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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.
Review: Starlight Nights by Leslie Peltier
An astronomy classic!
Did you know that there are oodles of books out on the web for free? And no, we’re not talking about Amazon Prime, but sites such as Project Gutenberg where stuff that’s long since been in the public domain is free to download as a pdf for off-line perusal on ye ole smart phone.
Anyhow, we finally checked an astronomy classic off of our reading list, one we’re glad that we finally got around to picking up and reading. We’d heard about Leslie Peltier’s Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Stargazer for as long as we can remember, and we recommend it to anyone who is a tried and true amateur astronomer at heart. Do you make sure that you never miss a clear night? Do you still pop out on even the most tired of evenings, sans telescope, just to check on the sky? Do you remember that thrill of your first scope as a kid? Then you definitely qualify as being bitten by the astronomy bug.
Starlight Nights follows Peltier in his own words, growing up on a farm in Delphos, Ohio in 1910. Peltier discovered a simple love of nature quietly and organically in an unstructured fashion on and around the family farm. He sent away for his first telescope, a 2-inch refractor as a teenager for the princely sum of $18, and soon began exploring the universe.
Think of Starlight Nights as Little House on the Prairie, with astronomy thrown in. of course, the book is inter-woven with lengthy purple prose, sometimes taking a chapter or two to return to the stargazing part. It’s interesting how Peltier stresses how the unstructured approachto learning allowed him to really dig deep into astronomy, something he says that kids today with their distractions with toys and television may lack. Remember, Peltier was writing this in the 1960s; what would he have made of the Ipads and endless cable channels of today?
Peltier, one of the greatest amateur and visual observers of the 20th century, passed away on May 10th, 1980 at age 80. It’s fascinating and heartening to read of his simple and often poetic approach at observing and learning his way around the night sky, a century hence. Growing up in Northern Maine, we too felt fortunate to have dark skies right on our doorstep. And on weekends when we went camping out on Third Lake in Western Maine, we’d have F-106 Starfighter jets from Loring Air Force Base doing strafing runs at treetop level by day, and inky black skies untouched by light pollution at night.
Not that we ever truly appreciated this, back in the day. Instead, we’d bemoan the boredom, an unstructured approach that, like during Peltier’s day as today, still inspires creativity and exploration.
It’s vital that, even in this age of remote scopes and DSLR imaging, that we occasionally step back from all of the screens, gear and eyepieces and simply look up.
Be sure to check out Leslie Peltier’s Starlight Nights: we sure glad that we did!