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.

National Geographic Channel "Known Universe" Premiere

National Geographic Channel comes through again with a six part mini series highlighting profound mysteries of our known universe. Really the only fault I can find with any of these shows is the fact that they only show in the US, sucks if you live any where else. Computer Generated Imagery, time lapse sequences, slow motion footage, everyday examples and expert's input all go towards great cosmic TV viewing.

Known Universe: Cosmic Collisions

Thursday, April 1, at 10 PM ET.

Apophis a 230 meter near earth object is slated to come between Earth and it's geosynchronous satellites December 2029, it will just miss us but if it happens to enter what they call the keyhole, an area 600 meters wide above the Earth, the Earth's Gravity will alter it's orbit which will put it into a collision course with us on it's return trip April 17, 2036, fatalities estimated at 10 million. We are in a shooting gallery and it is not a question of if but when we get hit by one of these near earth Objects. Using Computer Generated Imagery you'll see, various cosmic collisions like a major asteroid hitting the north pole of Mars, removing the Martian crust and creating the Lowlands, covering almost half the planet. An asteroid hit Venus so hard that it changed it's direction of spin, you'll see 2 neutron stars collide creating more energy in a micro second then our Sun will produce in it's entire 10 billion year lifetime.



Known Universe: Stellar Storms

Thursday, April 8, at 10 PM ET.

Start off with seeing the worst, tornadoes, earthquakes, lightning/thunderstorms, heatwaves the Earth has to offer then travel to Jupiter to visit the Great Red Spot, a storm 3 times the size of Earth that has been going on for maybe 1,000s of years, with winds up to 500 mph, which btw would rip into wood, Earth's fastest recorded wind is 300 mph. Head to Neptune's Great Dark Spot, a storm the size of Earth with winds of up to 1000 mph, then off to exoplanet HD80606B (image above) with storm winds of up to 11, 000 mph. Saturn's Moon Titan coming in at around -300 F has methane showers and lakes, exoplanet Corot-7b with temps of 3,000 F has rivers and lakes of molten minerals and liquefied zinc showers. See dust storms on Mars that cover the whole planet, you'll visit these places and more with the aid of cool CGI



Known Universe: Alien Contact

Thursday, April 16, at 10 PM ET.

The age old question, is there other intelligent life out there somewhere in the Cosmos? Did God create the heavens so we could take pictures of cool things like galaxies just so we could use them as wallpaper on our desktops? I personally think there is other intelligent life out there, I mean there are billions and billions of galaxies, and billions and billions of stars in each of those galaxies, with the majority having planets orbit them, odds are there has got to be a few with intelligent life on them. You'll learn of the Kepler Mission to hunt out Earth like planets, visit SETI, travel to Saturn's Moon Enceladus, Jupiter's Europa, both ice wolds that may have life beneath their surface.

Known Universe: Decoding The Skies

Thursday, April 29, at 10 PM ET.

What we take for granted, and rarely even look at anymore, our cosmos, was what the ancients used and decoded for survival. Being able to understand the stars was key in developing, clocks and calenders, gave the hunter gathers of the time the ability to know when the best time was for planting crops, giving them the power to adapt, therefore they could advance from hunter gatherers to settlers and better make use of their time to solve more of their day to day problems. You'll see some of the most magnificent and largest monuments ever built, such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge how they are related to the heavens and if maybe the ancients had a little help with the construction from alien visitors. Just a cool fact, one of many in this show. The Dogon tribe in North Africa worshiped a star Sirius B back in 3200BC, the thing is it wasn't even discovered till 1862, how did they know about it, simple, they said they had visitors from there, well I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying it's kind of cool, the Ancients if nothing else have very interesting histories.

Known Universe: Final Frontiers

Thursday, May 6, 10 PM ET.

The two major frontiers left to explore, Deep Space and our Deep Oceans, we have only explored 5% of our oceans and less then that of space. Blind shrimp, albino crabs, huge clams, giant tube worms, with human like blood, up until just a while ago we never knew these things ever existed here on earth, deep in our oceans. The ability to stand and thrive in extreme pressures with no sunlight, life was more adaptable and creative then we could ever have imagined, life elsewhere in the universe became a whole lot more probable. This gave scientists who are looking for alien life a better understanding of how life on other planets might thrive and where to go looking for it, like the ice moons of Enceladus and Europa . Interesting fact, there are 2 million animal and plant species, living on the Earth, 200,000 living in our oceans, some scientists are saying there might be as many as 25 million more marine species to be discovered. From Deep Oceans to Deep Space, you'll learn how our universe is expanding and why. Ninety Five percent of our Universe is made up of stuff we do not know the nature of, Dark Matter and Dark Energy may be the cause of it's expansion.

