29P Schwassmann-Wachmann : unusual outburst with an increase of 4.4 magnitudes

• Feb. 1.95 mag 16.1 N, J. Camarasa, 0.25-m Paus. Half a day before the outburst in quiescent state, this is the last pre-outburst observation.
  


• Feb. 2.52 Outburst, as estimated from the observed coma size and typical ejection velocities CBET 2160 (only subscribers).
  


• Feb. 2.99 mag 11.7 N, Faustino García, 0.25-m La Vara. (IAUC 9116) (subscribers)


• Feb. 3.18 mag 11.7 R, Albert Sánchez, 0.36-m Gualba.
  


• Feb 3.73 Astronomers Telegram ATel 2417, Josep María Trigo-Rodriguez (CSIC-IEEC)
  


• Feb. 3.87 R = 11.6, F. Colas and L.Maquet, 1-m Pic du Midi.
  



• Feb. 3.92 V = 12.0, Diego Rodriguez, 0.25-m Guadarrama.
  
  


• Feb 3.96, F. Colas and L.Maquet, 1-m Pic du Midi.
  
  



• Feb 4.19 V = 11.5, Albert Sánchez, 0.36-m Gualba.
  
  


• Feb. 04.92 R = 11.59 Diego Rodriguez, 0.25-m Guadarrama.
  



• Feb 4 CBET 2160 (subscription needed)
  COMET 29P/SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN
  J. M. Trigo-Rodriguez, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas and Institut d'Estudis Espacial de Catalunya, suggests that comet 29P is currently experiencing an unusual outburst.....
  


• Feb. 04.98 R = 11.48 Anibal Garcia, 0.80-m IAC Instituto Astrofísico de Canarias. (image)


• Feb. 6 IAUC 9114 (subscribers)



• Feb 6.92 Josep Maria Trigo-Rodriguez (CSIC-IEEC)
  This CCD integration of 38 min exposure shows the development of a fan shaped dust tail.
  
  

Further observations strongly encouraged.
The images shown may be copyrighted by their authors.

P/2010 A2, Hubble's close-up look

The full story

P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) The 5th Main Belt "Comet"

This makes number five of "comets" found in the Main Belt (this one in the inner belt) in typical asteroidal, non-cometary orbits.

Note that it seems to be of the Hirayama's collisional Flora family.

The images show quite a straight tail with a separate fragment probably of a collisional origin as well.
Other two, out of the five known, seem to be of another Hirayama family, Themis .

Read this posts by D.Jewitt http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/MBC5.html

References :
IAUC 9105
IAUC 9109
CBET 2134

Virtual impactor 2009 XC2, Apollo NEO

New apollo NEO confirmed on 2009 Dec 12.
Flagged as virtual impactor in JPL Sentry
Urgent observation required.
Ref.- MPC circular

2009 nov 28, Orión desde Nieda.

Orión remonta en el cielo de Nieda, Cangas de Onís, Asturias.

Al fondo, las primeras nieves en los Picos de Europa.

Two new asteroid designations

I've just received two new provisional designations for objects found on 2009 Oct 18,

LC00212 K09U68M LC00213 K09U28N

K09U68M Main belt asteroid, currently at mag 19.4V
K09U28N Doesn't have a published orbit yet, currently at mag 20.5V

Nuevo Troyano (Griego) de Júpiter

En observaciones desde La Cañada el sábado 17/10/2009 detecté un objeto no identificado en magnitud 19.6 V, envié la astrometría al Minor Planet Center con la designación de observatorio LC00211. Hoy 26 octubre 2009 he recibido la designación provisional del MPC 2009 UX15 que corresponde a un objeto de tipo Troyano de Júpiter, este es el segundo Troyano descubierto desde La Cañada, el primero 2007 RK35 tiene el número 171433 y su nombre es Prothous.

(Imagen de descubrimiento, suma de 10 exposiciones de 30 segundos sin corrección de seguimiento)

Los Troyanos son asteroides que ocupan las zonas de estabilidad halladas por Lagrange como solución del problema circular restringido de los tres cuerpos.

