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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.
AstroEvent: A Close Planetary Pairing +A Springtime Meteor Shower.
Where have all the planets gone? Well, with the exception of Saturn, they�ve all been hiding in the direction of the Sun. That�s all beginning to change this week, however, as Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter slip into the dawn sky to join Venus in what will turn into a splendid early morning multi-planet conjunction in early May.
A planetary conjunction sampler starts this week, with a close pairing of Mars and Mercury in the dawn skies. At closest separation the morning of the 19th, the two will be only 0.7� degrees apart, one of the best planetary pairings of the year. Use the brilliant Venus, still high in the sky to find the elusive pairing; at sunrise, the two will still be less than 10� degrees above the horizon. Mercury will be the easier of the two to spot with binocs, and the pair will fit nicely into a wide telescopic view.
But there�s another reason to set that AM alarm; the Lyrid meteors, the first good shower of the springtime season, peaks on the morning of Friday, April 22nd. Expect a zenithal hourly rate of around 20 meteors per hour radiating from high in the northern hemisphere sky in the constellation Lyra.
The astro-term this week is Troxler�s Effect. This rather trippy illusion is created when the human eye fixates on a particular point causing peripheral stimulation in the field to fade, change color,�or disappear. Our eyes have only a sharp field of view directly at the center of the fovea about the angular size of a Full Moon; as you read this, you are shuffling that sharp field back and forth, and we tend to scan the heavens in a similar fashion when we look at the night sky. Troxler�s Effect comes into play during observational astronomy when trying to spot a faint meteor or difficult conjunction pairing in that our eyes have a tough time catching a low contrast source against a brightening sky background. Blame our eyes, that often defective optical instrument made of water and jelly!