Its been almost three weeks since Comet PanSTARRS popped into the night sky for us and sadly I’ve hardly seen it. Life and weather have gotten in the way. Also the comets in a poor spot, setting before its really dark and low in the sky.   I was lucky to get out a few times. On Tuesday, March 12th, Phil and I caught our first glimpse of the comet from the Flint Hills. Here it is setting in the evening sky, right next to a slender moon:

The comet and moon are only a few degrees above the horizon at that time. An hour later it was truly dark and the zodiacal light was a bright cone in this exact location. The next night I went to the AAL public observing of comet PanSTARRS in Lawrence. A number of people came out as you can see in the next picture:

Ironically I got a better view of the comet from the KU campus then I did from the previous nights trip. The sky was just a bit clearer.

There is one big difference between the two nights:  I didn’t get that wonderful dark sky full of stars like I did the first night. The trip was worth that alone and I wish the people that came out in Lawrence had gotten a chance to see that.

Is this year going to be like the late 1990′s where we have several wonderful comets? Sadly I don’t think so. Recent  news articles have mentioned approaching comets and how visible they might be. That this could be the year of the comets. Thats to be expected for regular news stories but I cringe reading them. Its just too early to tell for sure. One thing I am certain of, one must get away from city lights to appreciate a comet, any comet.

You might not know theres always comets floating around the night sky. Most of the time you need a telescope to see them and even then they aren’t very impressive to the eye. They might appear as a small fuzz ball. So the chance a new comet will arrive visible for all to see makes a good news story.  The first comet like that this year is C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS. Astronomers believe this ball of ice and rock is making its first visit to the sun. Right now it’s headed towards the sun and will circle it around the 10th of  March.

First time comets are notorious underperformers, remember Kohoutek? PANSTARRS is already not following the earliest brightness predictions so its now very unlikely to be a spectacular sight.  For those of us in mid northern latitudes the comets closest and brightest time will be in mid to late March. The comet will be low in the west, setting below the horizon before the sky is completely dark.  There is a chance that it could develop a large dust tail like Comet McNaught did for southern observers.  That would be exciting and very noticeable. We’ll soon find out.

Second major comet of 2013, Comet C/2012 S1 ISON is coming at the end of the year. This comet comes from the Oort cloud and has a real chance of being something exciting.  While its still a long ways away its very interesting because it seems to be similar to the Great Comet of 1680. We’ve got many months to go to find out, it will round the sun at the end of November 2013 and if it survives we’ll see it in December 2013. Can’t wait!

The Geminid meteor shower peaked on December 13th and for the first time in years I got a chance to see it. Wednesday night the 12th of December started clear but rapidly clouded over. Not forecast and unexpected. Jeff and I laid out back at my place and saw a bunch of meteors despite the clouds, including several fireballs.

The next night, the 13th of December I traveled out to and watched from the Flint Hills. For December you couldn’t ask for better weather, about 40F all night with light south winds. It started out crystal clear but thin clouds did move over the area around midnight. The show was still fantastic. Its the best meteor shower I’ve seen in many years,

Photo below is a composition of the night including the approaching clouds.  This is made from many exposures taken through out the night. The constellation Gemini is lightly outlined and over two dozen Geminid meteors are visible (click for bigger version).

I didn’t start counting meteors until 9:00pm but prior to that Phil and Thomas were seeing many meteors.  The count I recorded is below:

Thats  201 Geminids in 3 1/2 hours effective observing time. Going to be hard to top this shower for awhile.

Late Friday night my friend Jeff stopped by the house to observe the night sky. It was a nice clear night,  reasonably warm but annoyingly windy. As we gazed upward from the shelter of my observatory we saw a number of Northern Taurid meteors.

I don’t normally go out of my way to watch minor meteor showers.  Perhaps I should rethink that for I was pleasantly surprised this night. I was not expecting many with my sky conditions and a partially obstructed view. Over the one and a half hours effective observing time I saw 8 Taurids,  including a very bright one that popped.  The Northern Taurid meteor shower was forecast to peak this weekend, it must be having a good year.