De las cinco soluciones de Lagrange, L1, L2 y L3 son de equilibrio inestable, además hay dos soluciones, L4 y L5 que son de equilibrio estable.

Un siglo después del resultado de Lagrange se encontraron asteroides orbitando entorno al punto L4 y al L5 correspondientes a Júpiter, los asteroides en el punto L4 que preceden a Júpiter en su órbita se nombran como héroes griegos de la guerra de Troya, los asteroides en el punto L5 que van detrás de Júpiter en su movimiento orbital se nombran como héroes Troyanos. (hay alguna excepción que confirma la regla).

Tanto 2009 UX15 como 2007 RK35 orbitan el punto de libración L4 por lo que pertenecen al grupo de los griegos de Júpiter.

Se ha seguido descubriendo más Troyanos entorno a otros planetas, actualmente según el MPC hay 4 Troyanos de Marte, 3608 de Jupiter y 6 de Neptuno.

También se piensa que podría haber Troyanos de planetas extrasolares.


Detalle de la imágen de descubrimiento, relación señal ruido 5.7 magnitud 19.5V en una exposición total de 3 min.

Datos orbitales egún el MPC :

Epoch 2009 Sept. 26.0 TT = JDT 2455100.5 MPCM 343.45117 (2000.0)

a = 5.26, e = 0.09, i = 4.16, q = 4.78, P = 12.1, H = 13.1

From 20 observations 2009 Sept. 22-Oct. 25.

Orbital parameters, residuals and ephemerides at MPC.

Visita al Observatorio del Teide y del Roque de los Muchachos

El volcán preside el observatorio del Teide.

Visita al telescopio infrarrojo Carlos Sánchez con la profesora Mercedes Prieto.

Reposición de nitrógeno líquido para enfriar el detector infrarrojo.

Telescopio IAC80.

Gran telescopio de Canarias.

Estructura del GRANTECAN.

Comet C/2006 W3 Christensen

This is a composition of 12 images taken with the 0.40m RCT Telescope at J87 observatory, La Cañada, the observation has been conducted remotely from Madrid.

(c) Juan Lacruz 2009 Sept 15

COMET P/2009 Q1 (HILL)

On Aug. 27 R. E. Hill with the Catalina Sky Survey 0.68-m Schmidt found this diffuse comet with no clear condensation and a 12"-15" coma with a broad, diffuse tail about 20" long in p.a. 250 deg. The object was then included in the neo confirmation page (NEOCP) for other observatories to confirm and follow up.

On Aug. 29.0, I stacked twenty 2-min images to find the object very diffuse with a round coma of size 12" and a tail 20" long in p.a. 249 deg.

This (above) is a cropped non-zoomed stack composition of 29 images of 2 minutes each taken with the .40m Ritchey-Chretien F10 + CCD at La Cañada, the North is up and the East left.

Above, zoom 4x

References :

MPEC 2009-Q67
IAUC 9067 P/2009 Q1(suscribers)
Remanzacco observatory report

This Jupiter family comet has a period about 13 years.

Descubriendo el cosmos desde casa (CosmoCaixa 25-26 Sept)

Jornadas auspiciadas por CosmoCaixa Alcobendas, Madrid, del 25/09/2009 al 26/09/2009
En estas jornadas nos acercaremos a la contribución de los astrónomos no profesionales al avance de la astronomía.

Anuncio del Congreso colaboración Pro-Am en Córdoba

El 20, 21 y 22 de noviembre de 2009 se celebra en Córdoba un congreso sobre colaboración Profesional-Amateur en investigación astronómica :

http://www.iac.es/congreso/proam/

Two new asteroid designations

The night of August the 22nd I was trying to recover the asteroid K01QS8G, it is interesting because from a dynamical point of view it could be taken for a comet and it was not observed since its discovery back in 2001.
The object was there, some arc minutes off the nominal position, with the predicted magnitude, speed and direction.
In the same field another, non catalogued, object was also moving. I reported the K01QS8G observations to the mpc and kept the unided object to try and get a second night on the 23th.
You wont usually get discovery rigths unless you observe the body on two different nights.
The next night I pointed the telescope to the position where it was supposed to be and found it close to the ephemerides, to my surprise another object was moving over there.
Because it was moving at a similar speed and direction, I thought it could well be present on the same images from the night before, I prepared backward ephemerides for the new object, re-stacked the images and luckily enough it was there, then I reported booth.
The mpc, very soon, assigned new designations:

LC00190=K09Q09X
LC00191=K09Q09W

These make discovery numbers 125 and 126 in the observatory's account.

