观星手记
2009长江大日食
Jul 4th
日全食又要来了—— 把握机会。下一次想在中国土地上见到日全食,就要等到2034年了,而且到时还是要在藏北无人区才能观测。有人说流星暴雨、日全食和极光是最壮丽的三种天象,一生不见一次实属可惜,而我很幸运地三种都见过,可以证明这种“故弄玄虚”的说法着实不假。如果说以前“百年难遇”、“千年难遇”的天象几乎都是媒体炒作以外,那这一次他们的确没有说错—— 21世纪持续时间最长的日全食,恰好穿过世界上人口最稠密的地区,这实在不能不说是一件十分巧合的事情。所以,把握机会吧。
尽管现在到日食还有三个星期,可在天文界群体中,“长江大日食”的期待值已经接近沸点了。人们天天都在谈论它:去哪观测?带什么器材?准备情况如何了?等等。我自己就已经做了3个有关日全食的梦了—— 也有不少同好说有同样经历。可惜每次梦都是食甚几乎还没开始,我就给急醒了—— 要么发现自己忘记带东西了,要么发现自己选择的地点不对。总之,满头大汗地起来,看看手机,才确信日全食还没有到来,长舒一口气。这样的紧张,比起高考,简直是有过之而无不及啊。
高博说过一句话,“日全食嘛,不过是月亮把太阳全挡住而已。”这恐怕是很多没见过日全食的人的看法。不过,当他们看过日全食视频之后,很大一部分就“中毒”了。我做过若干个日全食讲座,当屏幕上最后一缕日光渐渐消失,光滑的黑太阳与柔和的日冕展现在湛蓝的天际时,或者全食结束,耀眼的阳光伴随着夺目的钻石环重回人间时,台下观众无不啧然起声。太阳和月亮完美相合的壮丽一幕,让人不能不赞叹大自然的精巧与伟大,如同宏伟的神山一般,能让人从心底生出一股对一种高高在上的力量的敬畏之情。
我承担了一项不太轻松的任务—— 7月22日日全食期间全食区域的天气预报。其实应该说,是我自己找来干的。不过这难道不是很有意思的一件事吗?人的力量远在自然之下,但却可以凭借自己的力量来认识自然。经过日食的一幕,我可以想象到两三千年前,我们的祖先们见到太阳突然为黑影所蔽,是何等的惶恐。现在人们根据科学家们的精准预报,从四面八方集聚而来,观赏同一种天象。尽管出发动机或许不同,但本质都是对大自然的一种膜拜。
好了,抒情的文字就不多说。近来笔耕不力,遣词造句也力不从心,不便让大家见笑。我为自己的日全食拟定了3份计划,打算根据天气情况灵活调度,或许大家会有兴趣了解一二。
神山贡嘎之旅(全食长4分42秒)
我怀着极大的敬畏和向往之情来安排这一行程。有什么比日月之合与神山之巅的交集更能让大自然的壮美深入五脏六腑呢?我要承认,高博的这一提议简直是妙绝了。在海拔约4550米的子梅山垭口,远眺海拔7556米的贡嘎山主峰和一连串海拔海拔六七千米的雪山,以及乌蓝天际中的黑太阳(两者恰好在同一方位),……这一景象的壮美程度恐怕已经超出人类语言所能描述的范围了,让我想到80年前美国植物学家约瑟夫·洛克来到梅里雪山脚下发出的那句简约的感叹:“啊,这是世界上最美的山!”
