's Earth Polychromatic imaging Camera (EPIC) showing the passage of the umbra across the face of the Earth during Monday's total solar eclipse.
NASA / DSCOVR / EPIC

Why doesn't the Moon photo-bomb EPIC's view during the total solar eclipse? Because DSCOVR orbits the stable L1 Lagrange point in a lissajous or “halo orbit,” affording it a view of the Moon-Earth lineup slightly skewed to one side.

Other solar observing satellites caught the eclipse from different vantage points. The European Space Agency's Proba-2 saw the eclipse several times from low Earth orbit:

Hinode, a joint NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, in low-Earth orbit are

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory also captured the view from its geosynchr:


NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory catches a partial solar eclipse in the extreme ultraviolet.
NASA / SDO

Launched on February 11, 2010, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Solar Dynamics Observatory has become a workhorse for solar astronomy in space. And this comes at an auspicious time, as the Sun heads towards another profound minimum between solar cycle #24 and #25. We were lucky to have sunspots to show the public for yesterday's eclipse!

And finally, Earthbound and space-based observers combined forces to give us some context on the shape and extent of the solar corona at totality. Launched in 1995, NASA's Solar Heliospheric Observatory(SOHO) also orbits the Sun from the L1 Earth Lagrange point one million miles Earthward. SOHO's two Large Angle Spectrometric Coronograph (LASCO) C2 and C3 cameras have experienced artificial "eclipses" for over two decades. As you can see, the view seen on Monday from Earth extends well out into space:


SOHO versus Monday's total solar eclipse; the innermost view of totality is courtesy of Will Gater, composited by Karl Battams with the view at the same moment from SOHO's C2 and C3 coronagraphs.

 

• Mars has some serious snowstorms at night

This new study shows Mars' weather gets more intense after the sun sets.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
With scientists trying hard to get new a mission on Mars, this recent study might give us information that could impact future travel to the Red Planet.





A study published August 21 in Nature Geoscience found new information about heavy snowstorms on the Red Planet. While researchers knew snow existed there, given the ice caps at its poles and the data from NASA’s Phoenix Lander back in 2008, no one predicted how severe Mars’ snowstorms are.





Instead of the regular weather predicting method using one type of software at a time, the research team ran three popular computer models at once to simulate the climate, calculate the air turbulence, and predict Mars’ weather.





Scientists knew Mars has clouds, but they hadn’t considered how important those clouds could be to its larger-scale weather. Using those three models at once showed how clouds absorbing sunlight stay warm during the day and keep the atmosphere stable. But temperatures inside the clouds drop 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) per hour after the Sun sets.





Hot air then rises from the surface of the planet and combines with the cool air dropping from the clouds, causing wind that hits about 22 miles per hour (10 meters per second) and snow-like ice particles. The simulations also showed water vapor rising inside polar clouds, but they don’t know if it stays in the clouds or rises so high it gets lost to space. Researchers say this evaporation process could explain how Mars lost its water in the first place.





Knowing what the weather on Mars is like and being able to predict it will be helpful in any potential future missions.

 

Just a catch up on things happening in the Observatory while the weather offers, at the moment, only cloudy skies.
I've been making the Bank Manager have cold sweats again by buying a Starlight Express Lodestar X2 to use as a Guide camera and also for Live Viewing on a computer screen or my TV.






And then while doing that my main CCD colour camera[a QHY8L] used on the main telescope "died" on me, so I have had buy a replacement






Which is a ZWO ASI 178 Colour CCD Camera.
.

 

To use the first camera, the Lodestar X2, as a Guide camera to help the Computerised GOTO mount track stars precisely I needed a Guide Scope to put on to the main scope and fit the camera into, so I bought a second hand mint condition Skywatcher ST80 Telescope from e-Bay.

I had to buy more "stuff" to attach it to the main scope, and when I did I found it would only fit in the wrong position. That meant the main telescope would need to come off the mount and tripod so that I could drill new holes into the telescope to fit the Guidescope.
Since the main telescope is very heavy and bulky it is dangerous to both me and the telescope to try and take it off by myself. So I gave my life long buddy a call and asked him to give me a hand. We have always worked well as a team and so he came down and I explained what needed to be done.
After taking the telescope off the mount, we laid it on a blanket on the Kitchen table and very gently took off the big 12" inch diameter Corrector Plate at the front of the telescope, as that would be in danger of being damaged when we drilled new holes into the area where the Corrector Plate is seated.

We also had to block the inside of the Telescope to stop metal swarf from the drilling getting on to the main mirror. We had to measure very carefully to get the exact spots where to drill and after we did we used a tap to cut the correct sized threads for the bolts. To be honest, I didn't think things would go as smoothly they did but having a friend who is also technically knowledgeable giving you a hand is a great boost. So now the Telescope is back together, the Guide Scope is attached to it in the correct position and the whole caboodle is back safely on the Mount and tripod in the Observatory.

 

Hi Martin, well, there are two aspects to the Live Viewing that the Lodestar program offers, [a] where you can Live View directly onto your Computer or TV which enables more than one person, either in the Observatory, or in the House, to view exactly what the scope is seeing.
or I can stream on the NSN Forum or the Video Astronomy Live Forum. I'll first learn how to use the PHD [Push Here Dummy], Ascom, Fire Capture guiding and imaging software fully before going into the Live Streaming.........don't want a "muck up" before the Global Astronomy viewers. Also getting to know the parameters of the ZWO ASI 178 will take a bit of time..........all I need is some clear skies, time and a bit of fun!!