Monday, March 30, 2015

NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis

NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis: APOD: 2015 March 27 - NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis


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2015 March 27


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Explanation: Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas. The giant HII regions are energized by clusters of hot, massive stars that explode as bright supernovae at the end of their short and furious lives. A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 2403 closely resembles another galaxy with an abundance of star forming regions that lies within our own local galaxy group, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. Spiky in appearance, bright stars in this colorful galaxy portrait of NGC 2403 lie in the foreground, within our own Milky Way.

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Diamond Rings and Baily s Beads

Diamond Rings and Baily s Beads: APOD: 2015 March 28 - Diamond Rings and Baily s Beads


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2015 March 28



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Explanation: Near the March 20 equinox the cold clear sky over Longyearbyen, Norway, planet Earth held an engaging sight, a total eclipse of the Sun. The New Moon's silhouette at stages just before and after the three minute long total phase seems to sprout glistening diamonds and bright beads in this time lapse composite of the geocentric celestial event. The last and first glimpses of the solar disk with the lunar limb surrounded by the glow of the Sun's inner corona give the impression of a diamond ring in the sky. At the boundaries of totality, sunlight streaming through valleys in the irregular terrain along the Moon's edge, produces an effect known as Baily's Beads, named after English astronomer Francis Baily who championed an explanation for the phenomenon in 1836. This sharp composition also shows off the array of pinkish solar prominences lofted above the edge of the eclipsed Sun.

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Saturday, March 28, 2015

Solar eclipse: 2015 - Stargazing Live - BBC One

Solar eclipse: 2015 - Stargazing Live - BBC One:



 

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Partial solar eclipse with a transit of the ISS - March 20 2015

Partial solar eclipse with a transit of the ISS - March 20 2015:



 

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Comet Lovejoy over a Windmill

Comet Lovejoy over a Windmill: APOD: 2013 December 9 - Comet Lovejoy over a Windmill


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2013 December 9


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Comet Lovejoy Over a Windmill

Image Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann
Explanation: Lovejoy continues to be an impressive camera comet. Pictured above, Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) was imaged above the windmill in Saint-Michel-l'Observatoire in southern France with a six-second exposure. In the foreground is a field of lavender. Comet Lovejoy should remain available for photo opportunities for northern observers during much of December and during much of the night, although it will be fading as the month progresses and highest in the sky before sunrise. In person, the comet will be best viewed with binoculars. A giant dirty snowball, Comet Lovejoy last visited the inner Solar System about 7,000 years ago, around the time that humans developed the wheel.

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Seyferts Sextet

Seyferts Sextet: APOD: 2013 December 10 - Seyferts Sextet


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2013 December 10


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Explanation: What will survive this battle of the galaxies? Known as Seyfert's Sextet, this intriguing group of galaxies lies in the head portion of the split constellation of the Snake (Serpens). The sextet actually contains only four interacting galaxies, though. Near the center of this Hubble Space Telescope picture, the small face-on spiral galaxy lies in the distant background and appears only by chance aligned with the main group. Also, the prominent condensation on the upper left is likely not a separate galaxy at all, but a tidal tail of stars flung out by the galaxies' gravitational interactions. About 190 million light-years away, the interacting galaxies are tightly packed into a region around 100,000 light-years across, comparable to the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, making this one of the densest known galaxy groups. Bound by gravity, the close-knit group may coalesce into a single large galaxy over the next few billion years.

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The Coldest Place on Earth

The Coldest Place on Earth: APOD: 2013 December 11 - The Coldest Place on Earth


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2013 December 11


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Explanation: How cold can it get on Earth? In the interior of the Antarctica, a record low temperature of -93.2 °C (-135.8 °F) has been recorded. This is about 25 °C (45 °F) colder than the coldest lows noted for any place humans live permanently. The record temperature occurred in 2010 August -- winter in Antarctica -- and was found by scientists sifting through decades of climate data taken by Earth-orbiting satellites. The coldest spots were found near peaks because higher air is generally colder, although specifically in depressions near these peaks because relatively dense cold air settled there and was further cooled by the frozen ground. Summer is a much better time to visit Antarctica, as some regions will warm up as high as 15 °C (59 °F).