Known Universe: Cosmic Fury

Thursday, May 13, 10 PM ET.

Volcanoes and Earthquakes have killed 75 million people in recorded history, can you imagine if we had planet wide volcanoes like Venus, at any one time, Venus has 1600 major erupting volcanoes and up to 100,000 smaller ones. Io, one of Jupiter's Moons has 300 going on at the same time , with eruptions 100s of miles in the air. Being so close to Jupiter the tidal forces at work are such that during it's high tide the surface is actually stretched 330 ft in the air. Our Sun has solar flares thousands of miles into space, when they break they snap down onto it's surface creating a Sun quake, 11.3 on the Richter scale, 100 times more powerful then our largest ever recorded Earthquake. Talk about Cosmic Fury, Magnetars, a type of Neutron star, their flares can cause quakes of 32 on the Richter scale, that would turn Earth's crust inside out.

Well there you have it, some cool shows coming your way the next couple months. I'll leave you now with a preview of the first in the series Cosmic Collisions.

National Geographic Channel's "A Traveler's Guide to The Planets"

Get ready with an out of this world journey to the planets with National Geographic Channel's "A Traveler's Guide To The Planets" a 3 day, 6 part mini series premiering Sunday February 14, a.k.a Valentines Day 9pm EDT. What better way to cap off an evening with that someone special then to tour Saturn and Jupiter.

Using a combination of the latest images taken with the biggest and best Earth telescopes and stunning CGI animations you'll navigate through Saturn's rings, tour it's surface and view it's amazing auroras, then it's on to Jupiter, dive below it's atmosphere which is so dense the pressure of which could crush a car into the size of a tin can. Jupiter the solar system's vacuum cleaner, with it's immence gravitational pull sucking in comets and asteroids that would otherwise pummel the Earth, without Jupiter they estimate we'd be hit by a comet every 50 years or so, life as we know it would not exist.


Monday, February 15, at 9pm EDT. Travel to Mars, Venus and Mercury. Did you know that 4.5 billion years ago Venus and Earth began as planetary twins, formed right next to each other, even exchanging materials, parts of Venus were falling on Earth and visa versa. You'll learn all kinds of cool things about these 3 planets, again the animations and visuals on the preview dvds were awesome.


Tuesday, February 16, at 9pm EDT. Last stops on our journey of the Planets, Neptune, Uranus and yes..little Pluto, still a planet in Bobland. You'll see stunning new pictures of these planets and visit the New Horizons control room where scientists are working with the first spacecraft to visit Pluto around 2015, just past Jupiter, 1979 more days to arrival at Pluto.

Unfortunately the mini series is only showing for now in the U.S. but as in past NGC space shows have come to Canada within 6-8 months through the Discovery and Canadian National Geographic Channels.. I will update you on this one either through my blog or my Facebook where I am spending some time at.

I'll leave you now with a preview clip of Saturn.

Two New NGC Premieres, Ride Of a Lifetime and Gumby

I'm going to take another break before I wrap up my China adventures to tell you of a couple of National Geographic Channel premieres coming this Sunday August 23rd at 9 and 10 pm EDT.


First off at 9:00 pm EDT Alien Earths. Join a team of astronomers and leading scientists in the search for alien earths, another place we could call home. So far they have discovered around 350 planets, all of which you wouldn't want to live on. too hot, too cold, oceans filled with gas ect. With the aid of CGI animations you'll journey to these unbelievably strange and odd worlds, the stuff of sci fi. You'll also see what they are doing to hunt for worlds much like our own using Kepler, the first spacecraft of it's type able to discover earth size and smaller planets capable of supporting life as we know it. Of all the strange planets and oddities you'll discover my favorite is the Planemo, a poor little planet that has been thrown out of it's solar system into space. It wanders in the darkness of space, looking for a new home. I'm surprised no sci fi shows or books have been done using the Planemo as a story line, work with me on this one people.

A little planet gets the boot from it's solar system through a freak of gravity of a larger planet, gets captured by another system, maybe even a double star system, the planet develops a highly intelligent life form capable of light speed and they hear through the space grapevine a planet is being invaded by beings from the same planet that jostled them out of their solar system millions of years before, the planet being invaded is Earth. They come, rid us of the invading aliens and give us the technology to build holodecks.





