iPhone Astronomy

iPhone-based astrophotography is begun. Below is an image of Jupiter taken by an iPhone through an 8" Meade Cassegrain telescope by amateur astronomer Mike Weasner.



Note that on the right you can see three of the moons of Jupiter - this is similar to what Galileo saw when looking through his small 2" refracting telescope, hence the four largest moons are dubbed the Galilean moons in his honor. Continued observations of Jupiter over the course of days, months, and even years led Galileo to the realization that they were orbiting Jupiter, not the Earth, and therefore the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Another thing you can see in this image is that the face of Jupiter has bands across it. Galileo could not see these himself, but he saw other "irregularities" or deviations from perfection on the Moon (craters), Saturn (rings, which he couldn't identify as such), and Venus (phases, like we see our Moon go through naked-eye). These other features also helped support Galileo's claim that the universe was NOT perfect, and did NOT revolve around the Earth. Rest assured if he had seen stripes on Jupiter, he would have recorded such a fact.

So this little iPhone image is better than what the father of modern astronomy saw himself.


For more information on this image and the telescope used, see also:
* Bad Astronomy (Dr. Phil Plait)
* The Mac Observer (John Martellaro)
* Weasner's Mighty ETX Site (Mike Weasner)
* Meade Telescopes, LX200-ACF model

Comety goodness!

Tonight I saw Comet Holmes through a telescope. The last time I've seen any comet through a telescope was Haley's Comet way back in the 80's, in my childhood. I missed both Hale-Bopp and Hyukatuke (sp?) in the mid 90's somehow.

Check out the Wikipedia page on Comet Holmes. Scroll down a couple screens to "Location in 2007" and you'll see a nice finding chart - it's in Perseus, currently North of the left "arm" of the π shape that I see in it. It's clearly visible to the naked eye - I was in a brightly lit city, on campus near some lights, and I still was able to point it out to people who are NOT experienced observers. First find the stars of Perseus, and then you'll realize that one of the North-most stars is actually a bit fuzzy, and that's it.

Through a telescope it resolves into a HUGE fuzzy blob - bigger than planets, bigger than the Ring Nebula, bigger than Andromeda, maybe as big as the space between H and Χ Perseus. (Use the biggest diameter telescope you can, lowest power.) With some careful studying and averted vision you'll be able to see that the brightest center section is elongated (left/right in my tele's field of view, I think East/West actually), it's surrounded by a glowing cloud, and one edge of the cloud is crisp/sharp and slightly brighter (right in my field of view, I think the East edge) while the opposite edge fades away, presumably into the tail. There are no bright stars in the same field of view; focus while looking at a dim star, and keep your eyes on it to view the comet most easily.

It's just amazing. Go look at it, naked eye, binoculars, tele, whatever. The thing is exploding, this's probably its last pass around the Sun. (If it somehow survives, it'll be back in a scant 7 years.)