Sunday, January 12
I went on a comet hunting everyday Wednesday Jan. 1 through Monday Jan. 6 thanks to good weather at the beginning of the month. Among those days, the forecast predicted clear sky on Thursday, and I drove to the observing site. However, it was cloudy at the site and there was no expectation to recover, and I returned back to my home. On Sunday, soon after I started comet hunting clouds began to cover the sky, and I searched only 20 min in total.
Observation site with slight snow cover. The photo was taken after the session on Saturday, Jan. 11.
Yesterday, Saturday Jan. 11, it was cloudy around my house, however, the Super Computer Weather predicted recovery of the weather. Unexpectedly, soon after I left home for the site, snow started to flicker. I did not care and drove around 10 min, but snow began to fall in earnest. I parked my car to confirm the radar image using my smart phone, but no snow clouds. I headed to the site believing the forecast. At 3:45am local time, I arrived at the site and it was snowing but I could see some stars through thin clouds. There was slight snow accumulation there. I decided to wait for the recovery of the weather.
At 4:15am, it stopped snowing and starry sky began to open up. I set up my telescope and was ready to observe at 5:00am. In summer I am ready to observe within 30 min after arrival, but in winter it takes 45 to 50 min: wearing polar jackets, pants and boots, preparing disposal chemical heater for my back and toes, slow motion due to low temperature. The thermometer indicated the air temperature of -8°C. It was windless but the coldest predawn chill this winter.
When I lived in Niigata Prefecture, I observed at the site with the altitude of over 900 m above sea level in summer, while 430 m above sea level in winter because the roads are closed due to snow. The record low of the air temperature at that time was -8°C. The coldest record during comet hunting session after moving to Kumamoto was -9°C at the present observation site with the altitude of 850 m.
On Saturday before the comet hunting session, I observed Omega Centauri that rose 4° above the horizon with Ethos 21 mm, 97x. Although it was slightly dark because it was still low altitude (9° at the meridian), the cluster contains a great number of stars and impressive enough as the most beautiful globular cluster in the entire sky.
I started sweeping the sky from α Librae, Zubenelgenubi at 5:04am. The deep sky objects I encountered were NGC5796, 5897, a pair of galaxies 5915 and 5916, M4, M30, M62 and M19. When I spotted NGC5915 (magnitude of 12.3), I identified it referring to SkySsafari 7 Pro, a digital map. On the map, a darker galaxy, NGC5916 (magnitude of 13.2), was shown in the south of NGC5915 and I noticed in the FOV.
NGC5915 (center) and 5916 (lower center). The image is 30’ in width
The Digitized Sky Survey copyright © 1994
Double stars looked beautiful since a glass eyepiece was used for the session instead of Night Vision that produces black and white images. The most impressive one during the session was β Scorpii. The primary star was golden and the secondary light blue. The scintillation deformed them and it looked like they were smiling and dancing.
I stayed at the site after the comet hunting session that ended at 6:21am, 30 min after the start of the twilight, to observe C/2024 G3 ATLAS. The comet rose at 6:29am, but there were clouds at the low altitude and I could not observe the comet. The clouds moved slowly, and I continued observation. At 6:41am, I found the comet with a tail 0.1° long using 7x50 mm binocular. The altitude of the object was 1.2°. I could not see it with naked eyes. The comet was visible for a while disappearing in and out of the clouds. I could not aim the 46 cm telescope at the comet because grasses at the site hided the comet. While I was taking down my telescope, the sun rose at the direction where the comet rose. I visited
the site hundreds of times, but this was the first time I saw sunrise here. It was so refreshing to watch the sunrise after observing the bright comet.