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Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka: APOD: 2013 December 12 - Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka


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2013 December 12


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Explanation: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (lower right to upper left) along the diagonal in this gorgeous cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about 1,500 light-years away, born of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have intriguing and some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the lower right. The famous Orion Nebula itself is off the right edge of this colorful star field. The well-framed, wide-field telescopic image spans about 4 degrees on the sky.

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Geminid Meteor Shower over Dashanbao Wetlands

Geminid Meteor Shower over Dashanbao Wetlands: APOD: 2013 December 13 - Geminid Meteor Shower over Dashanbao Wetlands


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2013 December 13


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Explanation: The annual Geminid meteor shower is raining down on planet Earth this week. Despite the waxing gibbous moonlight, the reliable Geminids should be enjoyable tonight (night of December 13/14) near the shower's peak. Recorded near last year's peak in the early hours of December 14, 2012, this skyscape captures many of Gemini's lovely shooting stars. The careful composite of exposures was made during a three hour period overlooking the Dashanbao Wetlands in central China. Dark skies above are shared with bright Jupiter (right), Orion, (right of center) and the faint band of the Milky Way. The shower's radiant in the constellation Gemini, the apparent source of all the meteor streaks, lies just above the top of the frame. Dust swept up from the orbit of active asteroid 3200 Phaethon, Gemini's meteors enter the atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.

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The Bubble Nebula

The Bubble Nebula: APOD: 2013 December 14 - The Bubble Nebula


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2013 December 14


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Explanation: Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape. Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Above and right of the Bubble's center is a hot, O star, several hundred thousand times more luminous and around 45 times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula lies a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia. This natural looking view of the cosmic bubble is composed from narrowband image data, also used to create a 3D model.

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Gibbous Europa

Gibbous Europa: APOD: 2013 December 15 - Gibbous Europa


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2013 December 15


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Explanation: Although the phase of this moon might appear familiar, the moon itself might not. In fact, this gibbous phase shows part of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. Raised terrain is particularly apparent near the terminator, where it casts shadows. Europa is nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, but much smoother, showing few highlands or large impact craters. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft, indicated that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface. To test speculation that these seas hold life, ESA has started preliminary development of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), a spacecraft proposed for launch around 2022 that would further explore Jupiter and in particular Europa. Recent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new evidence that Europa, like Saturn's moon Enceladus, has ice venting from its surface.

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Geminid Meteors over Teide Volcano

Geminid Meteors over Teide Volcano: APOD: 2013 December 17 - Geminid Meteors over Teide Volcano


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2013 December 17


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Explanation: On some nights it rains meteors. Peaking two nights ago, asteroid dust streaked through the dark skies of Earth, showering down during the annual Geminids meteor shower. Astrophotographer Juan Carlos Casado captured the space weather event, as pictured above, in a series of exposures spanning about 2.3 hours using a wide angle lens. The snowcapped Teide volcano of the Canary Islands of Spain towers in the foreground, while the picturesque constellation of Orion highlights the background. The star appearing just near the top of the volcano is Rigel. Although the asteroid dust particles are traveling parallel to each other, the resulting meteor streaks appear to radiate from a single point on the sky, in this case in the constellation of Gemini, off the top of the image. Like train tracks appearing to converge in the distance, the meteor radiant effect is due to perspective. The astrophotographer has estimated that there are about 50 Geminids visible in the above composite image -- how many do you see?

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Light Pillars over Finland

Light Pillars over Finland: APOD: 2013 December 18 - Light Pillars over Finland


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2013 December 18



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Light Pillars over Finland

Image Credit & Copyright: Thomas Kast
Explanation: What's happening behind those houses? Pictured above are not aurora but nearby light pillars, a local phenomenon that can appear as a distant one. In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun-pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not unlike a Sun-pillar. While going out to buy cat food, a quick thinking photographer captured the above light pillars extending up from bright parking lot lights in Oulu, Finland.

