Astronomy - Starry Night

[BullNBear52]

Space telescopes observe unusual cosmic blast


Composited images of gamma-ray explosion
This March 28, 2011 image provided by NASA shows composited images from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical and X-ray telescopes of a gamma-ray explosion designated GRB 110328A. Scientists say this blast is unusual because the effects are long-lasting. More than a week later, they continue to see high-energy radiation spiking and fading at the source. Flaring from such an event usually lasts a couple of hours.… Read more »
(AP Photo/NASA, Swift, Stefan Immler)



– Thu Apr 7, 2:12 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Astronomers are puzzling over an extraordinary cosmic blast in a distant galaxy.

The gamma-ray explosion was observed on March 28 by NASA's Swift satellite. Flaring from such an event usually lasts a couple of hours.

Scientists say this blast is unusual because the effects are long-lasting. More than a week later, they continue to see high-energy radiation spiking and fading at the source.

The burst was likely caused by a star that was ripped apart after drifting too close to a supermassive black hole.

Since the explosion, the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have focused on the aftermath. Hubble will observe if the galaxy's core changes brightness in the coming days.

The galaxy is 3.8 billion light years from Earth. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

[BullNBear52]

Last Landing Day for Space Shuttle Discoveryby Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff WriterDate: 09 March 2011 Time: 04:00 AM ET

http://www.space.com/11075-shuttle-discovery-final-landing-preview.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

[BullNBear52]

I thought it was cool that it happened the evening of the winter solstice. I agree about searching the skies with a telescope. That has always fascinated me.

[MorningLightMountain]

hate to say it, but lunar eclipses are a bit boring, IMO......would rather be out with my telescope looking at the detail of the Lunar terminator, or slewing around the heavens.......very satisfying to know photons traveling for billions of years just made their journey complete landing directly on my retina.......lol, what were the odds of that happening at just the right time??? (think about it for a bit)......

PS: not that there's anything wrong with CCD imaging, that's fun too.....it just does not give me that direct "eyes on" WOW concept of the Universe, and finding a faint fuzzy in the eyepiece that is SO MANY light years away (in the catalog)......very humbling too.....the entire Milky Way Galaxy is not spit in the big scheme of things.....

[BullNBear52]

Are You Watching Tonight’s Eclipse?
By EMILY S. RUEB

Emily S. Rueb/The New York Times

A clear, beautiful sky in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, approximately 1:10 a.m.Updated, 1:18 a.m. | Monday night and into the morning, the earth will prevent the sun’s rays from reaching the moon, in what is known as a lunar eclipse. But one like this will not happen again until 2094.

For the first time in 372 years, a lunar eclipse also coincides with the winter solstice, the time at which the sun is at its southernmost point in the sky.

And it is scheduled to happen over the course of about 72 minutes, starting at 1:33 Eastern time on Tuesday morning. But the moment to dash out of the house and into the cold is 3:16:57 a.m. Eastern time, when the moon will be a reddish copper color in the earth’s shadow. It is supposed to be a particularly good show for people in North America (if they are under clear skies) and a rare way to usher in a new season.

Not letting this spectacle escape its gaze, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has set up several ways for skywatchers to convene on its Web site. Viewers can post pictures on Flickr, or watch a live video feed from a camera mounted at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
NASA is also hosting an “Up All Night” question-and-answer feature with the astronomer Mitzi Adams, who will be online from midnight to 5 a.m., Eastern time.

The site includes some advanced reading materials on eclipses of this year that speak in dynamical time, or how time is tracked in the solar system, as well as other explanatory materials for novices, like this timeline of the eclipse tracked in Universal Time. For New Yorkers and others on Eastern time, subtract five hours, which we’ve done for you here:

Penumbral eclipse begins: 12:29:17 E.S.T.
Partial eclipse begins: 1:32:37 E.S.T.
Total eclipse begins: 2:40:47 E.S.T.
Greatest eclipse: 3:16:57 E.S.T.
Total eclipse ends: 3:53:08 E.S.T.
Partial eclipse ends: 5:01:20 E.S.T.
Penumbral eclipse ends: 6:04:31 E.S.T.

