Observations made in the constellation Leo

View Observations | Add Observations
Help | Discussion | Acknowledgements

Observations made in the constellation Leo:

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.5, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: light   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Sat Mar 13 04:15:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 962

Tonight, I observed Jupiter at 133X. The great red spot still has a decent pink tinge to it. I also saw a dark spot in its center. I observed this dark spot many times last year, but this is my first view of it this year. The dark spot at the center of the GRS doesn't seem to be as obvious as last year. There is a white oval on the southern end of the north equitorial belt that is traveling slightly ahead of the great red spot on the south equitorial belt. In fact, this is about the fifth time this year I observed the white oval traveling a little ahead of the GRS.

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.5, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: good
Time: Wed Mar 3 02:45:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 957

Tonight, I observed Jupiter at 133X and 200X. There was a white oval sitting on the southern side of the north equitorial belt. It looked stretched out and elongated. Part of the south equitorial belt was bulging in size. That part looked twice as thick as the NEB. The SEB also looked like it was split like a railroad track at the thickest part. Last year, around opposition, I was able to observe the north temperate belt with no trouble, but this opposition I can't see even a trace of it.

Jupiter (Planet, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Thu Feb 26 08:11:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 953

Observing a Galilean satellite go into or emerge from eclipse by Jupiter is one of my favorite aspects of observing Jupiter. The past two mornings I was fortunate enough to witness two of these events.At 8:06 UT on 2004/2/25 I watched Europa disappear using the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain (162 and 259x) at the ASH Naylor Observatory (http://www.astrohbg.org). This morning (2004/2/26) at 8:11 UT I viewed the eclipse of Io with the same instrument at 259x (25mm Celestron orthoscopic).

Jupiter (Planet, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Mon Feb 23 04:30:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 950

On Sunday night I witnessed an interesting tango of three Galilean satellites from the ASH Naylor Obervatory (see http://www.astrohbg.org). When I first turned the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain towards Jupiter just before 4:30 UT. Io, Europa, and Callisto (at increasing distances from the planet respectively) formed an acute triangle. In an hour and a half's time they had moved to create a straight line. At 9:10 UT the three moons were positioned in the guise of an isosceles triangle with Europa being nearest to Jupiter and Io being farthest from the planet.

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.5, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Mon Feb 23 02:45:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 946

Tonight, I observed the great red spot on Jupiter at 133X. The GRS has more of a reddish tinge to it than it had last year. The difference though is slight. I also noticed there was a dark pencil like line, bordering the entire GRS. The GRS was supposed to be at meridian at 9:46 PM EST. Instead it seemed well past Meridian by then.

Tonight, I observed Io's shadow enter the face of Jupiter, followed soon by Io itself. It was quite a sight. As Io's shadow moved toward meridian, it became easier to see. I was only able to see Io itself in front of Jupiter for just a short time before I lost sight of it. It looked like a small white dot just below the north equitorial belt. Io's shadow looked like a small black dot. I was also able to see a small white oval on the southern rim of the NEB.

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.4, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: good   Seeing: excellent
Time: Fri Feb 20 02:20:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 945

Two Galilean shadow transits took place on Thursday night/Friday morning. Europa's shadow ingressed at 6:55 p.m. EST (23:55 UT 2004/2/19) but I didn't have a chance to catch it until around 9:20 p.m. (2:20 UT). I watched the shadow egress at 2:46 UT. Europa did the same at 3:23 UT. About 3:40 UT Europa and Io were "equidistant" from Jupiter, straddling the planet. Six minutes later the shadow of Io touched Jupiter's cloudtops.Io's shadow trailed two white ovals and was close to what may have been a barge in the NEB. I was able to see Io itself cross the CM sometime after 5:00 UT. The shadow transit came to an end at 5:51 UT. By 6:09 Io's transit was over. The GRS, a pale pink in hue, crossed the CM at 6:24 UT.It was one great night for watching Jupiter. The seeing was extremely good and a magnification of 404x was no problem for the ASH 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain, although 324x was generally more useful.

Tonight, I observed Jupiter at 133X. The south polar hood extended to a as close to the south equitorial belt as I have ever seen it. On the north equitorial belt, I observed the two white ovals on the southern portion of the NEB for the second time. Just like last week, one white oval was twice the size of the other. The north polar hood did not extend to the south very much. On this occasion, I was not able to observe the north temperate belt.

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.2, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: light   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Thu Feb 12 04:30:00 2004 UT   Obs. no.: 937

This evening, I observed Jupiter at 133X. On the north equitorial belt, were two large festoons. There was a fairly large white oval snuggled in between the festoons. In front of the forward festoon was a white oval that was about half the size of the first white oval mentioned. The forward part of the south equitorial belt seemed to be wider than the section of the SEB that had just rotated onto the face of Jupiter.

