24” Telescope
- Discuss how the telescope works and show locations of the
primary and seconday mirrors, instrument selector, imaging CCD,
spectrograph and CCD, and eyepiece.
- M57 - The Ring Nebula, a planetary
nebula with a hot, 100,000 K, central star, 1.4' x 1.0', distance =
2,300 lyr, expansion age is approx 7,000 years
- M51 - The Whirlpool
Galaxy; spiral galaxy & interacting companion dwarf galaxy, 8.4
mag, diam = 11' x 7', dist = 37 million lyr
- Finish by taking CCD images in BVI filters of M51, if time
allows.
12” Telescope
-
Alberio - Double Star; orange and blue-green stars; sep = 34"
- Saturn - 1.0 mag, dist = 9.7 AU and
decreasing, semimajor axis = 9.5 AU, orbital period = 30 yr
Saturn's rings are seen nearly edge-on right now as happens every 15 yrs because the rings are tilted by 15 degrees relative to the plane of the solar system. The brightest Moon's locations are shown below pictured at the start of the night. Their orbital properties are:
Moon Semimajor Axis (100,000 km) Orbital Period (days) Mass Relative to Earth's Moon
Enceladus 2.4 1.4 0.1 %
Tethys 2.9 1.9 1.0 %
Dione 3.8 2.7 1.4 %
Rhea 5.3 4.5 3.4 %
Titan 12.2 16 183 %
Monday @ 9 pm
- M3 - Globular
Cluster, m = 6.2 mag, diam = 18', dist = 34,000 lyr, age = 13 billion yr
- M13 - Globular
Cluster, m = 5.8 mag, diam = 20', dist = 25,000 lyr, age = 13 billion yr
- M11 - Wild Duck Open Cluster, m
= 6.3 mag, diam = 14', dist = 6,000 lyr, age = 0.2 billion yr
- M23 - Open Cluster
in Sagittarius, m = 6.9 mag, diam = 27', dist = 2,200 lyr (need 40 mm
eyepiece to see most of the cluster)
- Epison Bootes - Named Star = Izar, Double Star w/ red giant (m=2.5) and fainter, blue-green (m=4.9) companion, sep = 2.8" (needs good seeing!)
- M104 - Sombrero Galaxy, a nearly
edge-on spiral galaxy, m = 8.0 mag, size: 9'x4', dist = 50 million lyr
- M64 - Spiral Galaxy, m = 8.5
mag, size: 9.3'x5.4', dist = 19 million lyr