The comet A3 made its closest approach to earth on October 12 and is now heading out into the void.  The first picture shown below was taken on 10/12/24, the next two on 10/14/24, then one on 10/17/24, and the final one on 10/23/24.  In each picture, the large image was taken with a standard digital camera with a 1" sensor for an exposure time of 10 to 30 s.  The inset picture was taken with the Astro-Tech telescope and the MC2600 camera with a 30 to 60 s exposure.  In the final picture, the comet is far enough away that it is quite dim.

Back in May of 2023, we purchased a digital telescope - the EVScope 2 by Unistellar.  This telescope has been a work horse used in nearly every observation since its purchase.  Its pictures are featured on this page in a number of places.   

While it is easy to use, the EVScope's properties (such as field of view and resolution) are fixed.  To add a bit more flexibility to our imaging options, we have built up a second digital telescope using two technologies not present in our other three modern telescopes:  A refracting tube mounted on an equatorial mount.

Like the EVScope 2, the Astro-Tech telescope (shown below) has a diameter of about 4.5 inches and uses a embedded computer to handle navigation and image processing.  The field of view is about twice that of the EVScope 2 and the resolution is slightly higher.  The picture of the Andromeda galaxy shown below compares the EVScope's field of view shown in red to the field of view of the Astro Tech.

As part of the faculty development week, the Physics Department hosted two tours through the observatory and newly-cleaned storeroom.  The tours were during the afternoon so the only visible star was the big yellow one.  As illustrated by all the aurora sightings in the past six months, we are in a very active time for sun spots.  The picture below shows several major areas of spots.  This picture was taken with the EVScope 2 in 0.02 mS without tracking engaged.

A big job this summer has been cleaning up the observatory storeroom.  Over the years, the storeroom has accumulated enough other material that it wasn't useful to the observatory.  Once the non-observatory parts were removed, there was room to display the other telescopes.  In the picture below, three of the four telescopes along the back wall are mounted on equatorial mounts.  While not in active service now, they are useful for explaining the differences in telescope types.  The 16" Meade in the foreground was a donation to the observatory this summer.  Its Dobsonian mount is on wheels making it easy to move outside onto the deck.

Dr. Roy Campbell held a moon viewing event for kids at Frog Hollow Farms this month.  The moon was so big and bright that waiting for darkness wasn't even required.  For this event, he used the Celestron NextStar 8 inch telescope with a 40mm eye piece.  This hardware combination gives a magnification of about 50 times.

Over the Mother's Day weekend, we had the largest display of northern lights in many years.  The observatory was not a good place to view the display since it restricts the view of the sky and is very bright.  Just a few miles outside town, the views were amazing.

For the last few weeks, the Pons-Brooks comet has been visible just after sunset.  In the picture below, a wide field image was taken using a digital camera on April 1, 2024.  In that picture, the planet Jupiter, the yellow star Hamal, and the comet are indicated by the red arrows.  The high-magnification inset picture of the comet was taken by averaging 13 minutes of data from the 4.5" telescope on March 18, 2024.  The tail is dim but can be seen.

For parents' weekend, we opened the observatory on Saturday night for over two hours while approximately 100 students, parents, faculty, and staff came to enjoy the sights.  The weather was cool but the moon was full and the skies were cloudless.  We used the 16" telescope to look (mostly) at the moon and Jupiter.  The 4.5" digital telescope was used to look at fainter objects such as the Lagoon Nebula shown below at left and the Hourglass Nebula shown below at right.  The picture of the the Lagoon Nebula was averaged for 8 minutes and the Hourglass Nebula was averaged for 5 minutes.  

Back in May, we posted pictures taken with our telescopes from Supernova 2023ixf.  Since then more data has been collected showing the brightness as a function of time.  The first panel was taken about one week before the star exploded.  The other panels show the supernova has been very bright until September.  Since then it is starting to burn out.

Summer viewing in the Walla Walla valley is always at the mercy of forest fires and dust storms but we have had a few clear nights.  While it doesn't work well with large groups, the 4.5" telescope can average images over a long period of time.  In the picture below, the Western Veil Nebula was imaged for 36 minutes.  A streak of a Starlink satellite can be seen on the right portion of the image.

On the evening of May 24, we opened the observatory to all of campus.  Our viewing line up included the moon, Venus, M13, and the newest supernova on the block (2023ixf).  This supernova was discovered on May 19 in the Pinwheel Galaxy M101.  Our new 4.5" telescope was used to take the pictures of M101 before and after the supernova explosion.