不过这一梦想要付出的代价是可观的。除去旅行费用之外,从成都到贡嘎山脚下需要至少两天的时间,意味着我无法参加日食次日在上海举行的国际彗星会议了,也见不到老友点点、韵希还有未曾谋面的胡胡了。不过,朝圣之旅,是要付出一些尘世的代价的。为了那一幕,值。
海·天·日食——浙江省崎岖群岛基湖沙滩(全食长5分59秒)
神山贡嘎与日食当然让人神往,但即便我舍弃掉身外之物,顶着高原反应的风险上到子梅雪山垭口,当地的天气状况也是个严重问题,因此二号方案就选在了千里之外的东海之滨—— 大龙华岛。这是胡韵希出的妙主意。大龙华岛位于杭州湾东面的崎岖群岛之中,虽然没有巍峨雪山,但却有一望无际的大海,也算不错。
备份点:武汉(全食长约5分30秒)
武汉地区是陆地上的最佳观测点之一,但这很大原因是出于其便捷的交通。如同高博所说,单单是“月亮把太阳遮住”比不上同时有个壮观的地景,特别是去年我们已经感受过新疆的戈壁雪山日食之后。但为了防止贡嘎山和大龙华岛各受西南低涡和台风的影响,我在武汉设置了个备份点,到时候可投奔的人也不少。
其他曾作考虑的观测点:云南省德钦县梅里雪山风景区,湖北省宜昌市三峡大坝,安徽省黄山市黄山风景区,浙江省嘉兴市
天文就是一门靠天吃饭的学科。希望到时不要梅雨锋来个意外静止(覆盖陆地上的整个全食带),让大家全部败兴而归吧。不过我还有一个备份的备份方案—— 买一张22日上午9时左右从成都飞往上海的机票?那就请听下回分解啦!
(注:本文章之照片,除特别注明外,均为网上搜集)
宝瓶座η流星雨观测简况
May 6th
自去年12月观测双子座流星雨后首次重操旧业,这次的地点选在实验室楼顶,晴天钟预计6日凌晨为天晴。
晚上被蚊子骚扰得一塌糊涂,睡得不太好。3点多起床上楼顶,磨蹭了半天,其间实验楼的警报器嘎嘎大叫两次,把我吓了两跳。北京时间3:34开始观测。大学城的光害自然厉害,但西风槽使得污染物略为散去一些,极限星等为3.6等左右,甚至连银河都能略略感觉到。
这是我第3次观测宝瓶座η,前两次分别是2002年和2007年。2002年那一次给我留下了深刻印象,连续观测了两晚,在极限星等5等左右的情况下平均一分钟出现一颗,火流星比例很高;2007年那一次则大失所望,当然月光也是影响因素。今年国际流星组织指出可能有一个年际的活跃,加上没有月光影响,天气也很好,所以睁大眼睛观测。不过流星没有出现,卷云倒先上来了,极限星等一度降至2.5等。第一颗流星让我一直等到3:58才华丽现身,一颗-4等的银色火流星挑破蛇夫座西面的天空。哎,我早就没有大叫的习惯了,只是精神略微一振。可惜这就是今晚唯一一颗能让人精神一振的流星了。接下来的另外3颗流星分别是4:01 +2;4:17 +3;4:19 +1;观测在4:41在卷云的协助下结束了,当时极限星等已经降至不足2等;但整个观测时段内受云影响的时间不多,大约是托那颗火流星的福。
国际流星组织尚未公布其初步分析,但看来宝瓶座η今年的活动仍旧虚弱。大概所谓的“12年周期”理论又遇到挑战了吧。另外,前几年的资料显示同源的宝瓶座η和猎户座流星雨存在“跷跷板”效应,这是不是就说明今年的猎户值得监测呢?让我们拭目以待吧。附敝人的IMO观测报告:
// Header section
night 2009-05-05/06
begin 2009-05-05 1934
end 2009-05-05 2041
observer "Quanzhi" "Ye" "YE QU"
location 113 23 24 E, 23 03 06 N
site "Xiaoguwei, Guangzhou" "China"
reporter "[email protected]"// Shower section
shower ETA 338 -01
shower SPO// Number section
// Interval RA Dec Teff F Lm ETA SPO
period 1934-2041 270 +25 0.980 1.25 3.60 C 4 C 1// Magnitude section
// Show Interval -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 Tot
distribution ETA 1934-2041 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.0
100 Hours of Astronomy Concert Series: of Apr. 6
Apr 7th
The VIIth China Astronomy Olympaid were held on Apr. 2-6 at Guangzhou and I was busying giving hands when in need, meeting old friends and guided them walk around the city, although I was not in staff group. I participated the Ist and IInd ChAO in 2003 and 2004 (and being a member of Chinese team for VIIIth International Astronomy Olympaid that held at Stockholm in 2003) and met lots of participants that are similar to my age at that time, many of them are now my best friends and still being very active in astronomy. I am very happy to see that ChAO is more and more successful. It is also a great pleasure to meet old friends at hometown and share their happiness for being together for the sake of universe!