Google Earth’s Sky feature will also allow viewers to stay inside and keep warm this frigid night with a live feed from the robotic telescope service Slooh.

Or allow them to watch gigantic projections of the moon in transition on huge screens in Times Square.

So even where it is pouring, or the sky is covered with a thick blanket of clouds, all who want to can watch if they stay up late enough.

[BullNBear52]

Best Meteor Shower of 2010 Peaks Tonight
By Tariq Malik
SPACE.com Managing Editor
posted: 13 December 2010
02:52 am ET

What promises to be the best meteor shower of the year is hitting its peak just in time for the holidays, but skywatchers should act fast: This sky show peaks overnight tonight.

At the heart of the skywatching spectacle is the Geminid meteor shower, an annual mid-December rain of meteors that will reach its height tonight (Dec. 13) and early tomorrow morning. Skywatchers with good weather and clear skies could see up to 120 meteors an hour during the meteor shower's peak.

This sky map shows where to look to see the Geminid meteor shower during peak hours on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14. The meteors will appear to emanate from a spot in the sky near the bright star Castor in the constellation Gemini (the Twins), which gave the shower its name.

The Geminids are one of the most reliable displays of "shooting stars" of every year, and 2010's display is not expected to disappoint. The Geminids should be clearly visible to skywatchers in North America by late tonight, but viewing conditions will improve dramatically once the moon sets at around 12:30 a.m. local time tomorrow morning.

Stay warm, look up
The best time to watch for Gemind meteors will be at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT), when the shower is expected to be at its most active.
Since the Gemind meteor shower occurs in the winter for North American skywatchers, there are some handy tips to remember before venturing outside into the chilly December night.

"At this time of year, meteor watching can be a long, cold business," advises SPACE.com's skywatching columnist Joe Rao. "You wait and you wait for meteors to appear. When they don't appear right away, and if you're cold and uncomfortable, you're not going to be looking for meteors for very long. Therefore, make sure you're warm and comfortable."

Warm coats or blankets, as well as a comfortable reclining lawn chair are vital assets for committed skywatchers hoping to observe the Geminids.
Rao has said the Geminids are "usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers. They can even surpass the famous Perseid meteors of August at their peak."
Geminid meteor shower observing tips
The editors of the skywatching magazine StarDate at the McDonald Observatory in Texas also warn skywatchers to get away from city lights if they want to get the best view of the meteor shower.

"Look for state or city parks or other safe, dark sites. Lie on a blanket or reclining chair to get a full-sky view," StarDate magazine advised in a statement. "If you can see all of the stars in the Little Dipper, you have good dark-adapted vision."

Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the debris trail left by a passing comet or asteroid. As the Earth crosses these trails, the leftover dust and rocks hit the planet's atmosphere and burns up in a fiery meteor. In space, these objects are known as meteoroids. They are known as meteors when they burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Any meteors that reach the ground are called meteorites.

The Geminid meteor shower was first identified in the 1860s but it wasn't until 1983 when a NASA satellite rocky asteroid 3200 Phaethon as the source of shooting star display.

"When the Geminids first appeared in the late 19th century, shortly before the U.S. Civil War, the shower was weak and attracted little attention," NASA officials said in a statement. "There was no hint that it would ever become a major display."

Now the meteor shower is eagerly anticipated to dazzle skywatchers every year.

But the asteroid 3200 Phaethon still poses a mystery to astronomers because it does not appear to create enough debris to account for the spectacular displays created by the Geminid meteor shower each year, NASA scientists have said.

"The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation," said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala, in a statement.

Cooke will be hosting NASA's "Up All Night" event from the Marshall center during the Geminid meteor shower. The event gives skywatchers a chance to check in on the Geminid meteor shower without having to venture outside into the cold.

NASA will hold a web chat to discuss the Geminids today at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), then turn the night over to Cooke at 11 p.m. EST (0400 Dec. 14) for a six-hour Geminids observing campaign. During that time, Cooke will be on hand to answer questions via web chat on how the 2010 Geminid meteor display appears.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/gemini-meteor-shower-peaking-now-101213.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

[MorningLightMountain]

Jupiter's Moons, javascript utility:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/javascript/jupiter#

Great Red Spot transits:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/skytel/beyondthepage/91731334.html

[MorningLightMountain]

$15, Meade 4000 12.4 mm, on sale:

(yeah, now made in China, but still a pretty good deal)

http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/8TL9LJW8B5LW8K6VQQSC3AR2S3/product_id/SP12

[MorningLightMountain]

what did you buy????

