Daily Archives: March 16, 2014

The Sun Online and solar activity. March 16, 2014

There were five C flares on the Sun during the past 24 hours, released by NOAA AR 12003, 12005, and 11998. The brightest flare was a C7.3 flare produced by AR 12003 peaking at 06:45 UT on March 16. In the next 48 hours, the probability for C flares is high (over 90%) and for M flares around 55%, mainly from AR 12003 and returning region AR 11986. CACTUS detected a CME on LASCO C2 and C3 images starting at 3:36 UT on March 16. This CME was also observed by the coronagraphs COR2 A and COR2 B, and is most probably related to the filament eruption that took place around 02:54 UT near 25S45E. This CME will probably not be geoeffective.In the past 24 hours, solar wind speed as observed by ACE varied between about 360 and 410 km/s, while the magnitude of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) fluctuated between about 1.5 and 4.5 nT. In the past 24 hours, quiet geomagnetic levels were registered (K Dourbes between 0 and 2; NOAA Kp between 0 and 1). Quiet geomagnetic conditions (K Dourbes < 4) are expected on March 16. Quiet to active conditions (K Dourbes < 5) are possible on March 17 and 18, due to a coronal hole high speed stream.
SIDC

Equipment: Coronado 90 + Imaging Source DMK + LX75
Processing: Photoshop, Avistack 300 frames
Date: 03/16/14
Time UT: 16:00
Exposure 1/500 sec.

With SPONLI Space is getting closer

The Antennae Galaxies in Collision

Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA; Processing & Copyright: Davide Coverta

Two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus and here are the latest pictures. When two galaxies collide, the stars that compose them usually do not. That’s because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small amount of that space. During the slow, hundred million year collision, one galaxy can still rip the other apart gravitationally, and dust and gas common to both galaxies does collide. In this clash of the titans, dark dust pillars mark massive molecular clouds are being compressed during the galactic encounter, causing the rapid birth of millions of stars, some of which are gravitationally bound together in massive star clusters.

NASA APOD 16-Mar-2014

IC443 in HaOIII and RGB

IC 443 (also known as the Jellyfish Nebula and Sharpless 248) is a Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Gemini. On the plan of the sky, it is located near the star Eta Geminorum. Its distance is roughly 5,000 light years from Earth.
IC 443 is an extended source, having an angular diameter of 50 arcmin (by comparison, the full moon is 30 arcmin across). At the estimated distance of 5,000 ly (1,500 parsec) from Earth, it corresponds to a physical size of roughly 70 light years (20 parsec).

The SNR optical and radio morphology is shell-like (e.g. a prototypical shell-like SNR is SN 1006), consisting of two connected sub-shells with different centers and radii. A third larger sub-shell, initially attributed to IC 443, is now recognized as a different and older (100,000 years) SNR, called G189.6+3.3.
Notably, IC 443 X-ray morphology is centrally peaked and a very soft X-ray shell is barely visible. Unlike plerion remnants, e.g. the Crab Nebula, the inner X-ray emission is not dominated by the central pulsar wind nebula. It has indeed a thermal origin. IC 443 shows very similar features to the class of mixed morphology SNRs. Both optical and X-ray emission are heavily absorbed by a giant molecular cloud in the foreground, crossing the whole remnant body from northwest to southeast.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Selfmade Super Astrograph 8″ f4
Imaging cameras: SBIG ST- 8300M
Mounts: Skywatcher AZ EQ6 GT
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Selfmade Super Astrograph 8″ f4
Guiding cameras: ALccd5-IIm
Software: Fitswork, Adobe Photoshop CS5
Filters: Baader Planetariun Ha 7nm, Baader Planetarium Blue 1.25″, Baader Planetarium Green 1.25″, Baader Planetarium Red 1.25″, Baader Planetariun OIII 8.5nm
Accessories: TS 9mm OAG, Pal Gyulai Komakorrektor
Dates: Feb. 21, 2014
Frames:
Baader Planetarium Blue 1.25″: 2×600″ bin 2×2
Baader Planetarium Green 1.25″: 2×600″ bin 2×2
Baader Planetariun Ha 7nm: 6×900″
Baader Planetariun OIII 8.5nm: 7×600″ bin 2×2
Baader Planetarium Red 1.25″: 2×600″ bin 2×2
Integration: 3.7 hours

Author: Petko Marinov

16 March 2014

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

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: