2008
Sun, Dec 28
Incredibly the weather here in Wuhan is extremely unbearable. The sky is often seriousy contaminated with varieties of sizeable dust particles since Wuhan is a city of heavy industry, and hence the severer scattering of artificial lights strongly interfere my observations. I only made five observations of comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) and/or comet C/2008 A1 (McNaught) on Oct 07, Oct 12, Oct 23, Nov 25, and Nov 27 respectively, however, all of these observations were negative ones. The best consequence I gained was in the observation of Nov 27 that the limiting magnitude in the vicinity of C/2008 A1 in the FOV of my 10x50 binoculars only reached to 7m.7 despite all my efforts having been paid off. Now comet C/2007 N3 is visble at predawn, however, it seems that maybe only when I escape from this place can I succeed in observing this comet. Hopefully I will be able to catch this comet after back home in mid Jan. Finally I strongly recommend that DO NOT plan to observe the total solar eclipse here on Jul 22 next year, or you will be bitterly disappointed by what you see undoubtfully due to the acute air pollution.
Mon, Aug 25
I planned to observe comet 6P/d'Arrest this midnight since the weather was fine. I moved my 10cm-refractor to the balcony as soon as possible in order to catch the comet in a perfect altitude. After using ψ Cap and ω Cap as a springboard for the comet with the finder, I immediately glimpsed something fuzzy in the lower left FOV of the main scope. Yet great masses of low level clouds moving northwards from southern regions occulted the FOV when I was about to make a confirmation of the comet like object. It could not be visible afterwards with the LM ~8m in the FOV despite that some gaps between clouds emerged. Later I convinced myself of successfully finding comet 6P because the position of the seen object totally corresponded to that of 6P according to some reliable softwares I checked. I had to give up half an hour later under such unchanged circumstances. Though the southern sky cleared up at about 1:00, I did not make an observation again, noticing the comet was coming into an area with more serious city light pollutions. Still anticipating making more observations of this comet if lucky enough...
Sat, Aug 17
I traveled to Guangxi with some of my relatives on Aug 15. I had to make an observation of the partial lunar eclipse on Aug 17 predawn just in a room of a hotel in Dongxing, Fangcheng for security considerations from my family. I got up at about 3:00. Yet I found the area in the vicinity of the moon was totally covered with masses of clouds while the NW sky was clear. The moon became transiently visible after half an hour later as the clouds got thinner. Ten minutes later the low level clouds were finally moved away from this area so that the moon could be visible but a little obscure because there were some low level clouds and altostratus clouds interferring. The brown umbra covered the areas to the SW of the Mare Humorum and western Oceanus Procellarum observed in my 15x50. At about 4:00, the umbra covered some half of the moon with its less-contrasty boundary approximately extended to eastern Mare Nabium and middle Mare Imbrium. Just minutes later my digital camera was about to power-off and thus I had to charge it at once and hoped I could use it again before the maximum eclipse. Some thirty minutes, however, the low level clouds moving from SE to NW finally occulted the moon again. The situation remained unchanged and several hours later, it rained. Seemed that I was still lucky enough...
Sun, Aug 03
We backed to Urumqi at about 22:00 on Aug 02 after a twelve-hour-bus ride from Yiwu County. When packing my luggage, I found my borrowed tripod lost. Some people told me that they had seen a left tripod on the ground when leaving there. Yet I did remembered that I had set it into the bus when completing my observation of the eclipse. Maybe someone had mistakenly moved it out but later when he used he found it was not his and then just ignored it instead of putting it back. Nothing could I do to make up but transfered to another bus with Quanzhi, Xing Gao and a few other amateurs for Mt. Nanshan Observatory. As soon as we got there at about 1:00, I immediately hurried to a toilet for I had slight diarrhea, just putting my luggages outsides without any protections. Some time later I went to the observing lot in the south of the area near an idle chromospheric observatory. The temperature was really low, maybe only 5 Celsius. Only with a hat on and a piece of towel arround my head, and heavy clothes on could I protect myself from the coldness.