The Okie-Tex star party ran from September 8th through the 15th this year. For the thirteenth time I traveled out to western Oklahoma and got a pretty good dose of dark skies. It started out great, the first few nights were clear. But, in my opinion the timing was not the best, the moon was last quarter on that first Saturday (8th).  I’d much rather give up some dark sky at sunset, with the moon at or before first quarter, then lose the midnight to dawn dark period. The early moon rise on Saturday and Sunday night was particularly unfortunate as these turned out to be some of the clearest nights.

Speaking of the weather, it was all over the place. Hot the first few days and unexpectedly cool a few of the last nights. My Kestrel recorded the following:

The high temperature readings are suspect, sometimes I left the meter in a sunny area or my tent.  Overall you can see a declining temperature trend throughout the week. The 37 degrees reached Saturday morning was unexpectedly cold. Much cooler than had been forecast the previous week.

Like last year the Black Mesa area has been in a drought and I’m sure the locals were happy with the inch of rain we got Wednesday night. That night marked the change from hot and windy days to cooler nights. This was good. The dusty conditions the first weekend seemed worse then I can ever remember.

Despite my grumbling about the moon wiping out the dark sky the first few nights it did present an interesting opportunity. Sunday night, about 2:00am Monday morning, John and I grabbed a few shots of the camp illuminated by the moon. This was well past the end of true darkness yet the Milky Way was still very distinct. Below is the best image I got showing the northern half of the eastern observing field (click for bigger image).

Even to the eye the field was well lit at this time. Most people were shutting down (except of course Greg and John over in the western field!). Wish I had tried to shoot this picture an hour earlier. I wanted a better balance of light, enough to illuminate the mesa but not enough to wash out the stars. Interesting that even with strong moon light the camera picked up air glow (faint greenish color along top of mesa).

Overall the star party was pretty good. Its always fantastic to see fellow star gazers, especially those I see just once a year. As usual the night sky here tantalizes me, that it can be even better. Over the years I’ve seen several fantastically clear nights at the star party. That next year the skies could be perfect all night long, for days in a row, keeps me looking forward to the next Okie-Tex star party.

This is the time of year to enjoy the most spectacular feature in our night sky. The Milky Way. From the moment its truly dark until the end of darkness the next morning the Milky Way is on display all night long. Saturday night I was out in the Flint Hills to soak in the starlight of  this wonder.

For awhile the night sky was really good but as the night went on upper level moisture moved across the area. How ironic given the area, heck most of Kansas, is in extreme drought. What was a bit surprising was the strength, the intensity of the air glow that night. Clearly visible as the green color in the photo below (click image for larger version):

This single 40 second photograph using a Canon 5DMII (ISO 3200) with a 14mm Samyang @ f2.8 was taken just before midnight and is looking south-east. Yes the image is very noisy, temperature was in the mid 80s. Running the camera continuously really heated it up. The high that Saturday was over 100 degrees.

Along the lower right side of the picture the string of red dots are the blinking warning lights from the Beaumont wind farm some 30 miles to the south. Most of the white light to the left of the wind farm is from Eureka, KS, which is closer, about 16 miles away. From the right spot you can see a long, long way out here. All the way to the center of our galaxy!

Last night I watched the film “A City Dark” on my local PBS station.  An examination of our loss of the night sky. I’m drawn to this subject like a moth to light. How to present it? How to educate others about it? A couple minutes into the show I was hooked. Professor Robin’s comment, “American’s are not known for their knowledge”, brought a hearty laugh. Sadly its true, especially when it comes to the night sky. I found the scenes of using a planisphere, a type of star chart, in the heart of New York city weirdly depressing. How could those people possible appreciate the night sky when they can’t see but a few stars?

The show was put together with a combination of simple visual effects and time lapse photography. The author did a good job touching on many issues around light pollution. Trying to explore the question “What does it mean when we lose the night sky?”. One can present any number of valid reasons why this is bad, be it birds dying or baby turtles confused due to glaring light. The tough part is explaining the beauty and wonder of the night sky. Why one would even bother to see it, isn’t it just dark?  No picture, or description can ever substitute for seeing the Milky Way stretching over ones head on a clear, moonless summer night.

When the show ended I so wanted to be in the Flint Hills, seeing the magnificence of the Milky Way far from the city lights. Only then can one understand what its like to really see the night sky. And what we’re slowly losing.