Primordial Ooze

I finally saw a blog post that provides me with an opportunity to explain why I feel that most if not all time travel stories are unrealistic (hah!).

The original post was made by the Bad Astronomer and he links to a cool website which let’s you calculate how far you move (on the Earth, in space) in a given time period: www.earthmove.info.

“My old friend and evil twin Richard Wiseman came up with a funny idea: if you were to add up all the motions of the Earth over a given period of time, how far would it have moved?

Lessee: it spins at 1000 mph at the Equator (don’t forget to compensate for latitude), it orbits the Sun at 18 miles per second, the Sun orbits the Galactic center at about 200 mps, and the Galaxy is moving toward th Andromeda Galaxy while simultaneously falling into a massive cluster of galaxies called The Great Attractor. Oh — the Universe is expanding, with the visible edge receding from us (or equally, we are receding from it) at the speed of light.”

So, how does this relate to time travel? Let’s say that if you went back in time a single minute and your time machine was located in a comfortable laboratory in Midtown New York, you would be instantly transported 11,018,000 miles away. Rather, you would be in the same spot and the Earth would be 11,018,000 miles away, where it was 1 minute ago.

So, a proper time machine would also be equipped with rockets and lots and lots of fuel. This way, once you find yourself in deep space (one minute ago), you can start heading back to Earth. Even so, to travel 11MM miles at the speed of light (or close to it, ignoring acceleration and deceleration) still takes like a minute or something. So, by the time you got back to Earth, you’d be back where you started. Oh, but not really. Since you’d be warping space-time traveling at relativistic speeds like that… Earth would likely be 100 years in the future once you got there.

When you arrive, people will wonder where you were all this time and won’t believe you when you claim to have gone BACK in time.

An alternative time machine that might solve all of these problems might be more like a time dilator and a transporter all wrapped up in one. So, you can not only go back in time, but the machine will calculate the crazy looping trajectories needed to get you to exactly the same spot on Earth one minute ago. This could be dangerous, of course, since you might miscalculate and fuse with the Earth’s core. Geez, couldn’t you also fuse with air molecules when you appear? Perhaps all of this is most safely done in a vacuum. Anyway, you better have a computer with a lot of significant digits in it’s floating point processor.

Round-off error could be a problem otherwise.

-n

By Nick at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Astronomy Picture of the day, for today is pretty fascinating. First, nothing relating to Astronomy, it’s the first time that a flash movie has been embedded as the daily image. While I probably missed any previous flash movies, this is the first time I noticed that, cool!

Second, check out the oozing Sun!

Explanation: The Sun’s surface keeps changing. Click the central arrow and watch how the Sun’s surface oozes during a single hour. The Sun’s photosphere has thousands of bumps called granules and usually a few dark depressions called sunspots. The above time-lapse movie centered on Sunspot 875 was taken last year by the Vacuum Tower Telescope in the Canary Islands of Spain using adaptive optics to resolve details below 500 kilometers across. Each of the numerous granules is the size of an Earth continent, but much shorter lived. A granule slowly changes its shape over an hour, and can even completely disappear. Hot hydrogen gas rises in the bright center of a granule, and falls back into the Sun along a dark granule edge. The above movie and similar movies allow solar scientists to study how granules and sunspots evolve as well as how magnetic sunspot regions produce powerful solar flares.

Check it.

By Nick at 8:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A funky song about the moon which was recently turned into a video… now on YouTube!

By Nick at 9:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Someone sent me a link to this amazing astronomy/web2.0 mashup called WikiSky.org. This site has so many possibilities, I don't know where to begin.

I guess the site can be described primarily as a star chart. But it's also a Wiki. A Wiki, as many of you know, is “is a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content” so says Wikipedia on the topic.

Users can do all kinds of interesting things with the site:

• Of course, you can browse the site and zoom in on a starfield of your choosing.
• You can search for objects, like M51 (The whirlpool galaxy)
• Oh, and you can send a link to M51 (then click on show Sloan Digital Sky Survey to see a full-color photo... sadly, a programmer who invented the Sky Server, an image retrieval package designed for the SDSS, is missing.)
• Oh, and did I say you can generate in-place images for your website? Here is a 20 degree view containing Andromeda:

There are other API's available, too. As far as Wiki capabilities go, users can upload their own images and patch them into the proper location in the map. Well, in theory. The site is still under development.

Despite the raw-ness of the interface and the somewhat clumsy styling for the site, I'm very optimistic about this project and the collaboration opportunities it presents for pros and amateurs alike.

By Nick at 11:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

Some of the other words are also pretty funny. Looks like the ADS has a sense of humor.

Most Useful—climate canary: an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon.

Most Creative—lactard: a person who is lactose-intolerant… actually this is kind of mean.