[MorningLightMountain]

Orion Telescopes ad on I-hub home page today.....

[BullNBear52]

After Repairs, New Space Images From Hubble
By DENNIS OVERBYE
September 10, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/science/space/10hubble.html?hp

The cosmic postcards are back.

Astronomers on Wednesday unveiled new pictures and observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. With the exception of a picture last month of the bruise on Jupiter caused by a comet, they were the first data obtained with the telescope since a crew spent 13 days in orbit last May replacing, refurbishing and rebuilding its vital components.

“This is truly Hubble’s new beginning,” Edward Weiler, the associate administrator for science at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said at a news conference in Washington.

The event, which included Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and the NASA administrator, retired Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., was a mix of science and celebration of the human spirit and innovation.

“I’m in awe of the human ingenuity that could conceive of such a thing and then make it happen,” said K. Megan McArthur, an astronaut who flew on the repair mission last spring

Heidi Hammel, of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., said, “We’re giddy with the quality of the data we’re getting.”

Among the images were gas flying from a dying star that looked like a butterfly spreading its wings, and a galaxy nearly 10 billion light years away whose image had been stretched and magnified by the gravity of a cluster of galaxies into a “dragon” shape. Examining such images, astronomers can study details of galaxies that existed before the Milky Way was born and chart the distribution of mysterious dark matter in the universe.

Dr. Weiler noted that the telescope was now in the best shape of its 19-year life in orbit, far surpassing the ambitions of its founders, and that it could last for at least another five years. “Hubble gets better and better and better,” he said.

The Hubble has had almost as many reincarnations as a cat. It was born in a vision of Lyman Spitzer, a Princeton astronomer who realized in 1946 that a telescope in space above the blurring effects of the atmosphere could make more precise measurements of stars, as well as see infrared and ultraviolet radiation that cannot make it through air.

Launched with great fanfare from the space shuttle in 1990, the telescope became a national joke when it was discovered that its primary mirror had been painstakingly polished to the wrong shape.

The mistake, however, was so simple that it could be repaired. In 1993, an astronaut crew installed corrective optics on the telescope, and the heavens snapped into focus. Astronauts have visited the telescope four more times in a series of increasingly ambitious servicing missions, and the telescope became increasingly powerful.

By the time of the final servicing mission, only one of the Hubble’s three cameras was working and its spectrograph had shut down. In May, a crew from the shuttle Atlantis installed a new camera and spectrograph on the Hubble and repaired the other spectrograph and the telescope’s prime camera, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, among other tasks.

The job was almost a complete success. The exception was that the astronauts were unable to restore a high-resolution capability on the survey camera. It is mostly used in a wide-field mode, astronomers say, but one of the more exciting Hubble pictures recently was a high-resolution image of a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut obtained by Paul G. Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues.

At the news conference, David S. Leckrone, the longtime Hubble senior scientist, announced that another of the telescope’s instruments, an infrared camera known as Nicmos that had been dormant but that had not been worked on by the astronauts, was now back.

Dr. Leckrone said he was proud to report that there were no problems with the spacecraft.

“Somehow,” he said, addressing the entire NASA and astronomical community, “you guys managed to pull it off.”

Dr. Weiler, the NASA associate administrator, thanked the 32 astronauts “who have risked their lives flying up to Hubble and keeping the scientists happy.”

Asked their reactions to seeing the new pictures from the Hubble, most of the astronauts who were on the mission in May said some version of “wow.” Michael J. Massimino, who performed two spacewalks then, said, “Thank God we didn’t break it.”

[BullNBear52]

150 Years Ago: The Worst Solar Storm Ever

SPACE.com Robert Roy Britt
editorial Director
space.com – Wed Sep 2, 1:17 pm ET
On Sept. 2, 1859, an incredible storm of charged particles sent by the sun slammed into Earth's atmosphere, overpowered it, and caused havoc on the ground. Telegraph wires, the high-tech stuff of the time, suddenly shorted out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. Colorful aurora, normally visible only in polar regions, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.


