I took advantage of a couple of recent clear evenings to see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. The first was on 19 March 2024. A friend and I sat in the car out of the cold wind until the stars were obvious. Software told us where to look which made finding it with binoculars easy. The camera was on a tripod set for ISO 100 and 10 seconds. No stacking but a lot of software processing to get the comet visible.
2024 March 19
The next opportunity was on 27 March 2024. Here are a couple of shots each at ISO 3200 for 1 second.
2024 March 272024 March 27 | Lambda Arietas is the small double star at far left.
Two weeks ago I posted about a solar transit by the ISS. It was difficult to see on the screen. It was not quite in focus. Today, I tried again with better results. The solar filter on the camera was made in 2016 from a pair of eclipse glasses, an orange juice container, and duct tape.
I took more care this time to get the focus and exposure set properly. This video is slowed down a great deal from real time with iMovie. The transit took about 1 second in real time. The station moved from 1 o’clock to the 8 o’clock position.
When the Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescopes image the objects of the night sky, they do so a very different wavelengths. Hubble primarily images in the visible part of the spectrum and some ultraviolet but it doesn’t see the longer infrared waves. The JWST images in the much longer wavelengths of infrared but doesn’t see visible waves.
NASA, J. Olmsted (STScI)
The images each produce have significantly different appearances. For example, the spiral galaxy Messier 74 (NGC628) imaged by JWST has an orange cast from the regions of dust glowing in the infrared.
M74 | JWST
Part of the same galaxy imaged by Hubble in visible light is overlaid on the JWST image and revealed in the lower right half of the next image. They are the same scale and orientation. The Hubble part of this image glows brightly in light blue due to the presence of many stars. Dark weblike patterns of dust block much of the starlight originating behind it.
Follow the dark lane just to the right of center as it curves up toward the boundary and into the JWST part of the image. The band of dark becomes a glowing orange band curving counterclockwise away from the center. What is going on?
Hubble sees the visible starlight. The dust blocks the visible light and appears dark. The dust being relatively near those stars absorbs the energetic starlight and then reradiates it as infrared light. JWST cannot see the visible starlight but it easily sees the glowing infrared light from the energized dust.
July of 2024 marks the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. That event is one of the monumental achievements of mankind. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to set foot on another body of the solar system while Michael Collins orbited the Moon and awaited their return from the surface. Plans are under way to return a human presence on the Moon and eventually Mars. I am certain I will live to see the return to the Moon. Mars is a much bigger challenge. At age 77, I am running out of years.
The space program has always interested me. I saw the efforts to launch satellites as we raced the Russians in order to be first. I saw Sputnik fly over. Some launch failures were spectacular. Successes were thrilling. I was impressed with the challenges and the dangers. Each manned flight got my attention. This book took me back through those days of the early flights leading up to the Apollo missions.
How I See It 