Most Unnecessary—SuriKat: the supposed nickname of the baby girl of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Check it (via haha.nu)

By Nick at 6:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just saw this picture come across over at the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Consider it for a moment:

Explanation: The Great Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda (aka M31), a mere 2.5 million light-years distant, is the closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. Andromeda is visible to the unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, but because its surface brightness is so low, casual skygazers can't appreciate the galaxy's impressive extent in planet Earth's sky. This entertaining composite image compares the angular size of the nearby galaxy to a brighter, more familiar celestial sight. In it, a deep exposure of Andromeda, tracing beautiful blue star clusters in spiral arms far beyond the bright yellow core, is combined with a typical view of a nearly full Moon. Shown at the same angular scale, the Moon covers about 1/2 degree on the sky, while the galaxy is clearly several times that size. The deep Andromeda exposure also includes two bright satellite galaxies, M32 and M110 (bottom).

Even with the darkest skies, you would never see the Andromeda galaxy like this without a largish telescope and/or an extended exposure on film or a digital camera. Now, though, due to light pollution, most urban and suburban skygazers can’t even get these views with their telescopes.

Anyway, this image certainly put things into perspective for me.

By Nick at 6:00 AM |Tagged as andromeda , astronomy , galaxy , moon | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve linked to Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog a few times before. That’s how I was turned onto xkcd. I love his physics-oriented movie reviews, like this one of Superman Returns (and lots more). One day I’ll read his book, Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing 'Hoax'.

For now, he’s asked for some support for a hokey Weblog Award that he really deserves. So, unles you have some other favorite science blog, make your way over to the voting page and vote for the BABlogger!

Oh, if you don’t believe that we landed on the moon then you can forget about all of this.

By Nick at 1:12 AM |Tagged as astronomy , bablogger , bad+astronomy , science , weblog , weblog+awards | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).

(Link)

Here are the wallpapers, all the standard sizes. Click to enlarge.

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Continue reading "The Earth - Our Blue Marble" »

By Nick at 11:14 PM |Tagged as blue+marble , bluemarble , earth , globe , nasa , wallpaper | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: Ok, so maybe you do need to know French. I must admit that when I first heard of this, I had  the question translated. After that, it seemed obbvious. Sorry. The question basically is, “Which of these objects revolves around the Earth.” The answers are A: The Moon, B: The Sun, C: Mars, D: Venus.

I don’t know what to say about this “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” episode (French version). The level of ignorance is absolutely beyond reason. Society failed this man.

All joking aside, I’d really like to understand how this is possible. Where did he grow up? What was the religious doctrine of his home town? Was he let out of the basement as a child?

By Nick at 10:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From spaceweather.com:

Yesterday, the space shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station (ISS). Amateur astronomer Thierry Legault caught the two spaceships separating directly in front of the sun.

I created this graphic, but I hope I’m allowed to do so. I didn’t see any kind of copyright on the image linked on spaceweather.com’s website.

By Nick at 4:06 PM |Tagged as atlantis , iss , sun | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

When  you’re looking at photos of star trails, many people overlook the fact that they can usually hide some interesting details.

On the surface, this photo called Gemini South Star Trails is just another pretty picture. However, if you look closely you’ll see two smudges in the photo and one streak going against the grain of the photo next to the observatory.

The next time you look at these long-exposure photos, look for some of these details.

Stars seem to arc through southern skies in this surrealistic time exposure -- recorded before moonrise from the Gemini South Observatory, Cerro Pachon, Chile, Planet Earth. During the one hour 40 minute exposure camera and tripod were fixed, so the concentric star trails are a reflection of Earth's daily rotation about its axis. The view looks to the south and includes the Gemini telescope enclosure in the foreground. At the apparent center of the curving trails, the South Celestial Pole lies just off the upper left edge. Two faint, wide streaks track the Magellanic Clouds, satellites of the Milky Way Galaxy, while a meteor flashes throught the scene just left of the observatory.

(Link)

By Nick at 8:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you read my blog, you know that I’m interested in Astronomy. I’ve made lots of posts on Astronomy over the years. I’ve even made my own crappy movies using some of the software I use, Starry NIght Pro:

• Solar Eclipse Simulation
• Polaris and Vega trade North Star Status
• Get closer to the stars in a constellation and watch it dissolve

So, many of you may know about the recent turmoil over Pluto (cartoons here). Well, the BBC news has an article that describes the recent naming of the bastard planet, er. Dwarf Planet, which started all of the trouble. Meet Eris:

The distant world whose discovery prompted leading astronomers to demote Pluto from the rank of "planet" has now been given its own official name.

Having caused so much consternation in the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the object has been called Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord.

Eris is larger than Pluto, which put scientists in the fix of having to call them both planets - or neither.

Both bodies have now been put in the new classification of "dwarf planets".

Eris' discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, told the Associated Press that the name was an obvious choice, calling it "too perfect to resist".

In mythology, Eris caused a quarrel among goddesses that sparked the Trojan War. In real life, Eris also caused strife, forcing scientists to produce a strict definition of the term planet - and that eventually led to Pluto losing the status it had held since its discovery in 1930.

