The Westronomy Blog

 Monday evening 1/13, I got to see the Moon occult Mars. The forecast was for clear skies, but there were variable clouds throughout the day, and the Moon wasn't visible when I left work after 5pm and headed for my observing site.  The western sky an hour after sunset Clouds near the Moon After a nice sunset, the Moon broke through, and I was able to start a photo sequence (Canon 90D, 100-400mm lens plus 1.4x teleconverter) and get to my 10" scope just after first contact. The seeing was pretty bad, with no detail on Mars.  Mars about to disappear While Mars was covered, I turned to Jupiter and caught Ganymede, Io, and Callisto in a tight diagonal line on one side of the planet. Europa was on the other side. It was a pretty unusual configuration. Jupiter and moons at 6:27pm The clouds had thinned out as I prepared for Mars to reappear. I got the camera set up, and then went back to the scope. Seeing was a little bit better. The first bit of Mars that peeked out seemed to ...

Thursday, January 9 th had a lot going for it. First, I worked Sunday through Thursday this week, so I would have Friday off. Next, the forecast was for clear skies. There was an air stagnation advisory, so the atmosphere looked to be relatively steady. And there were some interesting lunar and planetary events: Io and its shadow transited Jupiter in the early evening. Two of the main stars in the Pleiades were hidden by the Moon, and would reappear off its bright limb. Ganymede would emerge from occultation by Jupiter, and later would be eclipsed by Jupiter’s shadow. The Great Red Spot would be visible on Jupiter. Besides that, Venus was half-lit in the western sky, with Saturn above it. The Moon was in an 83% waxing gibbous phase. Mars was a week away from opposition, and 4 days away from being occulted by the Full Moon. I hadn’t been out with the scope since early November, so it was a good night for a shakedown. To prepare, I packed my 10” Dob in the car the previous evening...

A 2024 Perseid fireball over aurora and a smoky horizon (Early Draft) QUADRANTIDS Lyrids Eta Aquariids Southern Delta Aquariids Perseids Orionids Leonids GEMINIDS 2024 was a challenging year for meteor observing. The Moon diminished most of the major shower maxima, and weather prevented me from covering most of them in any case. My first observing session wasn't until July 31st, when I observed a normal mix of Southern Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids, early Perseids, and sporadics. Perseid maximum on August 12th/13th featured smoky skies. I drove for a while and found a halfway decent spot. My best Perseid rate was 66 in one hour. The northern horizon featured an auroral display in the evening and morning twilight hours. I tried a couple of sessions during the Alpha Aurigids, to see if this shower might be more active than generally acknowledged. At least this year, that wasn't the case, with the shower producing about 3 meteors per hour on the mornings of August 31st and S...

 2024 March 16 (a.m.): Omega Centauri, a Couple of Comets, and a Slew of Galaxies What do I do when it’s a weekend with good weather for deep-sky observing, but the First Quarter Moon is washing out the evening sky? Well, if I’m up for it, I just observe during the morning instead.  Just after midnight on the morning of March 16th, I drove out to a dark site at Willow Valley Reservoir, in eastern Klamath County on the Oregon-California border. There is a light dome from Klamath Falls to the west, and a tiny light dome from Lakeview to the east, but overall this is a great site with wide-open horizons. The reservoir itself was full. Google Earth has a satellite image from 2017 that shows it flooding the access road. It wasn’t that high this time, but as I turned in to the parking area I stopped to make sure I wouldn’t be driving into the water. The Moon wouldn’t set until 2:18am, so I left my scope out for a while to cool down while I rested in the car. It wasn’t that cold, abo...

During 2023, I was able to get out on 12 different occasions to observe and count meteors. This is better than most years, and I attribute that to increased effort as well as some fortunate weather. The Moon didn't impact as many shower peaks in 2023 as in most years, so that was favorable. The good weather didn't always land on the exact peak date of the shower, so several of my sessions were away from the peak but while the shower was producing noticeable activity. The showers on my Major Meteor Showers of 2023 outlook that I didn't pursue were the Quadrantids and the Eta Aquariids, both wiped out by bright moonlight. As I'm working on my 2024 outlook and plans, I figured I would relive this past year. I submitted my observations to the International Meteor Organization when conditions permitted, and it turns out that I spent just shy of 34 hours counting meteors (and/or waiting for meteors to count 😀). I logged 1463 meteors during these sessions. I spent more time...