Lunar, Pleiades and Mercury Conjunction

My last post I discussed the Mercury, Pleiades conjunction, well on April 26 the Moon joined the gathering.


What a beautiful sight. Each of the celestial objects took their turns being covered and then breaking through the clouds to allow me to be able to capture the trio.

Lunar , Pleiades Conjunction April 26 2009.

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction April 24 2009.

This was like a super dooper 3 part conjunction. First you had Mercury and the Pleiades, then the Moon arrives for part II, then the Moon leaves for part III. Since I don't get to image Mercury that often and the fact I love the Pleiades I made it my week long project to capture the part III conjunction to show Mercury drawing closer to the Pleiades, kind of cool, the way they move through the sky.

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction April 26 2009

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction April 27 2009.

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction April 28 2009.

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction April 29 2009

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction May 1 2009.

Mercury, Pleiades Conjunction May 2 2009.


Finally I'd like to mention about a cool new website that was just launched; " Portal To The Universe". It is another cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. It's an easy to navigate web 2.0 based astronomy site. Like a supermarket of websites, one stop shopping where you can go see the latest space images , listen to pod watch vodcasts, read about the latest happenings in space, see the current locations of the ISS or Hubble, and more. If you like space news and the such, check it out.

I'll leave you now with an animation of one of my Lunar, Pleiades and Mercury Conjunction

Lunar Venus Conjunction

Was lucky to get break in the clouds to view a daytime crescent Moon and Venus come together April 22, added bonus... clouds, in just the right amount to add atmosphere. They, the clouds rolled back in just before the occultation, that is when the Moon actually covered Venus, but a daytime conjunction of the Crescent Moon and Venus is still a pretty picture.

That's not all, the Pleiades and little Mercury were and are as we speak also in conjunction very cool.



Click on the conjunction link above, it is the best description of a celestial conjunction ever, a conjunction is basically a temporary close gathering of two or more celestial bodies. To see the conjunction look to the west about an hour after Sunset, you'll see Mercury, as it will be the brightest object in the lower west sky, just above Mercury will be the Pleiades. They will be getting closer together till April 30, at which time they will start pulling away from each other, and drawing closer to the glare of our Sun, grab some binoculars if you can, the Pleiades are awesome through them.


From conjunctions to cats. When I first pulled up to the Marsden Hotel , where I was staying for the meteorite search, a cat ran up to me and rubbed against my legs...hey what can I say, some guys are chick magnets.... I'm a cat magnet, they love me , I love them. Anyways, 7 am the next morning there was a meowing at my window, the town cat was back, I let her in and we had tea, and surfed the net before the meteorite search, that's right, the Marsden hotel had high speed wireless internet technology.

I have been concerned about whether or not I'd be able to find wireless in China so as to post from there.... well if Marsden has wireless in their hotel, population 294, I'm pretty sure they have the technology over in Shanghai with a population of 14.6 million, I'm hoping in their Hotel rooms.

I'll leave you now with an animation of the Mercury/Pleiades encounter.

The January 7 Moon and Pleiades Conjunction

Moon and Pleiades conjunction January 7, 2009.


While you can, enjoy the 6 year time frame when the Moon's orbit is such that it allows these awesome conjunctions/occultations with the Pleiades, the 6 years ends 2010, and won't be repeated again till 2022.

Moon and Pleiades conjunction April 8, 2008.


I have posted the conjunctions/occultation I have imaged since I got my camera December 2007.

Moon and Pleiades Occultation June 30, 2008.


The image above was the occultation that was not to happen, all the astronomy mags stated that the occultation would be over , turning into a conjunction by the time the Moon rose in the western part of North America, not so, the Moon rose occulting both Pleione and Atlas of the Pleiades.

Moon and Pleiades conjunction September 19, 2008.

The next meeting of these two gems of the night sky will be February 3, 2009. Look to the SW around 10:30 pm. CST.

Moon and Pleiades Conjunction December 10, 2008.

They meet again March 3, 2009, they will be at their closest around 2am that morning, just as the grouping sets in the west. All the times I have quoted are CST, if you would like an exact time in your area you can email me or visit Sky View Cafe, a great site that gives you the location of all the main celestial bodies at anytime in your location.

I'll leave you now with a beautiful double lunar corona animation.

Creative Photography Week 3, Lunar and Pleiades Conjunction

Well I got my Moon Pleiades conjunction shot but it was nearly a bust...literally.  Thought I would enter it in the Creative Photography Contest.

I'm minding my own business on the side of a dark country road drinking a Pepsi when a car comes speeding along, screeches to a halt across from me, A guy gets out of an unmarked car, great it's a copper, starts walking towards me and says.

Copper: "What are you up to?"

Me:       (Thinking he can't see me too well that far away, still in the dark, also I can't see if his gun is drawn, yikes I think to myself.)  "Taking some images of the Lunar/Pleiades conjunction."

Copper: "Not getting it" (Slowly getting closer to me.)

Me: (Quickly going through my uninformed space person thesaurus) "A bunch of stars and the Moon are getting close tonight and I'm just trying to get some pics". (now right beside me, no gun drawn, can finally breath.)