202819 = “Carlos Sánchez Magro”,

El día 6 de agosto de 2009 el MPC ha asignado nombre Carlosanchez al asteroide 202819 descubierto desde La Cañada.

Carlos Sánchez Magro (Valladolid 1944- Tenerife 1985) fue un astrofísico español, miembro distinguido del Instituto Astrofísico de Canarias (IAC), pionero de la astronomía infrarroja y hábil desarrollador de instrumentación astronómica, incluyendo el telecopio infrarrojo del Observatorio del Teide e instrumentos para naves espaciales.

Discovered 2008 September 26 by J. Lacruz at La Cañada.Carlos Sánchez Magro (1944-1985). Spanish astrophysicist, distinguished member of the Instituto Astronómico de Canarias IAC, infrared astronomy pioneer and skilled developer of new astronomical instrumentation, including IR Telescope at Teide Observatory and spaceborne instruments.

Consultar los datos orbitales en el jpl
El telescopio Carlos Sánchez TCS en el observatorio del Teide.

NEOCP 98LA264 --> 2009 QB23, non interesting!

I was trying to confirm this object found by the OAM J75 observatory La Sagra from the NEOCP on the night of August the 2nd in a very good night with low seeing, probably due to the uncertainty in the preliminary ephemerides available on-line from the mpc the stacked images showed a slightly diffuse object. However it resulted to be purely asteroidal, the lesson learned is that a lot of care should be taken when trying to find cometary activity by stacking frames on the movement of an object with an orbit not well known yet.

New designation

On July the 27th the MPC sent me this designation for a Vaisala object observed on 2007!

JUAN991 K07Y70P

Saturn

Planet Saturn, an over exposed photography to bring out some satellites.
Taken from Madrid through a 20cm (8") telescope working at F10, i.e. with a focal lenght 2000 mm, the EOS40D camera was at the primary focus.

The same conditions as in the picture above, with less exposure time showing an almost edge on rings system.

2009 Apr 04, public observation at Cosmo Caixa, Alcobendas, Madrid.

Observación pública en la Cosmo Caixa (Alcobendas), ver resumen de Antena 3 TV :
Public observation at Cosmo Caixa (Alcobendas), watch Antena 3 TV summary :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xNiFJbUm60

DISCSTATUS 2009 April 09

A new numbering for object 2007 WR, (this is number 18) for La Cañada Observatory.
The latest discovery status report lists 122 designations for J87 La Cañada, however the observatory account lists 123, one designation, that for 2009 FE14, is missing in the MPC report.

Recent discoveries

Gracias al buen tiempo de las últimas noches sin Luna he podido detectar y confirmar varios asteroides.

2009 FV5 tiene una órbita bastante inclinada, 22 grados, parece ser de la familia de asteroides Phocaea.

2009 Mar 13, 2009 EV4
2009 Mar 18, 2009 FU5
2009 Mar 18, 2009 FV5
2009 Mar 20, 2009 FE14
2009 Mar 20, 2009 FG14
2009 Mar 20, 2009 FC19
2009 Mar 20, 2009 FD19

Thanks to the good weather last nights with no Moon, I detected and confirmed seven new asteroids, 2009 FV5 seems of the Phocaea family of asteroids, with a typical high inclination about 22 degrees.

Venus phase

This picture of Venus shows the planet's phase.
Because it's low, near the horizon, the light from Venus is seen through a thick layer of atmosphere. The refraction is causing the red light to bend more than the blue.

