Astronomy every Thursday
On the evening of the 25th March 2022 there was a bright pass of the ISS. Jim Burchell managed to capture 2 image's of the ISS pass at 19.47.51- 19.52.51. Image's taken with a pentax K70.
The 1st image shows the ISS passing the star Capella in the constellation Auriga. F7.0 20" 18mm iso 800.
The 2nd image shows the ISS passing the constellation Ursa Major - top left. F9.0 20" 18mm iso 800.
A stunning Solar Halo was sighted & captured by Jim Burchell whilst visiting Eynsford Castle on the 28th Jan 2022.
Supernova SN 2022ewj in galaxy NGC 3367 taken by Simon Dawes on the 23 Mar 2022 from Bexleyheath.
Details of how Simon acquired this superb image is on the photo.
NGC 3367 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Leo. It is located at a distance of around 120 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 3367 is about 85,000 light years across. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1784
Mag 15.5, SN 2022ewj was discovered on the 19th March 2022 by Koichi Itagaki and is a type II Supernova. This is the 6th supernova to be observed in NGC3367 over the last 30 odd years.
Not the easiest of objects to image from the London Borough of Bexley!
Another for the ExoClock project......
KPS-1b orbits a star similar to the Sun with a period of 40 hours.
The mass and size of the exoplanet KPS-1b are close to the characteristics of Jupiter, but it is located very close to its parent star so the temperature of the atmosphere KPS-1b is much higher than that of Jupiter.
The discovery was made by the prototype Kourovka Planet Search (KPS) project, which used wide-field CCD data gathered by amateur astronomers using readily available and relatively affordable equipment with astronomers from Belgium, USA, England, France, the Netherlands, Turkey, Portugal, Lithuania, Italy and Canada contributing.
The night Simon did the observations for KPS - 1b Simon said ''the transparency was low - when I left the society meeting you could see the water particles in the air in the headlamp and under the street lights, so I'm pleased I got anything at all!''
Simon Dawes has been busy again with his exoplanet observations for the ExoClock project. Below are his observations.
Exoplanet HAT-P-44b was discovered in 2013 by the HATNet transit survey. Its mass is 0.39 mass of Jupiter and has an orbital period of 4.3 days.
Of Exoplanet WASP -148b Simon said ''This is a 11.8 magnitude star and the dip is 8 thousandths of a magnitude - I think it must be one of the most challenging to observe with my 8" telescope, but the conditions were obviously good and I got this fit very quickly (this is the one I said at last night's meeting that I hadn't submitted because I wanted to see if I could improve - this is the improved reduction) . WASP 148b is a hot Jupiter, there is another planet in this system (WASP 148c with a 35 day orbit) and the gravitational tug of the outer planet (WASP-148c) perturbs the orbit of the hot Jupiter WASP-148b''
A lovely image of the Sun showing 3 sunspots taken by Simon Dawes on the morning of the 25th March 2022 from Bexleyheath. Details of how Simon acquired the image is on the photo.
Another great image of the Sun by Simon Dawes taken today from Bexleyheath. Details of how the image was acquired is written on the photo. Three sunspot groups are visible.
A very nice image of the Sun with sun spots taken by Simon Dawes on the morning of the 18th March 2022 from Bexleyheath. Taken using a Baader solar safety filter, skywatcher 190mn telescope, ZWO ASI1600mm pro CMOS camera, mesu e200 MkII mount and sharpcap pro image capture software.
A beautiful Lunar Halo last night photographed by members Jim Burchell and Gary Hunt.
Jim's photo above was taken around 9.30pm and Gary's photo below at 11.30pmish.
