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□□□ See also:
DEEP SKY SOUTH : Remote Astronomy at Observatorio del Pangue
We still offer a service of hosting telescopes or private observatories for those stargazers who enjoy accessing to the Southern sky in optimal conditions. Don't worry for technical support or high speed internet, we provide it all.
For more information and availabilities, feel free to visit us at www.deepskysouth.org


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Vease también:
ALERTA EN TURISMO ASTRONÓMICO:
SEPAN DE LOS OBSERVATORIOS QUE NO LO SON !... (click aqui)

□□□ CONSULTEN AQUI LAS PREGUNTAS FRECUENTES EN ASTRONOMÍA

IMAGEN ASTRONÓMICA DEL DÍA


□□□ ...Y DE PASO ECHEN UN VISTAZO A LA IMAGEN ASTRONÓMICA DEL DÍA :

Click here to link to the original site "Astronomy Picture of the Day".

Cliquer ici pour accéder à la version française "Image Astronomique du Jour".

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Comet Leonard !

It has been a long time since we had a nice comet visiting our skies, but on the last days of the year, comet Leonard (2020-A1) fulfills all expectations: it is visible to the naked eyes, it displays a complex tail on photographs, and through large telescopes it shows two bright colored jets from the nucleus...

On this picture, taken on the the evening of December, 23rd, we can appreciate the long and somehow complex tail developped by the comet.

The view below, taken earlier (December 21st), shows more precisely a curious detail in the head of the comet : note the irregular shape of the front of the coma, with a dark recessed triangular area instead of the usual parabolic design. This is due to the mentionned jets expelling gases from the nucleus, disposed symmetrically in a perpendicular configuration regarding the main comet axis. (click to enlarge)


Indeed, it is not so commom to be able to capture any detail of what's happening right around the proper nucleus of a comet, and this is maybe what makes C/ Leonard trully exceptional !

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The comet arrived with a periodic orbit of around 80,000 years, but apparently it leaves with an hyperbolic orbit, that means an open, no-return path, so we've been lucky to be allowed to fully enjoy this short and one-time visit...

Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - December, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of 71mm refractor f/5.3, ISO 4000, total exposure 22 minutes

Astrophotography at Pangue

The Galaxy M31 (Andromeda) doesn't need to be introduced, but it's always worth to capture and display its magnificence...
The little smudge to its lower right is the galaxy NGC205, while the bright fuzzy dot left of centre is the galaxy M32, both being satellites to M31.

Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - December, 6th, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of 71mm refractor f/5.3, ISO 4000, total exposure 20 minutes
West is up

A deep partial eclipse of the Moon,
a stellar explosion in a distant galaxy,
the return of an historical comet,
and a farewell to planet Pluto...

Just a regular, quiet November month at the observatory...

Planet Pluto is not really a popular target among amateur astronomers, since it shows only as a tiny white dot, undistinguishable from the many surrounding stars. However we wanted to take a look at it, remembering that this is a fascinating planetary system of its own... Also, while standing in Sagittarius, Pluto is about to disappear behind the Sun, so it cannot be watched again in good conditions until July, 2022.

The two pictures below, taken at an interval of 24 hours, show the star field around Pluto : hence the planet is the only dot that moved in the meantime... Can you spot it by yourself, above the centre of the field? If you do, you are repeating the procedure that led to its discovery in 1930...

November 24th. :

November 25th. :

Just in case, here is the same field, with the planet marked... (click to enlarge)
Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - November, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of SCT Meade 403mm, exposure 100 seconds, ISO 3200 ;
West is up

Comet 6P/ d'Arrest, discovered in 1851, is a short period body (some 6.5 years), so it can be witnessed several times in a lifetime, although some of the approaches are not favourable to observations. On November, 24th, we succeeded to capture it, in Piscis Austrinus, at a respectable magnitude of 10.2, an easy target under clear skies.

The view below shows the brighter nucleus, slightly shifted (it moved some 15 arcsec. during the exposure time), all embedded in a subtle greenish coma.
Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - November, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of SCT Meade 403mm reduced at f/6, exposure 10 minutes, ISO 4000; East is up

A few days ago, the Type Ia supernova SN2021aefx has been discovered in the galaxy NGC1566 (Dor): both the galaxy and the supernova are bright, so the resulting view is quite spectacular...
We took the above picture on November 24th, when the supernova was shining at a visual magnitude of 12.5, that is quite bright for such a distant event (estimated over 60 million light-years).
On this view we can appreciate the two main spiral arms of the galaxy, with the supernova standing to the right of the upper arm (see the marks on the small icon at left).


Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - November, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of SCT Meade 403mm reduced at f/6, total exposure 15 minutes, ISO 3200 ; East is up

On November, 19th, at dawn, there was a partial eclipse of the Moon visible in almost all Americas, reaching up to 97% of the lunar disk covered, hence giving a nice display of contrasted colours.

Eclipse begins, the eastern limb already appears darkened :
Eclipse progress, now displaying the neat and curved border of the earth shadow :
Eclipse close to its maximum, with the usual orange coloured shadow of Earth :
Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - November, 2021

Astrophotography at Pangue

A quick look at the Large Magellanic Cloud...
Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - November 3rd, 2021
Canon 60D, lens 135mm, ISO 3500, total exposure 14 minutes;

We are back !...