Earth's magnetic field normally protects the surface of the planet from some storms. In 1859, the planet's defenses were totally overwhelmed. Over the past decade, similar but less powerful storms have likewise busted through, giving scientists insight into what will eventually happen again.


The outlook is not rosy.


The solar storm of 1859 was three times more powerful than one that cut power to an entire Canadian province in 1989. Experts say if it happened today – and it could – the result might be unthinkable.


If a according to a report earlier this year by the National Academy of Sciences. For comparison, hurricane Katrina inflicted somewhere between $80 billion and $125 billion in damage.


The good news is that astronomers know what they're dealing with a little more nowadays and have the ability to forecast solar storms, with the help of sun-watching spacecraft. The storms originate – still largely unpredictably – from dark sunspots. Once the spots erupt, an initial wave of radiation strikes Earth in just minutes. The worst eruptions unleash another cloud of charged particles that billow outward and take anywhere from 18 to 36 hours to reach us; those can be spotted and evaluated on the way, allowing for relatively accurate predictions of arrival time and potency.


Advance warning allows key power-grid switching stations to be turned off for protection. Satellites that might otherwise be knocked out by an electrical short are put into sleep mode.


We have the 1859 tempest to thank for ushering in the era of solar storm forecasting.


"The cause of all this [in 1859] was an extraordinary solar flare witnessed the day before by British astronomer Richard Carrington," according to Spaceweather.com. "His sighting marked the discovery of solar flares and foreshadowed a new field of study: space weather."


The sun operates on an 11-year cycle of activity. The next peak is expected in 2013. Forecasters recently revised their prediction for just how powerful that peak might be, downgrading it to mild. But the sun is unpredictable, and even during a mild period of activity – such as right now – major flares can kick up colossal storms.

[MinnieM]

I'm in the Los Angeles area. You don't happen to know where the best laser light shows are in this area? Some of the observatories I've been in while living elsewhere used to put on some great ones.

[BullNBear52]

Finally got a telescope. Now I need to figure out how to work it.

[BullNBear52]

With my rebate check I'm planning on buying a telescope.

[jimmym4]

What is this bull?

[jimmym4]

What is this guys?

[Rawnoc]

Can I help moderate too?

You guys seem overwhelmed with the need for help here.

[BullNBear52]

Jim Bishop has been kind enough to help moderate the board. I've added a link in the Ibox to something he mentioned that helps amateurs identify stars.

Amazon.com sells this thing and I suggest reading the comments before you think about buying one considering the price.

However the majority seem impressed.

[BullNBear52]

Thanks and welcome to the board. Caught the eclipse last night.

[Greenstream]

Look forward to others' views and interests on this topic.

Hope you have as much fun as you used to have. GL

[SkeBallLarry]

Stargazers watch total lunar eclipse >

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 06:08 pm PST

AP - The moon darkened, reddened, and turned shades of gray and orange Saturday night during the first total lunar eclipse in nearly three years, thrilling stargazers and astronomers around the world.

Full Story

[BullNBear52]

Parts of Saturday's (March 3) lunar eclipse will be widely visible. For example, skywatchers in Europe, Africa, and western Asia will be able to see the entire spectacle of the Moon gliding through Earth's shadow, but in eastern North America the Moon will rise already in its total eclipse phase. Of course if you traveled to the Moon's near side, you could see the same event as a solar eclipse, with the disk of our fair planet Earth completely blocking out the Sun. For a moon-based observer's view, graphic artist Hana Gartstein (Haifa, Israel) offers this composite illustration. In the cropped version of her picture, an Apollo 17 image of Earth is surrounded with a red-tinted haze as sunlight streams through the planet's dusty atmosphere. Earth's night side remains faintly visible, still illuminated by the dark, reddened Moon, but the disk of the Earth would appear almost four times the size of the Sun's disk, so the faint corona surrounding the Sun would be largely obscured. At the upper left, the Sun itself is just disappearing behind the Earth's limb.

[BullNBear52]

I've suddenly become interested in Astronomy again, a subject I used to spend many hours on years ago. Fell free to post what ever interests you on the subject.