Sunday, January 1, 2017
Venus and Luna
Noticed that tonight there was a beautiful scene with Venus and the Moon in the low Western sky. So I rushed out the back with the camera and tripod.
A New Year!
So that's it for 2016. Not too sad to see the back of it.
Some good things happened - Juno reached Jupiter, Cassini continued to be awesome, Curiosity maintained the awesome,
I also managed to blog an entry at least once a month, as I promised to myself.
2017 - going to do more dark skies, finish the Luna 100, and learn more constellations.
Woo
Some good things happened - Juno reached Jupiter, Cassini continued to be awesome, Curiosity maintained the awesome,
I also managed to blog an entry at least once a month, as I promised to myself.
2017 - going to do more dark skies, finish the Luna 100, and learn more constellations.
Woo
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Summer Solstice
Wednesday Dec 22 - summer solstice 2016 was a beautiful clear evening, enjoyed beside the brazier with melted marshmallows and the family.
Clouds were starting to gather on the horizon as I dragged out Dobby for a quick look at Venus.
Transparency turned out to be not great once looking through the scope, but it was still possible to focus enough to produce a sharp edge on the partial disk of the planet.
That made it interesting when sharing with the family, who were not expecting to see the planet in a half illuminated phase, and we had an interesting discussion as the kids remembered how moon phases worked from their science classes this year.
Clouds were starting to gather on the horizon as I dragged out Dobby for a quick look at Venus.
Transparency turned out to be not great once looking through the scope, but it was still possible to focus enough to produce a sharp edge on the partial disk of the planet.
That made it interesting when sharing with the family, who were not expecting to see the planet in a half illuminated phase, and we had an interesting discussion as the kids remembered how moon phases worked from their science classes this year.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Summertime!
Orion is back in the sky, the evenings are warm again and the mosquitos are out like I haven't seen for a long time!
Time to drag dobby out on the door-step again and check out my favorite molecular dust complex, see if I can find some faint fuzzies, and get some shots of some nice clusters with my soon-to-be-developed mobile-phone-astro-photography-holder.
On a tangent, I got to speak to someone from the local council Sustainability office about street light replacements and dark-skies considerations. Unfortunately, dark-skies is not a consideration at all - unless there is some endangered frog, moth or other critter involved. Apparently the local (Aus) research is pretty thin as well, so it might be interesting to do some looking around myself, just to see.
Hopefully some nice photos for the next post.
Time to drag dobby out on the door-step again and check out my favorite molecular dust complex, see if I can find some faint fuzzies, and get some shots of some nice clusters with my soon-to-be-developed mobile-phone-astro-photography-holder.
On a tangent, I got to speak to someone from the local council Sustainability office about street light replacements and dark-skies considerations. Unfortunately, dark-skies is not a consideration at all - unless there is some endangered frog, moth or other critter involved. Apparently the local (Aus) research is pretty thin as well, so it might be interesting to do some looking around myself, just to see.
Hopefully some nice photos for the next post.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
The chances of ESA landing on Mars...
...Are a million to one, it seems.
OK, that may be a bit harsh. But Schiaparelli is still not responding and may have gone Beagle on us.
*Update*
Worse than Beagle, it cratered. Looks like some sensors went out of alignment and it thought it was already at zero altitude when it still had hundreds of meters to go - so it jettisoned the parachute, fired the retros only briefly and then hit Mars at about 300 kph. Still with a lot of retro fuel on board.
Big-badda-boom.
MRO found it a couple of days later and got some photos...link
Still, looks like the orbiter is going to be a success, and Schiaparelli was a proof-of-concept mission for the landing process, so all data is good data in this case. Just have to hope ESA get everything right for the big landing in 2020.
OK, that may be a bit harsh. But Schiaparelli is still not responding and may have gone Beagle on us.
*Update*
Worse than Beagle, it cratered. Looks like some sensors went out of alignment and it thought it was already at zero altitude when it still had hundreds of meters to go - so it jettisoned the parachute, fired the retros only briefly and then hit Mars at about 300 kph. Still with a lot of retro fuel on board.
Big-badda-boom.
MRO found it a couple of days later and got some photos...link
Still, looks like the orbiter is going to be a success, and Schiaparelli was a proof-of-concept mission for the landing process, so all data is good data in this case. Just have to hope ESA get everything right for the big landing in 2020.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
International Observe the Moon Night
October 8th is International Observe the Moon Night, so although unable to make it international - I did observe the Moon from near the front gate this evening.
Despite days of cloud cover, we actually had a fine day today and I was able to see a lovely quarter moon this evening once it got dark, with clear skys directly above. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the telescope outside until later in the evening, by which time another cloud bank was starting to drift over the horizon, and the whispy leading edge of it was already starting to obscure the Moon.
Undaunted, I still spent some time observing using my 30mm, 17mm, 8mm and 6mm eyepieces and the Lunar filter. Once the cloud started thickening up, I no longer required the filter.
I also snapped a few pictures with the phone held to the EP, which are displayed here...
This is my first official observation of the Moon where I've started crossing off items from the Lunar 100. This evening accounted for :
Map #34 - Lacus Mortis - A strange crater with rille and ridge
Map #72 - Atlas dark-halo craters - Explosive volcanic pits on the floor of Atlas
Map #20 - Posidonius - Floor-fractured crater
Map #10 - Mare Crisium - Mare contained in large circular basin
Map #28 -Hipparchus - First drawing of a single crater
Details taken through the 6mm eyepiece. Looked great, but was loosing detail due to the thin cloud drifting in. These craters don't feature on the L100 list.
Then the cloud really rolled in and that was it for IOtMN.
Despite days of cloud cover, we actually had a fine day today and I was able to see a lovely quarter moon this evening once it got dark, with clear skys directly above. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the telescope outside until later in the evening, by which time another cloud bank was starting to drift over the horizon, and the whispy leading edge of it was already starting to obscure the Moon.
Undaunted, I still spent some time observing using my 30mm, 17mm, 8mm and 6mm eyepieces and the Lunar filter. Once the cloud started thickening up, I no longer required the filter.
I also snapped a few pictures with the phone held to the EP, which are displayed here...
This is my first official observation of the Moon where I've started crossing off items from the Lunar 100. This evening accounted for :
Map #34 - Lacus Mortis - A strange crater with rille and ridge
Map #72 - Atlas dark-halo craters - Explosive volcanic pits on the floor of Atlas
Map #20 - Posidonius - Floor-fractured crater
Map #10 - Mare Crisium - Mare contained in large circular basin
Map #28 -Hipparchus - First drawing of a single crater
Then the cloud really rolled in and that was it for IOtMN.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Philae! There you are!
Hey there, little guy - so that's where you got to!
Rosetta, with only a few weeks until it will be 'landed' on the comet itself, has successfully photographed the Philae lander. Philae was identified in the photos three days ago, here is the official ESA report:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Philae_found
This is way cool. I hope ESA releases another cartoon video about this phase of the Rosetta/Philae adventure.
Here's some links to the other videos:
Once Upon A Time...
#WakeUpRosetta
Preparing for #CometLanding
#CometLanding
Living with a comet
Great examples of science communication :)
Goobye Philae!
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Philae_found
This is way cool. I hope ESA releases another cartoon video about this phase of the Rosetta/Philae adventure.
Here's some links to the other videos:
Once Upon A Time...
#WakeUpRosetta
Preparing for #CometLanding
#CometLanding
Living with a comet
Great examples of science communication :)
Goobye Philae!
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