Astrostuff

While I'm getting ready for my Buzzard Coulee meteorite search I thought I'd throw together some images for my latest post, images of cool stuff I've been doing but didn't really know what to do with them, so I thought group them together all in one post.

The image above is my latest Micrometeorite, taken about a month ago. Image taken with my Celestron Digital Microscope at 200x.





The image above is a Sigma Leonid meteor taken last night, this shower generally has a peak of 1 or 2 an hour, kind of boring unless you're going out to try and image one, like me.






Was lucky to capture another double halo with circumzenithal arc from the roof of the mall I work at a month or so ago.

What Jupiter looks like through an average amateur astronomer type scope, looking through charts for the date this image was taken, the moons appear to be Callisto and Europa, Europa being the closest to.


Image above was taken March 8, the conjunction of the Beehive star cluster in the Constellation Cancer and the Moon.


Last but not least, I'd thought I'd throw this one in. It is one of my first images taken with my new Camera before I got a telephoto lens. It is an image of a Moon Antares conjunction February 2008, the second dimmer star is omi sco, in the constellation Scorpius, reminds me of the Lunar Venus Jupiter conjunction of December 1 last year which Priyank got a shot of, image below.

I'll leave you now with a couple blended images done in photoshop, then animated, one of a Moon Rise and one of my favorite Star Clusters, the Double Star Cluster in the constellation Perseus for my fantasy conjunction.

NASA and The ESA Are Going To Jupiter and Saturn

NASA has just released a major announcement. Two outer planet flagship missions have been given the go ahead for further studies and eventual implementation.

1. The Europa Jupiter system mission

2. The Titan Saturn system mission.

What is too cool about this announcement is that most everybody was expecting approval of one or the other, not both. NASA and the European Space Agency working closely together hope to finally answer the question, is there life elsewhere in the universe.



The Europa Jupiter mission has been given priority, launch date 2020. Two orbiters, one built by NASA one by ESA will arrive at Jupiter in 2026. The orbiters will study Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

I was able to reach Dr.Richard Greenberg over the phone and ask him a few questions about the Europa Jupiter mission. Dr. Greenberg is Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. He has written two books on Europa, "Unmasking Europa" a book for general audiences and "Europa The Ocean Moon" a more detailed book and suited for undergraduates.

Dr. Greenberg was part of a science definition team assembled by NASA to put together facts they already knew about Jupiter, Saturn and their moons and to come up with the best ideas for the two missions. When I asked Dr. Greenberg what his research group's main goal was now, he stated to continue to do research and interpret what they now know as much as possible so that when the mission is finally designed and run it will be done with as much knowledge as possible.



Dr. Greenberg who's background is in Celestial mechanics, meaning the study of the orbits and rotations of planets and their moons, first put forth the idea that the moons of Jupiter, specifically Europa might be affected by tides created by Jupiter's enormous pull on little Europa, creating what we see as crisscrossing lines or cracks on Europa's surface, that an ocean is just below a thin layer crust and that if we were able to examine the slush that comes up through the cracks created by the enormous tidal waves we could very well find some type of oceanic substances and perhaps samples of any organisms that might be present in the ocean.

I also asked him what we hope to learn from the Europa Jupiter mission that we haven't already discovered through the Galileo mission to Jupiter. He mentioned things like the orbiter being equipped with a laser altimeter which would measure the topography of the surface ice, something new. Radio tracking, allowing the gravitational field of Europa to be measured, not been done before, putting the two experiments results together will determine the amplitude of the tides, providing further confirmation of the unseen ocean.

The new NASA orbiter will be equipped with a very high resolution camera, you see the problem with the Galileo mission to Jupiter was the main antenna never opened so they had a limited amount of high resolution images sent back, not anywhere near the amount they would have liked, the new camera will produce near meter scale imaging, to see up close and personal, to image the surface perhaps at just the right time when slush is breaking through to the surface. Now, very cool, an orbiter radar, maybe able to once and for all determine the thickness of Europa's ocean covering crust, but most critical determine linkages between the ocean and the surface, the connection between the ocean and Europa's surface are what make it possible for life to flourish.




The Titan Saturn mission will consist of a NASA orbiter and an ESA lander and research balloon, the lander will actually land in one of the northern lakes of Titan and test for signs of life while the orbiter flys through the plumes of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons again looking for any signs of life.