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Mind-Bending View of a Solar Eclipse from the Stratosphere

Mind-Bending View of a Solar Eclipse from the Stratosphere:



The solar eclipse on Friday, March 20, 2015, photographed at 14,000 meters. Credit and copyright: Guillaume Cannat.


The solar eclipse on Friday, March 20, 2015, photographed at 14,000 meters. Credit and copyright: Guillaume Cannat.
What does a solar eclipse look like from a fast-flying Falcon 7X jet at 14,000 meters (48,000 feet)? French journalist Guillaume Cannat described the Sun as looking black and “ruffled.”

Cannat was part of a group accompanying professional and amateur astronomers on board three Dassault Falcon 7X executive jets that flew in the narrow zone where totality of the eclipse could be observed, from southern Greenland to the geographic North Pole. Traveling through the stratosphere provided the unique opportunity to watch the total eclipse without atmospheric turbulence — which improved the view and the ride. And flying at speeds near Mach .9 also “lengthened” the view of the eclipse to over a minute.

Cannat described the view of totality:


“The crown was deployed around the black disc of the New Moon . It looks like a disheveled silver hair and matted by the solar wind. Far to the left, the planet Venus throws diamond chips, but the absorption of the window hides other celestial body that must always shine in the night daylight. Twilight slides around, bathing the distant clouds in a soft orange glow.”
Here’s a composite of several images of the eclipse that Cannat put together:



A montage of photos from the March 20, 2015 solar eclipse, captured at 14,000 meters from a jet. Credit and copyright: Guillaume Cannat.


A montage of photos from the March 20, 2015 solar eclipse, captured at 14,000 meters from a jet. Credit and copyright: Guillaume Cannat.
The flight was organized by French amateur astronomer Xavier Jubier who created the software Solar Eclipse Maestro. The jets were filled with observation equipment:

#Falcon7X's advanced pressurization system gives #eclipse2015 chasers the feeling they're barely over the tree tops.. pic.twitter.com/DmfL2HZK4M

— Dassault Falcon (@DassaultFalcon) March 20, 2015
Cannat also filmed the eclipse in real time with a GoPro Hero 4. “The whole sequence is rendered in real time so you can relive all in live conditions,” Cannat said. “Note, left, the presence of the bright spot of the planet Venus. The visible light rays around the sun before and after the totality phase are reflections on the window; there are also occasional reflections from inside the cabin. I left her to fully convey the mood of the scene. Naturally, I urge you to watch this video in HD 1080p to capture more detail and better see the spectacular growth of the shadow on cloud strata.”



And here’s a video of the adventure from Dassault Falcon:



Read Cannat’s full account (in French) and see more images at two posts at Le Monde here and here. Our thanks to Guillaume Cannat for sharing his images with Universe Today.



About 

Nancy Atkinson is currently Universe Today's Contributing Editor. Previously she served as UT's Senior Editor and lead writer, and has worked with Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

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Turning Stars Into Art

Turning Stars Into Art:



Short time exposure of the star Sirius with the camera attached to a small telescope. I tapped the tube to make the star bounce around, recording the star's rapid color changes as it twinkled. All photos by the author


Color Crazy. Short time exposure of the star Sirius photographed through a small telescope. I tapped the tube to make the star bounce around, recording the star’s continuous and rapid color changes as it twinkled.  Refraction of the star’s light by our turbulent atmosphere breaks it up into every color of the spectrum. Credit: Bob King
We all have cameras, and the sky’s an easy target, so why not have a little fun? Ever since I got my first camera at age 12 I wanted to shoot time exposures of the night sky. That and a tripod are all you need. Presented here for your enjoyment are a few oddball and yet oddly informative images of stars and planets.  Take the word “art” loosely!



