Feed aggregator

The answer to the mystery of dune patterns on Saturn's moon Titan did turn out to be blowing in the wind. It just wasn't from the direction many scientists expected.

Four Planet Sunset This mesmerizing sunset photo was taken from the summit of volcanic Mount Lawu, 3,265 meters above sea level, on July 21. The view looks west, toward the city lights of Surakarta (aka Solo), Central Java, Indonesia. Two other volcanic peaks, sharp Merapi (left) and Merbabu lie along the colorful horizon. Four planets shine in the twilight sky above them. Spread out near the plane of the ecliptic are Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, along with bright Regulus, alpha star of the constellation Leo. For help finding them, just put your cursor over the picture. In fact, these four planets still shine in western skies at sunset, with Venus, Mars, and Saturn grouped much more tightly this weekend and in early August. By August 12, a young crescent Moon will join the four planet sunset.

This is my sketch of M27 (NGC 6853), the Dumbbell Nebula, sometimes called Apple Core.

This planetary nebula is probaly the best one to show for the first-time-on-scope ones who want to know about the future of our Sun. It’s the brightest, bigger and sharper one, just Hellix surpases it, but not in surface brightness nor in contrast.

The drawing was done just before the Swan one published in ASOD on July 21st, 2010, and also shows how fast the sky quality can change in a few hours and with some degrees more above the horizon.

It was rendered on Bonilla, Cuenca, Spain, on July 9th, 22:25UT, with graphite bar and stump in white paper, then scaned, inverted, and level balanced. I used my 10′ dobson with a Baader Hyperion 17mm (75x 55′FOV).

I encourage every observer to draw what they see, just because they’ll see even more as they do. Slowly, more people are joining the “pencil crew” here, and I hope you will see more results in those pages soon.

Jorge Arranz

Eclipse on the Beach As the New Moon's shadow slid across the southern Pacific on July 11, people gathered along the white, sandy Anakena Beach on the north side of Easter Island to watch a total solar eclipse. The experience was captured in this tantalizing composite image, constructed from a sequence of 50 consecutive exposures. At their center is the totally eclipsed Sun surrounded by a shimmering solar corona. From the well chosen viewpoint, palm trees appear in silhouette against a darkened sky and the faint light reflected in the water. Of course, towering above the onlookers, at the boundaries of land, ocean, and sky are Moai, the island's mysterious monolithic statues.

Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star. The discovery is expected to shed light on the early stages of solar system formation.

2010 July 7, 0408 UT

M57, NGC6720, the Ring Nebula
Constellation Lyra, Planetary Nebula Type 4+3, ~1500-2000 light years away
0>71”, m8.8v

PCW Memorial Observatory, Zanesville, Ohio USA – Erika Rix
16” Zhumell, 12mm Burgess, 3x Barlow, magnification 450x

Sketch created scopeside with white photocopy paper, #2 pencil,
ultra-fine black marker. Template from www.perezmedia.com.

M57 never fails to please, just like other objects such as the Double
Cluster, M13 and M27. This is the first time I’ve used the 16” on this
planetary nebula and took advantage of the aperture to increase
magnification. I was particularly interested in looking for structure
within the ring as well as a richer star field. It most likely wasn’t
the optimal magnification to use, but seeing was rock steady and I was
itching to give it a try.

This object resembled a scrunched up American football, not quite as
oblong, but most certainly not completely round. The two ends were
fainter than the middle portions of the ring, which had strands of
brightened areas to the NW and SE sections of the ring. There was one
particular area to the northern area of the ring that could have passed
for a star, but not defined. It was more or less just a bright spot
within the ring. The center of the nebula was a hazy darker gray, also
appearing oblong. I couldn’t detect the ever-elusive central star.

Erika Rix

One possible explanation for the irregular pattern is the remains of an exploded supernova, such as the nearby supernova remnant Vela, whose location corresponds to one of the cosmic-ray hotspots.

Ever since President Obama announced his desire to take NASA in a new direction opinions of all varieties followed. And followed in excess. Some have been supportive of the plan, arguing that the old plan was wasting tax dollars on programs that were over budget and overly complicated.

...

Read Full Post

A spectacular new image shows the brilliant and unusual star WR 22 and its colorful surroundings. WR 22 is a very hot and bright star that is shedding its atmosphere into space at a rate many millions of times faster than the Sun. It lies in the outer part of the dramatic Carina Nebula from which it formed.

