Thursday, December 03, 2009
More Jupiter and the Moon
Tony Travaglia of Otago, New Zealand, has produced some wonderful atmospheric shots of the Moon and Jupiter. He sent them to me two months ago, so I have been very remiss in not putting them up till now. My apologies Tony, everyone, enjoy! (oh yes, and click to embiggen).
Labels: astrophotography, Tony Travaglia
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 8)
Adelaide airport, light shining through the glass partitions formed this intense linear "rainbow".Labels: rainbows
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Carnival of Space #131 is here.
Carnival of Space #131 is now up at Starry Critters. There aurora at Saturn, geysers at Enceladus, SIRIT in the sand trap, videos of fireballs and lots lots more. Pop over and have a look.
Labels: carnival of space
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
The Sky This Week - Thursday December 3 to Thursday December 10
The Last Quarter Moon is Wednesday December 9. Jupiter is is easily seen as the brightest object in the evening sky. Mercury is low in the twilight evening sky. In the morning, Mars is easily seen above the north-eastern horizon. Saturn is close to the dawn horizon. Mars and Saturn are visited by the waning Moon.
Morning sky looking north-east showing Mars and Saturn at 4:00 am local daylight saving time (3:00 am non-daylight saving) on Thursday December 10. Click to embiggen.
The Last Quarter Moon is Wednesday December 9.
In the morning, Mars is readily visible in the eastern sky. Red Mars is now the constellation of Leo. Mars is a distinct gibbous disk in a small telescope, and becomes bigger and brighter during the week in the lead up to opposition in January. On Monday December 7 the Moon is close to Mars, then on Tuesday December 8 the Moon is close to the bright star Regulus.
Saturn is visible low in the morning sky between the bright stars Regulus and Spica. On Thursday December 10 the crescent Moon is close to Saturn.
Bright white Venus is invisible the twilight glow and will not reappear until February.
South-Western horizon showing Mercury at 21:00 pm local daylight saving time (19:40 pm non-daylight saving) on Thursday December 10, click to embiggen.
Mercury can be seen above the south-western horizon between half an hour to an hour after sunset. This week it moves in to the "Teapot" of Sagittarius, on on Thursday December 10 it is very close to the star Lambda Sagittarii, the "lid" of the teapot.
Jupiter is easily seen as the brightest object in the western evening sky. Jupiter is big enough to be appreciated in even the smallest telescope. If you don't have a telescope to view Jupiter, why not go to one of your local Astronomical Societies or Planetariums open nights? Jupiter's Moons are readily visible in binoculars or a small telescope.
Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm ADST, Western sky at 10 pm ADST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch. Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Morning sky looking north-east showing Mars and Saturn at 4:00 am local daylight saving time (3:00 am non-daylight saving) on Thursday December 10. Click to embiggen.The Last Quarter Moon is Wednesday December 9.
In the morning, Mars is readily visible in the eastern sky. Red Mars is now the constellation of Leo. Mars is a distinct gibbous disk in a small telescope, and becomes bigger and brighter during the week in the lead up to opposition in January. On Monday December 7 the Moon is close to Mars, then on Tuesday December 8 the Moon is close to the bright star Regulus.
Saturn is visible low in the morning sky between the bright stars Regulus and Spica. On Thursday December 10 the crescent Moon is close to Saturn.
Bright white Venus is invisible the twilight glow and will not reappear until February.
South-Western horizon showing Mercury at 21:00 pm local daylight saving time (19:40 pm non-daylight saving) on Thursday December 10, click to embiggen.Mercury can be seen above the south-western horizon between half an hour to an hour after sunset. This week it moves in to the "Teapot" of Sagittarius, on on Thursday December 10 it is very close to the star Lambda Sagittarii, the "lid" of the teapot.
Jupiter is easily seen as the brightest object in the western evening sky. Jupiter is big enough to be appreciated in even the smallest telescope. If you don't have a telescope to view Jupiter, why not go to one of your local Astronomical Societies or Planetariums open nights? Jupiter's Moons are readily visible in binoculars or a small telescope.
Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm ADST, Western sky at 10 pm ADST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch. Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Labels: weekly sky
Monday, November 30, 2009
Occultation of the Pleaides, December 1, 2009
North-eastern horizon as seen from southern Australia around 10:00 pm local daylight saving time on December 1. Northern Australia and much of Indonesia will see similar views at around 9:00 pm local standard time. The Moon is poised to cover some of the stars in the Pleiades cluster.On the evening of Tuesday December 1 the nearly full Moon will pass in front of the beautiful Pleiades star cluster. This event can be seen from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and parts of Japan. Detailed timings for SE Asia in Universal Time can be found via this link (and see below).
Because the Moon is so bright, it will be best to watch this event with binoculars or a small telescope. Set up and start watching 30-15 minutes before had so you don't miss the disappearance.