Next at 10:00 pm EDT Hawking's Universe. Stephen Hawking is probably one of the most famous scientists in the word and you'll learn a little of his early life before he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, meet his daughter, find out some of his major contributions to the field of astrophysics and learn of his quest to find the theory of everything. His goal in life, and I quote, "My goal is simple, it is the complete understanding of the universe, why it exists the way it is and why it exists at all". Hawking first put forth the theory that black holes are not completely black, that they give off radiation and are slowly evaporating through radiation, what we call "Hawking Radiation", named after him. His theory says that just before it goes into nothingness it gives off energy, depending on the size of the black hole, unspeakable energy, is this what caused the Big Bang? The preview dvds I received look real good, something you won't want to miss, again this Sunday starting at 9:00 pm EDT. Unfortunately these programs are only available in the US. Previous NGC shows I have mentioned here are slowly making their way to Canada through the Canadian Discovery HD Channel and the Canadian NGC, if you live in Canada just keep an eye open for them on those channels.


Now, I'd like to leave you with a video I took on my adventure in China, it is a ride on the Maglev, the worlds fastest railway in commercial use. We took the Maglev from the financial district in Shanghai to Shanghai's Pudong Airport, WOW, what a blast!! The 30 km distance took less then 7 minutes to cover, top speed 431 km and hour. Note at five and a half minutes into the ride a Maglev going in the opposite direction passes within feet of us scaring the crap out of me and a traveling partner, also notice at seven and a half minutes into the ride you'll see the Shanghai's 2010 World Expo mascot "Haibao". I'm thinking he looks a lot like Gumby, everybody thought I was crazy, especially the people that asked what a Gumby was, what do you think?

Real Gumby.


Haibao(Gumby wannabe).

New Sun Spots and New National Geographic Channel Premier, "Living On The Moon"

Finally our sun seems to be coming back to life. The sun goes through an 11 year cycle where it waxes and wanes with solar activity. The sun has been stuck in the waning phase for an extended period and up until a month or so ago solar physicists didn't really know why.

Seems a slower then usual moving solar jet stream associated with sunspot production thousands of miles below the sun's surface has finally reached a critical 22 degree latitude of the sun and with it new cycle sunspots.


Got a call from Spaceweather PHONE last Sunday, July 5 informing me of a huge Sunspot taking place and got lucky with a break in the clouds to capture some of the solar action.





The image above is active region 1024 starting to disappear by July 6. They expect upwards of 90 sunspots to occur daily at solar maximum sometime in 2013.







National Geographic Channel is celebrating the 40 th. anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing with a new premier,
"Living On The Moon". The show will be aired Sunday July 19, 9 pm EDT, a day before the actual anniversary of July 20.


See inside NASA's Constellation program which will take 4 astronauts to the Moon's south pole as early as 2020, only this time round our long term goal is to stay and set up base.

Using 3D animations you'll watch as the initial lonely outpost expands to a lunar city by 2050 and a tourist resort by the middle of the twenty first century.

To be able to survive and flourish on the moon we'll have to harness the lunar resources from turning moon rock into water to eventually exporting lunar produced solar energy to our earth, very interesting concepts and one of NGC's best premiers.

This will be my last post before I leave for China next Wednesday. I will post if I am able, if not see you when I get back July 28. I'll leave you now with a video of the Constellation program from launch to splashdown.

The Fastest, Smallest, Biggest and Most Explosive

National Geographic Channel comes through for us again, this time with three new premiers, count em, three, The Fastest, The Biggest and Smallest and The Most Explosive. This coming Sunday February 15 starting at 8 pm EDT. National Geographic, using Computer Generated imagery (CGI), time lapse sequences, and easy to understand demonstrations takes you on a journey through our cosmos. Starting with The Fastest.

When exploring our universe, fastest is bestest. Exploration of space depends on speed, the faster we go the more we explore, the more we learn. You'll see new and emerging technologies to get us to where we gotta go, fast. Like the new Magneto Plasma Rocket, funneling hot plasma through magnets to produce lots of thrust, thrust= speed, propelling us to hundreds of thousands of miles per hour, getting us to places like Mars in 39 days instead of the chemical rocket time of 260 days. Less time in space means less deadly cosmic radiation exposure for the Astronauts. Seriously.......being confined for 260 days with a group of people with no sex and drinking recycled urine, the whole deadly cosmic radiation thing doesn't even rate on my "things to worry about list", given the choice leastest is better. But even hundreds of thousands of miles an hour aren't fast enough to take us to the outer reaches of our galaxy, then the universe, enter worm holes and warp drive, we are only limited by our imaginations.


