On Going to The Moon and Beyond

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the Human Race to keep all it's eggs in", Robert Heinlein.

Woo Hoo, stopped snowing, but along with the no snow comes the -30c weather, sucks. In between the snow and clouds I got some clear skies. I was able to get some images the other day of a pretty crescent Moon and added a cool oil painting effect.


In my observing down times I have been watching "From The Earth to The Moon" on HBO, an interesting show about our adventure to the Moon. Also been watching for the like gazillionth time "In The Shadow Of the Moon", and... and I've been reading, "The Last Man On the Moon" an excellent book about the Apollo missions from the standpoint of an actual astronaut Gene Cernan. You may have noticed an underlining theme to all the above, I love the Moon, but most importantly, the fact we made it there, hopefully to return one day.


Well maybe not so much. I've also been reading a paper that was just released out of Rice University.

Rice University and NASA go back a long way. Rice University back in 1962 donated a lot of land for NASA's Manned Spacecraft center, later named the Johnson Space Center. The donation prompted Kennedy to make a famous speech from Rice Stadium where he states;

"We chose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard".

The report is directed to the new Obama administration and details the direction NASA should be heading, basically it states NASA should focus more on Earth centric projects like energy and the environment and put a hold on going to the Moon and Mars. They do have some good recommendations in the 15 page report, that is except for one, not going to the Moon and Mars, if it were up to me we'd be on Mars 30 years ago. We are in a galactic shooting gallery, we need to start thinking off planet for our survival, because it is a matter of "when" not "if" we get hit by a mass extinction asteroid/comet.

I know you're probably thinking like everyone else I talk to is, it's just not the right time to be spending money on such costly ventures with the economy the way it is, seriously I feel like I'm part of a bad Sci-Fi B movie, you know the type, you have a crazy scientist yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling, we're all going to die unless something is done, and everybody writes him off as a crack pot, till near the end of the show when everybody sees he was right, implements his master plan and avoids destruction, and they all live happily ever after, and everyone's not dead. I'm kind of the star in my own movie, trying to warn people of the possible catastrophic impact event to come, and everybody has written me off, but you know it's not a matter of if I'm right, it's all a matter of when I'll be right.

For now it looks like we are going to have to depend on China and India, both have stated their intentions on getting a Man on the Moon by 2020. but you know,

"Any one Nation can get to the Moon, it will take the human and financial resources of many to go beyond, where we need to be, to ensure the survival of our species"........... me.

See now that I am a star in my own make believe crazy B movie I'll have to start to italicise more of my musings.

One last thing, look to the West tomorrow night, Friday the 27, just after Sunset to see a pretty gathering of the Crescent Moon and Venus, should make for a great pic.

National Geographic Mars Rovers Special

Just a heads up people, mark your calendars and get the popcorn going for this Sunday night November 2 at 8:00 pm ET for three hours of Mars, the Rovers and the search for aliens on The National Geographic Channel.

The premier of Five Years On Mars gets things rolling. Journey with the little rovers Spirit and Opportunity on what was to be a 90 day mission on the red planet that has now lasted nearly 5 years. Using computer generated high-definition photorealistic animation you'll see how the rovers conquered mechanical failures and the harsh Martian environment to send back literally 100s of thousands of images and enough scientific data to keep scientists busy back here on Earth for years to come.


Very cool, right near the beginning of the show it cuts to a scene of a bunch of scientists all wearing 3D glasses looking over some assembled 3D images taken by the rovers. Well anybody that has read this blog will know that I am one with all things 3D, ........ I so want a job where I have to wear 3D glasses, I can't imagine... well maybe a little.

Intercom system: "ATTENTION! ATTENTION! would Bob Johnson please report to the 3D mission room and bring your 3D glasses with you, there is a lot of 3D scientifical discoveries to be made that will benefit all humankind and we need your expertise and 3D glasses, thank you.... and have a nice day".


Immediately following Five Years on Mars will be an encore showing of Life On Mars, then the premier of Calling All Aliens, about how we are reaching out to the heavens in hopes of one day making alien contact, speaking of which do you remember Jodie Foster in the movie Contact?
well you'll meet the lady her character was based on, Jill Tarter the director of the Allen Telescope Array.


