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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.
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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.
14.04.11: Antares: A Deep Sea Neutrino Detector.
A unique astrophysical observatory has taken shape on the ocean floor of the Mediterranean. ANTARES, or the Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch project, has been fully operational since May 2008 and is in the business of detecting Cherenkov radiation flashes caused by interactions of high energy muon neutrinos with the water in the deep Mediterranean Sea.
A joint French-European consortium venture, ANTARES consists of 12 strings of optical detectors each with 25 sensors monitoring the surrounding sea for these elusive flashes. Neutrinos are generated in copious amounts anywhere in the universe that fusion occurs; from the heart of our Sun to supernovae to gamma-ray bursts, millions of neutrinos are zipping through us every second, for the most part, never interacting with baryonic matter. Very occasionally, however, just such an interaction occurs, producing a flash that scientists operating the ANTARES �telescope� hope to detect and trace back. ANTARES also compliments the Ice Cube (the neutrino telescope, not the rapper!) and AMANDA arrays located in the Antarctic, and like those stations, primarily looks for flashes emitted by neutrino emissions coming from up through the bulk of the planet to eliminate cosmic ray flashes occurring over head. ANTARES specialty will be to detect neutrino emissions related to gamma-ray bursts and energetic galactic nuclei. Located at a depth of 2.5 km, it is the first deep sea detector of its kind, and will serve as a proof of concept for a square kilometer array. Interestingly, a pioneering technology known as AMADEUS, or the Antares Modules for the Acoustic DEtection Under the Sea is also piggybacked on ANTARES, which seeks to pinpoint sound waves generated at 10 kHz by neutrino interactions. This would have a greater range of detection out to 5 km versus the visual detection range of 60 meters for the present detectors. Of course, all sorts of ambient noise and luminescent undersea sources will have to be filtered out in the process.
Why study neutrinos? Well, since these fleeting particles travel through just about anything, they allow us to model and predict the goings on of what are otherwise hidden internal sources, like say, the heart of our Sun. As resolution of these arrays get better and better, Neutrino Astronomy is coming into its own� and heck, bizarre astrophysical telescopes are just plain cool!