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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!
Valentine's Day with Comet Lulin?
Feb 14th
Today is my last day at Nanjing, I visited Ming Tomb, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, Gate of China, Nanjing Wall, etc. These places are great (actually, you may have seen the recently-updated photos here, they were all taken during my country-cross travel). But the biggest surprise is made by Liaoshan and Yunxi, sending me such a message: "Happy Valentine's Day -- with you 'Lulin'!"
Okay, I admit that Liaoshan had remind me to take a look of Lulin at Valentine's Day yesterday, but I had enjoy my trip so much so I wouldn't like to move out in the cold winds for a glimpse of the comet. "Oh well, the weather won't permit me to do that," I told her, "today (Feb. 13) is cold and rainy." But actually, Feb. 14 is mostly clear.
So I made something special to celebrate the only Valentine's Day with Comet Lulin: for the first time in my life, I make up my hair to match the appearance of the comet (as below). Can you find the "ion-tail" on my forehead?
I'd most probably have three snowy days at Mount Huangshan, so it's unlikely for me to spot Comet Lulin there. Anyway, I'll try to see it again at her brightest after I back to Guangzhou. Thanks Liaoshan and Yunxi for the reminds!
Lulin's reminder
Feb 8th
Sorry for lacking of updates on Lulin, I haven't many stories to tell as the comet speaks itself (herself), what's more, I'm now on a cross-country travel and is always on mobile, so I can't write much. If any of you happens to be at a YHA around Shanghai now, please let me know and we could possibly meet. Now I'm at a YHA hostel at Suzhou.
Okay, I just got a humor. I had mention earlier that I had let myself grow a long hair in order to "simulate" Lulin's tail. However, my parents and my friends don't like it, partly because I don't do make-up and my hair looks like a bad grassfield. A few days ago they found a very good reason for persuading me to cut it short: "Lulin's tail 'brokes'" (see http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?PHPSESSID=1s4hdb74jqcn8s8ss7juiaggl4&month=02&day=05&year=2009&view=view).
"Your Lulin reminds you that it's time to cut your hair!" Liaoshan Shi sent me a short message via mobile phone. This is a good humor, I admit, but her trick still doesn't work, I simply make my hair more tousy to make it appeared to be "disconnected"!
Lulin dating compaign: update on Jan. 31
Jan 31st
I drag myself out of bed again at 4:30 a.m. It's another very clear night, with limiting magnitude around 5.4 (using IMO method -- but this do not mean that tonight is better than last night, since last night I had to use a not-well located reference field as the cirrus block the favourite one). I get the 13-cm refractor out and set it up, but it takes me a little bit longer than last night to see the comet.
With a telescope, the sky quality seems to be slightly better than last night, the faintest star I have been able to see is TYC 6174-464-1 at 12.28 mag, but (26) Proserpina (12.5 mag) is still invisible. Galaxy NGC 5890 (at 12.6 mag) is only 10' away according to the map, unsurprisingly it's not visible, too. Tonight I have much more options on comparasion stars -- but the observation doesn't make me feel exciting. I estimate the total brightness of the comet to be around 7.3 mag using Morris method, with six comparasion stars at mag 6.17-7.97, while the coma diameter to be 7'. The comet's look does not change much except a 30" dense core run out tonight. Tonight's estimate is 0.5 mag fainter than that of last night, I think tonight's one is more reliable since only two comparasion stars were used last night.
Shortly before the astronimical twilight starts, I also give a try on NGC 5892, a galaxy about 3 degrees away at 12.0 mag, but with no luck. Seems its surface brightness is still too dim. I then shift back to Lulin and see it off in the twilight (still barely visible even after the nautical twilight started!).
I'm not sure when would the next dating occur. I'll be away for a three-week tour in the country soon, and the rainy season will begin at Guangzhou before I come back. I'll try if I can spot it with naked-eye when I arrive at Mt. Huangshan in mid Feburary.
Second dating with Lulin
Jan 30th
As Comet Lulin is now approaching the Earth, the questions such as "how is your comet" or "did you take look at your comet" frequently fly into my ears. When replying these questions, I'd love to refer the comet as "my girl", and a standard reply is "no, I haven't date with her since last August". What's more, for a co-activity with Lulin's "heaven" show, I let my hair grow to a record length, and promise to my friends that "I will make it up according to the appearance of Lulin's tails". But actually, up to now, I have no time to make it up, and to be honest, no idea on how to make it up. I used to keep my hair very short. (the "public" reason is that the Lulin's tails are generally not visible yet)
As several cold fronts went over the Pearl River Delta around the Chinese New Year's Day, the air quality had improved to a very remarkable level. On Jan. 27, the Air Pollution Index (API) of Guangzhou's downtown was even down to 14 (while the average API of the downtown area is around 70-80). The Astroweather Panel suggested the sky would be clear in the morning of Jan. 30, so I went to my house at the countryside for a 4-day stay on Jan. 28. The air quality there was even more surprising -- with API lower than 4. Such an excellent air quality is rarely seen in the well-polluted Pearl River Delta area.