The need for a strict definition was deemed necessary after new telescope technologies began to reveal far-off objects that rivalled Pluto in size.

By Nick at 6:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This striking moon mosaic would make a great desktop wallpaper for all of you space junkies out there.

No single exposure can easily capture faint stars along with the subtle colors of the Moon. But this dramatic composite view highlights both. The mosaic digitally stitches together fifteen carefully exposed high resolution images of a bright, gibbous Moon and a representative background star field. The fascinating color differences along the lunar surface are real, though highly exaggerated, corresponding to regions with different chemical compositions. And while these color differences are not visible to the eye even with a telescope, moon watchers can still see a dramatic lunar presentation tonight. A partial eclipse of the Moon will be visible from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

(Link)

By Nick at 8:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How much cooler would the night sky be if our moon looked like this:

Not only would our night sky be more dramatic, but there would be more reason to visit it since Dione is mostly water ice (probably with a rocky core). Missions could use that ice to support humans on the surface and to establish colonies. If you ever wondered why we keep crashing spacecraft into the moon, it’s because we’re looking for evidence of ice on the moon’s surface or subsurface. Read more over at APOD.

By Nick at 6:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From what I understand, this has never been seen before:

In order for a Uranian transit to occur, the Sun must shine directly over the giant planet's equator; the next time this will happen again is in 2007. The last time such a Uranian equinox occurred was in 1965, but telescopes at the time were not sharp enough to view the transits.

The shadow cast by a moon as it drifted through space above the blue-green cloud tops of Uranus was recently captured for the first time by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

To an observer on Uranus, the passage of the planet's icy moon Ariel would have appeared as a solar eclipse and the Sun would be completely blotted out. However, the effect would not be nearly as dramatic as a total eclipse involving Earth and its moon. The Sun appears much smaller on Uranus than on Earth because the giant planet is located much further away. Therefore, a total eclipse involving its moon completely blocks out not only the Sun's body, but also its corona.

By Nick at 8:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Lots of interesting Pluto news in the past week. Not only is Pluto suing the IAU, it has to sit at the little planets table:

(Credit: Steve Breen)

More here.

By Nick at 7:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Pluto is not a real planet anymore, it’s a Dwarf Planet. From the San Francisco chronicle:

(08-24) 08:21 PDT -- Pluto was shafted by the world's astronomers today, demoted to the lowly status of "dwarf planet" and leaving the solar system with its original eight true planets plus countless other objects that must now be called "small solar system bodies." After more than two years of controversy that started when astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech announced his team had discovered a "10th planet" and was finding many more far out in the icy region billions of miles beyond the sun where comets are born, the International Astronomical Union voted a set of rules defining just what a planet is and what it's not.
(Link)

Now I have to break it to my kids. I actually think this news will depress them.

Things you probably haven’t though of:

• How does the family of the late Clyde Tombough, who discovered the planet Pluto, feel about this?
• What about the folks at the Lowell Observatory say, since it was there that Pluto was discovered.
• The fancy way to describe the discovery is the first Trans-Neptuniun object. Bleh.

By Nick at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

About two weeks ago, the space shuttle Discovery took off at Cape Canaveral (as usual) on mission STS-114. Here is a spectacular pictures from that launch:

For more pictures, see the STS-114 page on William G. Hartenstein's Photography Site.

(Courtesy the ASLI mailing list)

By Nick at 5:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Compliments, the ASLI. You just need to shake your head.

The heart-stopping moments when Neil Armstrong took his first tentative steps onto another world are defining images of the 20th century: grainy, fuzzy, unforgettable.

But just 37 years after Apollo 11, it is feared the magnetic tapes that recorded the first moon walk - beamed to the world via three tracking stations, including Parkes's famous "Dish" - have gone missing at NASA's Goddard Space Centre in Maryland.

A desperate search has begun amid concerns the tapes will disintegrate to dust before they can be found.

It is not widely known that the Apollo 11 television broadcast from the moon was a high-quality transmission, far sharper than the blurry version relayed instantly to the world on that July day in 1969.

Link

By Nick at 7:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

When you’re really serious about Astronomy and Star Parties are second nature, this is  the rig you want to go on the road with:

Six Ft. Home Dome mounted on a 1972 Prowler Travel Trailer. Set Up for Meade LX 200, (Not Included). Trailer self contained and sleeps two. Health forces sale.

(Link)

By Nick at 9:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

APOD reminded me that today is the second day that we’ll see the sun set in the centerline of each cross-street in mid and upper Manhattan.

I wrote about his before.

Unfortunately the forecast is for clouds and possible thunderstorms tonight. At least there is next year.

By Nick at 9:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From APOD:

Explanation: The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado. Last June in Kansas, storm chaser Eric Nguyen photographed this budding twister in a different light -- the light of a rainbow. Pictured above, a white tornado cloud descends from a dark storm cloud. The Sun, peeking through a clear patch of sky to the left, illuminates some buildings in the foreground. Sunlight reflects off raindrops to form a rainbow. By coincidence, the tornado appears to end right over the rainbow. Streaks in the image are hail being swept about by the high swirling winds. Over 1,000 tornadoes, the most violent type of storm known, occur on Earth every year, many in tornado alley. If you see a tornado while driving, do not try to outrun it -- park your car safely, go to a storm cellar, or crouch under steps in a basement.

