Friends Of Taylor Observatory

Mars and the Pleiades star group (Messier M45) are near each other tonight at a distance of 2.7 degrees, or about 5.5 lunar diameters. Look in the SW direction at 60 degrees altitude. Picture is a simulation from Stellarium.

The first high resolution photos taken by the Perseverance Rover (NASA) are at https://www.space.com/nasa-perseverance-rover-first-panoram Those of you who have heard my Mars story about the mysterious cat on mars will note there's no cat in the photos. . and you will remember the punch line "Curiosity killed the cat."

Watch MARS landing of the NASA Perseverence Rover beginning NOW: Live-stream on You-Tube https://www.youtube.com/nasa en espanol: www.youtube.com/NASA_ES Control room video: https://www.youtube.com/user/JPLraw/live

Jupiter Saturn Conjunction Tonight. Closest approach of the two planets since 1623. Separation is 1/6 of a lunar diameter. Photo of the two planets was taken last night during briefly clear skies around 5:30 PM. Second photo notes the separation on a recent lunar photo. It's looking good for tonight. We;ll post a commentary about the event tomorrow on the front page of www.friendsoftaylor.org Best to all for the holidays..

Amazon Smile: An easy way to donate to Friends of Taylor is to designate us as your preferred charity when making a purchase on Amazon. Here's a direct link which bypasses the usual charity selecion process: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/56-2645207

Geminid meteors tonight under clear skies. . look everywhere between 7:30PM and 2 in the morning. Best meteor shower of the year.

Former Lake County teacher and entusiastic supporter of Taylor's Future Astronomers program, Kathleen Scavone, just published an article on Dark Skies for Lake County News in the form of an inberview with Bill Haddon (me). See: https://www.lakeconews.com//67560-the-living-landscape-nig And see a fine picture of our dark skies taken by LC News editor Elizabeth Larsen, also a fan of Dark Skies and Taylor. I encoura See More

The Thanksgiving Comet? You have to really love comets to observe comet C/2020 M3 ATLAS, although it is a binocular comet. above Betelgeuse in Taurus. I've spotted twice in late evening using 10.5 x 45 binocs. This picture, taken with the camera mounted on a tracking telescope, shows C/2020 M3 weakly, to the right of the Ruby Star , 119-Tau, not to be confused with the late Rock Singer Ruby Starr. The Ruby star is the 2nd brightest red star (nic carbon stars) in the galaxy behind the Garnet Star in Cepheus. Details: Canon Rebel t2i, 135,mm Rokinon lens at f2.8. 2x ISO 800, 20 secs. stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Announcing: Window to the Universe October 2020 Saturday, Oct 24 at 8:00 PM Mr. Eduardo Alatorre: "Exploring Saturn, the Jewel of the Solar System; Casini, 20 Years of Exploration" Followed by live-streamed lunar views from Tom Schleif's 12" Dobsonian scope in Kelseyville. -- Details will be sent via the FOTO Mail List. . if you are NOT subscribed please send an email ASAP to: ... [email protected] -- No charge for this Zoom event, but there is a limited sign-up, by response to the FOTO email which will be sent on Tuesday. See more

Mars and it's different faces shot so far this year... You can see it is getting farther away from earth, it is getting smaller. It has been a good Mars year and it is not over yet...

NOW! The OSIRIS-REx probe is preparing to collect a sample from the surface of asteroi Bennu. Watch live now at: https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-s Bill Haddon FOTO

Mars on the night of Oct. 12. Seeing was pretty awful but out of about 15 video file 1 was acceptable. The seeing that night was very unstable but I finally figured out how to use a Zwo Atmosphere Dispersion Control or ADC, which helps correct some of this. I had this thing for 2 years and never used it. Hoping for a night this week to get some better images.

