Anyone Looking To See The Blood Moon?

The "Blood Moon" is a phenomenon that is only observed every couple of centuries, when the normal reflected light of the sun is occluded by the earth and the moon is illuminated only by the light coming off of the Earth and other bodies in space. This is also a lunar eclipse, and according to Yahoo News, it will be highly visible to people in the United States tonight, September 27th of 2015, starting at 8PM Eastern Time. Unfortunately, a good deal of the inhabitants of North America will be unable to see it due to extensive cloud coverage, inclement weather, or bad timing, but it will be a sight to see for all those lucky souls who turn their eyes to the stars tonight.

In this graphic from Sky and Telescope, you can see which areas are most likely to be able to see the entire eclipse. This covers much of North America, All of South America, Africa, and Europe, and much of Asia.

Enjoy yourselves!

For more information about weather in your part of North America, or a longer discussion of the phenomenon of the Blood Moon, check out this piece featured on Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/total-lunar-eclipse-us-weather-forecast-see-blood-155743736.html

Here is additional discussion of the event on space.com: http://www.space.com/30480-rare-super-harvest-blood-moon-to-shine-on-september-27-2015-video.html

Turn Your Eyes North! The Aurora Borealis Reappears over the Northern Hemisphere

One of the most famous phenomena of the natural world, the Aurora Borealis is a stunning visual display caused by the passage of solar wind through the atmosphere. The high energy particles leaving the sun excite molecules of air and create stunning displays of color: faint, watery tendrils of blue, green, red and purple that can appear in any number of forms, from small ribbon shaped patches to vast stream-like expanses that stretch across the night sky.

The visibility of the Northern lights is dependent on location, conditions, and the activity of the sun.

Location

Living in Northern Canada, Alaska, or Northern Europe is the most convenient way to see the Northern Lights. If  there is a solar storm, and a great deal of electrified matter leaves the sun, it is possible to see the lights from closer to the equator, but still rather unlikely. A similar phenomenon may be observed in the Southern reaches of the globe, called the Aurora Australis, but it is less famous.

Conditions

Even if you happen to be located close to one of the magnetic poles, a number of factors can play into the appearance of the lights. The angular polarity of the Earth's magnetic field relative to the solar wind plays a major role in the visibility of the lights and the intensity of the lights, due to the interplay between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar radiation the most visually stunning displays are only seen when the magnetic field is out of alignment.

Good weather is also key. Cloud coverage can obstruct visibility of the Northern Lights, as the reactions that generate the light take place far above the cloud layer in the outer reaches of the atmosphere.

Conditions on the ground can affect the ability of a viewer to perceive and appreciate the lights. Light pollution from vehicular traffic, residential buildings, and other viewers can diminish the appearance of the skies, and vegetation may obstruct your view.

Solar Activity

As I have alluded in earlier portions of this piece, the primary event that triggers the Aurora is a solar emission. This is a poorly understood (by me) event wherein the sun releases an above-average amount of high energy particles into the solar system, some of which eventually stream over to the planet Earth. This is a variable process, and quite unpredictable to the average observer, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publishes an index to help people predict the degree of activity that we can expect from the Aurora lights every three days.

If you have the opportunity, you should take advantage of the chance to see the northern lights billow across the heavens.

Featured Website: Hilalsighting.org

I occasionally discuss a stargazing site on this blog, and I'm inspired to shout out to hilalsighting.org

It's probably the definitive website for sharing information related to the Islamic calendar and sightings of the moon to begin a new month.

This is especially topical, considering that the new moon is a signifier of the beginning of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, prayer, and the anniversary of the revelation of the Quran.

Check it out!

New Telescope Planned for Construction in Hawaii

There is a new telescope slated to be built on a mountaintop in Hawaii, situated out in the Pacific Ocean, away from the big city light pollution of the continents.

The "Thirty Meter Telescope" is likely to be the largest device of its kind in the world, and the most powerful optical telescope ever built.

The problem with the Thirty Meter project, however, is that it is slated to be built directly on top of a sacred mountaintop, and construction has been halted by a group of native Hawaiian protesters that believe that the construction of such a device in that location would constitute sacrilege.

Additionally, the ecosystem of the mountain is both delicate and unique, and the construction of the telescope, and the surrounding superstructure of an observatory and support system, would likely spell disaster for the creatures living on and around the peak.

While legally there is no dilemma, there are significant social justice causes to be considered, and at this time construction has been halted.

I've included a concept image of what the telescope would look like.

Altered Solar Eclipse image to Highlight the Corona

Solar eclipses are almost uniformly spectacular, and there have been several partial and full solar eclipses over the past year, the most recent one being the eclipse from late April that took place over Northern Europe.

