La Cañada Observatory, is an initiative by Juan Lacruz, the observatory started astrometric operations in the summer of 2002, it is registered as station J87 in the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.

The Observatory also participates in the studies on minor bodies promoted by the Group on Meteorites, Minor Bodies, and Planetary Sciences of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC).



Saturday, November 6, 2010

Quite a black night, La Cañada 2010 Nov 06

Comet 103P Hartley 2 just after the EXPOXY near flyby, as imaged from La Cañada on 2010 Nov the 5th. It illustrates how the perspective changes the way we perceive things. We've just seen the excellent images and video published on the JPL site, where all the detail of the comet surface is apparent, with the many jets spitting a combination of gas and dust to the interplanetary media. In this stacked image taken from La Cañada the aspect of the comet is absolutely different, part of the materials ejected from the comet remain gravitationally bounded to it generating this sort of atmosphere, which is appreciated as a greenish glow and known as the comet's coma. Note how the inner coma is bluer than the outer, which appears redder.

Co-addition of 25 images 1 minute exposure each with a 200mm lens at F2.8, ISO 1250 (c) J. Lacruz
Asteroid Miguel crossing a crowded field of galaxies shows how perspective does not always help our understanding of the world, whilst the asteroid is at a few light minutes from Earth, in our Solar System, the background galaxies are as deep as several millions of light years in the abyssal universe.

The seven sisters shrouded in blue gas.