Daily Archives: March 6, 2014

The Sun Online and solar activity. March 06, 2014

Over the last 24 hours, only 3 C-class flares have been observed, all C1. There are currently 8 sunspot regions on the visible solar disk. Most sunspot groups are stable or decaying, and have a simple magnetic
configuration. Some new magnetic flux has emerged in front of NOAA 1990, and merits further monitoring. The most important CMEs that were observed were all related to backside events, including the halo CME first visible in LASCO/C2 at 13:48UT on 5 March. It was associated to a strong flare in the same region that produced another halo CME on 4 March (18:48UT). None of the observed CMEs has an Earth-directed component. Eruptive flaring conditions are expected. Solar wind speed has continued its steady increase and is now varying between 470-500 km/s, with Bz between -5nT and +5nT. The source of this moderate-speed, high-temperature, low-density stream is probably a coronal hole that passed the central meridian on 27 February. Geomagnetic conditions remained quiet. The coronal hole on the northern hemisphere that
passed the central meridian early on 5 March might exert its effects starting from 8 March onwards, and may result in active geomagnetic conditions. Until then, quiet geomagnetic conditions are expected to
continue.

SIDC

Equipment: Coronado 90 + Imaging Source DMK + LX75
Processing: Photoshop, Avistack 300 frames
Date: 03/06/14
Time UT: 15:00
Exposure 1/500 sec.

With SPONLI Space is getting closer

NGC 1333 Stardust

Image Credit & Copyright: Al Howard

NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This striking close-up view spans about two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with hints of contrasting red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.

NASA APOD 06-Mar-2014

Centaurus A

Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is a prominent galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomerJames Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy’s fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy) and distance (10–16 million light-years). NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target, although the galaxy is only visible from low northern latitudes and the southern hemisphere.

The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a weight equivalent to 55 million solar masses, which ejects arelativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about one half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The radio jets of Centaurus A are over a million light years long.

Like other starburst galaxies, a collision is suspected to be responsible for the intense burst of star formation. Spitzer Space Telescopestudies have confirmed that Centaurus A is colliding with and devouring a smaller spiral galaxy.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: TMB APO 480 f/6
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel XSi / Kiss X2
Mounts: Vixen Atlux
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Rubinar 500/5,6
Guiding cameras: Lacerta MGEN
Software: DeepSkyStacker, Fitswork, photoshop
Filters: Baader IR EOS
Accessories: MGEN
Dates: July 27, 2011
Locations: Tivoli / Namibia
Frames: 9×300″ ISO800
Integration: 0.8 hours
Darks: ~9

Autor: Hartmuth Kintzel

06 March 2014

We select the best works of amateur astrophotographers with details of equipment, shooting processing etc.

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