Partially funded by Paul Allen co-founder of Microsoft, the Allen Telescope Array is used by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), 24/7 to collect and monitor datastreams from outer space to see if anyone not of this Earth is trying to make contact.

All in all a great night with 3 awesome programs you won't want to miss. Right now the Canadian dates and times aren't confirmed, once I find out I will update this post.

Also as you're out Halloweening tomorrow night with the kiddies or just out by yourself, look low in the SW just after Sunset for a beautiful gathering of the crescent Moon and Venus.

I'll leave you now with an animation of the Full Moon and clouds.

Phoenix Finds Ice Water

Well scientists are convinced they have found water on Mars, I remain cautiously optimistic, now if they were to come back with a picture of a green alien I'd be saying "I knew it, in your face all you mockers of me", why am I cautiously optimistic? I don't know, I kind of would like to get some of that white substance into one of the lander's ovens to confirm it more scientifically before I jump for joy, I mean that's what the ovens are for, right?



If you remember my last post I had mentioned that the Phoenix People over at NASA were keeping an eye on the white substance in one of their previous digs. If the substance either developed frost or evaporated through sublimation, which is just a fancy term for changing from a solid to a vapour without going through the water stage, it would be ice water. Well as you can see from the above animation, some of it has, the only other thing the white could have been was salt, and salt doesn't work like that.


If this is indeed ice water it has profound implications, besides a water source for future colonists, you now have the ability to manufacture oxygen and fuel. When you are talking space travel, weight is key, the lighter the payload the less the cost, if you have the ability to manufacture the return trip fuel on Mars, the weight along with the cost of the mission goes down and the doability factor up. On a deeper level, with the finding of water on Mars, the possibilities of finding life increases dramatically, think about it, to find even a microbial alien life form on Mars, in our own backyard so to speak, opens up the imagination and possibilities to other life forms in the billions and billions of galaxies in our known universe, to say the least , exciting times and a step towards answering the age old question, "are we alone?"

Strawberry Moon June 18, 2008

In case you missed the June Full Moon I took some images. Called the Strawberry Moon by the Algonquin tribe because they harvested Strawberries during the month of June. I love horizon Full Moons, they always look squashed. The squashness is caused by the Earth's atmosphere acting like a lens and refracting the bottom of the Moon upwards.




As the Moon rose higher in the sky I took some images of it through my telescope, notice on both these images you can see light mist and clouds , the top image notice the dark shadow on the top right of the Moon, the bottom Moon most of the right side is covered with a light shadow, also notice the gold color of the image below, it was lower on the horizon and it's moonlight had to travel through more of our atmosphere which scatters the blues and allows the reds through to be seen by us.




I'll leave you with a clip I put together of the Moon Rise consisting of 54 images over a 7 minute time frame.

Mars And Beehive Star Cluster Conjunction

Took a couple images of the Mars, Beehive open star cluster conjunction which occurred May 22nd. The Beehive Cluster is located in the constellation Cancer, is anywhere from about 400-750 million years old, 577 light years away and is 16 light years in diameter.


Ancient Greeks called the stars in the sky that seemed to wander, Planetoi. wanderers, hence the word planet, my second image below I took the night after my first shot illustrates the wandering part quite nicely thank you very much.

A cool utility that I used to frame the top image is Pikifx, if you want to email someone a picture you took and make it look a little more finished you can just put a frame around it. The software is totally free and it's one of those things like my fisheye lens and animated images at the bottom of my posts that I will probably overuse, I have a habit of grabbing onto something I really, really like and using it over and over and over and over and over again until I get sick of it and stop, and then remembering about it again and then the cycle repeats itself, over and over again.

Some more cool upcoming conjunctions are happening, one June 7th. the Moon with earthshine and Mars are getting together, look low in the west sky around an hour after Sunset. June 8th. look to the west an hour after Sunset again for a Moon Saturn and Regulus gathering. June 30th. look in the west sky for Saturn, Mars and Regulus grouping and then July 5th. and 6th. west sky again for a Saturn, Mars, Regulus and Moon conjunction, all these conjunctions about an hour after Sunset.