When all is said and done, two very exciting missions to look forward to. Looking for and finding life even microbial in our own solar system, our own backyard, increases the chances that we are not alone, that there is someone else out there, maybe even watching us right now.

Journey To The Edge Of The Universe and more Conjunction Images

Geysers on Triton;


and Black holes in action;


bright colored matter;


and Solar attractions;

Nebulae, galaxies, stars in between, these are a few of my favorite things, bet you'll never guess which movie I was watching the other day. Anyways back on topic, you get to see all my favs above and more on the 2 hour premiere of "Journey to the Edge of the Universe" on the National Geographic Channel.

Very cool how through cinema quality CGI and the worlds best telescopes they take you from a couple people enjoying the night sky up through the atmosphere, to the Moon, Sun, planets then galaxies and beyond to the edge of the universe, all in one camera move.

Be prepared to board "spacecraft imagination", launch date this Sunday December 7, 7 pm EST.

Again the Canadian times are yet to be announced, will let you know as soon as I hear.

Well, the last couple of weeks have been space crazy around here, first with our famous Saskatchewan meteor, which by the way they have found quite a few pieces of , to the beautiful Venus, Jupiter Lunar conjunction, imaged and viewed by millions of people all over the world, everybody was getting involved, even my wife, as I was coming home after imaging the gathering she said "I saw your cute little conjunction!"........boy........, if I had a nickel every time I heard that.


The beautiful image above of the conjunction was taken by Genie, great job Genie! When there are special celestial occasions I will post any and all images from you the readers on my blog, and issue a free pair of Hanna Montana/ Miley Cyrus 3D glasses, while supplies last. My goal has always been to get people involved in and to enjoy the cosmos, and my new goal to one day have everybody outfitted with said 3D glasses. The upcoming Jupiter, Mercury and Lunar conjunction December 28/29, not as spectacular as the one that just occurred but it will more beautiful in it's subtlety, has Mercury in it, I love Mercury, always a challenge to view and even more difficult to image, the Moon will be a very small crescent making it all the more reason to try and catch it. For the conjunction look low in the SW just after Sunset on the 28/29. Also the Geminid meteor shower peaks next weekend, look to the east around 10:00 pm for the show to start, will be a Full Moon so won't see the maximum of 60 meteors per hour but again still worth a look.


The above image was taken by Anita with a Finepix S700 camera, great shot Anita! A pair of 3D glasses are on their merry way to you and yours.



Raymond, took the above image, super job!! hope you Genie and Anita enjoy your new 3D glasses, to break em in, try this cool NASA 3D image site.

I'll leave you now with a preview clip of Journey to the Edge of the Universe.

Venus, Jupiter and Luna Conjunction

Woo Hoo I got to see the conjunction, almost didn't. Hope some of you had the same luck I did, it was cloudy right up until the last moment but the clouds broke just in time and then only for awhile, hey, I was prepared to go down to Moose Jaw where it was supposed to be clear. When I told people at work my plans to travel 2 hours to see the gathering I got a lot of shaking of the heads and them saying BOB!, get that a lot. So maybe I am a little obsessed, and why not, lets take a look at this logically.


The stars, planets, Moon, are always on time, never late, never early, in other words very dependable. They keep on giving me their best and don't ask for anything in return, just that I show up, even then they could careless if I don't watch, my loss if I don't come to the latest show. No hidden agendas, they are what they are, a star doesn't try to be a planet and visa-versa, don't try to trick you in to believing there is a conjunction and then when you get there no ones around, what's not to like? Plus the gathering was just plain awesome. The images below are from the conjunction Sunday night.







The image below is the gathering from Saturday night, the tiny crescent Moon is hiding in the atmosphere in the lower right of the image. If anybody out there got an image of the conjunction, let me know and I will post it on my site and ship you a free pair of Hanna Montana/ Miley Cyrus 3D glasses, yeah, I still have a gazillion of them.



I'll leave you now with an animation of the 5% of Full Moon, taken Saturday night while the Moon was low in the atmosphere.

