Astronomy with
Paul Mortfield
The Backyard Astronomer TM

Current Moon Phase Ask the Astronomer Photo Gallery Karen's Galaxy Inspired by my fiance to photograph this local galaxy. (copyright 2003 P.Mortfield) Bright Satellite passes Tonight: San Francisco Toronto Other Cities

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David's Death Star 10yr old David Bodirsky noticed a "moving star" on one of my recent images. I was looking at the expansion of this supernova remnant, when he discovered a faint star with proper motion which we'll soon catalog with the name he's chosen above. You can see the motion (click on the image for larger version), when we blink between an image of the region taken 54 years ago and a recent image from Oct 2005. Initial measurements show the motion for RA: +0.024 arcsec/yr and DEC: -0.067 arcsec/yr. This is slow compared to Barnard's star, but definitely noticeable over time. In early 2006 we'll take another image and try and determine the star's distance from Earth. Congrats David, well done.. (p.s. the very bright star in the upper right is a known star of high proper motion, David's star is much fainter) More Astrophotos Recent image of the HorseHead nebula in Orion in November 2005 with the 16" f/6.7. 80minute exposure. (Click on image for larger version.) My backyard observatory is called the Betelgeuse Bar & Grill, built by the wonderful people at SkyShed and here are the current sky conditions for observers in my part of Ontario. This sky clock is produced by Canadian friend Attilla Danko SOLAR ACTIVITY The biggest baddest flare ever on record..!! Nov 4 - Well you'd think that we'd seen it all from AR10486, guess not. I just happened to be checking Xray flux counts from the GOES satellite and noticed an event was on the rise. Well it just kept going and going getting higher passing the X10 mark caught last week. It was so strong that it saturated the detector on the spacecraft for 11 minutes locked with a reading at X17.4. The flare was finally labelled as an X42, yes the biggest on record. The only good news is that the flare was pointed away from Earth. Info about my radio telescope that detected the flare. COMET Comet 43P/Wolf-Harrington Oct 13, 2003 Click on the image to see the comet's motion (430K). I took three 60second exposures from the backyard under a bright moon of this faint (mag 13.5) periodic comet. Exposures separated by 100 and 30 minutes to show the motion. I was able to track down 2 additional comets that evening, all before midnight. Just goes to show all the activity going on in the night sky on any given night. Check out the new edition of this cool book by my friends Terry Dickenson and Alan Dyer. Great info for beginners, plus tips and tricks for the experienced observers. (http://www.backyardastronomy.com/) Sunset Partial Eclipse July 30, 2000 Observing from the top of Mt. Hamilton above San Jose I was able to capture the sun setting with a bite out of its right side. The last time we had this opportunity was 10 years earlier on July 29, 1990. (click on the images for larger view) The first image (top left) was published in the November 2000 issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine. Solar Eclipse © 1999 Paul Mortfield We saw the eclipse. It was not the best conditions, however, we did see it through clouds. Our viewing spot was Friesing, just 30 minutes north of Munich. We had pouring rain, less than an hour before totality, and it rained again 45 minutes after. We set up on the grounds of the oldest operating brewery in the world. Yes, it had been founded in 1040AD. Many locals walked by and were taking pictures of us with our telescopes. Here's a selection of quick scans of the eclipse. More images will follow, as I perfect the scans and make real prints. Bay Area Lightning Storm, Sept 8, 1999 Graze of Saturn © 1997 Mortfield/Phelps Gallery of Comet Hale-Bopp images Mortfield's Telescope buying tips. In The Headlines Hubble Space Telescope Images NASA's Space Shuttle The SOHO Solar Spacecraft. Cassini Spacecraft to Saturn Mars Exploration Missions. Latest Images from the Galileo probe around Jupiter. Well not anymore after they crashed the space craft into Juipter on Sep 21, 2003 Old Headlines July 28, 1851 - First photo taken of a total solar eclipse October 14, 1947 - Chuck Yeager in Bell X-1 becomes the first to break the sound barrier 50 years ago! October 18, 1967 - Venera 4 is first craft to study another planet's atmosphere (Venus) 30 years ago!

All Photos unless otherwise stated Copyright 1996-2006 © Paul Mortfield. All rights reserved.

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