The The Phoenix Mars Lander has gathered its first official scoop and is ready to deposit it into Its' lab's partially open doors, yeah that's right the doors haven't fully opened up, it will take up to a week to study the sample and come back with the results. I'm hoping it will be "We've found water!" instead of the usual "We've found evidence of water."



Totally off space topics and keeping with my overuse problem, I have posted a framed image of a yellow bird that I took while on vacation in BC, I have looked everywhere for the name and type of bird with no luck, can anybody help me out? I would really like to know the type of bird this is.

I'll like to leave you now with my Milky Way image with the exploding meteor as an animated gif, which I call "Shooting Star"

STS 124 and Phoenix Talks

Discovery is set to launch tonight at 5:02 pm EDT. Discovery will have the largest payload to the International Space Station to date. They will be delivering and installing the pressurized module for the Kibo lab as well as the module's robotic arm system. Discovery will also be delivering parts for the station's broke toilet. That's right they have a broke toilet....... wait, they only have one toilet? I know from experience, after at one time living with 3 women, 4 if you count the cat that the minimum requirements should be 1 bathroom per person, right now it's just my wife and I and we have 2 bathrooms, that is just sufficient, anything less is criminal. The station houses 3 astronauts, what are they going to do when in the near future the station will be occupied by 6 astronauts? People we are going to see the first death in space and it isn't going to be due to some dangerous spacewalk. Man if I were an astronaut I'd be, well first I'd be saying, is it here yet, is it here yet ,is it here yet... I'm hungry, but I'd be asking the question, " this Japanese kibo module thingy.. has it got a bathroom?" it should be space station code, one bathroom per astronaut.

The cost to repair the toilet. 19 followed by 6 zeros, that's right 19 million dollars! NASA said it is cheaper to buy parts from the Russian manufacture for the old one rather then build a new one from scratch, the Russians saw us coming, wow, we can put a man on the Moon yet we can't build a cheaper then $19,000,000 space toilet.

On the Phoenix Mars Lander front, scientists have noticed what they think might be ice that was exposed by the thrusters on landing, just off one of the lander's legs, very cool, they expect to do some digging as early as next week, so excited. A possible short circuit was detected on one of the lander's scientific instruments, the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, this instrument tracks how much heat is needed to melt or vaporize substances in a sample then examine the vapours driven off by the heat. Scientists are looking into the problem, "We have developed a strategy to gain a better understanding of this behavior, and we have identified workarounds for some of the possibilities," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, lead scientist for the instrument . During the descent stage the Mars Express Orbiter picked up the sounds created by Phoenix as it was descending to the Martian surface, check it out.

On my flight back from Kelowna I took a bunch of videos and pics over the mountains, I made one of the mountain images I took from the plane window into an animated gif, looks pretty cool, at least I think so, but I think everything looks cool this way, hey even a toilet.

Phoenix Mars Lander's Arrival

Well people they pulled it off, a flawlessly performed landing on the Martian surface at 7:53 pm EDT Sunday May 25th. by the Phoenix Mars Lander. The image above was taken by the onboard telescope from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it is the lander parachuting to the surface. This was the first successful use of parachutes and thrusters, or what they call a power landing since the Viking missions in 1976.

The Phoenix lander (above image taken by the MRO) has onboard scientific instruments to determine whether ice and water on top of or just below the surface could have ever supported life. NASA'S Mars exploration program has 4 main goals.



1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars.

2: Characterize the climate of Mars.

3: Characterize the geology of Mars.

4: Prepare for Human exploration.


The Phoenix lander has two main objectives.


1: Study the history of water in the Martian arctic.

2: Search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

I watched NASA TV for most of Sunday, very exciting, my pulse was racing those 7 minutes during descent and landing. Why am I so excited, and why should you care? Baby steps my friends, that's what space exploration is all about, we ain't gonna be warping to some far off galaxy anytime soon, but every little bit of progress helps us, so that one day we can reach for the stars.

I don't just see a lander on Mars gathering ice water, I see a successful completion of a step needed to get us on our way to the outer reaches of the galaxy, nay the universe. Earth is a great place and all, but we only have a limited time before our life supply burns out. Estimates range anywhere from half to a few billion years before our Sun will no longer be able to support us, we have to do what we can to propagate our species, or we can just give up and become extinct.

