Mighty Titan

NT Dark Skies
It has been a real milestone in the exploration of the solar system over the last week, with the successful landing of Huygens (hoy-gens) probe on the surface of Titan, the enigmatic moon of Saturn.
Titan is no dead rock like our moon, it has an atmosphere 4 times the density of earth & is predominantly nitrogen (like earth).
However there the similarity ends, the surface Temp is around -180 deg C & it is believed to have a liquid ocean of Ethane or Methane (a hydrocarbon), this is yet to be proved.
The Huygens image's are very convincing though, showing channels & what appears to be a shoreline, see them at the attached link:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html
Late News: in a press conference from ESA on the 21st Jan a number of announcements were made.
*Titan has had recent precipitation of methane
*The surface below the Huygens probe is moist and is venting methane
*The highland's with their eroded channels are composed, at least partly of water ice, which is rock hard at such extremely low temperatures.
*The dark surface "seas" are expected to be rich in complex organic compounds, created by the breakdown of Methane in the atmosphere.
*The Atmosphere itself becomes progressively richer in methane as you get closer to the surface, just like the earth gets richer in water vapor as you get closer to the surface.
*The atmosphere would be explosive, if not for the extremely low temperature & lack of Oxygen in the atmosphere, fortunately the oxygen is locked up in the water ice on the surface of Titan.

This must rank up there with the moon landing in 1969, for it's ground breaking science, Titan is believed to be what our earth may have been like in the early development of the solar system.
This is the culmination of 20 years of work on this project across many EU countries & all involved can be justifiably proud of their achievement.

While we cant hope to see Titan as more than a bright point of light around Saturn with our telescopes, we can watch its position change from week to week.
While the wet season is upon us, when the sky does clear during the wet it is often very good observing conditions, due to the lack of dust, pollen etc in the Atmosphere.
Our next observing night will be in early Feb, depending on the weather.

Wet Season - Clear Skies

NT Dark Skies
surprisingly our viewing night for the close conjunction between the Comet Macholtz & the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) star cluster, was a beautifully clear night with good seeing conditions.
The previous 2 weeks had been wet & windy, and as I write this another big thunder storm rolls over Nhulunbuy.
The comet was best seen with a low power wide field view, My 10" Dobsonian gave the best view of the Ion tail of the comet.
While the little "Astroscan" rich field Scope gave the best overall view of the comet with it's Ion tail stretching to seemingly touch the "Seven Sisters"
The Comet Macholtz will be with us for another month yet, but will be growing dimmer as it plunges towards the northern horizon, through the constellation Perseus.
Saturn was, as always a crowd pleaser, with the detail visible improving as the night progressed.
The "Great Orion Nebula" was at it's most spectacular, viewed through a newly acquired 2" UA 40mm Wide Field eyepiece used in the LX90 with the 2" diagonal we now have.
Low power Wide field eyepieces give that "walking through space" feeling & a really good one like the UA 40mm, give very high contrast images (IE: Space is a velvety black & nebulas like Orion are that much brighter than normal)
Our next viewing night will be in February at a time TBA, depending on the weather.