By Nick at 7:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The japanese video (narration in Japanese) of a very large meteor hitting the Earth. I’m posting this to see if I can yet a Yutube video playing in my blog,mostly.

 I first heard of this on my astronomy club’s mailing list, the link was here.

I think a real meteor, or asteroid, would not be so molten. It would likely be a piece of cold rock. Or, it would be an icy comet.

Enjoy the end of the world.

By Nick at 9:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Got this from one of my colleagues at work. Very cool.

“On Monday, May 28 the sun will set in the centerline of every NYC street. American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson describes this phenomenon beautifully in the Natural History Magazine, explaining that like Stonehenge where the sun sets in alignment with stones during the summer solstice, Manhattan has two "special" days where the sun sets between buildings - May 28 and July 12:  On these days, the Sun fully illuminates every single cross street during the last fifteen minutes of daylight and sets exactly on the street's centerline. Upon studying American culture and what is important to it, future anthropologists might take the Manhattan alignments to be cosmic signs of Memorial Day and, of course, baseball's All-Star break. If the Manhattan grid matched the geographic north-south line, then our special days would be the equinoxes, the two days on the calendar when the Sun rises due east and sets due west. But Manhattan is rotated 30 degrees east from geographic north, shifting the special days elsewhere in the calendar.”

(Link)
 

Then I remembered that Charles Petzold, author of the venerable Programming Windows series of books, came up with a precise measurement of the angle that Manhattan is tilted. He came up with  something very close to 30°, or precisely 28.911°.

By Nick at 7:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If I were to put one of these puppies on the roof of my house once I do some construction this summer, would I freak out my neighbors?

Here is a picture from a house two towns over from me:

The comment box is open!

By Nick at 9:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I promise these will stop soon, but this shot was too spectacular to pass up:

Pete Lawrence is fixated on Earthshine - the faint illumination of the dark hemisphere of the Moon by light bounced off Earth. Earlier this month he mosaicked two exposures to make a composite image clearly showing both the sun-lit and Earth-lit secments. Today he combines four exposures to capture the maximum possible Earthshine. Here is his explanation: When the Moon is new from the Earth, the Earth is full from the Moon. The light from the full Earth faintly illuminates the Moon making the new Moon visible against a dark sky. For the most part the sky is way too bright to see this effect. However, at the time of a total eclipse of the Sun, it is possible to capture this phenomenon. This image was taken during March 29 solar eclipse totality from ~20km to the east of Side, Turkey. It’s a composite of four images 1/350s, 1/30s, 1/20s and 1/3s. This is Chuck again: This is maximum Earthshine because an entire terrestrial hemisphere is reflecting light to the Moon, and the entire dark lunar hemisphere is illuminated. Normally Earthshine is viewed when the Moon is 2-3 days past new (and only part of the visible Moon is in Earthshine) and when the Earth is no longer full (and only part of its reflected light hits the Moon).

 (Link to LPOD)

By Nick at 2:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Holey moley this is cool. That's it, the next solar eclipse will see me on a plane wherever the totality takes me!

This is just awesome.

(Courtesy Joel Moskowitz & Glenn Schneider)

By Nick at 11:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From Astronomy.com:

An occultation of the Pleiades star cluster (M45) by the Moon will occur during the evening of 2006 APR 01 (Saturday) and will be a nighttime event across the eastern half of North America and northwestern South America.

Since the crescent Moon’s apparent disk will be only 17% illuminated, this will make for a better photographic event than its immediate predecessors in this series. Additionally, the fact that the Moon will be waxing will enhance the ability to observe immersions (disappearances) of individual stars. This should be the finest opportunity for observers in eastern North America during the entire 2005-10 Pleiades occultation series.

The Pleiades are a beautiful cluster of stars that a lot of people think is  the little dipper, since it looks a little bit like it. However, the Pleiades are 2–3 times as long as the moon and not nearly the size of the actual Little Dipper in the sky.

This should be an awesome site, especially if you have some binoculars. Someone in my astronomy club offered up this star occultation for New York (times are in EST):

                        Disappears          Reappears
25 Alcyone          7:54 p.m.             8:55 p.m.
27 Atlas              8:40 p.m.             9:31 p.m.
17 Electra           6:44 p.m.             7:45 p.m.
20 Maia                      No occultation
23 Merope          7:24 p.m.              8:19 p.m.
19 Taygeta                  No occultation
28 Pleione           8:39 p.m.              9:36 p.m.

Watch for it tomorrow night!

Technorati Tags: astronomy, science, space

By Nick at 11:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

More information on this morning’s eclipse and an archived webcast of the event can be found on spaceweather.com.