God gave us all the tools we need to complete this objective; curiosity, intelligence, why else did God create the cosmos?, has to be a reason, so many unanswered questions, so little time. I think we are in exciting times, sure I wish I had been born about 300 years from now, I need more technology, like a Holodeck or Replicator, but with our ever expanding space exploration programs and what I think is the most exciting thing to happen in science in a long time; the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, we are setting ourselves up for some of the greatest discoveries of humankind.

I'll leave you now with an animated Moonrise taken a few days ago.

Mars and Saturn Lunar Conjunctions

We had a couple of Lunar conjunctions, on April 11th. there was the Mars/ Moon conjunction, the image above, I had clear skies for that one and with the earthshine made for a pretty picture. The image below was the Saturn /Lunar conjunction of April 14th. Had lots of fast moving clouds with little earthshine, image below, still made for a pretty image, note the fast moving clouds, at least they broke to give me a view of Saturn the Moon and Regulus, or the technical official name Alpha Leonis, the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion.

Another friendly reminder about the upcoming Lyrid meteor shower Monday the 21st. through to the morning of the 22nd. This is the peak time for the shower, it actually starts April the 16th. through to the morning of the 25th. They are calling for snow the 21 and 22 here in Saskatoon so I was out to see what I could see last Thursday night, the last clear sky to be had for a week or so, I saw around 6 an hour average over the 3 hours I was out, not bad for a non peak night, and a huge one right over my head, where the camera wasn't pointing. I got a shot of a couple meteors I will post after the event in case I get a break in the clouds on the 21st. Look to the NE around 11 pm EDT for the show to begin. The radiant or the place where the meteors appear to emanate from is the Lyra constellation. Expect 10- 15 an hour, by the way they are short and very fast, at least the ones I saw. The Moon will be full so will take a little away from the contrast but hey it's a meteor shower, nothing better then wishing on a falling star.

One of the things I try to do here at Black holes is make the sky a little more user friendly, more enjoyable so that when you go out for a walk at night you know a little bit more, like what is that bright star next to the Moon, or where to look for a conjunction or when the next meteor shower is. Our Royal Astronomical Society of Canada President Scott Young came up with a TOP TEN list of ways to turn young people off astronomy, it was of course written for other amateur astronomers but you can still get a laugh or two out of it.

10: Show them a deep sky object in a small or medium sized scope as their first look.

9: Bash the Tasco scope they already own as not worth using.

8: Lapse into jargon and spew technical details and costs of your gear, and how you need to have perfect gear and perfect conditions or it's not worth observing.

7: Rant about light pollution without a good idea of what to say.(This can make astronomers sound like fringe environmentalists.)

6: Spend time talking with the inner circle at a Centre meeting and ignore the newbies.

5: Explain how using a computer-aided telescope isn't real astronomy.

4: Assume the newbie at the public star night will see the same level of detail that your 35-years-of-experience-eyes can see.

3: Show them Venus, Mercury, an asteroid, an outer planet or dwarf planet, a double star, a variable star, a planetary nebula, a galaxy, a star cluster, or about any northern-hemisphere deep-sky object other than the Orion Nebula.

2: Show them Mars, EXCEPT at a favourable opposition in a big scope with good seeing and a red filter.

1: Mock their misconceptions or beliefs about the universe the first time you meet them(and they meet you).

I'd like to leave you with one of the cloudy Moon images I took a few nights ago as an animated Gif

New Images of Phobos, Moon of Mars

Julie over at Virtual Voyage, an awesome site with great photography, gave me a heads up about some new images that had been released of the Mars Moon Phobos. I had talked a little about this moonlet here, in my Beaver Moon post. Back then NASA had just released some new images of the Mars moons Phobos and Deimos.

Phobos and Deimos November, 2007

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took 2 images from around 6,000 kms out from the moonlet and combined them together for a stereo view. NASA also released some anaglyph images of the moonlet. If you have red /blue 3d glasses, and I do, you can see the little moon like it's coming out of the screen towards you, scary stuff.




