November 2018 – MatP's view of the world

2018-11-292018-12-01

2018-11-28 Comet 46/P Wirtanen

Finally the full moon is over. The first chance to properly see some fainter objects like the comet 46/P Wirtanen. Comet 46/P Wirtanen started to rise more and more from the horizon. At November 10 the comet reached only 10° above the horizon. Now it is at approximately 20°. As for one day on November 28 the sticky clouds opened up above Austria. So I packed my gear and headed to the mountains. I ended up at a snow covered mountain top near Lachtal at 1857m a.s.l. At -8°C seeing, transparency and sky darknes were exceptionally! A really treat to observe 🙂
I set up my camera with a 85mm lens and captured 90 minutes of data until the moon rose. I chose the 85mm as I expected to see a tail extending from the comet. But as it seems, the tail is not extening sideways (seen from Earth) at the moment.
I am really pleased with the results and hope for another chance of good weather within the next few days…

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2018-11-112019-01-22

Autumn in Styria @ Klapotetzstrasse

The southern parts of Austria, along the border to Slovenia, are known for its wine. The wine is grown on the slopes of nearly every hill. To prevent birds from feasting excessively on the wine, farmers installed huge versions of noise making ratchets, called Klapotetz. These devices, the largest are up to 16 meters in height, reach back at least to the 18th century. They are found especially dense around the Klapotetzstrasse.

It is a really wonderful reagion to spend some time. In autumn, when colours are rich, seems to be the best time to be there…

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2018-11-112018-12-01

2018-11-10 Milky way above the observatory – slider movie

I went to the observatory (see previous post) to capturing some deep sky photos. When the camera was capturing in the meantime I set up my slider. The slider was configured to travel an inclined track with 6m length. The plan was to show the milky way above the observatory, travelling away from the dome.
This is the 3 hour hyperlapse:

2018-11-112018-12-01

First glimpse of Comet 46/P Wirtanen

I was eagerly waiting for the first chance to see the promising comet 46/P Wirtanen. As I was scheduled for a public viewing session at the local observatory, I set up my camera on the 50cm telescope after the last visitor left. Before slewing to the comet (which was still extremely low above the horizon), I wanted to try a few night time jewels: M27 (Dumbbell Nebula), core of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and M57 (Ring Nebula).
Afterwards I slewed the telescope to comet 46/P Wirtanen. The comet had risen to 10°. Weather was quite OK, but that low, there is a lot of bright haze. Visually I had no chance to see anything. So I tried to take a few shots and see, if I could process the results…
Well… unfortunately there is something mis-configured as I endet up with really huge stars in the range of 12 arcseconds. So there is not that much detail within the pictures as I would have expected. The comet is there and looks promising. But from the observatory location, it has to rise significantly above the horizon…

Here are the results:

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