For this reason, the title of the closure to 100 Hours of Astronomy Concert Series is chosen as "One Sky, One Dream".
Philharmonic Orchestra '92 | Ye Quanzhi
2009 Apr. 6, 19:30 CST at The Blue Hall
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
1. Overture of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", WWV 96
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
2. Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, "Farewell", Hob.I:45
[INTERMISSION]
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
3. Symphony No. 9 in C Major, "Great C Major", D. 944
Ye Quanzhi
4. "Farewell! Beijing", Q. 95
Paul Lincke (1866-1946)
5. Berliner Luft; Berlin Air
100 Hours of Astronomy Concert Series: of Apr. 3
Apr 4th
Not surprisingly, we had all overcast thorough the 4-hour party, which held at the North Gate of Sun Yat-sen University on behalf of the 100 Hours of Astronomy. However it's still successful, with hundreds of citizens visited and observed the scenery of Guangzhou by telescopes. The teachers and team leaders came for '09 China Astronomy Olympaid also attend the party.
The private concert held on Apr. 3 for 100 Hours of Astronomy is under the title of "Sky gazers". A total of six privately-composed sky-related compositions are chosen, including "Meteor Storm Overture" (Q. 133), Leonids Suite (Q. 116), Twilight (Q. 132) and "Night of the South Sea" (Q. 82) that to be played for the first time.
Philharmonic Orchestra '92 | Ye Quanzhi
2009 Apr. 3, 22:30 CST at Nanchuan Observatory
Ye Quanzhi
1. Meteor Storm Overture, Q. 133
2. Suite of "Leonids 2001", Q. 116
3. Twilight, Q. 132
4. Mountains in Afterglow, Q. 144
5. Night of the South Sea, Q. 82
6. Coriolis, Q. 119
100 Hours of Astronomy Concert Series: of Apr. 2
Apr 2nd
The climax of IYA 2009 -- 100 Hours of Astronomy -- finally arrives, unfortunately the weather is not favourable for star gazing now, as an old Chinese poem goes, "Qingming time lots of drizzle" (Qingming: a traditional day occured on Apr. 4 or 5 each year, it's the time for Chinese to visit the tombs of their ancestors and passed relatives). I don't know the reason to schedule the 100 Hours of Astronomy around the Qingming days -- maybe the weather condition is favourable for star gazing in North America or mainland Europe, but not China. Last week, a serve thunderstorm hitted Guangzhou and meteorological observations at the observatory of our campus showed it is the worst thunderstorm we had since at least 2006, thus, very few students would like to join the Earth Hour activity by turn off their lights. For me, I had wish to show my support to the EH by holding a "dark sky" concert at the center park of our campus, but it had to be cancelled due to heavy rainfall.
So the situation may well possible to be similar this time, a cold front is expected to arrive around Apr. 4 and bring another server weather to us -- although unlikely to be as bad as the Mar. 28's -- but enough to rule out possibilities for an excellent 100-hour activity. Anyway, I'll be the North Entrance Plaza of the old campus of our university for the Guangzhou 100 Hours of Astronomy, although I'm not very opmistic for its outcome.