This moonlet may have a lot of ice water, because of this there is a lot of interest in this little moon, so much so that Russia had launched a couple of spacecraft to Phobos. Phobos 1 was lost after a couple of months due to programming errors and Phobos 2 had made it to the moonlet took a picture of a UFO, so some say, and then one of it's computers died. Never say never, Russian and China have joined together to send Phobos Grunt to land on Phobos and Mars and then return with samples of their surfaces, a very ambitious mission indeed. Phobos Grunt is slated to launch next year.

The night after the Moon/ Pleiades conjunction I was back out and got a cool image of the Moon with earthshine in clouds, I'll leave you now with an animated gif of this image.

The International Space Station, Gemini and Mars Conjuntion

I'v been sucking wind lately with trying to come up with titles, woke up 5:30 am do the post before work, think what will I be talking about, lets see the International Space Station, Gemini, Mars...and they're kinda conjuncting,...done, good enough. The above image was possible due of course to my camera but also a web site called Heavens Above.



You type in your location latitude and longitude, which you can find here and it comes back with flybys of the various satellites that will pass over your location, it gives you the start and end times, the altitude and magnitude, plus a couple maps. The map above was the one I used for the ISS last Saturday. I knew that at 9:23 pm the ISS would rise above the west horizon, it would reach it's max altitude in Gemini around 9:28 pm, and then disappear into the shadow of the Earth shortly after, it also tells you how high it is, the flyby that night was at 372 km.

So of course it's cloudy, even though the weather network says it isn't, I go out to my spot just in case it isn't cloudy out there, or maybe the clouds will fly away by the time I get there. Get to my site look to the sky, and there are clouds. They don't look to be moving out of the way anytime soon. I'm about to go back to the car to leave and I notice the star Sirius trying to burn through the clouds, and think the ISS is much brighter and bigger, it might work.

So after some experimenting with f stops, exposure rates and the ISO levels, I come up with a combo that brings out the stars that are trying to burn through the clouds without over exposing the image, just in time, I notice the ISS rising above the west horizon, take a pic, 15 sec exposure, anything longer would have overexposed the image due to all the clouds

I was able to get 4 pics before the ISS disappeared into the Earth's shadow, the image above. The ISS is looking especially bright these days with all the additions like the Columbus Laboratory giving it more overall surface area for Sunlight reflection. I'll leave you with a video I put together of the images I took of the ISS flyby.

Lunar Halo and Mars, Moon Conjunction

Out on my back deck getting some images of the Mars , Moon conjunction last Friday night when I noticed that a lunar halo was starting to form, try to take a picture from my backyard, no go, with all the city lights there wasn't enough contrast, decided to get out of town, literally, not sarcastically, and get the pic. These things come and go real quickly so I run through the house with my camera and tripod telling my wife gotta go , take pictures. Ever since I got the Canon 40D I've been doing a lot of this up and leaving on such short notice, so my wife is used to it.

Get to my site, setup the tripod and camera, get the pics. Lots going on in the night sky, there was Mars conjuncting with the Moon, the Pleiades, Orion out in full force and to top it all off the lunar halo. Quite an awesome sight, maybe even enough to impress my wife.

About a month ago I was driving my wife to work when I noticed Venus shining brightly in the east sky, burning through some light clouds, very impressive indeed, pointed this out to my wife, she said cool. That's what I'm talking about, may not know how to fix a car, or build an addition to a house, but I know where Venus is. We were stopped at a red light when I noticed out of the corner of my eye Venus starting to move, now don't get me wrong planets move, just not that fast and certainly not back into the direction from which they just came. Thinking to myself, please don't be a plane, please don't be a plane, please don't be a plane, crap it's a plane, then I'm thinking, please don't let her notice, please don't let her notice, please don't let her notice, then "Hey that's not Venus, it's a plane", credibility down the tubes, but now with this impressive sight, throw around words like Lunar halo, gotta impress. Get home, tell my wife about the Lunar halo, she says, "You're making this up", I say no, come out and take a look, thinking to myself, still be there, still be there, still be there, it was, she was impressed, everything is right again with the universe. Sorry about the grainy images, blogger wouldn't let me download anything more than 268k, I think one image is like 68k, the originals are fabulous, really.