Tonight, I observed Jupiter at 133X. The south equitorial belt definately looks wider than the north equitorial belt. This is opposite of other years when the NEB was wider than the SEB. The festooning on the NEB is quite pronounced. As Jupiter gets closer to earth, I am now beginning to glimpse the north temperate belt. The NTB looks like a thin pencil line just north of the NEB. The south polar hood looks two to three times as dark as the north polar hood.

Jupiter (Planet, est. mag -2.2, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Tue Dec 30 04:45:00 2003 UT   Obs. no.: 925

This evening, I observerd Jupiter at 133X and 200X. Jupiter was still rather low in the sky. The north equitorial belt seemed to be a little bit thinner than the south equitorial belt. However, the NEB was far more lumpier looking than the SEB due to festooning on the NEB. One other thing, was the south polar hood was very pronounced while the north polar hood was almost invisable.

Meteor (Meteor, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: naked eye   Location: Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: good
Time: Tue Nov 18 09:05:00 2003 UT   Obs. no.: 912

Monday night turned out to be clear despite the forecasts so I drove to the ASH Naylor Observatory. Although I would have preferred to be at a darker site and for tonight (Tuesday night that is) to be clear instead due to the possibility of significant shower activity, I did nevertheless do some meteor observing throughout the night. To make a long story short the results were very disappointing. I saw no meteors at all in the early part of the night and only two during a 30 minute period running from 09:05 to 09:35 UT. The better one of the two shot directly across the radiant and was at least 0 magnitude in brightness. The predicted peak for the Leonids was the following morning but the weather forecast was for rain so these two were the sole Leonids for me this year.

Comet (Comet, est. mag 9.6, est. to be in Leo, Est. RaDec 11h00m, +10d11')
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: excellent   Seeing: good
Time: Thu Jul 17 01:40:00 2003 UT   Obs. no.: 841

I was able to observe C/2002 O7 (LINEAR) during astronomical twilight using the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at the ASH Naylor Observatory. The comet, which was listed as being magnitude 9.6, was extremely faint and required averted vision and jogging the telescope to be seen at all. It was located low in the southwest near the mid-section of Leo at 11h00m, +10d11'. Magnifications used were 162, 202, and 259x. Prior to that I saw another horizon-hugging shallow-sky object that will soon be gone from view. Prismatic dispersion made old Jove even more colorful than normal. At 03:19 UT a bright Iridium flare (Iridium 57) took place in the southwest. Just afterward a rather bright meteor flashed through Ophiuchus. Before taking my leave I watched the Moon and nearby Mars rise in the east. At ~08:00 UT I took a look at the conjunction of those two denizens of the solar system with my Celestron 20x80's.

Meteor (Meteor, est. to be in Leo)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Lewistown , PA, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: poor   Seeing: fair
Time: Tue Nov 19 10:00:00 2002 UT   Obs. no.: 723

After Tony Donnangelo and I decided that it was probably not worthwhile driving to anywhere else in Pennsylvania or New Jersey I eventually ended up watching the peak of the Leonids from the ASH Naylor Observatory near Lewisberry. During the 04:00 UT peak I observed for short time from a nearby park but could see only two stars in east and the moon due to cloud cover. There was a great lunar halo but I would have been much happier not to see one on this particular occasion. I fell asleep on my futon watching Letterman and was ready to crawl into bed when I looked out a window and saw that conditions had improved somewhat. I must admit that I debated with myself forsome time whether I should just call it quits and go to bed or travel the 18 miles to the observatory.When I arrived there was one ASH member there who had gone north to a dark site but returned when the weather didn't pan out. We were joined by two more members and a non-member by the time the Leonid peak was predicted. In the meantime I prepared the French Dome and trained the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain on Jupiter (162 and 259x) and then Saturn (259x). The seeing was better than I expected with the high cirrus acting as a filter.At 10:00 UT I laid back in my lounge chair, covered myself with a sleeping bag, and began counting for the next hour. We were fortunate enough to have a hole surrounding the radiant more or less until dawn but conditions were far from ideal. My tally was 48 Leonids. These included several head-on meteors, three that left fairly good trains (one formed a neat arc momentarily), and one that was perhaps -3 magnitude. So while what we saw was far from a meteor storm it was certainly worth the drive and braving the lower than 30 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.Other highlights included an ISS pass at 10:10 UT, a moondog, and a very thin crescent Venus at 162x before closing up the dome. After that I used a pinhole lens in an unsuccessful attempt to see Venus as a crescent with my naked eye.

M65 (Galaxy, in Leo)
Observer: Michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 20-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: none   Transparency: excellent   Seeing: excellent
Time: Sun Mar 17 02:30:00 2002 UT   Obs. no.: 624

M65 showed a bright core. the wings showed very well in the 20" scope.M66 was more ragged looking.Dust lanes seemed to show in the galaxy. NGC3628 was the largest and the dimmest of the three galaxies. It was edge on.

