A Once in a Lifetime Sight: Super Moon, November 14th 2016

I've written before about the Super Moon phenomenon. In some rare cases the moon becomes visible to us here on Earth at a closer portion of it's transit around the planet, and appears larger to us due to the slightly decreased distance.

As has been discussed many times, the moon appears a bit larger if it is a bit closer, but there is a greater reason to mention the upcoming phenomenon. This will not simply be remarkable, but nearly unique. The moon, as observed on November 14th of this year by those lucky enough to have clear skies, will look larger than it will until 2034.

That's right, we will have to wait 18 years until we see such an event!

True, it is the same moon, but the last time that the moon would have appeared so close was in 1934, truly a lifetime (several of my lifetimes) away.

I'd recommend taking a look into the skies.

Another Night of Aurora Light

Over the past few days, I have been rather busy, but I wanted to share a bit of a journey that I went on. There have been very high indices for ggeomagnetic activity in the past week, and there is a high likelihood for geomagnetic activity in the upper atmoshpere for the next couple of weeks. Geomagnetic activity, as well as a high particle count for solar radiation, has resulted in highly visible and spectacular views for the Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis.

I feel very lucky to live in a place where I can simply hop into the car and drive out to a dark field to watch the Aurora Borealis stream across the sky, fade in and out of view, and shift from green to blue and purple.
I wish you all the best of luck in your pursuit of that elusive phenomenon!

Looking to get into astrophotography? Here are some great places to start!

As longer-term followers of my site will be able to tell you, I've been interested in stargazing ever since my earliest days growing up in the rural US. The lack of lighting at night made it possible for my neighbors and I to go out with a flashlight on overcast nights and light up a spot of the clouds above us, and see countless stars. But as I got older, and had greater exposure to the online communities that are also interested in stargazing, I realized that astrophotography is not only an institutional exercise, that I had long read about in publications from the local state college observatory, but also a personal endeavor that people took part in at home for recreational purposes or personal business. I believe that many, if not most, people interested in astrophotography have a similar story, and are somewhere between the initial childhood fascination with the night sky and the more "developed", for lack of a better term, passion for the practice of capturing high color images of constellations, planets, or specific portions of the night sky. As a resource for people just starting their journey, I've compiled a couple of popular websites that will provide a bit of advice for people looking to get into the hobby or business of astrophotography.

#1. Reddit.com/r/astrophotography

Reddit offers a great way for people to get in touch with others who share similar interests, and for this particular hobby the rule holds true. The people on Reddit have worked together to develop not only a thriving community where individual contributors may share photographs of the sky and discuss the details of their personal setups, seek advice about programs used to colorize and edit photos, and determine best practices for finding areas to collect unspoiled images without surface light pollution. I especially like the accessible language and openness to all experience levels, as it makes it easier for a young person with a small telescope, or no telescope, and a cheap camera to not only find great pictures but also share his or her own pictures with the larger group, with only constructive criticism.

#2 Popular Photography

Great article by Paul Lefavre, Popular Photography, screenshot taken 7/16/16

Popular photography is primarily a magazine aimed at hobbyist and professional photographers that are interested in techniques and equipment to get the most out of the images that they are trying to create, in terms of clarity, color, depth or any one of a number of other important factors. One of my favorite things about popular photography is the amateur focus, in that the language is not overly technical and the concepts discussed are, at least initially, very basic in nature and easy for beginners to understand.
In 2008, about 8 years ago as of the date of this piece, the magazine featured a very nice tutorial on the general principles of astrophotography, and I consider it a "must read" for people that want to take their current equipment that is adapted to, for instance, take pictures of people at birthday parties or milestone events (graduations, weddings, etc) and change the settings to get clear images of stars in a much more challenging low light, high contrast night sky. I can also recommend Popular Photography for other content, since it's quite an interesting read. Please excuse me while I click around the site for a couple of hours...

On May 9, we’ll see Mercury moves across the face of the sun

On May 9, 2016, most of the world will be able to witness the transit of Mercury, when the planet crosses between the Earth and the Sun. The visible transit of Mercury occurs about once every decade, the last being 9 years ago.

A map shows the visibility of the transit on May 9, 2016. While most will be able to watch the event, some, like those in eastern Asia, Oceania and Antartica, won't be able to see it. (F. Espenak/eclipsewise.com)

The sun, being as bright as it is, makes the viewing of this event rather complicated. Although the transit of Mercury is visible to the naked eye, there will be about 7 and a half hours of almost complete sunlight involved, so that would be rather damaging were you to kick back and watch unprotected. The Weather Channel suggests setting up a solar projection box and observing the sun's light with a pinhole display, or using an aluminized solar filter on a telescope set towards the sun.

Interestingly enough, there are a couple of different common points in the intersectional orbital planes of Mercury and the Earth where one might witness a transit of Mercury, one of which occurs in May, and the other in November. Due to the different relative positions of the planets to the sun and each other, transits of Mercury occurring in May tend to have a much larger relative size of Mercury to the sun in comparison to those occurring in November, with the May events showing Mercury to be 1/158th the size of the sun, and the November events showing Mercury to be 1/194th the size of the sun.

Have fun this month!

May is also set to show us a very large Mars, with the Red Planet coming the closest to us that it will in this year's orbit.

Relevant Headlines:

http://www.space.com/32780-mercury-transit-2016-nasa-video.html

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2016/2016-transit-mercury/

https://weather.com/science/space/news/mercury-transit-may-2016 

Clear Skies, and Moon-shine

It's a moony night tonight, and I've been lucky enough to have clear skies.

Unfortunately, light pollution in my neighborhod has rendered me incapable of making out all but a few stars, so I am looking deeply into a field of velvety darkness and contemplating the beauty of the moon.

Over the past few nights, I've watched the progression of the phases of the moon from a crescent to the waxing half moon that was visible tonight, and I must say that it merits more appreciation than people normally give it.

I didn't happen to snap a picture, but feel free to take one of your own.

Enjoy your night, and look forward to upcoming phenomenal events taking place in the skies above!