In the "Smallest and Biggest" you see the vastness of our universe down to the infinitesimal particles that make up everything. You'll see how nano technology is making advances in medicine with nanodiamonds delivering chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells killing them off, image above.


Now my most favorite show, "The Most Explosive", who doesn't like a good explosion? You'll see lots, volcanoes, Super Novas, Gamma Ray Bursts and the ultimate, The Big Bang. You'll also see the coolest animation of an asteroid strike.

We just had a meteoroid hit Saskatchewan skies November 20 last year, they figure it was only the size of a desk yet It was seen by thousands of people from British Columbia to Manitoba. Can you imagine seeing a 10 km size rock, the size they think caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs enter the atmosphere, what a show it must have put on, that would be too cool to watch, a literal once in a life time thing, mostly because you be dead after. One can only imagine what the dinosaurs were thinking........"Crap, we... are... so... fracked".  The Big Bang, the biggest explosion ever. In a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, space time exploded into matter billions of miles across and created all the substance we know of today, all the ingredients for every explosion to follow. If you happen to miss the Sunday shows, they will be repeated Thursday February 19 starting at 7:00 pm EDT. These are American times only, Canadian times to follow once I know.

One last thing, a couple of satellites, one American and one Russian, both communication, collided 790 miles above Siberia Tuesday, what are the odds? I mean space is generally pretty big, kind of makes you feel it is getting crowded up there. No immediate risk to the International Space Station but they are monitoring the resulting 600 pieces of debris, which they feel will eventually fall to Earth and burn up in our atmosphere over the next few years. Unfortunately there are no pictures, I guess there aren't a whole lot of camera carrying tourists over in Northern Siberia.



Going through my images I've taken over the last year I came across my favorite lunar eclipse image, the blues and turquoise were cause by the sunlight passing through our ionosphere, which scatters the reds and allows the greens and blues through to the lunar surface, too cool, thought I would make an animation of it, next total lunar eclipse isn't until December 21 2010, long way to go.

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.

National Geographic Channel's "Direct From The Moon"and Phoenix Lander Recieves An Award

Get some more popcorn, the National Geographic Channel has another great space show lined up for us. As part of their first annual expedition week, "Direct From The Moon" will be broadcast in the U.S. this coming Monday November 17 at 9:00 pm EST, Canadian dates to follow.

Watch in High Definition, a beautiful Earth Rise and other Lunar images sent back to us from the Moon by JAXA's Kaguya spacecraft as Buzz Aldrin, second Man on the Moon gives his thoughts, very cool. You'll also hear from NASA scientists about the current goings on with respect to returning and setting up a permanent Moon Base as well as the challenges and the innovative technologies that will almost certainly arise as we reach for the Moon once again. Excellent program, one you won't want to miss.




Looks like the Phoenix is done for, with the onslaught of the Martian winter and dust storms the lander is not getting enough Sunlight to charge batteries required to operate Phoenix's scientific equipment.

Having said that the mission has been very successful, the textbook rocket landing, confirming the presence of ice water, returning more than 25,000 images, analysing Martian soil, recording and analysing weather conditions, filming and documenting the first ever snowfall on an alien planet, you done well Phoenix!! Also the Phoenix Lander has just been awarded in the space and aviation category, Popular Science Magazine's the "Best Of What's New Award". Mark Jannot editor and chief of the magazine stated, "For 21 years, Popular Science's Best Of What's New Awards honor the innovations that make a positive impact on life today and change our views of the future."

What's next? Well how bout a honking huge Mars Science Laboratory Rover, almost like the Phoenix Lander on wheels. A third generation Rover about the size of a small SUV. The image above shows the 3 generations of rovers, wow notice the size difference from my favorite rover guy, Sojourner Mars Rover to the white "I'll kick your Butt if you get In my Way Mars Science Laboratory", geez I think I even see laser turrets on it, take that you alien martian aliens!

This large Rover will carry more scientific instruments, travel the furthest and sample the most Martian rock and soil then any previous spacecraft, all in the quest for life past or present on Mars and to help future Mars colonists. Tentative launch date is October 2009, with it's landing on Mars slated for September 2010.

I'll leave you now with a preview clip of National Geographic Channel's "Direct From The Moon"

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.