On the other hand, I will celebrate the 100-hour privately by a unique (but "ordinary" for me) way: holding concerts. This time, a series of concerts will be held thorough-out the 100-hour, and everyday there will be a concert with a specific theme, with some of my works written over the past ten years to be played. As usual, I will "conduct" the Philharmonic Orchestra '92 (well, actually, the orchestra is a combination of me, my CDs and MIDIs on hand...) for the concerts.
The opening concert on Apr. 2 is under the theme title of "The universe we observe and the planet we live".
Philharmonic Orchestra '92 | Ye Quanzhi
2009 Apr. 2, 19:30 CST at Kissland Music Ground
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
1. Festive Overture, op. 96
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
2. Symphony No. 104 in D Major, "London", Hob.I:104
Ye Quanzhi
3. Prelude of Our Solar System, Q. 151
4. Little Star Variation, Q. 173
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
5. Verklärte Nacht, op. 4; Transfigured night
Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
6. Sphären-Klänge, op. 235; Music of the Spheres
Ye Quanzhi
7. 24-hour, Q. 45
8. Coriolis, Q. 119
恶劣天气追踪计划之3月28日战役
Mar 30th
飞信的出现使得我能更大限度地发挥自己给朋友作精确天气预报的嗜好。夏秋季节的乐趣来自台风,冬季来自于低温,春天则主要来自锋面和飑线。所以当3月28日下午14点多,我看到多普勒雷达上出现代表强降水的回波时,便知道又一个刺激而充满乐趣的挑战来临了。
对于专职人员而言,天气预报可能是项难以对付的工作,预报对了没有人夸奖,预报错了会骂声一片,我的某个同学更是来了一句“天气预报该预报对的时候报错,该预报错的时候报对”,而对我来说则没有这类麻烦,虽然也曾经有过预报失败的尴尬。天气预报的确是个技术难题,不过我还是扭转了不少朋友对天气预报的负面看法;至于3月28日一战,我则乐意称之为“漂亮的一役”。
开始一段时间,我都耐心地等待降水回波的靠近。不过这次的景象非同小可,竟然能出现大约相当于4个大学城面积的>300mm/hr雨区,我印象中以前还没见过这么强的回波信号;一般>200mm/hr则要考虑冰雹的可能性,而这次的回波又强又广,看来好戏要上演了。等到回波更为靠近,我实在按捺不住,于15时52分向我的天气预报受众们发了第一条群发短信:“恶劣天气预警:28日15:30,一道很强的雷雨带(可能混有冰雹降落)正位于广州市以西约140公里,‘有一定可能’在17:30左右影响广州市区,请留意进一步消息,以及时修改户外活动计划。”
其实这里犯了个大忌。大约一年前,在面向广州的朋友做了几次成功的降水临近预报以后,我把预报业务扩展到了珠海校区,等了几天终于等到了雷达上向珠海校区前进的回波信号,我赶紧提前2小时了发布暴雨预警,结果那条雨带且走且散,到了珠海校区已经基本销声匿迹,那一次堪称最大失败,所以那以后我一般不到1小时范围圈内不轻易作预测。不过这一次,大约是被如此强大的景象刺激到,我还是铤而走险提前了2小时做出预警。
过了一阵,市气象台也发出了雷雨大风蓝色预警。Sissi上来了,同我争辩那是不是飑线,又谈论了一阵当时的天气场形势。雷达上的强回波信号继续逼近,减弱的架势并不是很明显,于是我又在16时42分发出第二条群发短信:“恶劣天气预警:28日16:30,强雷雨带距离广州市约50公里,市气象台已于16时整发出雷雨大风预警信号。预计降雨区会很快(未来30分钟内)抵达本地,雷雨带中心大约将于17:30前后由市区北侧经过,预计将有狂风雷暴以及局部大到暴雨之降水,河北可能有大暴雨至特大暴雨,河南及大学城一带可能有暴雨至大暴雨。预计恶劣天气将持续一段时间,请各位做好应对措施。”此时广州的天气尚还不错。我为了避免到时候万一报错造成尴尬,没有把情况说得太严重。实际上,当时回波图显示特大暴雨区大约有半个广州市区那么大—— 这种情况我在珠三角的雷达上一年最多也就见一两次,更何况这次是冲着广州来的。