The chilean frontiers are open, the pandemia restrictions are slowing down, and the winter is over, so we're just ready to get back under the stars...

The T400 telescope proudly facing the starry sky... The two proeminent bright spots to its right are the Moon (bottom) and planet Venus (top). Above is the magnificent Milky Way, with the galactic centre standing at the upper right corner.
On that same night, the thin crescent Moon was setting close to the dome of the Cerro Tololo observatory, as seen from our own observing room :
Photos: Cristian Valenzuela - Observatorio del Pangue - October 9th, 2021.

One small step for a man...

Few people know that the space odyssey began in Paris (France) : in the morning of November, 21st, 1783, took place the first manned flight, using the then recently invented montgolfiere (hot air balloon), so making its pilot Jean François Pilatre de Rozier the first person to see the world from an airship.

The place was the gardens of a castle (Chateau de La Muette). Today, the castle disappeared, but the exact location of the take-off is still marked by a modest and rather neglected stele : I was recently able to find it, in an abandoned field stuck between a series of highways…

By coincidence, at this particular moment, the crescent Moon was standing right over it, as if to bring out the symbolism : actually the flight from Pilatre de Rozier was the very first step of a long human journey that eventually ended up with the landing on the Moon, in July 1969…
Photos: Eric Escalera - August 13th, 2021.

One Moon, Two Towers...

Paris is not an ideal place for taking pictures of the heavens, except maybe when the Full Moon approaches the Eiffel Tower... However, the greatest achievement I felt when taking this picture was to have been able to travel to France, despite the pandemic crisis, the close of frontiers (both Chile and the EU), the successive tests required, and the many uncertainties until the last minute ! Let's hope we'll all get out of this very soon...

A few minutes later, the full Moon was perfectly centered on the Eiffel Tower, to the delight of a not so large crowd...
Photos: Eric Escalera - June 24th, 2021.
The dark tower visible to the left is the "Tour Montparnasse", the only skyscraper in Paris

Astrophotography at Pangue :
a perfect galaxy

NGC4565 (Com) is not only a fine example of an edge-on galaxy, it is a stunning sight in large telescopes, spanning for some 15 arcmin. through the eyepiece, that is half of the apparent size of the Moon !...

Photo: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - April, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of SCT Meade 403mm, total exposures: 42 minutes;
North is up

March, 5th, 2021 : First Pass of Apophis...

...and certainly not the last ! Some asteroids deserve special attention, and this one is among the top of the list, not because of its characteristics (merely 350 meters across), but because of its orbit, that brings it close to Earth, too often, and maybe too close...
On the evening of March, 5th, Apophis cruised off our planet, at a respectable distance of over 16,000,000 km (some 10 million miles), that made a good opportunity to watch it, safely ! The apparent magnitude of 15.5 was bright enough to allow us to see it visually through our telescopes and, why not, to capture its relatively fast motion among the star field (apparent motion was estimated at 3.5 arcsec. per minute) in the constellation of Hydra.
We took a series of pictures at intervals of 2 minutes only, and still they clearly show a tiny dot shifting from one to another : that's Apophis ! Here we display some of them, with the asteroid identifyed by the red mark: (North is up for all the views)
Click on the pictures to enlarge and watch them in a presentation mode as to see the motion effect
The picture below shows the path of the asteroid on that night (roughly from 22h00 to 03h00, local time), with the previous position circled:
And here is another series of pictures, spanning approximately an entire hour:

Apophis will make an extremely close "flyby" on April 2029, approaching at only 36,000 km from Earth centre (that is, some 30,000 km from the surface!), then again another close pass in 2038... In first instance, there was a small probability of collision for 2038, now definitely ruled out by the most accurate calculations. However, these same calculations arise a risk of collision for 2068, although we may not worry yet : the orbit of Apophis will be affected by the gravitational field of Earth during its 2029 flyby, hence the definitive trajectory cannot be established until then...

Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - March, 2021.

Astrophotography at Pangue

There is much more to see in Orion than the Great Orion Nebula : here we captured the NGC1977 nebula, located 1 degree north to its great neighbor, a nice gem by itself when properly observed in detail and in good conditions...
Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue - January, 2021
Canon 60D at prime focus of SCT Meade 403mm reduced at f/6.4, total exposures: 40 minutes;
South is up

"Night and Day"... the frame is complete !

We used to post pictures of the Sun setting behind the dome of the CTIO (Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, our immediate neighbor), an event that happens twice every year, at the exact same dates. But on last January 15th, we've been granted with the setting of the Moon behind that same dome, and this is far more unusual as, for a given observing spot, it repeats every 10 years only... So now we got the two pieces of a unique collection !
For the record, here is again the picture of the last Sunset on Tololo, taken on the evening of 2020, November, 3rd. : same dome, same size of the disk...
So here is the frame, complete...

Photos: Cristian Valenzuela / Observatorio del Pangue