Comet Like Meteor, Conjunctions, The Sasktchewan Meteor And A Special Cameo Appearance Of The Runaway Tool Kit

Okay, I got a new favorite meteor image. You're probably thinking, Bob, it's a small one, you've taken better, well thank you, but this is my new favorite, just look at it, all comet like and cute and small and such, plus the way in how I captured it is very cool.

I was taking an image of the Venus Jupiter gathering when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bright object moving very fast, fine I thought it was a jet at first, but it wasn't leaving any contrails behind, there were quite a few jets out that night and all were slower and left contrails, plus it was going back and forth, almost in a straight line, then vanishing.

Moved my camera towards the last spotted location, thinking great something cool and unusual, took a test shot, and waited, and waited but it never came back. Thought oh well probably some kind of UFO, or test jet, meteors or I was just seeing things.

The next morning I was going through my images of Venus and Jupiter, totally forgot about my encounter of the whatever kind when I noticed there was something on my test shot, a little comet like meteor. Now the ISO was 3200, exposure .25 seconds, so the chances of me catching a meteor in that time frame were slim to nil, very cool, so now it's my fav.


Here is your last notice from me for what NASA is calling the "Best sky show of the year", and it looks like I'm going to miss it, calling for clouds on that day here. On December 1 just after Sunset look to the South West for an awesome conjunction of the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Venus, Venus being just below and to the left of Jupiter and the Moon above the both of them.


The next major conjunction will be December 28th, The Moon, Jupiter and Mercury will be in a straight line grouping just after Sunset, again look to the South West for this gathering.

Just a little update on the Saskatchewan Meteor that occurred here November 20. There are all kinds of people looking for what they estimate to be hundreds of meteorites larger than 50 grams thought to have landed around the Saskatchewan Alberta boarder around Manitou Lake. One meteorite collector has offered $12,000 US for a kilogram sized chunk. If I didn't have work to contend with, that's where I would be, let me tell you.

I'm going to leave you now with a video of the ISS toolbag in space taken by satellite observer Kevin Fetter. To see the toolbag streak across the sky go here and type in your Postal or zip codes, it will give you the flyby times and the location in the sky. You will need binoculars, it will look like a faint moving satellite.

Venus, Jupiter, Moon Conjunction and The Saskatchewan Meteor

One week from tonight the Celestial conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon occurs. The above image shows Jupiter and Venus Getting closer together. The inside grouping of Venus and Jupiter was taken November 22, the outside grouping of Venus and Jupiter was taken November 20. You can see the two planets getting closer together and Venus, the bottom of the two starting to whip under Jupiter, the top planet.


The above image shows the Space station joining the grouping, taken November 23rd. Somewhere just behind the Space Station is the missing tool kit. While Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was working outside the station she lost hold of it. To get the exact times of the flyby in your area go here and enter your postal or zip codes, it's actually quite cute, the site gives you various flyby times of satellites... and the toolkit. You will need binoculars to see it as it isn't all that big.

Now, I happened to be out taking an image of the Jupiter Venus gathering at 6:10 pm November 20. I had decided to call it quits early at that time because the wind was freezing my shutter release cable, thought, this is crazy, too cold, I'm going home, get in my car and head back into town. The next morning I hear almost everybody in the office saw this blinding meteor. I asked what time, the reply was 6:30, crap, if I only would have stayed another 20 minutes I probably would have got a shot of it, again all about being at the right place at the right time, which apparently was in your kitchen or living room looking outside.


The yellow area in the above map is the area in which there had been reported sightings. The size of the meteoroid has been estimated anywhere from the size of a baseball to a small car. To date nothing in the way of a meteorite has been found, but they figure if the meteor did land it would be along the Saskatchewan, Manitoba border.

The YouTube video below is what an Edmonton Police car cam captured, wow, talk about being at the right place at the right time. At the Mall I work at we have quite a few outside security cameras, I went through all the footage from that time frame, and found a bright flash on one of them, the meteor was just to the left of the camera, still cool, due to security reasons I can't show you the flash footage, no biggie anyways, just the flash.

Moon, Jupiter Conjunction

Sunday April 27th. in the early morning hours we had a Lunar, Jupiter conjunction, how early, well it started as the pair rose, around 2:47 am. That's right 2:47 am, now you'd think everyone in their right mind would probably be asleep at that time, unless and of course they knew of the conjunction, not so, it was a busy morning, all kinds of cabs driving people home from the bars, one of my spots is right across from an apartment complex, oh and there were a couple kids doing 360's in their cars behind me in the Shoppers Drug Mart parking lot, hey why not Shoppers had all their parking lot lights on through the whole night even though they close at midnight, I guess they aren't getting with the whole Earth Hour type thing.