Copper: "I see, I thought you were a youth drinking, you're obviously not that."

Me: "Laughing."(thinking did you have to use the word obviously, harsh.)

Copper: "Well good luck with your picture taking and have a good night."

Me: "Thanks, you have a good night too."(thinking, hey it's Friday night, the bad guys are all at my mall, try there.)

I have really got to stop taking pictures in the dark on side country roads. I had to wait quite a while for the Moon to rise above all the atmospheric dust and clouds on the horizon before I got a clear shot of the conjunction, then I took two images at different exposures. A one second exposure to capture the cool Lunar Corona and Pleiades and a 1/450 second exposure for the Moon, I then blended the two images in Photoshop to get the final image above.

Cern has been having some of it's own problems.  Just last week they had to replace a faulty transformer in the LHC and then last Friday they had a melt down, seems a faulty electrical connection between two magnets melted causing a mechanical failure.  Expected completion date of the fix is a couple months. Won't be getting sucked into a Black hole anytime soon.

I'll leave you now with an animated Moon Rise taken on the Moon Pleiades conjunction night, you can see what I was up against, the Moonlight was able to burn through the light cloud cover, wasn't the case for the Pleiades.

Hubble Gets A Facelift

Due to the phasing out of the Shuttle program by 2010, STS-125 due to launch October 10th. will probably be the final opportunity to patch and repair the 18 year old Hubble Telescope.

What a ride it's been, wow. This little scope that could has helped scientists figure out the age of the universe, around 13.7 billion years old, found numerous black holes, and imaged tons of beautiful images for people like you and me.

I remember the day I got my first computer and color printer, first stop, Astronomy Picture of the Day to print off tons of Hubble images, I still have them in binders today.

They have a very aggressive replacement/repair agenda planned out for Hubble. First off they will be replacing WFPC2, one of Hubble's major cameras with the 10x better WFCP3 as well as replacing the Scope's rechargeable batteries which power the Hubble's scientific instruments during the night time of each orbit.

They will also replace the Hubble's 6 gyroscopes, do you know that it has been working on only 2 since 2005? They will also replace a faulty Fine Guidance Sensor with a refurbished one and install thermal insulation to help keep the equipment at a cool running temperature.



Previous repair missions to the scope have usually just entailed removing or installing equipment, this time out they will be attempting to repair a couple, 1. The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) or as they call it, the Black hole hunter.

But that's not all folks, oh no , they will be installing a Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), this will be a key instrument, answering some of the more profound questions of the cosmos such as how galaxies have formed and evolved. This makeover should give the Hubble another 5 good years of life, maybe as much as 10.


The image above may be the first ever actual photograph of an exosolar planet orbiting a star similar to our Sun, more info gathering has to be done before they can say conclusively that it is. The planet has 8x the mass of our Jupiter and is about 330 times out from it's Sun as we are from ours, the image was taken with the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii. What I find interesting is, if it is actually orbiting at that distance away from it's Sun, just think of how many possible other planets are in between, very cool.


Last but not least, tomorrow night, get ready for another occultation/conjunction of the Moon and the Pleiades!! For around 60-90 minutes our Moon will cover then uncover some of the stars in the Pleiades cluster, chances are if you live in the east side of North America you'll get an occultation, the west part, a conjunction, the Moon will have uncovered the Pleiades by the time it rises in the west. Just look to the NE at Moon Rise to see the celestial magic, I love when those two get together, so pretty. I took the image above last night as a dress rehearsal, to get the lay of the land, exposure settings, access to the site, short cuts, in case a train gets in my way, ect., can't leave anything for chance, forecast is looking excellent, getting excited, stay tuned for pics.

I'll leave you now with a Moon Rise image I took tonight.

Here Comes The Sun

At one time I had really big plans for the Sun and this blog, gonna post a lot of images and such, but alas the Sun has not been co-operating, nothing going on, little or no Sunspots, flares or prominences. I took the image of Sunspot 0999 above over a month ago. The image below is what was on Spaceweather.com today, actually been the same blank Sun for going on 6 weeks now.



A little bit of solar background, the Sun's solar activity such as sunspots, flares and prominences goes through an 11 year cycle of highs and lows, we are currently on the extra long decaying end of cycle 23, in the next few months we will see more solar activity as the Sun builds to solar maximum around 2012. At solar maximum we can expect to see upwards of 120 sunspots and intense solar flares daily as well as auroras as far south as Florida.

The Phoenix lander has been drilling into the Martian surface with it's motorized rasp on the back of it's robotic arm, collecting the sample with it's scoop and then watching and documenting the whole procedure kind of like a dress rehearsal in preparation for an actual gathering and depositing in the lander's oven when they are hoping they will finally be able to get some of that ice water into an oven to scientifically conclude ice water on Mars.

Okay now for the exciting news, NASA just released some 3D stereo views of the Martian surface around the lander. You've heard me talk before about my cardboard 3D glasses, people mock me for wearing them, actually I'm wearing them right now as I type, and yes It isn't the easiest thing to do, type while your wearing 3D glasses, but boy is it ever cool, may not look cool, but the view of the images with these glasses is, well it's like you're there, get yourself some of these glasses, you'll never regret it. Before I got my professional ones I had made some up by buying blue and red gels and taping the cut out squares to my glass lenses, word of advice, you may want to do that in private, it's not like people will think anything less of you when they see you wearing them, it's just they probably won't think anything more of you.