Binocular view of the beginning of the occultation as seen from the Northern Territory. Celeano and Taygeta are just about to be covered. You will not see any nebulosity because of the Moons brightness, I just can't get the software to make it go away.In Australia, the Northern Territory has the best view. Darwin sees the most bright stars covered, starting with the bright star Celeano at 21:51 ACST, followed by bright Taygeta, then Sterope and Maia, finishing 23:27. next best is Alice Springs, which sees Taygeta covered at 22:12 ACST, followed by 18 Tauri and Sterope.
WA has good views too. Perth sees Taygeta covered at 21:18 AWDST, followed by Sterope and 22 Tauri. People in Northern WA will see more stars covered.
Northern QLD sees a few stars covered, Townsville sees Taygeta and 18 Tauri covered at roughly the same time, 23:54 AEST.
Binocular view of the beginning of the occultation as seen from South-eastern Australia, just before 18 Tauri is covered up..South eastern Australia sees just 18 Tauri covered, starting from 23:28 ACDST (Adelaide), 23:33 AEST (Brisbane) and the morning of December 2 for Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Hobart, from between 00:11 AEDST to 00:26 AEDST.
More details, timings and links at Southern Skywatch. For Maia occultation track maps see here, and Taygeta timings (UT) and track maps see here. Other locations generally see here.
Labels: Occultation, Pleiades
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunset on Mars, or is it?
No, it's sunset during the big Queensland bushfires back in September. But it did stringly remind me of this Martian Sunset.Labels: Mars, miscelaneous
Saturday, November 28, 2009
More Evidence of Life on Mars
This mornings Australian had an article on more evidence of life existing on MArs, at least in the past. Re-examination of the Martian meteorite ALH84001 by the McKay goup suggests that the magnetite grains found in the meteorite really are of biogenic origin. The abstract of the paper is here, and it is discussed over at Spaceflight Now and Universe Today.
Personally, I think the evidence that the magnetite is from organisms is now very strong, but we still have a way to go to be fully convinced.
Personally, I think the evidence that the magnetite is from organisms is now very strong, but we still have a way to go to be fully convinced.
Labels: Mars, origin of life
Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Cry
From a letter to the Adelaide Advertiser of Friday, November 27.
See here for a general history of the ozone hole and our understanding of it, and here for a graph that shows ozone has indeed stabilized, at exceptionally low levels.
Image Source NASA.
Yes, the ozone hole has stabilized because we did something about it.
The general trend seems to be this. Scientists/engineers/medicos discover a serious problem. Scientists/engineers/medicos convince politicians something needs to be done and then work feverishly to fix/avert problem. Problem is either averted or greatly reduced. A few years later, John Q Public says 'What about problem X? scientists/engineers/medico's had their knickers in a knot about this, but nothing happened. They are such scaremongers!"
Sheesh!
"Before I went to the Antarctic Peninsula in January 2000 there was great public concern about the hole in the ozone layer growing like a mushroom, [...] Ukrainian scientists who have monitored the hole for 9 years have found little change if any in that time. So much for the scare mongers. "Umm, that would be because we spent over 20 years hammering out international treaties to stop production and release of CFC's and other ozone depleting gasses, and spent truck-loads of cash developing ozone friendly alternatives to CFC's so we could still have refrigerators when we stopped making/using CFC's. What did the correspondent think all the "CFC-free" stickers on aplliances were for? While we have succeded in reducing ozone depleting chemicals through this massive international action, ozone levels are not expected to recover to 1980 levels until around 2068.
See here for a general history of the ozone hole and our understanding of it, and here for a graph that shows ozone has indeed stabilized, at exceptionally low levels.
Image Source NASA.Yes, the ozone hole has stabilized because we did something about it.
The general trend seems to be this. Scientists/engineers/medicos discover a serious problem. Scientists/engineers/medicos convince politicians something needs to be done and then work feverishly to fix/avert problem. Problem is either averted or greatly reduced. A few years later, John Q Public says 'What about problem X? scientists/engineers/medico's had their knickers in a knot about this, but nothing happened. They are such scaremongers!"
Sheesh!
Labels: global warming sillyness, science matters
Friday, November 27, 2009
Southern Skywatch December 2009 edition is now up!
North-eastern horizon as seen from southern Australia around 10:00 pm local daylight saving time on December 1. Northern Australia will see similar views at around 9:00 pm local standard time. The Moon is poised to cover some of the stars in the Pleiades cluster.The December edition of Southern Skywatch is now up. There's the Occultation of the Pleiades. The Moon plays tag with Mars, Saturn and some bright stars, lots of Mercury action, the Geminid meteors, the fading of the variable star Mira and minima of the variable star Algol and a New Years partial eclipse of the Moon for WA.
Labels: southern skywatch
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