The image above is a wide angle shot, notice the beautiful red Moon, people ask me, was the Moon really that red, yes,... yes it was, because the Moon was low on the horizon, its moonlight had to travel through more atmosphere, the atmospheric particles scatter the blues of the moonlight and allow the reds through , no photoshop adjustments, actually it was a darker red, almost couldn't see it, it is a lighter red in the image because of the 4 second exposure lightening it up some. The image below, an 8 second exposure again lightening the color.

Looking at these pictures can't convey the surrealistic feeling you have viewing it live and in person, it was unbelievable, the red Moon seemed to be floating in a sea of black, too cool.

I'm pretty excited, My wife and I will be taking a weeks vacation starting May 10th to visit my oldest daughter Amanda and boyfriend Dave in Kelowna British Columbia. They have two of the cutest, what my wife likes to call Granddogs, one being an Old English Sheepdog Great Pyrenees cross, the other a Newfoundland Great Pyrenees cross, Ill take pics and post. There should be plenty of photo ops with the beautiful weather, the mountains and since they live outside of town there will be lots of dark skies for star gazing, expect some cool photos.

A friendly reminder about the Eta Aquarids meteor shower Monday May 5th. 4 am, look to the Southeast just up from the horizon, then Tuesday May 6th look to the West-Northwest 45 minutes after Sunset for the Moon with earthshine, Mercury and Pleiades gathering.

I'll leave you now with an animated gif of one of my Moon, Jupiter pics.

Solar Halo and Blue Moon

Solar Halo February 19 11:45 am

The day before E day (eclipse), I was outside and happened to notice a huge Solar halo starting to form, got my camera and headed just outside of town to capture the above halo, within 30 minutes it had formed a complete circle around the sun and had developed some beautiful colors. Just as fast as it had formed it disappeared as the Cirrus clouds broke apart, and it was no more, you can see it posted at Sky and Telescope website as well as one of my other halos. Solar halos are the result of the Sunlight being reflected and refracted off ice crystals high in the Cirrus clouds, wispy clouds located above 23,000 feet.

Blue Eclipsed Moon February 20, 2008




I just had to post one more image of the Total Lunar eclipse. I didn't post this image initially because it looked gray and colorless except for some blues , which I thought was just wrong, very little reds, I actually thought, great I broke my camera because of the cold weather and the taking it in and out of the house and the fact it was actually starting to make strange noises, but upon further investigation I found out the blue/ greens are a result of the Sunlight passing through the ozone layer which scatters or blocks the reds of the Sun's light, making the light getting through to the Lunar surface bluer. There was only a couple out of the many shots I took that had this much blue in it, makes for a very cool and different eclipse. I did have to put it through Photo shop curves and brightness and contrasted it to bring the browns and blues out more.

Mercury, Venus, Jupiter February 23, 2008

There is another conjunction happening right now, Mercury and Venus are getting very close together and will be their closest February 27th. Look to the South East just before the Sun rises to see Mercury and Venus close together and Jupiter further South. I took the above image of the trio this morning around 7:14 am cst.

Don't know if you have seen this video on You Tube, it is supposed to be the actual shooting down of the US Spy Satellite, pretty cool video.

I'll leave you now with my Solar halo on reflecting water.

God Made Meets Man Made

Is the title I've given my most current Sunset pic. As I was out looking to take an image of a Sunset a few days ago I noticed as the Sun was sinking it was going to land on one of the high voltage towers, not really though, the Sun is 93 million miles away, but it looked cool. The Earth has the capacity to produce 60,000 megatons of energy per year, sounds like a lot until you hear the Sun produces 77 billion megatons every second, in other words, in one second the Sun produces an equivalent of a million years of Earth energy. The Sun keeps our fragile planet warm and working even in the coldness of spaceland, makes you think on how much we depend on the little star we call the Sun.

