by Astroguyz David Dickinsen | Sep 30, 2011
2011 Perseid+Jupiter Credit: David Dickinsen
Sure, you’ve heard of the August Perseids that come blazing across the sky and are invariably trumpeted by the news as the “Meteor Shower of the Millennium!” on a yearly basis. Perhaps you’ve even heard of the Leonids, normally a feeble November shower prone to legendary outbursts roughly every 33 years. But have you ever heard of the October Draconids?
I’ll admit I hadn’t until the October 1998 issue of Sky & Telescope arrived on my doorstep. Or should I say tent-flap? You see, the last half of 1998 found me deployed with my U.S. Air Force squadron to Al Jaber, Kuwait. In those days, email (and spam) were still a hip “new thing,” giant washing-machine-like CRT monitors adorned many office desks, and we were involved with a cat-and-mouse game between Saddam and the U.N. Inspectors that eventually became the shooting war of Operation Desert Fox. A military base in the desert was also a fine place to do some causal astronomy. The Leonids put on a fine show that year approaching storm levels of 1,000 per hour from our longitude. I remember mentioning the Leonid meteors to one of our F-16 pilots, and they later briefed not to mistake the fireball flashes for Iraqi AAA (an important distinction!) (more…)
by VirtualAstro | Sep 29, 2011
Sunset with the Massive Sun Spot 1302 (Upper left on the Sun) Credit: Adrian Scott
A highly active region on the Sun threatens to deliver powerful geomagnetic storms over the week ahead. Highly energetic solar eruptions are likely heading in our direction to give Earth’s magnetic field a significant glancing blow!
Over the past few days the new sunspot AR1302 has been incredibly active, hurling massive X-class solar flares into space and it will soon face Earth.
The massive sunspot, many times larger than the Earth (see images below) is expected to increase in size and energy, and is expected to release powerful solar flares, sparking strong geomagnetic storms. (more…)
by VirtualAstro | Sep 27, 2011
A severe geomagnetic storm (Kp=7-8) that began yesterday when a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field is subsiding. At the peak of the disturbance, auroras were sighted around both poles and in more than five US states and Northern Europe.
Dundee Aurora Credit: Ben-e-boy
Sky watchers at the highest latitudes should remain alert for auroras as Earth’s magnetic field continues to reverberate from the CME impact.
More solar activity is expected, so stay posted for more Aurora news.
by VirtualAstro | Sep 27, 2011
NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Saturday, Sept. 24. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has determined the satellite entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean at 14.1 degrees south latitude and 189.8 degrees east longitude. This location is over a broad, remote ocean area in the Southern Hemisphere, far from any major land mass. The debris field is located between 300 miles and 800 miles downrange, or generally northeast of the re-entry point. NASA is not aware of any possible debris sightings from this geographic area.
This is your source for official information on the re-entry of UARS. All information posted here has been verified with a government or law enforcement agency. This is NASA’s final status report on the re-entry of UARS.
This map shows the ground track for UARS beginning off the coast of Africa at 0330 GMT and ending at atmospheric interface over the Pacific at 0401 GMT.
Six years after the end of its productive scientific life, UARS broke into pieces during re-entry, and most of it up burned in the atmosphere. Twenty-six satellite components, weighing a total of about 1,200 pounds, could have survived the fiery re-entry and reach the surface of Earth.
The Operations Center for JFCC-Space, the Joint Functional Component Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., which works around the clock detecting, identifying and tracking all man-made objects in Earth orbit, tracked the movements of UARS through the satellite’s final orbits and provided confirmation of re-entry.
“We extend our appreciation to the Joint Space Operations Center for monitoring UARS not only this past week but also throughout its entire 20 years on orbit,” said Nick Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This was not an easy re-entry to predict because of the natural forces acting on the satellite as its orbit decayed. Space-faring nations around the world also were monitoring the satellite’s descent in the last two hours and all the predictions were well within the range estimated by JSpOC.”
UARS was launched Sept. 12, 1991, aboard space shuttle mission STS-48 and deployed on Sept. 15, 1991. It was the first multi-instrumented satellite to observe numerous chemical components of the atmosphere for better understanding of photochemistry. UARS data marked the beginning of many long-term records for key chemicals in the atmosphere. The satellite also provided key data on the amount of light that comes from the sun at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. UARS ceased its scientific life in 2005.
Additional resources:
› NASA News Release, Sept. 24, 2011
› Re-Entry and Risk Assessment (498 KB PDF)
› Frequently Asked Questions: Orbital Debris
If you find something you think may be a piece of UARS, do not touch it. Contact a local law enforcement official for assistance.
Credit: NASA
by VirtualAstro | Sep 26, 2011
AURORA UPDATE! New Auroral oval predictions for the UK and North America! We are definitely going to see Aurora tonight
Europe Aurora Oval Prediction Credit: alaska.edu
A strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is in progress following the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) at approximately 12:15 UT on Sept. 26th. The Goddard Space Weather Lab reports a “strong compression of Earth’s magnetosphere. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma [has penetrated] close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 13:00UT.” Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for aurors after nightfall. (Credit: Spaceweather.com)
The best time to try and spot Aurora (The Northern lights) is around midnight, but this could be soon er or later.