I managed to stumble across an image hosted on Imgur of a solar eclipse, that had been digitally optimized to highlight the corona of the sun.

Does anyone out there know the way to edit an image to show the corona and not the various other aspects of the shot?

Whatever the creator did, it's stunning

Astronews: A great site for developments in astronomy and stargazing, especially if you are ein Deutschsprächer

There are a lot of different sites on the web for picking up news and information about astronomy, and there are similarly a lot of new sites in German, but I really like the site Astronews for the unique combination of these two things with a genuinely fun site.

Screen capture of Astronews.com from 5/19/15

Astronews features a lot of entertaining sections, including a dynamic home page rich with images, a news feed populated with a lot of interesting content about current events and upcoming spectacles in astronomy, an "Ask Astronews" section that allows users to query the site administrators and get personalized feedback, a picture of the day section that showcases notable or praiseworthy shots daily, and a Glossary to review common or not so common astronomical terms in German.

Since I am no longer in language classes, I find it necessary to conduct a good bit of self study, so it is both pleasant and useful for me to exercise my German language skills by consuming media in German. I also genuinely like the content, since it allows me to enjoy two hobbies at once.

I would recommend Astronews to anyone looking to get quality content, whether photographical or journalistic, as well as any German language learners. If you aren't so into German, you can easily have the content translated by using Bing or Google translate.

Summer Nights Are Great for Stargazing

I spend the winter and spring looking forward to the summer. Not only am I laden with golden sunshine during the warm days, but I have a great opportunity to go outside without excessive rain or cool temperatures and get a good look at the sky.

Nearly full moon tonight!

I'm looking forward to clear skies and a nearly full moon tonight. The astronomical full moon is coming up on May 3rd, just 2 nights away, and the lack of cloud cover makes this a great opportunity.

We are probably all familiar with the different terms used to describe the phases of the moon, waxing meaning that the illuminated portion of the moon is becoming more visible, waning means that the illuminated portion becomes less visible, crescent moon meaning that there is just a sliver of the illuminated portion visible and gibbous moon meaning that nearly all of the illuminated portion of the moon is visible.

Despite these basic definitions, and the knowledge that I have that the moon isn't full tonight, I still think of a gibbous moon as nearly full, and I'm pretty excited for a chance at getting a clear shot of the moon.

Has anyone seen a good image of the moon lately?

How are the skies in your area?

I'm unlucky enough to be unable to see the stars too frequently in my climate, due to a combination of extreme weather and excessive cloud cover making it hard to go out to a dark field and see the moon, respectively.


I'll also include a quick illustration (from stardate.org) of how the moon's appearance changes based on the position of the moon relative to the earth and the sun.

Large Field Photography

I just saw this image on Reddit, and it's fantastic.

A large field capture of the majority of the night sky, it encapsulates an uncounted number of stars, and the constellations Cassiopeia all the way to the Andromeda galaxy.

Breathtaking, but also a testament to the ability of modern recording devices, even those at the consumer level, to take very high quality wide angle shots of large fields of the night sky. The person who took this photo used a canon t3i camera with a 24 millimeter lens, then processed the image in PixInsight at ISO 1600.

I think that the image is very nice, the only critique would be that there is some artifactual light distortion likely stemming from imperfections in the glass.


You can see the image in it's full glory on the host site Imgur but a smaller version will be shared here in the post.

It's just breathtakingly large.

The MAVEN Orbiter is making it's 100th passing around Mars

Maven, an orbiting spacecraft intended to study the Martian atmosphere, is about to make its 100th journey around the red planet.

It's a landmark victory for NASA and humanity at large, as the MAVEN orbiter has been a useful tool to evaluate the changes that have taken place on Mars to the atmosphere and shed light on what may lay in wait for the planet Earth.

This is especially interesting as people discuss the possibility of going to Mars through projects like Mars One and Space X.

For more information, here's a commercial piece from ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/nasas-maven-probe-learned-1000-mars-orbits/story?id=30175139

Total Lunar Eclipse expected April 4th, 2015

Just after we've heard of the lunar eclipse visible in Northern Europe, which I mentioned earlier this year on my blog, there's word of another lunar eclipse coming up April 4th of 2015.

This will be classified astronomically as a total lunar eclipse, which means that the Earth will temporarily pass into the shadow of the moon and a portion of the world will be unable to see the Sun because of it.

Visibility of the upcoming eclipse, sourced from Sky and Telescope

I've linked an image of the astronomical graphic, there will be complete visibility in the central Pacific, Alaska, Eastern Australia and Siberia, along with a number of island nations, and partial visibility over much of the continents of Asia, North America, and South America, where the Moon will either be "rising" or "setting" while occluding the path of the Sun's light to the Earth.