Alpha Leo (Regulus) (Multiple Star, in Leo)
Observer: michael Amato (e-mail: abigmick@aol.com)
Instrument: 6-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: fair   Seeing: fair
Time: Thu Feb 14 02:00:00 2002 UT   Obs. no.: 610

Regulus is a Whitish looking star. At133x, it is a widely separated double. the main componant is a bright white star and the companion is a small faint star whos color I was not able to discern. Michael Amato

Other (Other, est. to be in Leo, Est. RaDec 9h30m, +10d36m)
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Harrisburg, PA, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Tue Feb 29 02:52:00 2000 UT   Obs. no.: 513

On this Monday night I continued observing the binary stars that are on the 33 Doubles in Leo Internet project. I had previously logged Regulus and Gamma Leonis using a 12.5" f/6.5 Cave Newtonian and S617, Struve 1500, and Struve 1506 using the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain. To that list I added Otto Struve 204, Struve 1360, 7 Leonis, and Struve 1419. Struve 1360, a nicely matched pair (7.5 and 8.0 magnitude) of white stellar diamonds with a fairly wide separation of 14.2" and a position angle of 242 degrees, was easily split at 118x.

NGC2903 (Galaxy, in Leo, Est. RaDec -)
Observer: Eero Holmstrm (e-mail: holmerkki@altavista.net, web: http://angelfire.com/music/holmerkki/index.html )
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Pernajan kirkonkyl, Pernaja, Finland
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sun Feb 27 00:15:00 2000 UT   Obs. no.: 527

Beautiful. At 38x the galaxy was visible as a large, homogeneous glow with no sign of a spiral structure. I was surprised at the size of the object.

Comet (Comet, est. mag 8.5, est. to be in Leo, Est. RaDec 12h05.9m, +15d47')
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu, web: http://www.ezonline.com/ash/obs.htm)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Harrisburg, PA, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Tue Aug 3 02:25:00 1999 UT   Obs. no.: 467

I observed C/1999 N2 (Lynn) on Sunday (8/2) and Monday nights (8/3) using the ASH Naylor Observatory's 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at magnifications of 118, 144, 202, and 259x. The transparency was better on Sunday night (andthe time of observation was more favorable), when this newly discovered comet resembled an unresolved eighth magnitude globular cluster.

NGC3628 (Galaxy, in Leo, Est. RaDec 11 20.3 +13 36)
Observer: Eero Holmstrm (e-mail: holmerkki@altavista.net, web: http://www.fda.iwarp.com)
Instrument: 4-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Pernajan Kirkonkyl, Pernaja, Finland
Light pollution: light   Transparency: excellent   Seeing: good
Time: Tue Apr 6 22:30:00 1999 UT   Obs. no.: 495

A very elognated, but not awfully thin Sab galaxy seen edge on. I could see no immediate details. The whole galaxy looked rather faint, and with no obvious brightenings. It was very easy at a 38X magnification with averted vision. I was actually looking for M65 and M66, but to my surprise I saw this "extra" galaxy in the field of view. Since I didn't see it on the previous night, I knew transparency was a lot better.

Other (Other, est. mag 12th, est. to be in Leo, Est. RaDec 10h46m,+11d50')
Observer: Dave Mitsky (e-mail: djm28@psu.edu)
Instrument: 17-inch equatorial reflector   Location: Harrisburg, PA, USA
Light pollution: moderate   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Thu May 14 01:20:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 330

While helping with the ASH observational astronomy class I observed the recently discovered supernova, SN 1998bu. This bright type Ia supernova is located in NGC 3688 (M96). It was easily seen to the northeast of the nucleus of the galaxy. Observations were made at 118 and 202x.

NGC3628 (Galaxy, in Leo)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat Apr 18 06:45:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 324

A long, uniform faint patch, easy with averted vision, larger than M65 and M66 (which were visible in the same field), but much more subtle, making for a lovely contrast.

M66 (Galaxy, in Leo)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat Apr 18 06:45:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 323

M66 was a brighter, thicker, less-lengthy smudge than M65, with a similar orientation.

M65 (Galaxy, in Leo)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat Apr 18 06:45:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 322

All three galaxies (M65, M66 and NGC 3628) fit in the same 38X field; a very dramatic sight. M65 was an obvious, elongated smudge extending N-S.

NGC3593 (Galaxy, in Leo)
Observer: John Callender (e-mail: jbc@west.net, web: http://www.west.net/~jbc/)
Instrument: 8-inch Dobsonian reflector   Location: Carpinteria, CA, USA
Light pollution: light   Transparency: good   Seeing: good
Time: Sat Apr 18 06:40:00 1998 UT   Obs. no.: 321

NGC 3593 was a fairly easy smudge in averted vision at 38X, medium-sized, elongated E-W with a condensed core.

View 25 more observations...

Sort by:	Observation time Upload time
Sort order:	Forward Reverse
Object:
Type of object:
Constellation:
Observer:

View Observations | Add Observations
Help | Discussion | Acknowledgements

Questions? Problems? E-mail jbc@west.net

Object database created with dObjects

Logo created with Pixelsight