Took another pic of Venus and Jupiter to show even though they are pulling away from each other they are still the two prettiest objects in the early morning sky and worthy of a peak at. Look to the SE. sky around 7:30 am, won't be long before the glare of the Sun blocks them from our view.

Shuttle managers have decided that a bent radiator coolant hose isn't enough of a problem to delay Shuttle Atlantis's February 7th launch, the weather on the other hand may be a problem, 40% chance of acceptable conditions for launch. The Shuttle's main mission is to deliver and install the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory. Remember NASA TV tomorrow at 2:45pm EST all the crazy cool camera angles of the launch.

I'll leave you now with another prairie sunset video, a bunch of individual images taken with my Canon 40D and stitched together to produce what you see below.

Conjunction Of Venus And Jupiter In Sagittarius

Venus, Jupiter conjunction January 31, 2008

Don't wanna seem like a braggy Bob, but I got a some real cool pics of the Venus , Jupiter conjunction. The weather co-operated apart from it being -30c, the camera still working at those temps, just amazing. Took an image the day before and the day of to show Jupiter's dance with Venus. If you missed the conjunction you can still see them close together and the Moon joining the gathering on Sunday February 3rd. early morning around 8am EST.

Venus, Jupiter conjunction February 1, 2008

Conjunctions are fun, everyone can enjoy them, just walk outside your house to view the gems in the sky, no equipment required. Some upcoming conjunctions are,

1. February 27, Venus and Mercury; dawn sky.

2. March 24, Venus and Mercury again; dawn sky.

3. September 11, Venus and Mars; dusk.

4. December 31, Jupiter and Mercury; dusk.

After a 2 month delay Shuttle Atlantis is set to launch Thursday February 7th. at 2:45 EST, that is as long as a bent hose for the Shuttle's radiator cooling system checks out okay. Shuttle Atlantis's main mission is to deliver and install the ESA's Columbus laboratory, if you can, check out NASA TV , they have cameras everywhere during the launch, very cool to watch.

Haven't had an animated GIF which seems like forerver, so I'll leave you with what I like to call "Moonset over water", I took this image a couple weeks ago with the Canon 40D.

Venus, Jupiter and The Moon Coming Soon,To A Cosmic Theater Near You

There you go people, the largest title in blogging land, probably breaking some kind of writing rules with it, don't care, Bob breaking writing rules Johnson is what they call me. Early Morning Friday February 1st. Venus and Jupiter get very close to each other, low in the SE sky. Then February 3rd. the Moon joins the grouping, should be a great photo op. I'll be out taking pics, weather permitting of course. I love these kind of events because everyone can enjoy them, don't need no scope or binocs, just yourself and the sky.

One site I really recommend for events like these or any other celestial events is Sky View Cafe, in fact the only thing I recommend more is buying real estate. I use Sky View all the time, it lets me know exactly what is happening in my local sky, exactly where the planets, stars, deepsky objects are at any particular time, past , present or future, if you get anything from this site, that would be my greatest gift to you.

I was honored this week with some awards. AngelBaby who has an interesting and cool blog about everything angels has awarded me with the Interesting Blog award, thanks AngelBaby!, I'd like to pass this award on to Anna who has very interesting photo blog which has helped me with some tech advice and settings on taking pics of the Moon and other night time objects. Swubird has a very interesting blog about science, technology and his life experiences in the military. Will has a very informative blog about healthy living for people and our planet Earth. And JD who has great site with awesome images and prose, very excellent blog. I will leave the other awards for future posts, don't want you to think it's all about me and how great I am, even though this blog is kinda all about me and my wacky cosmic adventures.

Got another cool sunset the other day, never really saw the Sun because of the clouds, but the effect it had on lighting up the surrounding landscape with its changing colors was awesome.

I took a bunch of images and stitched them all together, made a movie of it, you really notice the changing of lighting this way, hope you enjoy.

Meet Frank the Moon

Short and sweet post, I just had to fill you in on a new Saturn moon, so far they have named it "Frank" . This is Saturn's 60th. moon, Jupiter is leading at the moment with 62. The 2 gas giants have been battling it out for the most moons for years, its been a back and forth thing for as long as I can remember. Just a little tidbit of info, if you could build a pool big enough for Saturn to fit in, it would float. Saturn's density is less than that of water since it is made up mostly of the light gases hydrogen and helium.