Esta imágen de Venus muestra la fase del planeta.
Como está bajo en el horizonte, su luz es vista a través de una espesa capa de atmósfera. La refracción causa que la luz roja se curve más que la azul.

Canon EOS40D, ISO 400, exp 1/500, 2000 mm F10. (c) Juan Lacruz.

Comet 29P

Remains stationary in activity at mag 15.7R displaying a broad coma and condensed nucleus.

El 29P permanece sin cambios de actividad en mag 15.7R mostrando una amplia coma con núcleo condensado.


Stack of 6x 2 min CCD images (c) Juan Lacruz 2009 Mar 18 La Cañada.
0.40m Ritchey Chretien F10 + STL1001E CCD.

Comet C/2009 F1 Larson

This new comet discovered by S. M. Larson, University of Arizona, on survey images taken with the Mount Lemmon 1.5m telescope showing a coma diameter 4"-6" was posted on the minor planet center neo confirmation page as 9FAF233 for other observatories to confirm.

On a stack of 18 CCD images 60 seconds each in fairly good seeing a fuzziness was barely appreciated, I didn't report it to the central bureau for astronomical telegrams (CBAT) because to me, it wasn't clear enough if it was a comet.

However, other observatories noticed the diffuse aspect and the object has been recognized as a new non periodic comet.
Below you can see the analysis of the full with at half maximum for the stars in the image, most of them have FWHM = 2.5" which is good seeing for La Cañada, the comet, in red, has a much wider spread function.

Read a doc on how to detect low activity comets looking at the statistics of the FWHM.

References : MPEC 2009-F34, IAUC 9029 (subscribers only)

29P

The comet 29/P in a quiescent state at magnitud 15.59R
Showing an extended diffuse coma and condensed nucleus.
2009 Mar 13, 21:22:52 UT La Cañada (c) Juan Lacruz.

A Larson Sekanina process (below) with a shitf 0.5 pixels and no rotation, does not reveal any feature.

Comet C2007 N3 Lulin

Comet Lulin heading the outer Solar System.
Canon EOS 40D + 200mm F2.8 (c) Juan Lacruz.

A color enhanced rendition of the comet to better show the tail/coma structure of this fine comet, LX200 40cm F10 + STL1001E + RVB filters
Note the dust tail in red and the coma in lights of blue and gree.

M67

STL 1001E + 4000 mm F10, RVB

M42, the nebula in Orion

Canon EOS40D + 200mm F2.8 (c) Juan Lacruz

C/2007 N3 Lulin and 29/P

Bright comet C/200 N3 Lulin, fast moving at 12"/min.
This is a stack of seven images on the comet movement.
Due to the particular geometry of the Sun-Comet-Earth we see the straight gas tail to the South East (bottom left) in contrast with the many jets in the opposite direction North West (Top right).
(c) 2007 Feb 21 La Cañada J.Lacruz

Fascinating centaur object 29/P comet after one of the frequent outburst it undergoes at an Helio centric distance of about 5 Astronomical units.
To the right a Larson Sekanina filtering (just a radial shift of 0.5 pixels) to better show the shell structures.
(c) 2007 Feb 21 La Cañada J.lacruz

2009 CC45

Nueva designación provisional para un objeto débil (mag 20.5V) descubierto desde La Cañada el día 13 de febrero. De momento solo tiene órbita de Väisälä (aproximación circular).

This is the new provisional designation for a faint object (mag 20.5V) discovered from La Cañada on February the 13th. For the moment just a Väisälä orbit (circular approx.).

Observations 2009 Feb 14

The telescope is back to work after a repair, both AR and Dec reduction trains failed at the same time and they were changed.
Followup of bodies discovered from La Cañada on 2007, 2007 WR, 2007 WT2 and 2007 VP2.
Confirmation of a NEOCP Amor object 2009 CO5 with excellent residuals, read the MPC 2009-C86 .
Observations of comet centaur 29P in a post-outburst state.
Multicolor photometry of M67 cluster, results pending.