This is the pair to the Sirius image and shows Jupiter through the telescope. Notice how blandly white it appears. That's because Jupiter's disk is large enough to not show twinkling (and color changes) caused by atmospheric turbulence as in the case of point-like Sirius.


Colorless mess. This is the companion to the Sirius image and shows Jupiter through the telescope. Notice how blandly white it appears. That’s because Jupiter’s disk is large enough to not show twinkling (and color changes) caused by atmospheric turbulence as in the case of point-like Sirius. Credit: Bob King


Orion's Belt and Sword trail in this time exposure made with a 200mm lens. The nearly perfectly parallel because the stars lie very near the celestial equator and were on the meridian at the time.


Pleasing parallels. Orion’s Belt and Sword trail in this time exposure made with a 200mm lens. The fuzzy pink streak is the Orion Nebula. They’re trails are nearly parallel because the stars all lie close to the celestial equator and were crossing the meridian at the time. Credit: Bob King


Star Trek Effect. OK, this was crazy to shoot. I centered Jupiter in the viewfinder, pressed the shutter button for a 20-second time exposure and slowly zoomed out from 70mm to 200mm on the telephoto lens. It took a few tries, because I was shooting blind, but even the rejects weren't too bad. Credit: Bob King


Star Trek Effect.  I centered Jupiter in the viewfinder, pressed the shutter button for a 20-second time exposure and slowly hand-zoomed the lens from 70mm to 200mm. It took a few tries because I was shooting blind, but even the rejects weren’t too bad. Credit: Bob King


Color by fog. The colors of stars are accentuated when photographed through fog or light cloud. Orion at right with the crescent moon at lower left. Credit: Bob King


Color by Fog. The colors of stars are accentuated when spread into a glowing disk by fog or light cloud. Orion  is at right with the crescent moon at lower left. Credit: Bob King


Snow flies. During a time exposure taken on a snowy but partly cloudy night, snowflakes, illuminated by a yard light, streak about beneath a Full Moon earlier this winter. Credit: Bob King


Snow flies. During a time exposure taken on a snowy but partly cloudy night, snowflakes, illuminated by a yard light, streak about beneath a Full Moon earlier this winter. Credit: Bob King


Stuttering Stars. For this image of the Big Dipper the camera was on a tracking mount. I left the shutter open for about a half hour, then covered the lens with a black cloth for a few minutes. After the cloth was removed, I started tracking and exposed the Dipper for a few minutes. During part of the exposure I used a diffusion filter in front of the lens to soften and enlarge the brightest stars. Credit: Bob King


Stuttering Stars. For this image of the Big Dipper the camera was on a tracking mount. I left the shutter open for about 25 minutes with the tracking turned off so the stars would trail.  Then the lens was covered with a black cloth for a few minutes to create a gap between this exposure and the next. After the cloth was removed, I started the tracking motor and kept the exposure running for a few minutes. A diffusion filter was used in front of the lens to soften and enlarge the brightest stars. Credit: Bob King


About 

I'm a long-time amateur astronomer and member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). My observing passions include everything from auroras to Z Cam stars. Every day the universe offers up something both beautiful and thought-provoking. I also write a daily astronomy blog called Astro Bob.

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Monday, March 23, 2015

The Universe

THE UNIVERSE :

The Universe
The Universe
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SILVERY MOON

SILVERY MOON:



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Date: Mar 2, 2015, 12:53 PM

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Black Hole

Black Hole:



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Date: Mar 17, 2012, 9:18 PM

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As It Turns Out, We Really Are All Starstuff

As It Turns Out, We Really Are All Starstuff:



Hubble image of the Crab Nebula supernova remnant captured with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)


Hubble image of the Crab Nebula supernova remnant captured with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars,” Carl Sagan famously said in his 1980 series Cosmos. “We are made of starstuff.”

And even today, observations with NASA’s airborne SOFIA observatory are supporting this statement. Measurements taken of the dusty leftovers from an ancient supernova located near the center our galaxy – aka SNR Sagittarius A East – show enough “starstuff” to build our entire planet many thousands of times over.