When I drag myself out of bed at 4 a.m. in the morning of Jan. 30, the sky did cleared up, although not as that good as Astroweather Panel predicted -- there are still a few cirrus on the sky. I checked the values of a nearby meteorological station, the temperature is 9.8C, not very low yet. So I carried by 80-mm f/5 refractor out. Except the cirrus, the sky is remarkably clear, I estimate the limiting magnitude to be 5.1 with IMO method -- also a record for this observing site. I wait for a few minutes until the cirrus move away from Libra, then point the telescope to the area. I don't bring my laptop out -- I was always very lazy and would not bring my laptop to the telescope, until I admit I'm unable remember the exact location of the target I want to observe. But this time I get a bonus, a fuzzy ball appeared in my view within only half a minute. I went into my bedroom, check the finding map, and confirm it's indeed "my girl".
I moved my biggest telescope -- a 13-cm f/6.4 refractor -- into the observing field. The 13-cm has a much better quality than the 8-cm. I point it to the comet, and try to estimate the comet's brightness using Sidgwick method. I'm not a good visual comet observer, and there are not sufficient comparasion stars around the area, so the observasion may be of some errors. The first estimate is 6.1 mag, but shortly after that I find out the comet is just occulting with a 10.72 mag star (TYC 6175-46-1), so I wait until it moves away from the star and make a second estimate. The final estimate is 6.7 mag with coma diameter to be 7'. The comet is slightly elongated over the ecliptic. After observed the comet, I make some attempts to see how deep I can go. A 12.16 mag star (TYC 6175-765-1) is visible, although not easily, but an asteroid nearby (26 Proserpina, around 12.5 mag) can not be seen, so the limiting magnitude for the 13-cm refractor at this night should be around 12.2 mag.
The twilight appears and marks the end of observing, I watch a beautiful sunrise (I always get excited about sunrises and sunsets!) at the observing field before go back to sleep. The visibility is also very remarkable today -- the 50-km away Mount Apoliu is clearly visible in twilight over a small patch of "cloud-sea".
Greeting the year of Ox
Jan 28th
The world seems to be more and more familiar with Chinese's most imprtant day -- the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year's Day. I would prefer the later one, as the event is not only a festival, but also the opening of a new year, using "Day" might be better on describing the importance of the day than using "Festival". Although in Chinese language, "festival" or "day" shares the same charactor when refering to the meaning of an annual event ("节", Jie), but it has a very slight different when being translating back into English -- as we generally don't call Christmas Day as "Christmas Festival"! However, in the following, I'll still speak "Spring Festival" since this noun has been used for long.
The coming year will be a year of Ox. Although all the Chinese will enjoy the same festival, there can be large difference on celebration way across the country. Today I'll show you how Cantonese (a.k.a. Guangzhou citizens) celebrate the festival, since I have lived at here for years.
The most classic and unique ceremony at Guangzhou for the Spring Festival celebration is the Greet Spring Flower Market ("迎春花市"). This might be the biggest difference compare to the northern cities, since Guangzhou is located in the south of the Tropic of Cancer, the flowers can grow and blossom even in winter. All eight districts, as well as some nearby cities (such as Foshan), will hold Flower Market, but those markets in downtown area are the biggest and hottest.
The market would be opened a few days before the New Year's Eve, but most people will choose the Eve for visit. If you go to the market in the evening of the New Year's Eve, you should be well prepared for heavy crowds. When I was very young, my family went to the Flower Market every year, and the visits were mostly finished by missing someone, because there were too many people.
Why the Cantonese need to buy flowers at the Flower Market? As far as I know, that is partly because an old Chinese saying, "flowers blossom riches and honour". As the flowers are not likely to grow in the most Chinese cities, a blossom flower at the beginning of a year will have a very special meaning.
However, flowers are not the only product at the market. When you visit the market, you will see windmills -- hold in the customers or are being sold. I don't know if buying windmills is also a Cantonese custom, but I doubt if there are any people who would like to hold a windmill in the cold northern cities. The meaning of windmill is quite clear -- because there is a Chinese phase goes as "turning (for good) fortune", and "turn" and "rotate" shares the same Chinese charactor. People believe that good fortune will come in the forthcoming year when the fans rotate.
There are also other habits -- for example, hanging red lantern and the "fortune" sign. The "fortune" sign should be installed up-side-down, why? That is because in Chinese language, the pronunciation of "up-side-down" is similar to "coming", so it's a custom to install the sign up-side-down to welcome the "fortune". It's also a custom to eat fish around the New Year's Day, the reason is somewhat similar: a Chinese saying goes "surplus in every year", and the pronunciation of "surplus" is the same as "fish". The most important custom across the country -- even for those overseas -- is having a family reunion dinner in the New Year's Eve, and this is one of the main reason why many Chinese are willing to board a heavy train back home during the Spring Move.
The Flower Market will close exactly at 12 a.m. of the New Year's Day. The unsold flowers will be ruined, because the custom is that the flowers must be bought and placed before the New Year comes.
