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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.
Friday Review: Blood Orbit by K.R. Richardson
On sale now!
Solving a crime is never easy… especially in space. This week’s scifi review marries up two time-honored fictional genres: the mystery/police procedural, and sleek cyber-punk. We’re talking about Blood Orbit by K.R. Richardson, out now from Pyr Books.
In a Mike Hammer meets Blade Runner move, Blood Orbit delivers on the goods. The book pairs up rookie detective Eric Matheson, a newcomer to the corporate-ruled capital city Angra Dastrelas on the planet Gattis with cutting edge, cybernetically enhanced Chief Investigating Officer J.P Dillal.
A mass murder at a slum night club on the fringes of Angra Dastrelas lead the pair on a winding hunt, with planet-shattering implications. Of course, the old school policing establishment is immediately suspicious of the cybernetic way of doing things and the methods involved, and actively want to see it fail… unrelenting, the pair presses on with their cutting edge detective work, solving a mystery that may shake Gattis to its rotten corporate core.
Here’s one tiny subjective complaint we have about Blood Orbit… the characters aren’t all that memorable. We have the same opinion about the otherwise excellent Amazon (nee SyFy) series The Expanse… if you can walk away from a book/TV show/film and not remember the name of a single character, there’s a problem. Think of Andy Weir’s recent book The Martian: if nothing else, we all remember Mark Watney, and root for him in his struggle against the harsh environment of Mars and his quest to return back to Earth. Stock characters tend to lose our interest, or worse yet, make us root for the zombies. And yes, Mark Watney was �stock� for his own reasons (did he have a girlfriend/mom and dad/brother?) This was something that Weir seemed to try hard to rectify in his followup book Artemis, giving the main character Jasmine a complicated interpersonal backstory and convoluted family life.
I would’ve liked to have seen a little more background on the whole Gattis File universe, as well. I know this impinges on the dreaded realm of exposition, something that is sacrosanct to many an aspiring author… but we would counter that folks read science fiction because they love world building, and knowing just how those high tech gizmos work.
But that’s just one reviewer’s opinion. Be sure to read Blood Orbit for fast-paced action and cyber punk crime sleuthing… and if that’s your thing, I would also suggest that you check out Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Anniversary Day Saga, the Space Age alternate history drama Red Moon and Paul McAuley’s Cowboy Angels.
Post Script � Well, as you may have noticed, we’re back from the monastic worlds of editing and beginning to accept and do book reviews once again. This is actually one of the more fun parts of freelancing life, as we get to put our finger on the pulse of the science and science fiction community and see what other folks are up to. We promise to try and resume doing Friday reviews, well, each and every Friday once again… sometimes it’ll be a sci-fi tome, sometimes a hard science or astronomy book, sometimes maybe it’ll be an app, movie or tech gear (you’d be surprised what folks send me to review).
Stay tuned!