Total Lunar Eclipse

Just finished viewing and imaging a Total Lunar Eclipse, so thought I'd post some images.


The next Total Lunar Eclipse won't be til April of 2014, having said that there will still be a lot of celestial delights going on before then, especially in 2012.

First off because of all the solar activity going on, 2012 promises to bring lots of Auroras.

The Evening of Saturday March 3 you'll see the Moon, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Mars in the sky at the same time with Orion right in the middle of them. A few weeks later Monday March 26 we get to see a triangle shape conjunction of the Moon, Pleiades and Venus, doesn't happen that often, should be cool to view and image.

Venus gets real close to the Pleiades, almost right in the mix Tuesday April 3, again a rare occurrence and won't happen again for another 8 years.

Now on Sunday May 20 the American Southwest gets treated to a Partial Solar Eclipse..but not just any kind of Partial, It will be an Annular, very rare, when the Moon fits just inside the Sun. Most of Canada will receive a regular Partial Solar Eclipse but I am seriously considering driving down to the states just to see and photograph it, it's that cool.

Another biggie....Tuesday June 5 we get a transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, most of Canada will get to see some or all of the event.

Last but not least Monday August 13 we get a daytime Occultation of Venus as the Moon sweeps in front of it. Theses are just some of the major events taking place... a very good year, then we got the whole end of the world thing going on December 21. I'll try to keep you up todate closer to the events so you don't miss.

Storm Worlds and Lunar Venus Conjunction

National Geographic Channel has come through once again with a super 3 part mini series
Storm Worlds, premiering this Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 8-11 PM ET.

Starting off, Cosmic Fire. Imagine a solar event like a huge Coronal Mass Ejection, so powerful it takes out all the power grids across the world and puts us into darkness, destroying communication satellites...no more cell phones. Using dramatic recreations and Computer Generated Imagery National Geographic Channel takes us there, don't think it's possible? Back in 1859 a solar event was so powerful it took out the technologies of the time..the telegraph, over the United States and Europe, actually starting fires in the telegraph offices and just back in 1989 a solar storm one fifth the size of the one in 1859 took out power in Quebec for 11 hours.

A dream team of scientists and policy makers meet in Washington regularly to discuss ways of understanding and dealing with space weather, a natural and alien force that stalks the Earth with the power to send us back to the Steam age. If an event like the one in 1859 was to happen.. and it is when..not if it does, we are not prepared physiologically, culturally or technologically to handle it.




Next up, Alien Wind. Watch with the aid of CGI space storms off the chart in size and power and let me tell you after watching this premier you'll be thanking your lucky stars, for as unpredictable and sometimes stupid our weather is here on our little Earth, it pales in comparison to Saturn's lightning, 10,000 times more powerful than ours..or wind gusts of 11,000 mph on extrasolar planet HD 80606B, methane rain storms on Titan or storms lasting 100's of years on Jupiter. Watch as these storms attack San Francisco using cutting-edge CGI fantasy sequences.



Have you ever wondered what would happen if a Martian size dust storm hit Earth? probably not, but you get to see it using the aid of...that's right CGI, watch as talcum fine dust sandblasts everything in it's path, searing flesh like bleach, impossible to breath and there is nowhere to hide..sucks, good thing it's just fantasy, but fun to watch.

Unfortunately again these premiers are only initially showing in the States, not to worry though, coming to a local celestial theater near you, Saturday May 15 a slim crescent Moon meets up with Venus, just look to the west at Sunset, the Moon will be just below Venus, promises to be a pretty site and great photo op.

I want to leave you now with an animation of my "Sprouting Grass Full Moon" with corona, the name given the April Full Moon by early Native Americans.

The Lunar Venus Conjunction

Finally, the heavens shone down upon me, we had clear skies, mind you -40c windchill, but still clear skies and was able to get some pics of the beautiful Lunar Venus conjunction last night.


I hope you all got to see it as well, Genie did and got a great pic. I decided to do something different this time, change my picture taking venue, went downtown.


It is amazing the amount of people walking, and jogging, that's right jogging around downtown at -40c with windchill. Had a lot of people stopping to see what was going on, I explained and pointed to the Moon and Venus, they all looked up and said things like I didn't know, or that is pretty, all of them thought Venus was a star, no worries, Astro Bob set them straight, gotta do my part for the International Year Of Astronomy 2009.


You'll notice I took a lot of images, hey not very often I get clear skies and an event at the same time, and with the forecast for snow and clouds this coming Monday for the Lunar Pleiades conjunction, I thought I would really go crazy with this one.


Spent nearly 4 hours imaging and traveling in the car to various places taking pics. Final stop was just outside of town where my horizon shots were taken.

Got a cool cloud effect on the Moon, notice the color starting to change from white to an orange as they start to set.


At Black hokes I always try to do something a little different every now and then, the image below certainly qualifies. All I did was download Paint.net processing software, in the program under effects there is something called "Polar Inversion" clicked on it, and it transformed one of my Lunar Venus image into something , well very different, lots of Moons, lots of Venuses and lots of trees..... good enough for mes.


Another positive, I was just reading on Universe Today, an excellent site, I highly recommend you subscribe to them, about the Obama administration going ahead with Bush's plan to put a man on the Moon by 2020. A pleasant surprise indeed, who knows they may still be in the race for the Moon.


I'll leave you with a clip I put together of 70 images, real time 10 minutes. Courtesy of Planetary Mechanics, the celestial pairing of the Moon and Venus setting in the west, a beautiful orange combo.