Contact information

Skywarden,
Ursa Astronomical Association
Kopernikuksentie 1
00130 Helsinki
taivaanvahti(at)ursa.fi

Ursa Astronomical Association

13 observations and 0 comments in queue.

Only observations that have a description and at least one image attached.

Binocular comet ZTF

29.1.2023 at 01.34 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

The conditions were not ideal, but the Weather Report promised that it would clear up a bit for a couple of hours. The moment was right, because a raft of clouds from the northwest covered the sky around two o'clock. Otava and Pohjantähti (mag. approx. 2) somehow stood out, so I pointed the camera almost to the zenith half-blindly between Otava and Pohjantähti. Two frames were hit well enough by the comet and I combined them to improve the noise. After all, stars up to magnitude 9 stood out with the camera. Judging from the top 7-star group as a reference, the brightness of the comet is ab...

Pearl clouds

27.1.2023 at 16.45 - 17.30 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

25 minutes after sunset, a promising glow appeared in the west. The fan also appeared at 17.00. The show clearly faded from half past six in the evening. At least there was acid and brown. There was no clear water. In the photo, there is a gray left-over rod that is no longer exposed to direct sunlight.

Images: 7 pcs • Comments: 3 pcs

Sun

21.1.2023 at 13.32 - 13.34 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

There was a suitably sized filter in front of the Sun. A big dot and a few smaller ones dot through the haze.

Images: 4 pcs

Lunar corona

5.1.2023 at 21.37 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

There was a rather soft ring around the Moon, and the second one stands out a bit.

Moon

25.12.2022 at 15.24 - Uppsala, Ruotsi (II)
Pentti Arpalahti

The sickle of the waxing Moon glimmered above the edge of the clouds..

One halo form

9.12.2022 at 00.01 - 00.02 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

The 22r of the moon stood out visually. With BR, you could show the attracted tire a little better.

Images: 2 pcs

Aurora rays

29.10.2022 at 21.46 - 21.56 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

I caught a few rays on the cell. Then it got quiet and the sky cleared. Timestamps 24 s ahead. Edit. I made a combination of the four pictures taken in three minutes into a woven image, which you can admire on the screen in all its glory.

Images: 6 pcs

Aurora rays

23.10.2022 at 22.02 - 23.02 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

There have been a few nights of unsuccessfully searching the cloud crevices, but now it's gone. The sky was clear and the old familiar magnetometer motivated me to photograph. And there was no need to portray him as blind. The flares of the rays and the steady glowing arc stood out quite clearly. In total, I recorded 43 frames of the show during the hour. I made a jerky video of them manually. In the pictures, a couple of red lines stand out in the middle at the top from 22:40 to 22:46. I adjusted four images to the color temperature of daylight (the urban sky is a bit ugly). It's hard...

Images: 8 pcs

Primary rainbow

18.10.2022 at 14.58 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

A beautiful rainbow brightened the afternoon.

Images: 2 pcs

Auroras seen through breaks in the clouds

3.10.2022 at 01.12 - 01.19 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

The Space Weather Center predicted repos throughout the country, which was true. Nurmijärvi's z-component had drawn a straight line downwards from one, from which I managed to recover less than ten minutes. It was probably the scariest repos observation ever. The green only oozed to the northwest in a tricky sector. There was nothing in the better northern observation hole.

Images: 6 pcs

Auroras seen through breaks in the clouds

24.9.2022 at 01.36 - 01.37 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

As the Nurmijärvi magnetometer dipped, I snapped pictures every few minutes in the hope that at the right moment there would be at least a little opening in the stuffy sky. In one picture, the rear screen had bright, oddly shaped color spots level with the tops of the trees (approx. 5 degrees). The tattered patches were holes in the clouds. I checked the Swedish Abisko camera to be sure. The sky was completely overcast there, but in the same minutes the dense Cloud Cover shone bright green. In the recordings of other sky cameras, you could also find bright flares at least after half past two.

Images: 4 pcs

Primary rainbow

17.9.2022 at 17.03 - 17.30 - Malung-Sälen, Ruotsi (II)
Pentti Arpalahti

A dim patch stood out from the top of the hill, which seemed to gradually rise higher.