According to my parents, in the old days the New Year's Day is the happiest hour for kids in a year, because only that day would the kids to be gave new cloths (must dress on in the New Year's Day), had nice food to eat, and earn lucky money. They would also enjoy a great time with the firecracker. Nowadays our teens will not treat new cloths and nice food as a major entertainment, we are more likely to find ourselves sitting bored at the restraut, while our parents are busying meeting the long-time-no-see relatives with emotion. But after all, there are still something for our teens to be busy with when the new year comes -- sending and replying the flood-in mobile phone messages and e-mails for New Year's greeting!
A glimpse of the Spring Move
Jan 23rd
Since I'm studying at where I live, I have no need to take part in the Spring Move. The activity has been remarked as the "largest human transportation", but I had no concept of it, until the occurrence of a serve weather last year. The bad weather lasted for weeks, and millions of people were reported to be stucked on the way home. At Guangzhou, the city I live, there was about 1 million people stucking at the railway station at the worst period. During those days, the stadium near my house was opened for temporary stay of the stucked people, and I could hear the broadcast, announcing the most recent railway recovery progress, all night long.
The newspaper says the goverment is much better prepared for any unexpected event this year, and I'm curious to see what's actually happening at the railway station besides those terrifying images of heavy crowd, printed on the newspaper or other media. So I plan to see some of my friends off at the Guangzhou railway station.
I don't see what I had expected. Although there are indeed many people going in or out of the underground station, I had experienced more crowd condition in the underground station during the rush hour. Not very crowd yet! At least, not as crowd as I had expected. It only takes no more than 10 minutes for me to guide my friends to the entrance -- many blocks as well as the indicator have been set up to guide the passengers to the proper entrance. The see-off people are not allow to enter the station building during the Spring Move period, so I say good-bye to my friends at the entrance.
I left with a decent impression that everything seems to be in order, but for my friends, the hard time has just begun. After boarding the train, they would have to remain in their seat for many hours -- 20 hours for the fewest -- until the train arrive at their destinations. A bed seat? Not quite probable. In the opposition, in order to carry more passengers, there are some "sitting bed seat" tickets on sold, that is, the beds are used for sitting, not sleeping. Almost none of the trains offer mobile phone charging service, so it's virtually not possible to help them to spend the boring hours by exchanging messages. It's hard for me to imagine spending a day like this -- I had once sitting on a train for 23 hours and felt not bad, but there were not much people on that train at that time, so I could lay down on the seats for sleep. But during the Spring Move, "You are very lucky already if you can manage to get a seat ticket -- many people are standing around me!" my friends said.
A funny story here. After the minister said that the Ministry of Railways will do their best to "ensure no student would have to stand to get back home", a friend of mine went to the ticket office and ask for a ticket to Tianjin. "Seat ticket are all sold out," replied the conductor. "That's all right, I want a stand ticket for student." my friend said. "I'm afraid I'm unable to sell you a ticket," the conductor said, "the minister said we must ensure no student would have to stand to get back home."
When my see-off campaign proceed into the last leaver, Jinghua, who was going to board a train that will run for about 38 hours before arriving at her destination, Changchun. I asked her if sitting for 38 hours would be a difficult challenge for her.
"Well -- actually, I have got used to it," she replied with a smile, "and it really feels great to be getting back home!"
It's report that China's railway transportation ability will be raised significantly in the year 2012. Although the Spring Move this year seems to be much better organized than last year, I do hope that my friends and all others will be no longer suffered from such an uncomfortable "adaptation" in future.
FY-1D image of 2008 Aug. 1 Total Solar Eclipse
Jan 11th
Further to my post on Dec. 26, I retrieve the data from our laboratory again and re-process the raw image taken by Feng-Yun 1D meteorological satellite on 2008 Aug. 1, which showed the moon shaddow on the Earth. The resolution of the image is 1.1km, which, is three times higher than the one I gave earlier. The other image shows the surface temperture computed from the sensor of the satellite at that time (no significant temperature drop effect in the totality area can be seen), For full size image, you can check out the thumbnail at the bottom of this post. Warning: large size!
Comet McNaught: Image of pre-discovery
Jan 10th
I just know that I had a near-miss to my second comet discovery in late 2007, since the Minor Planet Center has just reported the identification made by Mike Meyer, that three observations I made in late 2007 was actually linked with a recent discovered comet, but that's largely caused by bad luck instead of careless review of candidates -- see above.
This tiny snow ball, is now recognized as Comet McNaught, designed P/2008 Y3, it was found at the New Year's Eve of 2009 by Australian astronomer Rob McNaught. I had received a warm welcome by Rob during my visit to the Siding Spring Observatory, and he gave me a beautiful post of the Great Daylight Comet he found (C/2006 P1), as well as his signature and words, "May you discovered more comets!" However, he has taken one from my hand Oops, Rob, I'm not blaming you -- because it was still two months before you wrote the words when I detected it, we were both not aware of such an occasion being presenting.
The self-developed reduction pipeline did detected the faint dot although it was then running through the milky way, and was "encounted" with a bright star (the encounted image was neglected when making the image you see). As the comet was then about 3.94 a.u. from the Earth (about 590 million kilometers), the cometary feature was rather weak, so it's not surprising for me to count it as an asteroid at that time. Anyway, congratulations for your 45th comet, Rob! (Yes, Rob is the most profit individual discoverer in the history by far)
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