“Our observations reveal a particular cloud produced by a supernova explosion 10,000 years ago contains enough dust to make 7,000 Earths,” said research leader Ryan Lau of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York – the same school, by the way, where Carl Sagan taught astronomy and space science.



Composite image of SNR Sgr A East showing infrared SOFIA data outlined in white against X-ray and radio observations. (NASA/CXO/Herschel/VLA/Lau et al.)


Composite image of SNR Sgr A East showing infrared SOFIA data outlined in white against X-ray and radio observations. (NASA/CXO/Herschel/VLA/Lau et al.)
While it’s long been known that supernovae expel enormous amounts of stellar material into space, it wasn’t understood if clouds of large-scale dust could withstand the immense shockwave forces of the explosion.



NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy 747SP aircraft flies over Southern California's high desert during a test flight in 2010. Credit: NASA/Jim Ross


NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft (Credit: NASA/Jim Ross)
These observations, made with the joint NASA/DLR-developed Faint Object InfraRed Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) instrument, provide key “missing-link” evidence that dust clouds do in fact survive intact, spreading outward into interstellar space to seed the formation of new systems.

Interstellar dust plays a vital role in the evolution of galaxies and the formation of new stars and protoplanetary discs – the orbiting “pancakes” of material around stars from which planets (and eventually everything on them) form.

The findings may also answer the question of why young galaxies observed in the distant universe possess so much dust; it’s likely the result of frequent supernova explosions from massive early-generation stars.

Read more in a NASA news release here.

Source: NASA, Cornell, and Caltech 

“We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.”

– Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980)


About 

A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

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Northern Equinox Eclipse

Northern Equinox Eclipse: APOD: 2015 March 21 - Northern Equinox Eclipse


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2015 March 21


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Explanation: Snowy and cold is weather you might expect at the start of spring for Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. But that turned out to be good weather for watching the Moon's umbral shadow race across northern planet Earth. The region was plunged into darkness for 3 minutes during the March 20 total solar eclipse while insulated eclipse chasers witnessed the dark Sun in the cold clear sky. In this well-timed snapshot captured near the end of totality, the Moon's shadow sweeps away from the horizon and the solar corona fades as the lunar disk just begins to uncover the Sun. Streaming past the Moon's edge, direct rays of sunlight create the fleeting appearance of a glistening diamond ring.

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A Double Eclipse of the Sun

A Double Eclipse of the Sun: APOD: 2015 March 22 - A Double Eclipse of the Sun


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2015 March 22



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Explanation: Can the Sun be eclipsed twice at the same time? Last Friday was noteworthy because part of the Earth was treated to a rare total eclipse of the Sun. But also on Friday, from a part of the Earth that only saw part of the Sun eclipsed, a second object appeared simultaneously in front of the Sun: the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. Although space station eclipses are very quick -- in this case only 0.6 seconds, they are not so rare. Capturing this composite image took a lot of planning and a little luck, as the photographer had to dodge a series of third objects that kept, annoyingly, also lining up in front of the Sun: clouds. The above superposed time-lapse sequence was taken from Fregenal de la Sierra in southern Spain. The dark disk of the Moon dominates the lower right, while the Sun's textured surface shows several filaments and, over an edge, a prominence.

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Saturday, March 21, 2015

A Colorful Moon

A Colorful Moon: APOD: 2013 December 19 - A Colorful Moon


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2013 December 19


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Explanation: The Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or yellow. But small, measurable color differences have been greatly exaggerated to make this telescopic, multicolored, moonscape captured during the Moon's full phase. The different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface. Blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. The familiar Sea of Tranquility, or Mare Tranquillitatis, is the blue area in the upper right corner of the frame. White lines radiate across the orange-hued southern lunar highlands from 85 kilometer wide ray crater Tycho at bottom left. Above it, darker rays from crater Copernicus extend into the Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium) at the upper left. Calibrated by rock samples from the Apollo missions, similar multicolor images from spacecraft have been used to explore the Moon's global surface composition.

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