Technorati tags: eclipse, space, astronomy, science

By Nick at 7:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow, there will be a total solar eclipse. Various blogs report on it but here is a richly detailed description of the event:

On Wednesday, 29th March 2006, the shadow of the Moon will sweep a band starting from Brazil, through Atlantic Ocean, Gold Coast of Africa, Saharan Desert, Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, Black Sea, Georgia, Russian Federation, northern shores of Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan; ending in Mongolia. The duration of totality will be less than 2 minutes near the sunrise and sunset limits, but will be as long as 4 minutes and 7 seconds in Libya, at the moment of greatest eclipse. The path of totality will be 180 kilometers wide at that moment.

NASA has an amazingly detailed graphic:

I simulated the eclipse, as experienced by an observer at these coordinates, using Starry Night astronomy software:

35 17.0N  029 20.2E
At precisely 10:52 Universal Time.

Notice the Iridium 31 satellite that passes by? I wonder if observers will notice that? I wasn’t completely happy with the simulation, by  the way. The moon never passes over the sun. Instead, there is some kind of instantaneous shutter effect instead. Watch it and let me know what you think.

A guy from our local astronomy club, just last week, decided to book a flight to Turkey and head off to the totality. His wife was like, “Just go!” as he hemmed and hawed about the opportunity. He wrote an e-mail today saying he had arrived in Turkey and was with many other eclipse enthusiasts. I hope the weather holds out for them.

Clear skies.

Technorati tags: eclipse, astronomy, science

By Nick at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

On March 6th, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) tipped south, opening a crack in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind flowed in and bright auroras appeared over Scandinavia.

I should have posted this last week. You can check out more pictures at the spaceweather.com website. Here are a few nice ones. I swear if I saw this in the sky I would run away like a little girl.

By Nick at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Someone posted this link to my astronomy club mailing list. These are “superbly detailed images of Mars”.

(click for more images)

These images were taken with a C14 so I can’t expect to match these photos, even under the best conditions, despite my lack of skills, with my tiny 8 in. scope. Anyway, I thought it was a marvelous shot by an amateur astronomer, Damian Peach.

As some of you may know, there was a hoax going around the Internet this summer that said the Mars was going to approach so closely to Earth that it would appear as large as the full moon.

This is not true, of course.

By Nick at 7:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An even more amazing than the movie of Messenger leaving Earth. Hubble took this amazing movie of Neptune.

More info here: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0509/04neptune/

By Nick at 2:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

“The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth.”

Spectacular!

More info via this link.

By Nick at 10:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

A friend bookmarked this site on del.icio.us, which is the homepage for an astronomy library for Python called PyEphem. I’ve been toying with a new project idea since January when I took my kids to the New York Hall of Science in Queens. One of the displays was an interactive computer program that teaches you about where to find life in the galaxy. It was kind of a treasure hunt. While  the program was a bit shallow for me, it provided a lot of entertainment for my oldest son.

I played with the idea of writing something myself. Long ago, I bought a book called Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus. I believe this is jean Meeus’ second work on the subject, the first being a book on astronomical algorithms on a pocket calculator. Man that sounds painful.

Anyway, the program I’d like to start and not finish (he, he) would be similar in concept to the NYHoS version, but with a bit more depth and perhaps some real astrometric data. I would either need a library like PyEphem or I’d need to read Jean Meeus’ book very carefully.

I doubt I’d write anything like this in Python, but who knows…

By Nick at 10:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

APOD had a pretty cool picture of Saturn today, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, where the rings are edge-on and nearly invisible. The moons visible in the picture are kind of neat.

Now playing: Northwest Noise - NWN-2005-04-25

By Nick at 11:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In early June, I’m heading off to Harrisburg, PA for the Cherry Springs Star Party. It’s basically camping with telescopes. Some of the people I know who are going say they stay in motels, but I’ll probably pitch a tent somewhere.

I started reading up on the event and what I can expect. It seems like there are a lot of rules of etiquette surrounding star parties. Google pointed to this top-ranked link.

My favorite section is the contentious section:

Here are some of the more contentious issues and Bill Arnett's comments on them:

• Children -- some folks welcome them, others don't. If you do bring a child make sure that he/she acts like an adult. (OTOH, many adults could use a dose of childish wonder at the beauty of the sky.)
• Pets -- some places ban pets, some allow them. If you bring your pet make sure it is firmly under control.
• Music -- some places ban music altogether, some are less strict. Just remember that music that you love may be extremely irratating to others. When in doubt use a headset.
• LX200s -- some people really dislike the noise an LX200 makes when slewing. LX200 users should make sure that they're not offending their neighbors. Reducing the slew speed helps a little. So does arriving early so that those who might have a problem can set up at some distance away.
• Smoking -- smokers should stay downwind of non-smokers and their telescopes. Just because you're outdoors doesn't mean your smoke isn't annoying (and unhealthful, dirty, disgusting, ... you get the point :-)
• Alcohol -- some ban it; some almost require it. If you do drink (at a party that allows it) make sure you don't violate the "loud and boisterous" rule. And be aware that alcohol may adversely affect your night vision, body temperature and ability to drive home.