You don’t need a telescope or binoculars to see the show (if it happens from your location) just your eyes.
Find a dark spot away from street lights and other light sources and look North. You should see Aurora very close to the horizon or higher, depending on your location, current conditions and intensity of the geomagnetic storm.
Good luck.
Predicted Auroras Over North America Credit: alaska.edu
by VirtualAstro | Sep 25, 2011
UARS Ground Track Credit:NASA
NASA News Release : 11-350
NASA’s UARS Re-Enters Earth’s Atmosphere
WASHINGTON – NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. Sept. 24, 20 years and nine days after its launch on a 14-year mission that produced some of the first long-term records of chemicals in the atmosphere.
The precise re-entry time and location of debris impacts have not been determined. During the re-entry period, the satellite passed from the east coast of Africa over the Indian Ocean, then the Pacific Ocean, then across northern Canada, then across the northern Atlantic Ocean, to a point over West Africa. The vast majority of the orbital transit was over water, with some flight over northern Canada and West Africa.
Six years after the end of its productive scientific life, UARS broke into pieces during re-entry, and most of it up burned in the atmosphere. Data indicates the satellite likely broke apart and landed in the Pacific Ocean far off the U.S. coast. Twenty-six satellite components, weighing a total of about 1,200 pounds, could have survived the fiery re-entry and reach the surface of Earth. However, NASA is not aware of any reports of injury or property damage.
The Operations Center for JFCC-Space, the Joint Functional Component Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., which works around the clock detecting, identifying and tracking all man-made objects in Earth orbit, tracked the movements of UARS through the satellite’s final orbits and provided confirmation of re-entry.
“We extend our appreciation to the Joint Space Operations Center for monitoring UARS not only this past week but also throughout its entire 20 years on orbit,” said Nick Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This was not an easy re-entry to predict because of the natural forces acting on the satellite as its orbit decayed. Space-faring nations around the world also were monitoring the satellite’s descent in the last two hours and all the predictions were well within the range estimated by JSpOC.”
UARS was launched Sept. 12, 1991, aboard space shuttle mission STS-48 and deployed on Sept. 15, 1991. It was the first multi-instrumented satellite to observe numerous chemical components of the atmosphere for better understanding of photochemistry. UARS data marked the beginning of many long-term records for key chemicals in the atmosphere. The satellite also provided key data on the amount of light that comes from the sun at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. UARS ceased its scientific life in 2005.
Because of the satellite’s orbit, any surviving components of UARS should have landed within a zone between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude. It is impossible to pinpoint just where in that zone the debris landed, but NASA estimates the debris footprint to be about 500 miles long.
For more information about UARS, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/uars
– end –
Credit: NASA
by Vicky Duncalf | Aug 22, 2011
A blog for us AMATEUR amateur astronomers. By @RadioVicky.
Bio:
I’m 33, I live in Bristol and I like astronomy. However, I don’t have a telescope and even if you did give me one, I’d be uncertain where to put my eye. I write comedy and I’m a professional blogger. My favourite colours are beer and dark skies.
Telescopes scare me. Not in the way a stranger in my bedroom or a spider in my knickers would scare me, but they do fill me with a certain fear.
I mean, I absolutely love things that go *shine* in the night, and have since I was a little girl, but the prospect of going out and buying a scope – something I know NOTHING about — is fairly petrifying. It even makes me feel a bit of a fraud. How can I be in to astronomy when I don’t even know my azimuth from my elbow? And also, I’m not too hot on my constellations either – sure, I know the main ones they teach you at school, but ask me to point out Lyra? Pegasus? Lucky Jim’s Pirate Ship?
OK, I admit it, I’m an AMATEUR amateur astronomer, but so is 99.9999999999999999999999% (possibly more nines than that, I didn’t have time to conduct a survey) of the world’s population, so it’s a cool club to be in.
Before I got friendly with astronomers on Twitter, I always fancied one of those thin tubular ones they sell for £90 in Argos. Surely I would be able to see the storms on Jupiter, the arms of Andromeda, and the Bristol football team practicing from 10 miles away? Turns out I’d be better off peering through a toilet roll tube with some cling film on the end of it – I’ve been told that cheap telescopes merely turn unimpressive white dots into marginally less impressive WOBBLY white dots, so I’m saving the cash for a Virgin Galactic space holiday instead. I hear the weather’s quite exceptional on Mercury…
But something happened this weekend that made me feel better about scope envy. I’ve been getting friendly with our very own @virtualastro on Twitter, and when I discovered I had 900 free minutes to use before the end of the month, I thought it was nigh on time we spoke to each other.
So, I called him up, and we spent a total of FIVE HOURS on the phone over the course of Saturday and Sunday night. Rest assured Twitter, we have plotted and planned some very exciting things together which will be blazing your way like a comet made of ideas instead of muddy ice soon …but the best, most wonderful, amazing, magical thing we did was…GO STAR HOPPING TOGETHER. Without a freakin’ telescope!
