Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Astronomy

May 9, 2016 Transit of Mercury

My efforts to photograph the Mercurial transit of the sun today were less than optimum; the diminutive disk of the small planet did not resolve well with my Canon SL1, 300mm lens and a $10 solar filter. Moreover, looking at the sun through Eclipse Shades was a bust; you couldn’t resolve the planet at all.

But, all was not lost – thanks to the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s images on the internet, I captured several screen shots to combine into the animation below. The sequence starts when Mercury is almost at mid-transit (I did not want to get up at 4 AM) and continues to the point where the shadow is barely touching the east limb of the sun. I find it very interesting that the sunspots at and above the equator move to indicate the solar rotation over the few hours it took for the transit.


09 May 2016 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science

Last Great Sunspot for a While?

AR 2529

According to several on line resources, we are probably headed toward the minimum end of the current eleven-year solar activity cycle. Giant sunspot AR 2529 looming toward the right limb of the sun may be the last large spot for a while as solar activity diminishes.

I took my Canon EOS Rebel SL1 out to the courtyard equipped with the 75-300 mm telephoto lens and an inexpensive solar filter to capture this image of AR 2529 before it fades as it circles out of view. Camera settings: 1/3200 sec., F5.6, ISO 6400, 300 mm focal length.

16 Apr 2016 by Astronomy Photography Science

Vernal Equinox

Vernal Equinox

I got this screen capture this morning over at Archaeoastronomy.com which has probably the best depiction of the orbital stations of the Earth relating to seasonal changes. The animated graphic nicely illustrates the concept of the Earth passing through the eight stations as it orbits the sun.

Coincidentally with the advent of spring, one of the hedgehog cacti I wrote about yesterday has two flowers open this morning. Damsel took this image of one of them. Click on the image to enlarge.

Hedgehog Cactus Flower

20 Mar 2016 by Astronomy Environment Flowers Home & Garden

Fireball over Wickenburg

fireball.jpgDamsel and I were out in the courtyard to watch the overflight of the International Space Station this evening. It was still pretty light out and I wanted to see if I could see Sirius in Canis Major as a gauge for the predicted magnitude of the ISS at -1.9. Sirius is magnitude -1.46, a little less bright than the satellite.

Image: Similar fireball photographed over Russia.

When I turned my attention eastward to look at Sirius, a bright meteor streaked across the sky, bright white initially and turning to orange and breaking into fragments as I watched. It was gone by the time I called to Damsel to come and look. This is the first fireball meteor we have seen in Arizona and the first one I, personally, have seen in over 20 years of looking up. The image in this post is not of the event we witnessed tonight, but a stock image of a fireball seen over Russia in the past.

In scanning local news reports, I have not seen any mention of this event. The good news is that Damsel and I both saw a nice ISS pass which makes three out of four in this recent series of evening passes. One was rained out earlier in the week.

We like to keep looking up. The stars here are usually spectacular and we see the Milky Way most clear nights.

04 Feb 2016 by Arizona Astronomy Something Shiny Space Rocks

New Horizons Glitch

Pluto Charon Animation

The New Horizons Space Probe is approaching planet Pluto with the closest approach taking place next week. Over the holiday weekend, however, the spacecraft computer detected a problem and switched to “safe” mode.

The spacecraft took a series of images last week that were combined into the animated image above. Click on the image to enlarge.

The problem the spacecraft had, occurred after the images were taken. The New Horizons Team reports that a recovery is underway and that the spacecraft, otherwise, appears healthy:

During that time the autonomous autopilot on board the spacecraft recognized a problem and – as it’s programmed to do in such a situation – switched from the main to the backup computer. The autopilot placed the spacecraft in “safe mode,” and commanded the backup computer to reinitiate communication with Earth. New Horizons then began to transmit telemetry to help engineers diagnose the problem.

A New Horizons Anomaly Review Board (ARB) was convened at 4 p.m. EDT to gather information on the problem and initiate a recovery plan. The team is now working to return New Horizons to its original flight plan. Due to the 9-hour, round trip communication delay that results from operating a spacecraft almost 3 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, full recovery is expected to take from one to several days; New Horizons will be temporarily unable to collect science data during that time.

06 Jul 2015 by Aerospace Astronomy Science

Asterism

Asterism

Last evening, Damsel and I went out to watch a flyover of the International Space Station. The conditions were right for it to be a very bright and spectacular pass. As a bonus, we were also treated to a beautiful conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus in the western sky.

The flyover was everything we expected with the ISS appearing in the twilight to the north northwest and flying overhead at sixty degrees above the horizon. The magnitude of the spacecraft was very bright and registered at minus 3.6 according to SpaceWeather.com. We watch it until it winked out crossing the terminator (Earth shadow) well to the southeast of here, about three minutes after the initial sighting.

I was intrigued by the asterism, however, and went back inside to get my camera and a tripod to attempt to capture the stellar event. I got set up and experimented with various camera settings. The image above, even though slightly overexposed, shows the positions of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus as they appeared to us. When you click on the image to enlarge, you can see the earthshine-illuminated darkside of the Moon.

Canon SL1, 1/20sec., F4.0, ISO 6400 and 75mm focal length.

21 Jun 2015 by Astronomy Environment Photography

First Color Image of the Pluto/Charon System

nh-first-pluto-charon-color-image.jpg

NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto released this image yesterday of planet Pluto and it’s satellite Charon. The distance between the imaging spacecraft and the two objects was about 71 million miles when this photo was taken.

At first glance, the colors appear to be quite close to those depicted in space artist Dan Durda’s 2001 illustration (commissioned by NASA) of the planetary system panorama seen here. The reddish color of Pluto is brighter than its grayish companion. Click on the image to enlarge.

New Horizons at Pluto

NASA Press Release:

First Pluto-Charon Color Image from New Horizons

This image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by the Ralph color imager aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on April 9 and downlinked to Earth the following day. It is the first color image ever made of the Pluto system by a spacecraft on approach. The image is a preliminary reconstruction, which will be refined later by the New Horizons science team. Clearly visible are both Pluto and the Texas-sized Charon. The image was made from a distance of about 71 million miles (115 million kilometers)—roughly the distance from the Sun to Venus. At this distance, neither Pluto nor Charon is well resolved by the color imager, but their distinctly different appearances can be seen. As New Horizons approaches its flyby of Pluto on July 14, it will deliver color images that eventually show surface features as small as a few miles across.

Some of us have been waiting for fifteen years to see the images from New Horizons. We’re looking forward to seeing more as the spacecraft looms closer.

15 Apr 2015 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science Technobabble

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