Astro-Event of the Week: October 13th-19th 2008. Spot the Zodiacal Light! October 13, 2008
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The Zodiacal Light Over Arizona Sky Village.
This week’s challenge is an elusive one. With the ecliptic at a high morning angle and the autumnal equinox behind us, now is a good time to attempt to spot the zodiacal light . Look to the east, about an hour or so before local sunrise. (more…)
Astro-event for October 6th-12th, 2008: Spot the Hubble Space Telescope! October 6, 2008
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Save the Hubble! (Credit: NASA).
I almost didn’t do this weeks’ event. The Hubble space telescope is in trouble. This past week, the failure of Hubble’s Control Unit- Side A has meant that the telescope is effectively crippled in space; engineers will attempt to transfer services to the Side -B backup, which hasn’t been used since the telescope was put in orbit in 1990. (more…)
AstroEvent of the Week:29th-September 5th, 2008: Spot Neptune! September 29, 2008
Posted by webmaster in : Astro News & Commentary, Weekly Astro-events , add a commentNow, to spot a planet that was first located mathimatically.
Neptune and Triton as imaged by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989. (Credit: NASA/JPL).
Now that the Moon is out of the sky this week, it’s a good time to add the outer most gas giant to your “been there, done that” list! First spotted in 1846 by Johann Galle & Heinrich D’Arrest, Neptune’s position was first deduced by the French Mathematician Le Verrier, who himself hated the “grittiness” of rank and file observational astronomy. (more…)