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Blueberry Pond Observatory
Many different sights to see every night. The pictures below are a sample...
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This particular picture has not been enhanced to show the moons at the same time as the Jupiter picture. This picture will be replaced with a new shot of Jupiter in the near future.
Note the Cassini division in the ring (the gap in the middle of the ring) that is visible even in this small, cropped picture. This picture will be replaced with a new shot of Saturn in the near future.
The moon has an apparent size of 30 arc minutes, requiring many CCD pictures to cover it's entire surface. This shot shows mostly a fully lit section, with a bit of the terminator line visible to the right.
This shot shows the darkened edge of the moon, near the terminator line as the moon fades from full moon to new moon over several weeks.
This pictures taken on 10/7/99 demonstrates how easy it is to follow an asteroid's movement across the sky with a CCD camera. This picture is a composite of three pictures... The second and third pictures captured the asteroid's location one and two hours after the first shot was taken. It's visual magnitude is about 10.6, and is located about 2.64 times further out than the Earth. As of 1/1/2000 it is 2.5 times further out than the Earth, and is magnitude 11.2
This picture shows a very faint comet around 9/12/99 at a point in it's orbit that is 1.97 times further away from the sun than the Earth is. The visual magnitude of the comet at this time was 14.0 Note that bloom spikes from bright stars nearby that occurred while capturing the very faint comet. See the "Pictures" page for an explanation of these spikes. As of 1/1/2000 the comet is magnitude 17.6, and is 2.6 times farther away from the sun than the Earth.
Two moving asteroids near the M95 Galaxy:
See below for two images, and more information on two asteroids CCD-imaged near M95 on the evening of 3/14/2002 in Maine.
Identified as (16526) 1991 DC on left, (7152) Euneus on Right.
My thanks to the Minor Planet Center for their help identifying these asteroids!
(Click here to go to their excellent website for identifying objects like these...)
(Click here for a NASA site to look up more information on a given asteroid...)
Combined image of two asteroids moving near M95:
Image covers from 2002-03-15 2:10 UT through 2002-03-15 4:42 UT.
(16526) 1991 DC on Left:
The object on the left appears to have moved approximately 86 arc seconds over 2.5 hours.
At 2002-03-15 3:52 UT the object appears to have been at RA 10h43m52s Dec 11°40'42". Rough magnitude measures at 17.7 or so.
Measured relative to star GSC 849:166 mag 14.73 location RA 10h43m52s Dec 11°40'22" located approximately 20 arc seconds south of the left side moving object.
Originally discovered on 2/17/1991, at the time these pictures were taken, 1991 DC was 4.25 AUs from the Earth, and 5.21 AUs from the sun, at Magnitude 16.9 with a relative movement of 17" per hour on the RA axis.
(7152) Euneus on Right:
The object on the right appears to have moved approximately 46 arc seconds over 2.5 hours.
At 2002-03-15 4:27 UT the object appears to have been at RA 10h44m35s Dec 11°38'37". Rough magnitude measures at 17.4 or so.
Measured relative to star GSC 849:49 mag 12.48 location RA 10h44m30s Dec 11°42'01" located approximately 204 arc seconds north of the right side moving object.
Originally discovered on 9/19/1973, at the time these pictures were taken, Euneus was 1.34 AUs from the Earth, and 2.31 AUs from the sun, at Magnitude 17.0 with a relative movement of 33" per hour on the RA axis.
Animated GIF of two asteroids moving near M95:
Again image covers from 2002-03-15 2:10 UT through 2002-03-15 4:42 UT