I'll leave you now with an animated Lunar Pleiades Occultation.

The Moon's Occultation of the Pleiades

Lunar Occultation of the Pleaides June 30, 2008

Mentioning the word conjunction to me gets me excited, mention the word occultation and I go into a frenzy, and that's what happened here in Saskatchewan at 1:50 am June 30, 2008. The crescent Moon complete with earthshine covered two of the Pleiades stars, Atlas and Pleione, doesn't get much better then that.

By the time the Moon rose here in Western Canada the occultation was to be over, some astronomy sites had the exact times when the Moon would be occulting every star in the Pleiades for Eastern North America, but nothing for Western Canada.


Lunar Conjunction of the Pleiades June 30, 2008

You can see from the above image the two stars now uncovered that were once occulted by the Moon. Pictures and words just don't do it justice, I wish I had you all here at that time, sure it was at two in the morning but the busy quiteness of the early morning sky was just too beautiful to keep to myself. It was kind of odd, the brownish crescent Moon with the Pleiades looked surrealistic, as I stood out there all alone with my sky chart, like a treasure map, I felt so lucky, like gazing on a found treasure for the first time.


I took lots of images to pass along the event to you. Below is a clip I put together of 54 images over 10 minutes actual time of the Moon Pleiades Rise. If you look closely you'll see Atlas being uncovered near the end of the video clip, look to the bottom right of the Moon.

Occultations, Conjunctions and Phoenix Lander

Took some images of the gathering of Saturn, Regulus and Mars, Mars will continue drawing closer to Saturn till July 10 when it will start to pull away. If you are interested there will be another very cool conjunction this coming June 30, mind you it will be at 3:00 am EDT, when the Moon rises in the east, it and the Pleiades will once again be in conjunction, in fact if you live out in Eastern Canada you will see the Crescent Moon complete with earthshine occulting, or covering some of the Pleiades stars, what a photo op. They are calling for clear skies here so even though in Western Canada the Moon rises after the occultation I will be getting pics of the conjunction for my next post.

For my Fathers Day present my youngest daughter took me to the latest Indiana Jones movie, a great movie and a great time, me and my youngest have very similar tastes, both like the same type of movies, video games, believe that aliens had something to do with the building of the pyramids, and like to make up words, my oldest daughter and Wife have basically disowned us.

Wife " The Smiths are coming over tonight, you can talk about your space stuff but keep anything to do with aliens out, understood?"

Me " nyup"

Wife "what"

Me "hmm"

Wife "Bob"

Anyways I said all that to bring up something cool, at the very beginning of the show, I forget if it is part of a logo for the production company or the first scene, a huge image of a Moon/ Pleiades conjunction appears, how awesome was that, so if you go see the movie you can point that out to who ever you are with, or if by yourself, the person sitting next to you, they will appreciate it.

More good news on the Phoenix Lander front, after analyzing a sample of the Martian soil in one of the lander's wet labs, (a wet lab is an area where they mix water brought from Earth with the Martian soil so as to be able to do chemistry and test the soil for salts, acidity and other goodies) have found it to be similar to the dry valleys in Antarctica and has all the necessary ingredients to support life, although they have yet to find any water in the samples they are still hopeful that in later digs they will be able to get some of that ice water into their labs.

I'll leave you now with an animated 85% of Full Moon taken June 13th through some clouds.

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.

Moon And Pleiades Meet

What a spectacular show, last night just after the Sun set the Pleiades open star cluster and the Moon complete with earthshine crossed paths. Couldn't have asked for a better night, clear skies and above zero temperatures, actually I think I overdressed for the occasion, didn't really need the gloves or the toque, spring has arrived and what an opening act.

I took a wide angle shot as well of the event as the International Space Station was passing by, people the sky was so full of stuff, you had Orion, Taurus the Bull, the Pleiades, the Moon and to top it all off a guest appearance from the ISS all in the same field of view, awesome!

The next big event to watch out for will be the Lyrid meteor shower the night of April 21-22. This is usually one of the better meteor showers but because of the full Moon the impact won't be as great, but still worth a view. I will be out snapping images for you if you happen to miss it. the radiant or point to which the meteors seem to start from is in the Lyra constellation, look to the NE. around 10 pm the 21st for the start of the shower, expect 10-20 an hour.

Our company was involved in Earth Hour and after the event our President sent out an email to the companies employees with some cool results of the initiative which I would like to relay to you at this time. At least 50 million people participated worldwide; in Canada 250,000 people and 6,000 businesses signed up online in the lead up to the event. Electricity use dropped 8.7% in Toronto, a 4%drop was reported from Ottawa, and a 5% drop was reported across Ontario as a whole. By turning off the lights for one hour on Saturday March 29th. 2008 , participants in Ontario alone prevented 200 tonnes of greenhouse gases from polluting our atmosphere.

I'll leave you now with one of my Moonrises as an animated gif.