Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Astronomy

Imbolc – Halfway to Spring

Imbolc

Today marks the cross-quarter event of Imbolc, the halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Here in Arizona, we are having a mild winter thus far; today’s high was 59° with broken clouds and no precipitation hitting the ground, although we could see virga several times today as we were out and about.

The image above is a screen capture of the dynamic depiction of the grand octal earth orbital clock at Archaeoastronomy.com. I captured the image when planet Earth paused briefly at the Imbolc position in the orbit. Imbolc and the other cross-quarter names come from the Celtic to describe the seasonal mid-points in ancient times. Click on the image to enlarge (slightly).

03 Feb 2014 by Astronomy Environment

Solar Activity

Sunspots 01FEB2014

Huge sunspot AR 1967 erupted with an M6 class solar flare a couple of days ago. It is not aimed directly at Earth, but scientists predict a 45 percent chance of auroras at high latitudes when the CME glances off the magnetosphere tomorrow. I photographed these two active sunspot regions around noon local time in Arizona. Solar north is up. Click on the image to enlarge.

There was a larger event in late December when the prediction for auroras was such that perhaps they could be seen at lower latitudes, but alas, nothing here at latitude 34. It is possible at this latitude (I have seen auroras in Southern California) so if we live long enough we may see them again here in our Arizona dark skies.

01 Feb 2014 by Astronomy Science

Mars Rover Opportunity Tenth Anniversary

Opportunity

Originally envisioned as a three-month Martian experiment, rover Opportunity managed to exceed its lifetime projection forty fold. I missed posting this yesterday, so here it is today.

From APOD and NASA:

On January 25 (UT) 2004, the Opportunity rover fell to Mars, making today the 10th anniversary of its landing. After more than 3,500 sols (Mars solar days) the golf cart-sized robot from Earth is still actively exploring the Red Planet, though its original mission plan was for three months. This self-portrait was made with Opportunity’s panoramic camera earlier this month. The camera’s supporting mast has been edited out of the image mosaic but its shadow is visible on the dusty solar panels arrayed across the rover’s deck. For comparison, a similar self-portrait from late 2004 is shown in the inset. Having driven some 39 kilometers (24 miles) from its landing site, Opportunity now rests at Solander Point at the rim of Endeavour Crater.

26 Jan 2014 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science

Spots, But Low Solar Activity

Spots

During my daily web browsing, I saw this note about today’s solar activity on SpaceWeather.com:

(ALMOST NO) CHANCE OF FLARES:

Two sunspots facing Earth (AR1934 and AR1936) have ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong flares. Both sunspots have been quiet for days, however, and they show no signs of an imminent eruption. This has prompted NOAA forecasters to place low odds on flares today: a 25% chance of M-flares and a 1% chance X-flares.

I took the above image today of the sun and annotated it with sunspot numbers for those visible to my camera. Click on the image to enlarge.

27 Dec 2013 by Astronomy Science

On-Line Solar Movie Maker

Sunspots 12/06/2013This morning, I browsed my usual daily visits on the internet. When I got to the webpage at SpaceWeather.com, I noticed several sunspots were visible on the “Daily Sun” feature in the left sidebar. That made me have the urge to go out and capture an image of the sun over Arizona to see if I could resolve any of the sunspots. There were three distinct spots in my image, which I labeled, as seen on the right. The solar north pole is at about the ten o’clock point in the image I made. I didn’t bother to rotate the solar image to align the pole at the top as I sometimes do. Click on the image to enlarge.

I visited the SOHO Sunspot page to get the designation numbers of the sunspots in the photo, I noticed a link to a new feature called Helioviewer which purported to allow users anywhere make their own custom images and movies. After fooling with the website a bit, I made the video below to document the spots in my image. The motion starts about 24 hours before advancing to how the sun looked today. Solar north is up and the recording was made through a hydrogen alpha (or equivalent) filter. The bright spots are the location of the spots in my image above. See this screenshot from the Helioviewer site for reference.


06 Dec 2013 by Astronomy Environment Science

More Solar Optical Phenomena

planet X

After seeing the brilliant rainbow colors in the clouds near the sun, I went to get my camera and get some pictures. In this image, it appears that there is an object that resembles a planet or something near the sun. It actually is a phantom image of the overexposed sun, itself, caused by the camera lens optics. It is interesting and pretty, don’t you think? Click on the image to enlarge.

04 Dec 2013 by Astronomy Environment Photography

Desert Solar Optics Phenomena


This three-panel slideshow contains amateur photographs of some of the things we have seen in the sky over the last few days. The first and second panels show “sun dogs” and the last panel shows a circumhelical arc, all of which are rainbow-colored patches of refracted sunlight through ice crystals high in the Earth’s atmosphere. I used my hand to block out the direct sunlight in the last panel.

Damsel caught a beautiful photo of the sun and optics about a year ago. Click on the images to advance the slideshow.

29 Nov 2013 by Arizona Astronomy Science

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