Dave Mitskys Corner:

On the very chilly night of February 8, 2003 I helped my friend and fellow Astronomical Society of Harrisburg member Dave Lassiter wring out his new ITE DeepSky Pro RT video camera. The relative humidity was a miserable 65% and the temperature was less than -14 degrees Celsius. All told we spent about 5 hours imaging the moon, Jupiter, and a number of deep-sky objects using the ITE camera and Dave's 12" f/10 Meade LX200 SCT working at f/6.3. Despite my many layers of warm clothing I was as cold as I've ever been while observing. The numbing chill served to make working the camera and telescope controls a frustrating experience at times. Frost covered the table that held the monitor and camera controller and the SCT was more than a bit sluggish by the end of the session.

Unfortunately, C/2002 V1 (NEAT) was too close to the horizon to image by the time we got everything working properly.

When we turned the SCT to the moon the Barrow lunar sunrise ray* was readily visible at 154x with a 12.5mm orthoscopic eyepiece but not on the video monitor or the videotape upon playback. Another lunar light ray, one previously unknown until that night, was visible in the crater Meton, which is located just north of Barrow. Add this ray to Tony Donnangelo's growing list of lunar ray discoveries. (Tony, another friend and fellow ASH member, called to inform me about the new ray soon after he discovered it.)

One interesting aspect of moon that evening was an X-shaped area of illumination on the dark side of the terminator.

We managed to image Io's reappearance from Jupiter's shadow at 3:48 UT (2003/2/9 UT). Long before the eclipse was over we had witnessed the closest Galilean satellite being occulted by Jupiter.

Images of the moon and Jupiter were recorded with a lunar filter and the Sense Up integration control set at 2, the lowest level. At this setting Jupiter's two equatorial cloud belts, the NEB and SEB, were discernible but the Galilean satellites were a bit subdued.

At one point during our imaging session I happened to gaze overhead just in time to see a fine -2 magnitude meteor streak across the zenith on a southwestern trajectory.

Images of the following deep-sky objects were captured successfully: M31, M32, M35, M37, M42, M51, M65, M66, M81, M82, M103, NGC 457, NGC 869, NGC 884, NGC 2903, and Alcor-Mizar. We used a Sense Up control setting of 96 for these images. Due to image scale, clarity, and other factors the images of M37, M42, M82, M103, and NGC 869 were the most impressive to me.

Before we began tearing down the LX200 I had a look at the Curtius sunrise ray. The moon was close to the horizon by then and the seeing was horrible but I think that I saw this ray too. And so I witnessed three lunar light rays in one night, a record for me.

* See this link for more on lunar light rays.

Dave Mitsky
Harrisburg, PA