Astronomy

[Opus106]

Today's APOD is, in my opinion, the photo that best describes what a lunar eclipse is all about.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080820.html

[Sarastro]

It was full in Russia, all my friends saw it, but not me.

[Wanderer]

Today's APOD is, in my opinion, the photo that best describes what a lunar eclipse is all about.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080820.html

An excellent composite photo. Ayiomamitis has also created some very impressive analemmas.




A "minor planet" with the prosaic name 2006 SQ372 is just over 2 billion miles from Earth, a bit closer than the planet Neptune. But this lump of ice and rock is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun...

[Opus106]

An excellent composite photo. Ayiomamitis has also created some very impressive analemmas.

True. The landscape he chooses makes those pictures look even better.

[Opus106]

Amazing! NLCs, as photographed by astronauts aboard the ISS.

Article

[Ciel_Rouge]

Time to dust off the astronomy thread. On January 26 parts of Australia, India and the southern part of Africa will get a partial eclipse of the Sun while Indonesia will get a nice annular eclipse, meaning a "ring of fire" in the sky. Any plans on observing?

[Opus106]

Most likely. I will have a (camera-only) photograph or two assuming local weather cooperates.

[Sarastro]

If you live on the west coast of North America, and if you go out and look at the young moon, the closest and the brightest star to it is....... Venus!

[Bogey]

If you live on the west coast of North America, and if you go out and look at the young moon, the closest and the brightest star to it is....... Venus!

Caught it as well.  Very nice.

[Wanderer]

I came in here today with half a mind to bump the astronomy thread, but there was no need to search for it after all.

Two stories:
The jets and lobes emanating from Centaurus A's (NGC 5128) central black hole have been imaged at sub-millimeter wavelengths for the first time.

(click on picture for bigger image)

Observing the intense heating of an extrasolar planet as it swung close to its parent star, recently provided astronomers important clues to its atmospheric properties.

(that's an artist's concept, not an actual photo; technology isn't quite there yet:-)


As for Venus, it'll continue dazzling us, standing high above the western horizon all February and shining at a staggering -4.6 magnitude (that's 20 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in our sky). It'll appear brighter in mid-February than at any other time this year and there will be another close encounter (less than 2 degrees) between the planet and a slender crescent Moon on February 27. 

[Opus106]

The pair of Venus and third or fourth day crescent is one of the most beautiful sights - ever! The two were so bright (today) that I could easily spot them while walking back home, some 20-30 minutes before sunset.

[Ciel_Rouge]

Or if you stay up late, try Saturn. The rings are close to edge-on right now but that makes it easier to see the moons closer to the planet.

And if you have to get up early (north hemisphere) or hang around close to midnight (southern hemisphere), try locating Comet Lulin. It is currently mag 7 in Libra and getting brighter and higher. It will be close to Spica by mid-February. Here you can see amateur photos that have already been take around the world:

http://spaceweather.com/comets/gallery_lulin_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=knlukidaid012nta1nh5la4bf7

[Opus106]

Another visitor to our neighbourhood during the next month will be Ceres, once the largest asteroid, but now, technically, the smallest dwarf planet in the solar system.

Here's a snippet from the astronomy.com newsletter I received today.

You may think this close approach will give you a chance to see Ceres without optical aid. You'd be right -- although not by much. At opposition, Ceres glows at magnitude 6.9 in a sparse starfield. Sharp-eyed observers under the darkest skies have seen objects this faint before. However, you'll have a better chance just 3 years from now. Ceres will then brighten to magnitude 6.7 thanks to the "opposition effect." The Sun-Earth-asteroid angle then will be closer to a straight line than during this month's slightly crooked arrangement. The better alignment in 2012 will increase Ceres' brightness more than the greater distance will decrease it.

It also says, and I'm paraphrasing, that this is closest approach since 1857 and also that it will not come as close for another thousand years!




Edited some really bad typos.

[drogulus]

    Ceres! I seem to remember from childhood that it's 480 mi. across. It's more like 590 mi.

   

    Wanderer, that's a great picture of the jets.

[Opus106]

Patrick Chevalley has just released beta 0.1.6 of the upcoming version 3 of what is, in my humble opinion, the best freely available planetarium software - Cartes du Ciel.

http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/news/version_3_beta_0.1.6

I actually received an update a couple of days ago through the Ubuntu repository, even before the website was updated with the information about the new version.

[Opus106]

The first lunar eclipse of 2009. I took this shot about half an hour ago. Maximum eclipse occurred at 14:38 UT (20:08 IST)... this was a few minutes before that. This was a penumbral eclipse, the kind in which parts of the Moon passes through the region between complete shadow/darkness and complete light. The portion eclipsed here is to the bottom left of the lunar disc. You can read more about lunar eclipses here.

[Ciel_Rouge]

Hi opus67,

A very decent penumbral lunar eclipse you have there. What kind of equipment did you use? A snapshot camera, a mobile phone?

By the way - Comet Lulin reached naked eye visibility:

http://spaceweather.com/comets/gallery_lulin_page7.htm?PHPSESSID=tud6aeipqm7pkl9f4gg90h4dj2

[Opus106]

Thanks, Ciel_Rouge. I used my Canon PowerShot S3 IS. Taken at full optical zoom (432mm) and cropped.

[Benji]

The first lunar eclipse of 2009. I took this shot about half an hour ago. Maximum eclipse occurred at 14:38 UT (20:08 IST)... this was a few minutes before that. This was a penumbral eclipse, the kind in which parts of the Moon passes through the region between complete shadow/darkness and complete light. The portion eclipsed here is to the bottom left of the lunar disc. You can read more about lunar eclipses here.

That's a really beautiful shot. Thanks for sharing! 

I bought myself a 300mm zoom lens for my Canon SLR and I am just dying to get out somewhere remote to take moon photos. I'm also really keen to take some long exposure star trails. But living in central Edinburgh all I can see of the sky is that awful orange glow.

[Opus106]

That's a really beautiful shot. Thanks for sharing! 

Thank you!

I bought myself a 300mm zoom lens for my Canon SLR and I am just dying to get out somewhere remote to take moon photos. I'm also really keen to take some long exposure star trails. But living in central Edinburgh all I can see of the sky is that awful orange glow.

The good thing about the Moon is that all that LP won't affect it all. As for other things astronomical, I know how it feels to be interested in the stars (the real, hydrogen-consuming, charged-particles-wind-blasting ones!) and being stuck inside a city.



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