A few notes on these:

• I have three small children… but I think only the oldest would appreciate and have a chance at behaving himself.
• I have an LX200 and it’s noisy as hell! When you slew it at slow speed it’s quieter, so I guess I’ll have to be patient. Plus, I’m better at locating stuff by hand now. I can always get the scope in close and slew it precisely once I’m in the general area of the sky of my target object.
• Alcohol… I sure hope the CSSP is the latter kind of party, but one can only hope. Plus, alcohol affects my regular vision as well as my night vision so I’m not sure what the point is.

By Nick at 10:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This is a picture of Jupiter that I took tonight in my backyard in Wantagh, NY.

I took it with my Meade LX200GPS with a Nagler 13mm Type 6 eyepiece.

The camera is a Sony F707 f/2.3. The camera was physically clamped to my eyepiece and my biggest problem was the way the camera sagged when I let go. By the time I was ready to take this shot, I kind of fanagled the image into view.

I had to put the camera on timer shot since pressing the button was too traumatic for this delecate setup. In addition, I find that my deck is too shaky to take pictures on. I think I need to pour a concrete slab or something.

You can see the two moons Io (on top) and Ganymede (on bottom) to the lower-right of Jupiter!

Here is what Starry Night Pro 5.0 showed me:

(I had to rotate the image)

By Nick at 11:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve been awefully silent lately. Lots of interesting projects are in the works. Details to come soon.

Here are some tidbits:

Last night I upgraded my Wiki 7 versions ahead and the process was a bit painful. I’m pretty happy with the results, though.

Ordered the new version of Starry Night Pro (5.0) for $80, which is an upgrade price.

Tomorrow is observing night at my local astronomy club. We chuck out east to the Vanderbilt Planetarium. Weather looks good so far. I can’t wait to see the other gear. Hopefully someone will show me how to really use my own scope!

Looking into downloading the free CCDTOOLS and possibly buying a Philips ToUcam Webcam… which just so happens to screw right into most telescopes. Supposedly the combination yields amazing results at a minimal expense.

By Nick at 10:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

These photos completely suck, but when my bracket came in the mail I had to set the telescope up and try it out.

The bracket I got is a crude way to aim the camera at the eyepiece. Before I get into serious gear, I might as well figure out how to best use this crappy gear.

Anyway, here are the photos I took. Most are out of focus since I had to perform a delicate balance between:

• Making sure all bolts were tight
• Telescope was focused
• Camera was focused

By Nick at 10:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I get this really good newsletter from Sky and Telescope every week that describes what’s good to see in the heavens in the coming days, weeks, or months. You don’t need to subscribe to their magazine to get the newsletter. It contains some ads, so the more the merrier. Subscribe here:

http://SkyandTelescope.com/shopatsky/emailsubscribe.asp

I made a targetted Google request to specifically find out what comets might be good to see in 2005. I kind of missed Machholz’s brightest showing in February and early March. I suppose I could try and hunt for it but I think it’s too dim for me to find.

Anyway, I found a nice site which talks about all of the comets that we might see in 2005 (none visible to the naked eye). The author goes off on a bunch of history on each comet, which was very interesting.

2005 Comets

An interesting programming project popped into my head. I have to think about it a bit more since there is a lot of software out there and the idea is probably implemented already.

The idea is to plugin to Outlook or otherwise present an annual calendar of astronomical events. The calendar would obviously be decorated with the phases of the moon, phases of the inner planets, positions of the Jovian and Saturnian moons. The calendar could access public weather data and show a 7–day forecast as icons in each day-box. You could plan observing sessions and put notes into any day, week, or month.

By Nick at 1:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I wanted to view the moon today since it’s in it’s first quarter (a half-moon) and I thought the terminator would yield a good set of shadowy craters to look at. Well, they did and it was kind of cool to watch.

I made the obligatory swing towards Saturn and I stayed up late enough to see Jupiter in all it’s glory. My wife even came out into the cold. This was her first time looking through the scope and she laughed out loud since the images are so outrageous to first-time observers.

Yes,  the planets are out there and they do look like you see in books. Just smaller in the eyepiece.

I tried to get my laptop to control the scope but failed. I’m close and I should have that working soon.

I ordered a cheap universal camera mount which I hope to use with my Sony F707 digital camera. Maybe some of these observing logs will start to contain pictures.

Finally, I was testing the auto-tracking of the scope and Saturn seems to be locked on for about 40 minutes and it still seems to be dead-center in the eyepiece. This is good but a long exposure will be the final judge.

By Nick at 11:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was able to get my telescope out tonight and do some observing of the late Winter sky. I’m not sure what the best title is for these logs, but I’ll try and be consistent.