看着雨按照自己预报的时间下起来的感觉很快意,天河这里倒是如约地下起了暴雨,不过雨带似乎不太想经过大学城,这让我比较郁闷,毕竟我的预报服务主要受众都在大学城呀!幸好朋友们报告说大学城天全黑了,又电闪雷鸣的,我心想:“嗯,还好,有雷电帮忙做做架势,那我的预报还不至于十分错。”不过能在雷达回波上摆出N年最强的信号,这条飑线自然不是吃素的。大约17:40前后秋哥发短信报告:“够刺激!教学楼五楼…… 椅子都被吹走了。”“暴雨了暴雨了!你可以安心地回来(而不怕因为预报错而被扔砖头)了。”Kwok也发短信说。“现在天气好恐怖啊…… 听到树枝断的声音了。”星星说。“要是不恐怖的话我就没面子了。”我盯着雷达上又红又紫的一大块,心想。又发短信给经常一起追踪恶劣天气的LIONG,他竟然舒舒服服地呆在宿舍!哼哼。随后又得知东郊下了接近厘米级的冰雹(29日《广州日报》),黄埔区出现了龙卷(30日《新快报》)。
飑线过后是倾盆暴雨,不过狂风和雷电都算告一段落。LIONG冒雨奔到实验室,发回的报告让我颇为吃惊:“录得瞬时极大风速32.6秒米(相当于12级);部分天花板被吹落;全铜的蒸发皿被吹到6米远;……”仪器记录下的数据再清楚不过的说明这是一次标准的飑线过境,这也是我们入学以来见过的最强的一次飑线过境。上一次有记录可循的较强飑线过境可能算是2007年4月24日(本博客的记录:http://yeiht.y234.cn/wordpress/?p=439),但粗略估计这一次过程比那次还要强差不多1倍。
飑线通过广州后,我在18:09解除了恶劣天气预警。这次战役可以算打得漂亮,但虾还是很认真地提醒了一句:“别自满哈!”也对,不知道老天爷又将在何时给我新的挑战呢?热切期待!
A Lulin-style hair before hair cut
Mar 5th
Revised on 2009 March 12.
With the help from Sisi Chen, I finally managed to make a "Lulin-style" hair before I cut it off -- see above. I wish to thank Sisi for her patient and help. Sisi is also a fan of astronomy, and she had been well possible to study astronomy in Nanking University -- but for some coincidence she came to Sun Yat-sen University and study meteorology as me.
Today I went to the barber's and cut my hair very short. Let's see how Lulin will response this time! Before updates on Lulin's appearance, let's see some nice photos from Lulin and others.
This very nice photo is taken by Michael Pagitz with a GRAS (Global Rent-a-scope) telescope, used with permission. Michael is a long term user of 7Timer! service (http://7timer.y234.cn) and I'm really happy to see his nice Lulin image!
And finally I took some Lulin images with the 0.41-m reflector (the one which found the comet) during the course of Lulin Sky Survey, and confirmed that I have to the right to publish them on my blog this time (but please don't re-post these images on your sites). The animation above show a major burst during late Feb. 25, the duration of this animation is about 1-hour (around 15-16h UT).
The one above is taken on Feb. 28 with LRGB combined, the total exposure time is about 170 minutes. There are other images below you may have a look. According to the latest reports, the comet is still visible to naked-eye observers at magnitude of about 5.5.
Feeling lucky when Lulin shining above
Feb 25th
I departed with a few friends from Guangzhou for Gaocun Village at around 22:30, Heng Zhou drove the car. It's our Guangdong Southern Cross Star Association which held the party, and there is only one topic -- Comet Lulin. It was prefectably clear all the way down, but according to the messages from those friends who arrived earlier, "it's overcast!" We laughed and refused to believe, as the sky was really "rarely-seen prefect".
