New purpose in life for Celestron's vintage 1970's "orange tube" C8 telescope: now equipped with FOTON AstroCam V1 and FOTON AstroLaser, this well looked-after legendary telescope is bringing wonders of space much closer to the visitors of a private observatory in Waterberg, South Africa. Flat LCD display, supplied as an optional equipment, allows the operator to watch the object and adjust the camera's parameters right at the telescope, before transmitting the live video stream to a big screen or a computer for recording.

By 20:30 Friday, 19 February, the sky has cleared-up, giving the Gauteng observers a chance to see ISS with docked Shuttle Endeavor rising from south-west and suddenly disappearing high in the West. It first became visible as a bright red star – phenomena, caused by refraction in the Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately for central Gauteng observers It was quite far- over 600 km away, which makes very difficult to see any detail of the station through binoculars as well as to image it. Anyway, I gave it a try. First image: just after appearing low above South-West some 1500 km away (at that time it should have been passing right above Western Cape); second image: when it was at it’s brightest at the altitude of 29° and approximately 665 km from Delta observatory.

Re-stacked and processed in Registax, this image of Mars 27 January 2010 shows more detail. Bright area at the lower part of the disc, next to the ice polar cap, was also seen during our observations. Mars was 14.1" in angular size during it's close approach to Earth. The original video was done using FOTON AstroCam V1, 8' TAL-200K telescope with x2 Barlow lens.

Image by O. Toumilovitch

28 January 2010 International Space Station above South Africa . Weather conditions were very poor due to high humidity and partial cloud cover. I was a bit disappointed that Maxim Suraev didn't wave us from the station during fly-by.

By the way. english-speaking readers can now also enjoy Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev's blog which he is running from the ISS. Translated version of the blog is here: http://rt.com/About_Us/Blogs/orbital-log.html

Image by O. Toumilovitch

Mars 27 January 2010

Image by O. Toumilovitch

Annular Partial Solar Eclipse 2010 has started! The Sunspot group 1040 is visible.

Equipment: TAL-100 f/10 refractor; EQ mount; Solar filter; Canon EOS-350D camera.

ISO-200 1/640 sec Time: 07:07 SAST

Click here for a large image. Visit Eclipse-2010 page for more images of this eclipse by Oleg, Kos, Gwyn..

Image and animation by O. Toumilovitch

Hi-Res animation is available for educational purpose.

Request

International Space Station on December 22, 24 2009 as seen from Johannesburg, South Africa

FOTON AstroCam V1 Video clip (has been removed) and image by Oleg Toumilovitch

More latest images of ISS , Soyuz and other spacecrafts can be seen on SPACECRAFT page.

Iridium 12 flare was photographed on December 21 2009 at 20:59 South African local time, using Canon EOS-350D and 55mm lens. Though the sky was covered with the thin clouds, tests have shown that 10 seconds exposure at ISO 200 will reveal stars down to mag. 6.35. The image shows flare in the constellations of Canis Major, with Sirius (mag.-1.44) in the lower left and Wezen (mag.1.83) in the lower right part of the image. For my location it was predicted by http://www.heavens-above.com , that flare will be as bright as magnitude -6.0, and it probably was, but not as seen through the clouds. On the image it appears that Sirius is much brighter than the flare, but this is due to the fact, that Sirius was almost stationary in the frame, while the satellite was moving. Short 650 kB video, made using FOTON AstroCam with wide angle lens, shows relation between brightness of Sirius and flare more realistically.

Image and video clip by Oleg Toumilovitch

Sunspot 1035 and a bird, flying across. Imaged on December 17 by FOTON Astrocam V1 and a 100mm f/10 refractor. Note, that the cameras shutter speed is 1/2500 sec.

Image and video clip (has been removed) by Oleg Toumilovitch

Google map, edited by Freddie Roelofse (Senior Petrologist, Council for Geoscience), shows the areas from which large number people witnessed the event as it happened.

 

 

 

 

Magda Streicher travelled nothern regions of South Africa, collecting more eye-witnesses stories about the 21 November Meteor entry:

"At the farm site around 15km from the Zimbabe border, 16km north of the little town Alldays at “South 22o30 and East 20o07”. a meteor entry was seen on Saturday night 21 November at 23h. SA Time and 20h UT Time from this site.

The brightest light ever seen was light up the bush field as far as the eye could see, you should be able to read a book! The next second an impact sound close to that of a bomb blast which sound like a definite ground impact sound or super sonic noise, follow up with an after sound that went over into a rattle sound which last for around 3 seconds. My room windows rattle and suddenly it was dead silence.I called various people around the area Sunday morning and there were a few who saw the bright meteor entry.