I went out to East Moriches on Long Island, NY. This is about a 50–60 minute drive and Google Maps describes the route as follows:

The skies out there are considerably darker than they are by me. Still, they weren’t close to what you would find in upstate New York or other similarly desolate places.

We set the telescope up on my friend’s 2nd-story balcony. The balcony had a fantastic view of the Southeast sky which I thought my observing plan was focused on. Unfortunately, we needed to see the Western sky so we had to take the telescope apart and move it downstairs to his front yard. I can only attribute such a drastic mistake to my own ineptitude.

I wanted to see three main objects and a few others along the way. First, I wanted to show my friend Saturn since it’s directly overhead and easy to spot. Next came M42, the Great Nebulae in Orion. My next object was the Andromeda galaxy, M31.

Saturn came up fast and was a nearly perfect view. My friend and his wife were astounded. So was I. I had initialized and found the telescope’s guide stars almost instantly. I attribute this mainly to having calibrated the finder scope before it got dark.

I punched in M42 next and the motor drive skewed the telescope toward a fuzzy blue patch with a few bright stars in it. If I had a camera and I could do a long exposure, the fuzzy patch would have resolved into a very colorful nebulae. I really have to start thinking about astrophotography gear.

When I punched in the Andromeda galaxy, I was pushing my luck since it was only about 13 degrees above the horizon. No go. This is my second failed attempt to view our closest neighboring galaxy. I fired up Starry Night and found out why. Winter is simply not a good time to shoot for the galaxy. As you can see in the following shots, Andromeda gets higher and higher in the sky each month from June to October, 2005. These shots represent the 16th of each month, at 11pm.

11pm on June 16, 2005

11pm on July 16, 2005

11pm on August 16, 2005

11pm on September 16, 2005

11pm on October 16, 2005

We were observing about an hour more than I had anticipated so at the end of the night, were  were surprised to get the opportunity to see Jupiter. Wow, what an awesome view! The bands were visible but I couldn’t see the Great Red Spot. I figure this was because Jupiter was very low on the horizon. I should expect much better views when it’s overhead.

A small tree was obstructing our vision so my friend and I took turns observing while the other pulled back the small tree. It was interesting to see how the image didn’t get blurry as a result of the construction, which was my first instinct. Instead, it just got dimmer which makes sense once you think about it.

By Nick at 11:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I’m sure everyone realizes that the Galaxy we live in is called the Milky Way. But did you know that our sun lies in the spiral arm known as the Orion Arm?

Did you realize that many of the stars you see in the night sky are also located in the Orion arm? Only the brightest stars from other parts of the Milky Way are easy to spot, particularly in light-polluted skies like the ones I suffer with.

Orion is one of the easiest constellations to recognize in Northern skies largely due to the brightness of Betelgeuse and Rigel and the amazing alignment of the stars that comprise Orion’s belt.

Do you see how Orion’s belt and Betelgeuse are represented in the first image? In the image above, Betelgeuse is the upper-right shoulder of the constallation… assuming right is to the right in the image. Did you notice how close Betelgeuse and our Sun are in the first image? The following video, which shows a trip from the Sun to Mintaka (one of the stars on Orion’s belt), makes it very clear that Betelgeuse is very close to us and as soon as we start approaching Mintaka, Beletgeuse zooms out of our view.

See the video.

UPDATE: Sorry, newbie that I am, I confused Betelgeuse for Bellatrix. Bellatrix is the star on the right. The really bright star on the left is Betelgeuse.

By Nick at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend pointed me toward a huge mosaic of Saturn constructed from 126 images taken from the Cassini space probe. The image is huge, so I chopped it up and created this image which works nicely as a desktop background. I cropped the image and flipped it to make it’s appearance more attractive beneath your stock quotes and e-mail messages.

Provided as a 24–bit lossless PNG. You may need to convert this to a BMP on Windows, a JPG or PICT file on the Mac.

What’s so cool is that the Solar System Simulator lets you see this. Since the picture was supposedly taken on Oct 6, 2004, I punched that in and got this image:

The tilt of Saturn seems right, but the day/night position (the terminator, for you astro-geeks) seems off, doesn’t it? I suppose that the probe could be rotated and the SSS is depicting a perfect North is Up kind of image, but still I suppose there is an error somewhere. The probe took the picture from the left or right of this image.

Just to prove to everyone that I’m a complete geek, I simulated the Cassini scene, as best I could on the date in question, and provide this simulated image using Starry Night:

Now playing: Bill Powers - Fantasy Focus

By Nick at 11:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I finally broke down and picked a telescope. It’s a mid-range model from Meade, an 8” LX200GPS.

It’s a “goto” scope, which means it has a microcomputer in a little controller that allows you to pick an object and goto it as long as the telescope is properly “aligned”.