Images: 4 pcs

Aurora rays

3.9.2022 at 22.44 - 23.16 - Hausjärvi (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

A faint arc stood out on both sides of the north. The rays also splashed from time to time. The conditions were good: the Milky Way was clearly visible in the direction of Joutsen and Kassiopeia, and the stars could be seen low on the horizon. Waste light only oozed from the south in the direction of Riihimäki. Despite the good vantage point, the show was gray. Apparently, a couple of satellites and a meteor also hit the picture. The laptop's torque and screen were enough to process one picture in a reasonable amount of time, maybe more pictures later. Edit. I updated the images with two p...

Images: 4 pcs

Primary rainbow

28.8.2022 at 19.11 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

There was thunder and heavy rain and then a rainbow. The side arch is also different. The lens happened to have a circular polarizer attached. I first spun the arcs almost completely away (picture 2) and finally a small spin back (picture 3). The white balance setting in all images is 5500 K. In the second image, the yellow tone has been filtered out. You could probably interpret it so that the yellowness is the polarized light of the inner part of the rainbow circle.

Images: 3 pcs

Aurora rays

20.8.2022 at 00.39 - 00.46 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

It's dim. In picture 2 at 11:20 p.m., there is only a hint of green, which is not quite enough for a reliable observation. The dip in the magnetic field had managed to sneak in 10 minutes earlier. From the seven-minute dip at 0:39 onwards, I got a series of images where the rays somehow stand out through the cloudy broth. The tips of the rays reached around 20 degrees.

Images: 7 pcs

One halo form

18.8.2022 at 16.08 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

Hellehalo 22r. As the main image, I put an adjusted version of the jpeg. It can be interpreted so that the phenomenon is not just a faint ring, but a circle, similar to a rainbow, at the edges of which the light also breaks up into different colors. I'll have to try the 22r and others through the polarizer sometime. The second image corresponds to visual perception.

Images: 2 pcs

Aurora rays

17.8.2022 at 23.36 - 00.09 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

In the pictures, the gauze stands out from behind the mist gauze in the cracks of the clouds. Edit. I was probably a good quarter late due to the thickening of the cloud cover and based on the Nurmijärvi magnetometer curve. After all, what could be interpreted as a ray was found in the pictures. The observation site is eye-friendly, but visually you could not see anything but a cloudy sky. In the last picture, only a greenish hint of the northern lights stands out from the gap in the clouds.

Images: 5 pcs • Comments: 1 pcs

Aurora rays

12.8.2022 at 00.04 - 00.40 - Helsinki (I)
Pentti Arpalahti

Now it was a funny repossession. The sky was hazy but cloudless and there was still a slim chance of catching a few little vyp near the horizon or at least making a satisfactory nega. In the edit, I set the handles in the best positions for non-existent vypps and applied the same adjustments to the entire folder. In the picture of the northern view, I knew that the orange outside light would cause an annoying big spot in the middle of the lower edge, but what the hell are the green streaks in the picture? Aurora Borealis! More dim gauze was then found in the vypnega inspection photos of the se...

Images: 5 pcs • Comments: 3 pcs

Noctilucent clouds visible between clouds

11.8.2022 at 03.10 - 03.25 - Helsinki (III)
Pentti Arpalahti

When the observation window after three was still open from the right edge, some gaps and thinnings appeared in the lower clouds. Fortunately, the openings moved quite quickly. The slanted ridge in the northeast of the main photo visually stood out from the mountain due to its shape, so I snapped a total of 20 photos from that direction. With exposure times of three and four seconds, the faster moving clouds blurred, but the streaks remained sharper. The white balance setting 3773 K compensates for the brown color. The lower clouds were in many layers and of many shapes. Even the cloud holes w...

Images: 8 pcs

Dim night shining clouds

9.8.2022 at 23.18 - 00.05 - Tallinn (II)
Pentti Arpalahti

I wandered out onto the deck, glancing to the north, probably at the right moment, when already after midnight the show had faded to faintly distinguishable on the edge of the horizon. Edit. I updated the illustration. The paws of a big bear stood out from the pictures, based on which the vyp area was between northwest and north with a width of 40 degrees and a height of approx. 10 degrees at the beginning of the presentation. In the end, the area shifted towards the northeast.

Images: 3 pcs • Comments: 2 pcs

Search result contains observations from time period 1.1.2000 klo 00.00 - 3.2.2023 klo 22.01.