Astronomers have found two extrasolar planetary systems with gas giant planets locked in an orbital embrace. In one system -- a planetary pair orbiting the massive, dying star HD 200964, located roughly 223 light-years from Earth -- the intimate dance is closer and tighter than any previously seen.

NASA personnel are among a group of international researchers who are in the Canadian Arctic assessing concepts for future planetary exploration as part of the Haughton-Mars Project, or HMP-2010. Scientists are using the arid, rocky environment of the Haughton Crater on Devon Island, Canada to simulate conditions that might be encountered by explorers on other planetary bodies. The latest edition of the HMP-2010 began July 19 and includes three weeks of crew and mission control activities and robotic testing.

Sunset, Shadowrise From central Australia, this serene 360 degree panorama follows a clear horizon as twilight began on May 28. At left, a bright western sky is still illuminated by the setting Sun. But sweeping right, toward a view centered on the countryside's dominating sandstone formation called Uluru or Ayers Rock, the sky takes on progressively darker hues and subtle colors. Behind Uluru is the shadow of planet Earth itself, a dark blue arch rising in the east. Cast through the dense atmosphere and still close to the horizon, Earth's long shadow is bounded above by a pinkish glow or antitwilight arch. Known as the Belt of Venus, the lovely color of the antitwilight arch is due to backscattering of reddened light from the setting Sun. On that night, a nearly full Moon also rose above Earth's shadow in the eastern sky.

Scientists have uncovered two pairs of planets so close to each other that they interact gravitationally.

In its six-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity had never seen a dust devil before this month, despite some systematic searches in past years and the fact that its twin rover, Spirit, has seen dozens of dust devils at its location halfway around the planet.

Edge of the Schiller-Zucchius Basin

With no specific sketching target in mind, I was examining the south terminator region of the moon and noticed it was showing what is considered to be an unfavorable view because it was turned away from the observer. There was a poorly defined part of a scarp-like ring partially visible under craters Rost A, Weigel and Weigel B. This ring is just beyond the Schiller-Zucchius basin center which was not yet illuminated by sunlight. The southeastern portion of this ring illuminated by the rising sun presented a half dark, half illuminated pathway that ended at the terminator. I found this view at the eyepiece quite fascinating and had some difficulty capturing it correctly. The “unfavorable” libration of this part of the moon near the terminator contributed to the shallow angle view. Even the appearance of famous, elongated, paramecium shaped crater Schiller was unusual. These are the kinds of surprises that get me motivated to sketch the moon.

Sketching:

For this sketch I used: Black Canson sketching paper, 14”x 9”, White and black Conte’ pencils, a blending stump, plastic eraser. After scanning, contrast and brightness were adjusted slightly using the scanner.



Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 161x

Date: 6-23-2010, 1:45 – 2:30 UT 

Temperature: 27° C (80° F) 
clear, calm

Seeing: Antoniadi III 

Co-longitude: 44.3°

Lunation: 10.6 days 
Illumination: 88.2 %
Observing Location: +41°37′ +87° 47′

Frank McCabe

What if work performed in space could improve the treatment of household and nuclear waste on Earth? That's what investigators are hoping to do with the results of a fluid physics study in progress on the International Space Station. The experiment, called DECLIC-HTI, is studying supercritical water that could lead to spin-offs in the field of clean technologies for treating waste here on Earth.

Researchers saw an unusual pattern when they looked at a "skymap" of the relative intensity of cosmic rays directed toward the Earth's Southern Hemisphere, with an excess of cosmic rays detected in one part of the sky and a deficit in another. A similar lopsidedness, called "anisotropy," has been seen from the Northern Hemisphere by previous experiments, but its source is still a mystery.

When American space pioneer, Dr. Robert L. Forward, proposed in 1984 a way of greatly improving satellite telecommunications using a new family of orbits, some claimed it was impossible. But now engineers in Scotland have proved that Forward was right.

The Trifid Nebula is Stars and Dust Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Trifid Nebula. Also known as M20, this photogenic nebula is visible with good binoculars towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The energetic processes of star formation create not only the colors but the chaos. The red-glowing gas results from high-energy starlight striking interstellar hydrogen gas. The dark dust filaments that lace M20 were created in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in the debris from supernovae explosions. Which bright young stars light up the blue reflection nebula is still being investigated. The light from M20 we see today left perhaps 3,000 years ago, although the exact distance remains unknown. Light takes about 50 years to cross M20.

WR 22, a member of a double star system in the Carina Nebula, is shedding its atmosphere at a rate many millions times faster than our Sun.