Early morning risers next Monday are in for a treat; a rare occultation of the star cluster, the Pleiades, by the Moon.
The Sky is Waiting.
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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
21.04.10-The Puzzle of Blue Stragglers.
Astronomers may have recently solved a half a century long mystery of stellar evolution. Since the 1950’s a type of star known as a blue straggler has stubbornly refused to fit the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram mold. These older stars should be approaching seniority, but instead burn brightly and spin energetically as if they had somehow gained mass. Most exist in globular or open clusters, and were first identified in the M3 globular cluster. The most well studied example of this stellar sub-class exist in NGC 188, a star cluster about 6,000 light years distant where 21 have been identified. Now, astronomers Robert Mathieu and Aaron Geller of the University of Wisconsin Madison have gained insight into the formation of these elusive beasties and come up with three leading hypotheses;
These possibilities were advanced after Mathieu and Geller used observing time on the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak spanning the past decade. Studies involved NGC 188, the original “blue straggler” cluster. “These aren’t just normal stars that are straggling behind in their evolution,” stated Mathieu.” There is something unusual going on with their companions.” Computer models would suggest that door number #3 is the most likely candidate; the most logical proof that astronomers would like to have in hand would be to catch a merger in progress. Interestingly, two known blue stragglers with white dwarf companions lie in the field of the Kepler space telescope, a plus for the accretionary camp. Will we soon have definitive evidence for the origins of these bizarre stars? Or is it perhaps a hybrid of the three models? Stay tuned…