Great Shot of the Eclipse This Week

If I have any European readers, they likely had the opportunity to witness an amazing sight over the past week, a complete solar eclipse.

These occur when the Earth moves into the shadow of the moon. As a result, our ability to see the light of the sun is reduced to elimination, and we are able to observe some really interesting results. This image shows the dark disc of the moon, and the sun's light spilling over the edges in a bright ring, which is called a corona. The best part of this shot is the way that the sun seems to peek around on the left hand side.

The photographer that posted this image referred to it as a "Diamond Ring" effect, and I am inclined to agree.

It's quite stunning.

The Pleiades in Formation

The Pleiades are a clustered group of blue bodies visible in the night sky, but I have never seen them clearly due to the vagaries of weather and my position on the earth's surface.

I came across a great shot of them today, and I just have to share it with you. They are central to the image below, and clearly differ in size and brightness from the surrounding bodies.



Can you recall any other names for the Pleiades?


Source:
http://i.imgur.com/UiyMmsM.jpg

Comet Lovejoy

I am sure that we all want to be the ones to witness the passing of named bodies through the sky, or at least I sure do.

Unfortunately, weather, time constraints, and sweet, sweet slumber often get in the way.

Luckily, some people out there are able to brave these difficulties and obtain wicked sweet shots, like this image of the comet Lovejoy in Q2 as it passed across the sky.



Source:
http://imgur.com/KRpouzW

The Horse-Head Nebula

I found this image posted to the Astrophotography forum of Reddit.

A user has taken a photo of the Horse-Head Nebula, and I have the pleasure of sharing the image with you all.

Source:
http://imgur.com/QLXboJ9

Goodnight Moon

 This image was posted to the Astrophotography subreddit from Imgur, showing a low exposure night-time shot of the moon and three visible stars.

Can you identify the constellation?



Source:
http://i.imgur.com/TIHKEJM.jpg

What is the story behind this?

If you are skilled in the arts of identifying points of view, I'd love an assesment of this latest picture.

Posted on imgur, an image hosting site for general use, it seems to depict the night sky with some interference from surface light in the lower left and a number of distant stars and bodies across the remainder of the visual field.

Any Ideas?

Source:
http://i.imgur.com/m8otMYC.jpg

A Pinwheel Galaxy in view

I was browsing AstroBin, and I found a user had submitted an image of a pinwheel galaxy.

User michael1026 stated that this was his first pinwheel shot, but it seems like this is actually quite a skilled capturing of a great assortment of stars.
 
Source:
http://www.astrobin.com/157931/

An Image Hosting Site for Astrophotographers, By Astrophotographers: AstroBin in Review

AstroBin is a website dedicated to hosting images taken by astrophotographers, which are notoriously high in size and require a minimal amount of compression to maintain their fidelity.

I have been consuming their hosted content for months now, and I absolutely adore it. The quality of hosted images is quite high, and the community of photographers is both friendly and encouraging.

Although I don't currently have enough equipment to create my own images of that quality, I am happy to observe the images of others with clearer skies than mine, and to share them with all of my readers here.

I will be posting a series of images taken by astrophotographers around the world, often hosted on AstroBin and similar sites.

Take note, and keep your eyes on the stars!

Ganymede, Jupiter's Moon

I was browsing the web, and I came across this stunning image of Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons.

According to the Washington Post article "Everything you wanted to know about the stars — and more, from Astronomy magazine", there is 25% more volume inside of Ganymede than the whole of the planet Mercury!

Moon and Clouds, Eyes and Time

Last night, the first night in a long number of nights that I was able to do this, I went outside to look at the moon.

I don't know if my newer readers know this, and I'm sure that my older readers have tired of hearing it, but I love the sky.

I love the blue skies of the day and the indigo blackness of the night, I love the stars and the way that they make patterns anad formations in the darkness.
I love the moon, and the planets, and I take great joy in watching them in their stroll across the heavens.
Moreover, I have a great appreciation for the theories behind such bodies. They are fascinating like nothing else, on this world or beyond.

And they don't require a fancy game system or a flat screen tv to enjoy.

Just eyes, and time.

Originally posted on Bubblews: http://www.bubblews.com/news/9758601-moon-and-clouds-eyes-and-time

A Quick Study

I usually attribute a number of positive qualities to myself, among them my capacity to study up and learn pretty much anything that I need to within a relatively short period of time.

This has served me well many times, and allowed me to succeed in a number of less than perfect situation. That said, it is usually a good idea to get a grasp of a situation to learn the basics prior to starting out in a new situation in life.

Along with my work and my hobbies, and the process of filling out application after application, I've been doing self study on a few online courses.

Hopefully a few of the skills contained therein prove useful to me.

This was originally published on Bubblews.com at the following address:

http://www.bubblews.com/news/9766600-a-quick-study