The sky was dark and transparent enough. Yet some light pollutions from the city interferred the low northern sky. The milky way was really impressive across the sky. Altostratus clouds occulted some parts of the milky way in the southern sky below Jupiter. I used a C9 S-C telescope to search comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) as soon as I gained its predicted position at about 2:00. After I had put the star π Sgr, very close to the comet, in the center of the FOV, Quanzhi hurriedly came and managed to witness his own discovery. Later, Siwei Luo confirmed it. However, when it was my turn after I finished observing another comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) in eastern sky with my 15x50, the clouds was gradually covering the area and therefore I could not see any stars at all in the FOV. An hour later I tried to observe comet C/2007 N3 again but failed due to its poor altitude. I used the telescope to observe the apparent comet C/2007 W1. It was white with a moderate condensation DC=4. The coma diameter in the telescope was about 6' with a stellar nucleus in the center, slightly extended towards p.a. 250 deg. and 20 deg. Its visual total magnitude was estimated as 7.3 (six comparison stars; ICQ cat. code: HK). I discovered a faint whitish parabolic glow extended from the NE horizon to western Taurus along the ecliptic during a pause after the two-hour observation of the comet. It might be the zodiacal light. At about 5:00 the brightening eastern sky suggested the beginning of morning twilight. I climbed up into C42 to post my visual observation. When I got outside I found most of the sky turned bluish while the eastern sky turned orange. I went to sleep after a few glimpses at the colorful sky. At about eleven o'clock I got up and arrived at Xing's at about one o'clock in the afternoon. It sounds a little bit ridiculous that only one comet was observed successfully with a powerful C9 telescope this predawn. However, I could not do anything to improve my result because I did not have predicted positions of other comets at all. There was no help for it...
Fri, Aug 01
I flew to Urumqi on Jul 30 and arrived at Yiwu County, Hami, at about 22:00 on Jul 31 after a bus-ride with other amateurs to observe the total solar eclipse on Aug 01. I suffered from severe headache on the morning due to my unwell sleep on the bus. We were sent to the Solar Calendar Square in Weizi Gorge at about ten o'clock to attend a ceremony. The members were separated into two groups that one including Quanzhi Ye and me would leave there for the best observation of totality and the other would be sent back to Yiwu County. After lunch, we were led to a vacant lot in the southwest of the square. Awefully hit by the nauseous advertisement-boards in the west, Quanzhi and I were determined to secretly escape westward from the lot. Finally, we were satisfied to settle down on a new one close to some foreigners in a Gobi nearby, where the sorroundings were extremely beautiful. The west grassland, the south snowy mountains, everything was picturesque.
Having assembled my equipment, including a Sony DSC-H7 digital camera, a tripod, a set of 15x50 binoculars, and some processed Baader solar films (neutral density 3.8), I first made some tests to decide some values of photography. The final values I used to photograph the sun during the partial phases were ISO 100, 1/2000s, and f/8.0. (In fact I should have chosen a smaller exposure but unexpectedly did not, so all my images taken during partial phases are slightly over-exposed.) Later I could do nothing but awaited the start, sitting on a small bunch of grass to escape from the high temperature. Strangely I just felt comfortable with cool winds rather than intension and excitement.
I started to work again at about 18:00, only several minutes before the 1st contact. I tried to adjusted my watch time by means of making phone call to National Time Service Center but the line was always busy. Thus I could only set Quanzhi's watch time as reference and luckily his time was accurate. At about 18:09 I uncertainly saw that the sun missed a small piece in some P.A. 300 deg and seconds later Quanzhi comfirmed it with his images. I made a triplet photograph every time when photographing the sun except the first two groups. With the degree of obscuration getting larger and larger, the temperature as well as the brightness on the ground was decreasing gradually. How time flies! Yet it was touch-and-go that a large cloud occulted the sun. With a wish that there would remain some fortune, I still started my recorder attached to my mobile phone to record the accurate time of the 2nd contact and the 3rd contact. It was absolutely exciting that the cloud finally cleared away just two minutes before the 2nd contact to reveal a crescent-like sun. The crowds burst into cheers. The shadow became fuzzy and fainter, the western sky became deep blue, and the dogs in the village were keeping barking loudly. As I saw the sun was fainter, I mistakenly directly observed it without any eye protection. After that when I intended to observe the 'moving ripple' on the ground, I could see nothing... Seen in the sky, the sun became a dazzling narrowing arc and finally turned into a bright oval pearl -- Baily's Beads. I was deeply impressed by the spectacle, with noisy screamings from sorrounding people.