Even though we are about 70 miles apart (I live in Bristol, he lives in Oxfordish somewhere) we were both able to look up at the same sky, see the same ISS passes, and the same meteors. It was remarkable to be on the phone to someone with such an incredible knowledge of the skies. I sat gob smacked, mouth and ears open, as he talked me through constellations, clusters, satellites and gory Greek myths. I had no idea Cassiopeia had been a naughty girl and was sentenced to dangle upside down on a chair for eternity. I’d never heard of the Cygnus Rift — an ominously dark patch of sky in our milky way. I couldn’t even pick out the summer triangle, but now I know where it lives I will undoubtedly point it out to people in the pub, spilling cider as I leap around, trying to remember which stars make it up.
The best part was a dazzling ISS pass with a Perseid meteor streaking past like an arrow through a love heart. @VirtualAstro even had to put the phone down to deal with the deluge of tweets, and it felt amazing to be part of something so communal, so magical, yet so fleeting.
He also reassured me I didn’t need a telescope to enjoy the skies – which is fabulous because I was getting a bit sick of wishing for one on every meteor I saw. He said ‘if you look up at the sky…then you’re already an astronomer,’ a line which neatly castrated the last traces of my scope envy.
As I lay back and looked at the star-flecked sky, with crickets singing in the hedge, fired up with a guided tour of our resplendent heavens, it dawned on me. This was better than any naughty phone chat line. He could quite easily wire up a premium-rate number to his phone and charge £1.50 a minute for the pleasure of his knowledge.
Yep, I had a great time star-gazing without a scope last night. To the point of rubbing my thighs and drooling a bit. And how was it for you, darling?
Vicky pretended she was having fun looking through the telescope, but the view was better with just her eyes.
by Mark Humpage | Aug 15, 2011
Credit: Mark Humpage
What is it? – The International Space Station or ISS is a large spacecraft which orbits around Earth. This orbit allows the ISS to be reached by launch vehicles (such as the Space Shuttle) of all the international partners for the delivery of crews and supplies. It is the largest and most complex international scientific project in history. The ISS is the size of a football pitch fitted with almost an acre of solar panels that provide electrical power to six state-of-the-art laboratories.
Can the ISS be seen from Earth? – Yes, it travels at an amazing 17,000 mph and orbits earth at an altitude of approximately 250 miles. The sheer size of the structure and array of solar panels reflect sunlight, making it the biggest, brightest object orbiting earth. Only the sun and moon are brighter. It can easily be seen moving across the night sky, at certain times, almost resembling a slow moving fireball.
How do you capture it on camera? – With a bit of planning and the right equipment it can easily be captured on camera:-
Planning – Firstly, one needs to calculate at what time the ISS will pass over the skies above. This can easily be found by visiting a website: www.heavens-above.com which will identify the exact days and times at when the ISS will pass directly above one’s location, and which part of the sky to look. There are also a number of excellent mobile applications such as ‘GoSatWatch’ and ‘Flyby’ which allow this to be done remotely.
Credit: Mark Humpage
Execution – A good ISS capture will require a long exposure. A tripod is therefore required to keep the camera nice and steady. A wide angle lens will ensure maximising as much of the ISS flyby which can travel across the entire horizon. Personally, I use the Olympus 7-14mm or 8mm fisheye which are ideal lenses. Try to locate a foreground object of interest within the frame, a line of trees or buildings in order to give the image perspective and scale. Set the camera to manual and use long exposure times of anything between 15 and 30 seconds. With camera primed and in position all that is left now is to wait for the ISS to enter the field of view. By capturing a single or number of continuous exposures the resulting image(s) will reveal a long trail across the frame. Capturing numerous and continuous images will allow you to stack and produce a composite, which can produce stunning results.
ISS Double flyby photo (bottom) – For this ISS double flyby image I chose a location that offered a good foreground subject (water) and scope to cover the entire east/west horizon. Planning involved choosing an evening where the ISS would fly over my location numerous times (in one night) and a look at the weather forecast to ensure clear skies. Armed with a one man tent and all my camera gear I headed off and arrived on site late evening on June 11th. The first ISS pass was due at 2300hrs and subsequent passes every 90 mins. The plan was twofold 1) Set up one camera waterside and take continuous 15sec exposures for the entire night 2) Use a second camera for each ISS pass in different locations at the site. In between passes I would grab a short power nap huddled in the tent. Not a very comfortable evening but the resulting images made up for it. Using stacking software I produced two composite images, one detailing the ISS passes alone and the other including a star trail from the entire evening.
The star trails and bright light (moon) is the resulting visible effect of earth’s rotation. The location choice was also perfect as the morning mist makes for an eerie scene, perfectly complementing the ISS pass. The images made the national press the following day, which was very pleasing. One final word about capturing the ISS – it is due to be decommissioned (crashed into the sea) in 2020, so be quick!
Captured with Olympus E5 & 8mm fisheye – 2 ISS flybys, each comprising approx 12 images. Final stacked composite Credit: Mark Humpage