A couple things to watch out for coming up in April are an occultation/conjunction of the Moon and the Pleiades April 8th., will be very cool as the Moon will be in a crescent phase and showing off it's earthshine, good viewing and photo op. On April 21st. the Lyrid meteor shower takes place, expect around 15 an hour, the Moon will be almost full which will take away some of the shower's bite, but hey, still a meteor shower none the less, and worth a view. Tonight you can see the Moon and Saturn conjuncting , Saturn will be just above the Moon. I will continue to update you on these and other events happening in the night sky on future posts.

Leave you now with my latest Sunset animation, taken a couple nights ago.

Black holes and astrostuff new look and 100th post

I've been saving the above picture for my 100th post, taken February 19 it is one of my favorite Moon images, the Moon brings the clouds to life, I like to call it, Moon in clouds with tree branches in the bottom left hand corner......picture.

I'd like to thank Lady Omega for doing such a great job of designing the new look for Black holes, all her hard work and continuous emails asking technical questions, like, how do you feel about wordpress or blogger, backup this, backup that, blah, blah ,blah, silly Lady Omega, my major concern is if I can get the little funny guys in the comment section, you know those emoticons you can add after your comments, there is a little green alien guy to die for, still working on it.

My 100th post today, I had something deep prepared for this special occasion, but after reading it I thought, this truly sucks, finally said to myself, "Bob step away from the post, step away from the post", you can't do deep, you only got what you got. Therein lies the problem, space is deep. My mission from the outset of this blog was to bring the universe to you from the viewpoint of a guy with a telescope, so that maybe you can somehow feel the wonder and excitement as I do, oh and you would all go out and buy a scope and live happily ever after.

I'm not an intellect or a writer, but being both those things would make it so much easier, well life's not like that, at least not for me, so all I can do is continue to do what I've been doing, inform you about the latest happenings in the night sky, so you can walk out your back door, look to the stars and have a better understanding and appreciation of all that has been given to us, maybe just for a moment you can forget your daily woes, they will be there once you walk back in the house, but for a time you will have gained a little of what God has so graciously bestowed upon me, a love for the utter magnificence of our cosmos.

Venus, Mercury and The Crescent Moon Conjunction

Got a cool shot this morning of the 5% crescent Moon and Venus, Mercury unfortunately was washed out by the glare of the rising Sun. The oddest thing happened to me as I was taking one of my images, this wild white and gray rabbit goes whizzing by me about 10 yards in front of me, went looking for it after the long exposure shot, but he was long gone.

I love these kind of conjunctions, don't need any equipment to see them , everybody can enjoy them, pretty cool to see a crescent Moon and Venus during daytime, the scene was almost surrealistic with a fine early morning mist adding to the photo op. Mercury would have been in between the Crescent Moon and Venus. Some more conjunctions coming up are, The evening of March 14, a gathering of the Moon, Mars and an open star cluster M35 will occur for all of Canada. The Moon and Mars will meet up again April 11th, if you live in Labrador and Northern Quebec you will see Mars partly covered by the Moon, should be very cool. The evening of April 8th. if you live in North America look to the west during twilight to get an awesome view of the Moon illuminated with Earthshine sitting beside and covering some of the stars of the Pleiades, very cool. Finally April 27th. look to the South East early morning to see the Moon passing just under Jupiter a beautiful morning star at that time in Sagittarius.

An awesome image of an avalanche happening on Mars was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). An image of ice, rock and dust falling from a cliff over 2,300 ft high in the Martian Northern Polar region was captured February 19th. and released March 3rd. Scientists are saying it is great to see something so dynamic happening on Mars, a lot of what they see on Mars hasn't changed for millions of years. No one is really sure what caused the avalanche, some figure it is the result of the changing seasons happening on Mars right now. Regardless of the cause it is a good example how the Martian surface can change very fast. What scientists learn from this could give them a better understanding of the water cycle on Mars. It might interest you to know that over 2,400 images were released March 3rd, including the image below of a blue crescent Earth and Moon taken as well by the Orbiter.

I'll leave you now with a beautiful Sunrise I captured the other day, showing a Solar pillar and some Sun dogs.