HR MacMillan Space Centre - Just for Teachers
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How I saw Neptune
I have been wanting to see Neptune for a very long time. On many occasions I have tried to observe this distant world but I have failed for various reasons. Mostly due to the not so dark skies around my house in Surrey. Sometimes it is confusing to find the 7.8 magnitude faint Neptune among a bunch of 5 or 6 magnitude stars near by. But my lucky moment arrived in the early morning of July 10th (2009).
I read on SkyNews magazine that Jupiter was passing by Neptune for the next few days. So I decided to give it another try. For my observing site I chose my coop work place, The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Penticton. Fortunately this place had relatively darker skies compared to Surrey. So I arrived at my work place at 3am in the morning of July 10th hoping to finally see Neptune. The sky was clear, and I saw Jupiter shining brightly between the Dish of the 26m telescope and the gibbous moon.
I set up a 4.5" Newtonian reflector that I found in one of the storage rooms the other day right beside the dish and roughly aligned it with the North Celestial Pole. Then I easily found Jupiter using a 12mm eyepiece. I could also see the 4 Galilean moons pretty clearly around Jupiter, and I knew Neptune would be much fainter than even those tiny moons.
According to the magazine, Neptune and Jupiter will be nicely framed in the field of a medium power telescope. However, judging by the size of Jupiter in the eyepiece I realized that my field of view was much smaller to have both of them framed in one field.
Fortunately there was a relatively bright star about halfway between Jupiter and Neptune. I slowly moved the telescope slightly Northward and was able to frame Jupiter and this star in one field. Now Neptune must be about another telescope field North from this star. So again I moved the telescope slowly Northward about another telescope field. However, there was nothing visible. Not even another star. It was simply blank. Then I thought may be I have gone too far. So I back tracked southward until I saw the star in between Jupiter and Neptune. Then something wonderful happened. As soon as that star came into view from the top another faintly bluish star materialized from the bottom of the eyepiece. I stopped for a moment and slightly nudged the telescope to make sure that it is a real star that I am seeing. And it was. The position of the faint blue star relative to the other star (that I later found to be 51Mu Capricornus) and Jupiter suggested that it was indeed Neptune.
Neptune becomes easier to see when I got both it and the other star in the same field. The light coming from Neptune is so faint that it is difficult for the eye to gain focus just by itself alone. But when both it and 51Mu Cap is in the field the eye could gain focus easily using brighter 51Mu Cap and thus I could see Neptune more clearly. I went back several times and found Neptune with relative ease with this technique. It was amazing to get a chance to view this distant world, more amazing is that I found it by myself. Although I wish there was someone else with me to share it with. But, hey it's 3.30am, I'll probably have more chance finding Pluto!
I read on SkyNews magazine that Jupiter was passing by Neptune for the next few days. So I decided to give it another try. For my observing site I chose my coop work place, The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Penticton. Fortunately this place had relatively darker skies compared to Surrey. So I arrived at my work place at 3am in the morning of July 10th hoping to finally see Neptune. The sky was clear, and I saw Jupiter shining brightly between the Dish of the 26m telescope and the gibbous moon.
I set up a 4.5" Newtonian reflector that I found in one of the storage rooms the other day right beside the dish and roughly aligned it with the North Celestial Pole. Then I easily found Jupiter using a 12mm eyepiece. I could also see the 4 Galilean moons pretty clearly around Jupiter, and I knew Neptune would be much fainter than even those tiny moons.
According to the magazine, Neptune and Jupiter will be nicely framed in the field of a medium power telescope. However, judging by the size of Jupiter in the eyepiece I realized that my field of view was much smaller to have both of them framed in one field.
Fortunately there was a relatively bright star about halfway between Jupiter and Neptune. I slowly moved the telescope slightly Northward and was able to frame Jupiter and this star in one field. Now Neptune must be about another telescope field North from this star. So again I moved the telescope slowly Northward about another telescope field. However, there was nothing visible. Not even another star. It was simply blank. Then I thought may be I have gone too far. So I back tracked southward until I saw the star in between Jupiter and Neptune. Then something wonderful happened. As soon as that star came into view from the top another faintly bluish star materialized from the bottom of the eyepiece. I stopped for a moment and slightly nudged the telescope to make sure that it is a real star that I am seeing. And it was. The position of the faint blue star relative to the other star (that I later found to be 51Mu Capricornus) and Jupiter suggested that it was indeed Neptune.
Neptune becomes easier to see when I got both it and the other star in the same field. The light coming from Neptune is so faint that it is difficult for the eye to gain focus just by itself alone. But when both it and 51Mu Cap is in the field the eye could gain focus easily using brighter 51Mu Cap and thus I could see Neptune more clearly. I went back several times and found Neptune with relative ease with this technique. It was amazing to get a chance to view this distant world, more amazing is that I found it by myself. Although I wish there was someone else with me to share it with. But, hey it's 3.30am, I'll probably have more chance finding Pluto!
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