Lunar Halo, Conjunction and Family Images

Having a great time here in Kelowna, been mostly cloudy so far but I was still able to do some astronomy, the image above was taken when we had a break in the clouds, what is quite remarkable about it is the sky only cleared for about half an hour, and that when it did clear there was a Lunar halo, a nice touch to my Saturn, Regulus Lunar conjunction. the two white dots just above and to the right of the top of the Moon are Saturn,the top dot, and Regulus the bottom dot.

Lunar, Saturn, Regulus Conjunction, May 12, 2008.


The above image is an image of the conjunction I took just before the sky cleared, the image below was the gathering of the heavenly bodies the night before, May 11, 2008.


Lunar, Saturn, Regulus Conjunction May 11, 2008.


Been taking lots of images with the camera of the mountains, family and various statues, yes people I am officially a tourist. Got my camera bag around my shoulder, my camera in my hand, ready to go. Never really used the camera for taking regular type images, makes sense though, usually have the camera on the tripod , put it in the car, get to point b, take celestial picture, head home. Below are some of my vacation images and an animated gif of my New favorite image, my Lunar Halo.

Cathy, Amanda, Dave



Cathy and Grandogs


Plane flying over Wood Lake


City Park

Ogopogo

Mysterious Bodies

It may surprise you to know I watch a lot of shows about astronomy and space, especially if they are on a high definition channel. One show I watch a lot of is, Naked Science . The other night there was a show "Moon Mysteries" which brought up the fact that the Earth has 10 mysterious bodies orbiting the Earth (not including spy satellites and various weapons of mass destruction), 5 asteriods caught in the Earths gravitational field, 4 pieces of the Apollo 12 rocket, and the Moon. The Apollo 12 item caught my attention, I could see a piece of Apollo 13's service module up there but Apollo 12? Apparently a bolt of lightning struck the rocket in the upper atmosphere and while they were trying to figure out what happened and correct the problem they expended more fuel then they had planned on, therefore they didnt have enough fuel to send the 3rd. stage into solar orbit and it got stuck in earths orbit. More information on the Apollo 12 mission can be found at, JFK Space Center . How was the Moon created? Is the Moon moving away from us? Did the moon have something to do with the way life evolved on Earth? all interesting topics that are brought up in this program. If your looking for more Moon oddities visit, Moon Mysteries. A couple of my favs are about alien bases on the far side, or the idea that the Germans landed on the moon in 1942. We are soooo lucky to have the moon as our partner in the solar system. It is such a beauty to behold. I have spent many hours at the eyepiece looking at mountain ranges and craters and belong to the "Lunar Transient Phenomena Research Program" A program where fellow observers report any unusual events that may transpire on the Moon. The Image above was taken from my backyard September 24th. 2004, The orange spot is not an alien base, (hello, far side) it is the Apollo 12 landing site.