ORIONID Meteor Shower - Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Under excellent dark skies, you may catch some great meteors, remants of an earlier pass of Halley's comet through the solar system. Best times are 1:00 AM to dawn Wednesday morning, but you may see Orionids on preceeding and following days. For example, last night at 1:20AM there was a cloud-burner meteor just above Orion in the Southern Sky. Read the discussion at www.space.com/orionid-meteor-shower-2020-peaks-soon and share your experience and photos in the comments section. Good luck! Bill Haddon FOTO President

The planet Mars shot the night of Oct 6. Mars is the bright orange tinged object in the night sky. You should see it about an hour or so after sunset. It was at its closest to earth on the sixth,now moving away. I have been waiting to shoot it but the smoke was in my eyes...it cleared out Monday and I spent an hour and a half observing it, then shot it the next night. The white polar ice cap is plainly visible. Lots of cool surface detail Will be shooting it more as it moves... away from earth in the next couple months.. Orion xx12g ZWOasi224 Televue 2.5x powermate Autostakkert 3 RegiStax 6

With smoke clearing we can see stars again. It's the year for observing MARS, which will make it's closest approach early in October -- especially notable: because it rides high at 40 deg elevation in the South-East sky. Watch between 10:00 pm and 2:00 AM. I'm not an eperienced planet phogotgrapher, but this photo taken last night shows some surface detail, including the polar ice cap a the bottom. Taken through an 8" Celestron telescope using a Canon DSLR t2i, with a f6.3 focal reducer; 1/200 sec at ISO 100. Some processing in Photoshop Elements. Seeing was not especially good last night.

Double moon transit last night..seen was poor and got worse later. The first moon off is Ganymede, it crossed in front of Jupiter and the sun then cast its shadow on the surface, when it got between the planet and sun, just like solar eclipse on earth. The second and smaller moon off is Io. These transit occur regularly but a double transit is rare..as it turned out there was another one a few weeks ago and on a very rare occasion there are triple transits.... Orion xx12g tr...ustube goto DOB ZWOasi224 Autostakkert 3 RegiStax 6 Photoshop CC See more

N. Cal's most famous observatory, the Lick Observatory, is under serious threat tonight from the SCULightning Complex fire. See the Twitter feed at: https://twitter.com/SLO_City_Fi/status/1296203174118744065

The planets last night in average seeing around 10:30pm. Shot through one of the Friends of Taylor's scopes, an 8" Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain. Jupiter and one of its moons Io and Saturn traverse the Southern sky fairly close together. They are followed by a distant Mars which is high in the sky by 3am...it has a distinct yellow/orange tint and is getting closer to to earth. It will make its closest approach in Oct, so watch for it.....

Comet C/2020 f3 (NEOWISE) -- A final look. This photo of the comet taken last night is approximately as it appeared in a good pair of binoculars around 11:00 pm local Pacific time looking NW at 314 degrees, i.e. 45 degrees West of Polaris. This photo is equivalent to about six lunar diameters in height and shows stars to about 12th magnitude. A fairly bright moon, 35% illuminated and at the same elevation as the comet (10 degrees Elevation) is becoming a problem for viewing. Next on the astronomy calendar is the Perseid meteor shower, peaking Aug 11/12, a Tuesday night, under an almost new moon. Early Perseids are visible already. see https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-/meteor-shower-calendar/

A recap of comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE shot over the course of a few weeks, from an early morning comet to a nighttime comet. Bye bye Neowise, it has been a fun visit...

Comet Neowise (C/2020 f3) is visible after dark near the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. Photo taken last night shows the change in color of the coma around the nucleus, now green, Best in binoculars, but you may still see it naked eye. To locate the comet, draw a line through the "pointer" stars of the big dipper, going to the West about 2.5x the distance between them. As the moon brightens in the coming days, finding the comet will become more difficult. Yesterday was its closest passage to Earth, but a comfortable 63 million miles away.

We hope you are not getting tired of Comet NEOWISE! The photograph here was taken shortly after sunset on July 16. . the comet tail extends about 7 lunar diameters toward the Dipper; you can see the very faint bluish ion tale to the left of the main tail. Tonight, in clouds, the comet was to the right (north) of the stars Talitha and Alkaphrah in Ursa Major (a pair of stars below and to the West (left) of the "pointer stars" in the big dipper. Comet remain a spectacular sight with binoculars, and should remain visible naked eye for serveral more days.

Last nights shot of C2020 F3 NEOWISE . It is a very naked eye comet yet so get out and view it in the NW sky. It is getting higher every night and will pass closest to earth on the 24th under the Big Dipper. Go out and find it! Start looking about 9:45.. The view in binoculars is awesome.