The Moon and Pleiades, again
March 24, 2010I wasn’t happy with the photo/sketch of the Moon passing the Pleiades that I showed in the last post. The field of view was too cramped to match what I saw at the eyepiece, and I put the stars in by flipping back and forth between Stellarium and GIMP and eyeballing things.
So this time I did it right: got a screenshot from Stellarium, pasted it into a layer in GIMP, placed the stars in a separate layer on top of that, and then got rid of the screenshot layer. Here’s the result, which is very close to what I actually saw Saturday night:
I liked the new version so much that I made a full-screen version. I don’t have any eyepieces that can actually show this much sky at once, but it looks pretty and I don’t care. Here it is:
10 Minute Astronomy 
[…] people who think they don't have time for stargazing. « Concordiem Australis The Moon and Pleiades, again » Observing Report: A New High March 21, 2010 Last night I was back down at the […]
It must have been raining at your place last night 😉 !
I have two comments……I know this is a scope view, but it’s upside down for a picture! I also assume you flipped the stars upside down? Second…..how can we tell it’s Pleiades? Are some of the stars blocked? Or are they more spread out than I’m used to seeing?
I have two comments……I know this is a scope view, but it’s upside down for a picture! I also assume you flipped the stars upside down?
Yup. What David is referring to is the fact that a reflecting telescope inverts the view 180*. I’ve been trying to reconstruct how the moon looked through the scope, not through the eyepiece. To get the stars, I opened Stellarium, ran the clock back to twilight to Saturday night, took a screenshot of the moon and surrounding stars, pasted that into GIMP, and traced the stars. I had to rotate the screenshot–which was correctly oriented for the naked eye–to match the photo of the moon, which of course was oriented as I saw it at the eyepiece.
Second…..how can we tell it’s Pleiades? Are some of the stars blocked? Or are they more spread out than I’m used to seeing?
You’re only see a couple of the brightest members, up at the very upper left. The fastest way to understand what you’re seeing is to open Stellarium and go back to Saturday night. The moon was cruising past the ‘handle’ of the Pleiades ‘dipper’.
I was lucky enough to get to observe the moon’s conjunction with Pleiades on this night as well. Sadly I only have a 25mm eye piece that gives my around 48 power, so I wasn’t able to see much of Pledias with the moon. Great sketches/pictures.
I thought there was a way to tell Stellarium to flip the display, but I couldn’t find it. However, I have the Oculars set up for all my telescopes and eye pieces. By setting the ocular to my FirstScope using a 40mm EP, I came up with the correct view.
I set the time for 7:00 and there were more stars of Pleiades showing then. I’m assuming your view was later than that.
[…] Other highlights include seeing the gegenschein at the All-Arizona Star Party in 2010, watching the crescent moon pass in front of the Pleiades from the Salton Sea, and tracking a comet as it moved against the background stars, with fellow […]