Johan Willemse report from Botswana just over the border at Platjan who was outside in the field at the time. He reports that the blinding meteor turn into a fiery red purple fire ball. In this stage a loud sizzling sound was heard, burning smoke was seen and the earth was rambling with windows shaking like mad. His children cried and was very scared by it all.

 Philip du Plessis report from a farm close to Platjan, around 30 km west of our farm, and near the border post that he thought his house is been blast away and ran outside with shock. He also had a report from a guy who stayed at Phalapie around 100km inside Botswana who heard the impact sound and saw the blazing light of the meteor.

 Pieter Lombard saw the meteor also going into the direction of the north west border between SA and Botswane. He also saw the meteor as a glowing burning ball of fire.

 Schalk Potgieter was in Waterkloof just north of the Southpans mountain between Louis Trichardt and Alldays. He reports a blazing white meteor light up the field and travel with speed. He also heard the impact sound, although not that loud. He was about 120km east from the Platjan border post. Monday morning 23November, I talk to another Botswana guy who said that the impact was like a bomb blast close to him. He stayed around 20 kilometres inside Botswana from the SA border. Because of the rain no fire was report in the area around us. It looks like the sound was been heard over a radius of more that 150 kilometres.

 Follow up Wednesday 25 November 2009. Piet Barkhuizen stayed 61km west of Alldays SA, and report that after the maybe impact of the meteor the ground was rambling and trembling. Barkhuizen also saw a double flash. His neighbour Derick Piet Gouws just north around 15km south of the border post Platjan report that one of the walls in the house crack and it sound like the door was moving into its frame. He also heard a hissing sound, smoke and a very red western horizon with a burning red purple coma. This might be the closest that we came to the impact site.

Follow up Sunday 29 November 2009Talked to farm workers closer to the Zimbabwe border and they point out that the meteor went nearly overhead going in the direction of Pontdrift."

Strange Planet: This phantasy image was put together by Dieter using several of his Deep Sky images. "Intelligent beings on a strange planet, located within a dense cluster of galaxies, might have a view like this when looking at their night sky." Visit Astro-Cabinet and enjoy Dieter's latest work.

Omega Centauri, or NGC 5139 is located about 15,800 light-years (4,850 pc) from Earth and contains several million Population II stars. The stars in its center are so crowded that they are believed to average only 0.1 light years away from each other. It is about 12 billion years old. Omega Centauri is one of the few globular clusters visible to the naked eye and appears about as large as the full Moon. Though it is not a star, Omega Centauri was given a Bayer designation. Unlike other globular clusters, it contains several generations of stars. Kapteyn's star which is currently only 13 light years away is thought to originate from Omega Centauri. Info by Wikipedia. Image by Kos Coronaios. Check latest news letter of the Soutpansberg Astronomy Club

Sutherland.. gateway to the world we leave in, the little corner in the universe, with big eyes..

John Meyer, South Africa’s leading contemporary realist, has kindly given us permission to display digital copy of this breathtaking painting, featuring SAAO Sutherland. Current exhibition:"KAROO REVISITED" 6, Jellicoe Ave. Rosebank, Jhb. Open this Saturday, Nov.28 9:00-13:00

Painting and image credit: John Meyer, 2009, "THEM AND US",  114 x 153 cm,  acrylic and sand on canvas. Artist's website: http://www.johnmeyerpaintings.com

 

 

New stunning image of Jupiter, produced by Dieter Willash!

 

Dieter writes:This is he best Jupiter until now, although the seeing was far from good. The focal length was something like 7.5 meter!

 

 

 

 

Another CCTV video recording of Meteorite fall on the 21 November 2009 can be viewed on 702 Radio website:

http://www.702.co.za/pages/shows/meteor.asp

23 November 2009

Orion is high in the late sky for Southern Africa during this time of the year; Kos Coronaios is exploring the central part of Orion nebula.This image of Trapezium is a single 90 second exposure at 100 ISO

 

 

 

21 November 2009

 

15 November 2009

Our guest photographer, amateur astronomer from Netherlands Victor van Wulfen shares his image of suspected Leonids meteor. Image was taken from Sutherland on Sunday 15th Nov at 23:34 SA local time, using Canon EOS450D, fixed on tripod,EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM @ f1.4, ISO1600, 25 seconds. Image courtesy of Victor van Wulfen, used with permission. Visit Victor's website to read about his Sutherland trip and to see more of his astro-images

(www.clearskies.eu)