When I was looking for a scope, I had a few requirements:

• I could travel with it
• It had a motor drive that allows me to keep an object in my viewfinder
• It had an interface into my computer. More specifically into my astronomy software, Starry Night 4.5 Pro Plus.
• I could make out details of Saturn and Jupiter. Specifially, I had anough light gathering power to make out the individual rings of Saturn and the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.
• I could view most or all of the objects in the Messier catalog. This is a catalog of 110 objects that were viewable with telescopes circa AD 1771–1800. The catalog was originally published in 1771 by Charles Messier and contained 41 objects.
• I could move into astrophotography since this is the perfect kind of stuff to blog about!

The LX200GPS fits all of these requirements, though I’ll probably have trouble finding some of the Messier from my light-polluted backyard skies The LX200GPS seems, from my reasearch, a relatively safe scope and a very popular one. It certainly seems good enough for me.

The scope has an integrated Altazimuth mount. This is not an ideal mount for astrophotography, as the motor has to move in two directions. For long exposures, the two motors are more likely to introduce swirling errors in your exposure than if you had an equatorial mount. When equatorially mounted, a motor only needs to operate in a single direction and there is less of a chance you’ll have smearing errors in long exposures. However, I can add a equatorial “wedge” to my scope when I’m ready and this will make my scope equatorial. This makes setup take a bit longer, but this was a compromise.

Anyway, I bought the scope from a local dealer 5 minutes from my house. He gave me a decent price ($2,200) and I bought a bunch of accessories. These were mainly more powerful optics and the AC/DC transformer which will save me from buying loads and loads of batteries.

I can already see that I’ll need to buy some kind of case to carry the thing in. The original box, while usable, will become kind of beat up if I keep shoving it in my trunk for every dark-sky expedition. Also, I’ll need some high magnification optics for very clear nights (powerful magnifications are useless if the sky is not clear enough).

So, last night I assembled the thing (first in the house and then outside) and went through the initialization procedure. T he scope has a GPS so it knew my longitude and latitude. From there, it took a level reading (to compensate for my tripod tilt) and a True North reading. While all of t hat is well and good, you still need to tell it where two bright stars are located before the scope can be truly aligned. This was kind of a pain in the ass! I suspect it will get easier as I am more experienced. In the meantime, this is the part of the process that is pretty painful… especially when you have a 4 year old kid begging to see Saturn.

So far so good. I’ll likely have more reports on the scope’s peformance over the coming weeks and months.

Clear Skies,
Nick

By Nick at 5:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Some of you may be interested to know that the star Polaris, which is the tail star of the little dipper, won’t always be our North Star. In fact, the star called Vega was our north star some 14,000 years ago.

What’s this you say? Well, the earth rotates and wobbles as it makes it’s way around the sun and in turn, around the galaxy.

I decided to fire up Starry Night and run a simulation. The video you see here demonstrates how North, in celestial terms, changes over time.

You will see Polaris start off in the North position, then it will quickly spiral into chaos between the years AD 3,000 and AD 14,000. Vega is never as good a north star as Polaris is, and you can see this as Polaris returns to the North position toward  the end of the clip, around AD 26,000.

Enjoy the Quicktime video .

By Nick at 12:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

To quote the Astronomy Picture of the Day, “…an event of that size scale did occur off the Antarctic coast over the last three months”

Wow!

By Nick at 8:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I added a new category to my blog tonight, Astronomy. I can promise you that there will be a lot of activity on that category in the coming months.

Some of you may or may not know that Astronomy has been a passion of mine since I was in high-school. When I was 14, I got a department store-grade refractor probably like this one. I either got it for my birthday or Christmas. I should ask my mom, she might remember.

I spent many bittersweet evenings observing the heavens with that scope. On one hand, I marveled at the details I could see on the moon. On the other hand, I cursed at the shaking and bobbling of the images in my eyepiece. And why did everything keep moving our of my field of view? Damn that Earth rotation!

Now I’m out to buy a real scope. I’m doing a lot of research on the right scope for the job. It may surprise some of you that I’m not really thinking about my kids as I plan for the purchase. My kids are still pretty young and I doubt they will want to join me more than once in a long while once the novelty of the purchase wears off. From what I read, kids don’t take a serious interest in Astronomy until they are quite a bit older. Also from what I read, most serious amateur astronomers have multiple scope for multiple jobs. I doubt the scope that’s ideal for my kids is ideal for me and at their age, I doubt any scope is ideal.

As I read review after review, I’m getting a sense on what the tradeoffs are in this space. It seems like a) more money doesn’t solve all problems, b) the bigger the scope the better the image and the greater pain in the ass the bitch is to set up, c) good optics and a steady mount are almost or more important than the aperature (the diameter of its main, light-gathering lens or mirror).

My primary resource is SKY & Telescope magazine and skyandtelescope.com. They have plenty of good tutorials, buying guides, and tons of archive telescope reviews.

There is a really decent telescope shop in my hometown (what do I know?) and the owner and his wife are really helpful. The guy is a real computer geek too and he spent a while showing me numerous astrophotos he’s taken with CCD cameras.

He said that I should hook up with the local astronomy club and look through some scopes at a Star Party. On my to-do list.

Lots more information is coming as I read and read and read.

By Nick at 9:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)