Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Comet PANSSTARS L4 Vists Evening Sky

Images taken at Largs Bay, South Australia 4 March 2013. Pentax Kx using wide and tele zoom lenses. Exposures 10 to 30 seconds. ISO 400 to 1600.

Comet closest approach to Earth on 5 March 2013. Misses us by 163 million km!


 View from the foreshore at Largs looking west over Gulf St Vincent just after sunset.



Crop from image above


Further crop form previous image. Compressed image scale horizontally to reduce diurnal trailing in 20 sec exposure. (Image rotated to accommodate).


Comet hovers over Largs Jetty as it heads toward setting.


Comet now low over the horizon and reddened by atmospheric extinction. Refracted lights at York Peninsula normally beyond horizon appear lower right.




Monday, January 21, 2013

Eye-catching Moon-Jupiter-Pleiades Grouping

On the evening of 21/22 January 2013 a waxing gibbous Moon is visible near Jupiter and Pleiades.  North hemisphere observers need to face south and look up about 60 degrees while for southern observers  they are lower toward the north.  Use binoculars to view the four Galilean satellites arranged near Jupiter.

South hemisphere View

 North hemisphere view