At around 0:15 we arrived Gaocun and had to believe what was told earlier -- it's indeed overcast. What made us feel more frustrated is that we were under a small patch of heavy cloud, the patch went just right over the village. After a few minutes of discussion, we made a casual decision that a new temperory site must be found. Quanzhi Shen and several others would stay at Gaocun since their equipment could not move easily, while Heng, I, Jianji Li and some others (2 cars in total) would drive east to seek for clear sky. We made a U turn and drove about 10 kilometers to reach the clear sky we had found on the way to Gaocun, but quite unfortunately, when we found a flat area near Xiaodong Village after about half an hour's search and were just about to unpack our equipments, the clouds came and blocked our view. Disappointed and frustrated, we decided to go back Gaocun, set up our tents and sleep. At around 1 a.m. we arrived Gaocun and began to set up our tent. "Lulin is shy," I explained to others, as I had predicted the sky to be "partly clear" that night but it seems not, "she is unwilling to turn up when there are so many guys pointing their telescopes to her."
We worked 20 minutes to set the big tent up, but just at the time we finished all the things and plan to go to sleep, Heng's mobile phone rang, it came from another group which had also went out to seek clear sky, "You said that the sky is clear there?" Heng shouted, and we were all stop talking to hear what he went on, "drove... west? Okay, okay, we're coming." After only five minutes, Heng was driving at about 150kph at the tiny path heading west and we were on his car (Quanzhi Shen and his fellows stayed still at Gaocun). At about 1:40 we arrived Picun Village, the group arrived earlier had set up a temperory observing field on the ground in the front of the local goverment building. Everyone was unpacking their equipments with a hurry. I, too, dragged my 11x70 binocular out from my bag as quickly as I could. Less than 15 seconds did I spotted comet -- it's almost impossible to miss that bright, fuzzy, lovely target, with a mild anti-tail pointing east, that's really gorgeous! I measured its brightness to be 4.6, with a ~25' coma and a tail at a length of ~1.7 deg. Heng estimated the brightness to be around 4.2 with his 10-cm refractor. We could spotted it easily with naked-eye, the estimate is about the same with the binocular's -- around 4.5 mag. with a 30' coma, but I couldn't detect the tail with naked-eye.
Xun Zheng, a journalist of the Evening News who had monitored activities of our association for a long time, took some nice photos of us, and two of them were printed on the Yangcheng Evening News later that day. After obtaining Xun's permission, I'm posting some of them here.
I also took a glance of a few dozens Messier objects with my binocular before the sky turned bad at around 5 a.m. We learnt later that the sky of Gaocun also became clear but still far from Picun's. As an old Chinese saying goes, "Man proposes, but God disposes." For any astronomical activities, no matter how well you prepared, the God only need a patch of cloud to let your preparation get ruined. We were very lucky to get 3 hours clear sky that night.
As spaceweather.com had reported, Lulin's tail is changing rapidly. Around Feb. 22 the ion tail suddenly showed some complex structure, but on Feb. 25 the ion tail was torn away by a solar win gust (I'm not fully agree with this solution; it might as well be the geometry effect which had made the ion tail disappeared). On the other hand, the appearance of the comet appeared to be about normal (as the structure of ion tail is not visible to visual observers under most occasion), except the main tail is an anti-one: it points directly to the sun! But after Feb. 26, the double-tail Lulin will become mostly single-tail since the comet has passed the opposition point and the geometry effect (see my earlier explanation) disappears. Stay tuned for updates!