The magnificent corona was clearly visible as soon as the Baily's Beads went out. Surprisingly the brightness of the corona was much brighter than that of full moon. In spite of this, Mercury and Venus were very apparent in the sky close to the sun. I started my serach for a Kreutz group comet C/2008 O1 (SOHO), detected by Hua Su in SOHO/LASCO C3 coronagraph early on this day, with my 15x50 binoculars after some hurried shots of the sun. Actually I made a plan to hunt for unknown Kreutz group comets during totality on Jul 29 but now all the things should be changed immediately according to a new situation. In a hurry I first glimpsed the sun, finding some beautiful prominences in both left and upper right limb of the moon, and then went to comet hunting. I swept along some 45 deg. in the lower right area to the sun but no star was seen during the one-minute-search because my eyes have not adapted to the circumstances at all in such short time and the brightness of the background sky was too high. I gave up the search and turned to my camera for help with a 20-sec exposure image taken dozen seconds before the 3rd contact. During this time, I enjoyed the spectacle seen from my naked eyes. The sky was rich in color that the part lower than 5 deg. above the western horizon was charmingly orange while the low eastern part was pink. The color gradually turned deep blue with altitudes increasing. Enjoying the corona again, I could see clearly that the eastern part of corona was divergent, while the western one seemed to converged to a central line approximately parallel to the ecliptic extended from the sun. The near-two-minute's time seemed to flash by only in several seconds. When I was still enjoying the gorgeous views, a breathtaking pearl abruptly emerged in the lower right limb of the moon, announcing the completion of the totality, and the sorrounding people again broke into another stunning cheers. The very round pearl gradually elongated to a dazzling arc. Immediately I re-installed the Baader film to enjoy the eclipse for safety and stopped my recorder.
After the 3rd contact, all the people were drowned in joy. Some foreigners even held a wine party immediately to cheer the victory. I was also surprised to find that my headache had reduced greatly. I kept working as I did before totality until about 19:45 when a large mass of cloud occulted the sun again. It was about ten minutes after the 4th contact that the sun came out of the cloud again. Having taken some shots of Quanzhi and me, we hurriedly back to the square to take a bus back to Yiwu County along with other students in our group. On the way back to the county, I kept assuming that if comet C/2006 P1 in its maximum magnitude had emerged in the sky during totality... In the evening Xing Gao held a small party to cheer our victory and later Quanzhi and I went to the hotel where my friend Xuejun Zhang stayed for a comfortable sleep.
Sat, Feb 9
Today the sky cleared up finally after being cloudy or rainy for a rather long term this year. I stayed at my grandparents' to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Having had the supper, I went to observe 8P/Tuttle with my 15x50 binoculars. I became to despair of seeking the comet as it was situated in the area strongly interfered by city lights. To make matters worse, I was overcasted as soon as I began my search, only finding several stars nearby. I could do nothing but go back studying.
Tue-Wed, Jan 1-2
The
temperture dropped to only 8 Celsius early in the morning but the sky was in a
rather perfect condition with a naked LM 4.0 around zenith, in spite of the
devil strong light nearby and the distant flash projectors for celebrating the
arrival of New Year 2008. At about 1:00, on Jan 1, I tried to observe comet
8P/Tuttle, at the 6th magnitude, according to the majority of
reports from foreign countries, with my refractor. However, I was too late to
catch the comet for it was settling down in an area where it was strongly
interferred by city lights. Nothing could be seen in the right field except some
faint stars. I did not observe comet 17P/Holmes this time.
Thus I decided to made another observation at night. It took me within a minute to point to the predicted area with my refractor with 28x. Fortunately, the distant projectors was not on this time and I saw a very fuzzy object in the field after taking couples of breaths. As demonstrating the reality of the object, I convinced myself of finding comet 8P. The comet seemed round with a moderate condensation, DC=3. But except for these, no more details could be observed due to strong city lights.
At about 0:15, I completed my observation with the distant flash projectors just on.