115-AstronomyReport

ASTRONOMY REPORT 01-14

Name: Pedro Diaz-Rubin

Sky Conditions: Clear

Winds: None

Time of Observation (start- finish): 9:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Summary:

The astronomy crew entered the Musk observatory at 09:00 PM. A two star calibration including Alpheratz and Rigel was followed by a simple one star Betelgeuse Alignment. Calibration was successful .

In order to look the Andromeda Galaxy, finer calibration was done by pointing the telescope towards Shear in Cassiopeia, then Mirach, and then Caph, again in Cassiopeia.

The crew was invited to observe the following targets under supervision: Andromeda, Double Cluster, Pleiades, Moon and Jupiter.

Callisto, Europa and Io were at the left of Jupiter in that sequence. Pictures of Jupiter displaying its belts and zones were taken with a personal Sony CHX90 (see attached picture of Jupiter). The camera was aligned to the telescope eyepiece and focused into target.

Two shooting stars were sighted from inside the Musk dome. The first was sighted around 10:30 PM left of Cassiopeia and facing west. It was dropping vertically in slow motion. The second shooting star appeared after a minute of the first sight. It flew from East to West on the other side of Cassiopeia, also in slow motion. The second shooting star followed the expected path of what a deb r is

from comet ISON should have traced.

Attached is also a graph of January 14 night sky view from MDRS site generated with Starry Night software. Comet ISON orbit is overimpossed as it should look from the ground close to the time of sight. The two shooting stars paths are shown with yellow arrows, as best as remembered in the night sky last night. Each shooting star sight had a different Crew 133 witness.