Comet Lulin visible under worst condition
Feb 24th
I carried my 11x70 to the top of our dormitory at around 14:50 UT. The sky condition has improved significantly compare to that of the morning (overcast), but it's still mostly cloudy, with a few bright stars occasionary visible in the cloud gaps, I estimated the LM to be around +1.0 at that moment, one of the worst observing nights I have ever experienced. However I still manage to spot the comet. At around 15:05 UT, a clear region was passing over the Lulin region, so I point my binocular to the southeast direction of Saturn. I move the observing field a little bit and feel that there is a small "cloud" near a curve lined by four stars. A very clear gap was just passing the region and I was able to confirm its existances. A 7.46 mag. star coded TYC 267-888-1 was also visible at those seconds, so I estimated the surface brightness of the comet to be around 7.5 mag, with a diameter up to around 20'. The cloud came again after less than half a minute and was increasing again, after waiting for five minutes I packed my binocular and went downstairs.
I'm very pleased to find the comet is such a bad condition, but I think experiences are required under such a condition. Also I need to point out that the brightness estimation is far from reliable since the sky condition is far from satisfying.
I should have wait for more time but today I'm very tired. I think I must go to bed now or I may catch a cold. Good luck to you all!
Update: I just receive a fresh image from Lulin Observatory, taken by the Lulin 10-cm f/8 refractor with U9000 CCD last night (300s x 5 combined). The comet looks really gorgeous! Note its newly-developed beautiful dust tail! After earning their permission to publicaze the image on my blog, I'm showing it here. Well, I just bound up my hair for a few hours last night and the comet soon made a response? (the comet looks very different now comparing the images prior to Feb. 22, you may browse spaceweather.com for a comparasion) Bravo, fantastic. I'll depart soon for Gaocun Village, a remote site about 150 kilometers from Guangzhou which is one of the bases of our Guangdong Southern Cross Star Association, for a good view of the comet. Stay tuned for updates.
Lulin to reach her brightness maximum
Feb 23rd
It has been quite a while since my last update about Lulin. Sorry, guys, I learn that many of you keep visiting my blog to see what's up with Lulin's boyfriend. Actually, I was on travel from Feb. 2 to 21, that's in the course of my "five-ring" project. I plan to visit China's every corner by complete five paths on the country, and this ring is the No. 2. This time I travel about 5,200 kilometers, while 312.7 kilometers of them were in hiking, I visited 16 places in those 20 days, and this trip is nicknamed "eastern minor ring" by myself.
Okay, enough chatter. The new term has begun so I back home and back to the campus, with my 11x70 binocular this time. I had once brought my 11x70 and even the 13-cm refractor to my dormitory, but they did not stay for long -- because our dormitory building is facing the girl's, so there had been some guys asking what could I see through the telescope when pointing it to... somewhere. "Oh well," I replied, "be aware that you will see many pores!" After all, I brought my telescopes home.
According to the most recent (in 24 hours) observations, Comet Lulin has brighten to about mag. 4.6-5.0, with a coma of 20'-30' (even as large as 50' in naked-eye reports) and a tail at a length at about 1-2 deg. Here at Guangzhou it's still cloudy, but I expect the sky to be partly clear tonight and mostly clear in Tuesday night. To let you know, I can't wait anymore to see the most beautiful Lulin!
Although there are no observations from the discoverer at this moment, I get something that might be interesting. After Dr. Tony Phillips' article at NASA, Lulin has got a new nickname, "The Green Comet". I love this name, not only because the fresh green fuzzy ball is lovely indeed, but also for another reason. Why does it looks green? Cyanogen and diatomic carbon count one; another reason is a Chinese language humor -- my family name is Ye ("叶", pronounce as "yeah"), and this means "leave" in Chinese, while Chi Sheng Lin's family name means "forest" ("林", combination of two "wood" charactor), both "Ye" and "Lin" relate to green color, so that may be one of the reasons why the comet looks green.
There are confusions about why Lulin has two opposited tails. I create a simple figure to explain this phenomena, see below.
Okay, so much for this. The sky is clearing, so I'm going out for a try. Stay tuned for update!
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