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.

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.

Shuttle Endeavour Returns Home

Shuttle Endeavour and her crew landed safely at Kennedy Space Center at 8:39 EDT. STS 123's main missions were to deliver and install the first stage of the Japanese Kibo Laboratory as well as Dextre a special kind of mechanical maintenance robot that will be able to do basic repairs outside of the station without having to send an astronaut on a spacewalk, which is always potentially dangerous. The only slight problem the crew encountered was a ding the size of a small ball bearing on one of Endeavours windows that posed no threat to the Shuttle or her crew.

The Auroras from space

Dextre in action

Some interesting facts: STS 123 was the 122nd. Space Shuttle flight, the 25th. to the International Space Station, it was the 21st. flight for the Endeavour and the 2nd of 6th planned for this year. STS 124 Shuttle Discovery is the next flight to the station, it's main mission to deliver and install the main stage of the Kibo (hope) laboratory, launch date TBA.

UPDATE: NASA has just reversed the decision to cut the rovers funds, nobody knows for sure why the sudden reversal, could be the tremendous public outcry against the cuts, whatever the reason NASA has instructed the rover people to carry on as usual, like the cutback letter had never been issued.

Rover Opportunity pointed it's cameras overhead to image these cool cirrus like clouds, wispy clouds formed mostly of ice crystals. Mars surface ice warmed by Sunlight can briefly turn to vapour in Mars atmosphere and form into ice crystals. Due to budgetary cutbacks the Rover program has just been handed a 4 million dollar cutback which means one rover, probably Spirit will be shut down for the rest of the year. The rover people have also been told to expect another 8 million dollar cutback for 2009.


Venus, Mercury Conjunction March 24th, 2008

A conjunction I mentioned here between Mercury and Venus occurred a couple days ago, nearly didn't get the pic. due to some stubborn clouds hanging around, they finally moved and I got some images, bonus, got an image of a cool misty Moon on the opposite side of the horizon getting ready to set.

Venus, Mercury Conjunction March 24th., 2008

I'll leave you now with my misty Moon as an animated gif.

The Old Moon In The New Moon's Arms

Moonlight is Sunlight that is reflected off the Moon to us on Earth, Earthshine or the Da Vinci Glow is caused by Moonlight reflected back off the Earth onto the Moon, or doubly reflected Sunlight. Called the Da Vinci Glow because Da Vinci first said the "ashen glow" was Sunlight reflected off our Earth back onto the Moon, before Leonardo figured it out no one knew what it was.

Got a couple of cool images a couple weeks ago, again I am amazed my camera worked , -35c. Best time to view Earthshine is during the crescent phase of the Moon and as it is setting. You can see the neat affect the Earthshine has on the Moon, it lights up the Moons dark phase so you can see the outline of the seas and the Moon itself.

STS 123 Shuttle Endeavour has a scheduled launch date of March 11 at 2:30am from the Kennedy Space Center. The Endeavour will be delivering and installing the first section of the Japanese Kibo science research facility on the ISS , as well as delivering and installing Dextre, a two armed robot with the ability to carry out maintenance work that would have been done before by spacewalking astronauts.

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

Asteroid 2008 CT1

We add another near miss asteroid to our growing collection. First there was asteroid 2007 WD5 close flyby of Mars, then we have asteroid 2007 TU24 coming within 334,000 miles of Earth now we have a newly discovered asteroid 2008 CT1 missing us by only 84,000 miles on February 5, came from behind the glare of the Sun, didn't see it coming. Now the size is only somewhere between 8-20 metres, still it could have taken out a large city if it actually got through the atmosphere and hit us. The asteroid was discovered by the LINEAR or Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research Project.


Finally Shuttle Atlantis after a 2 month delay got off the ground to deliver and install the Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. Video shows that a couple of what they think to be small foam pieces fall of the external fuel tank 2 minutes after launch, and then another piece of foam came off about 7 minutes into the launch. The astronauts spent most of Friday inspecting the Shuttle's heat shield using it's 15m boom and robotic arms. Pilimanary findings look good, no apparent damage.

On a final note, a musical note at that, NASA for the first time ever is using it's Deep Space Network to beam a song, a Beatles song Across The Universe into space, towards the North star Polaris, about 431 light years away. Had to get Yoko Ono's okay, just in case aliens have MP3 capability and do illegal downloads. The real funny part in all this is that some scientists are saying there needs to be more open discussions about the potential risks involved in sending even symbolic messages to potentially evil aliens, that's why I linked the lyrics to the song, maybe a rap song that says "come get a piece of me" over and over again, aliens could consider it a challenge and try to get a piece of us. Maybe they mean the part of the Beatles song were it says "nothing's gonna change my world" as an out and out challenge to the bad aliens, and they might see it as such and come and try to change our world, who knows for sure what aliens think. The song was sent to celebrate the 40th. anniversary when the Beatles recorded the song and the 50th. anniversary of the Beatles and NASA beginnings.

I'll leave you now with another prairie sunset animated gif.

God Made Meets Man Made

Is the title I've given my most current Sunset pic. As I was out looking to take an image of a Sunset a few days ago I noticed as the Sun was sinking it was going to land on one of the high voltage towers, not really though, the Sun is 93 million miles away, but it looked cool. The Earth has the capacity to produce 60,000 megatons of energy per year, sounds like a lot until you hear the Sun produces 77 billion megatons every second, in other words, in one second the Sun produces an equivalent of a million years of Earth energy. The Sun keeps our fragile planet warm and working even in the coldness of spaceland, makes you think on how much we depend on the little star we call the Sun.

Took another pic of Venus and Jupiter to show even though they are pulling away from each other they are still the two prettiest objects in the early morning sky and worthy of a peak at. Look to the SE. sky around 7:30 am, won't be long before the glare of the Sun blocks them from our view.

Shuttle managers have decided that a bent radiator coolant hose isn't enough of a problem to delay Shuttle Atlantis's February 7th launch, the weather on the other hand may be a problem, 40% chance of acceptable conditions for launch. The Shuttle's main mission is to deliver and install the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory. Remember NASA TV tomorrow at 2:45pm EST all the crazy cool camera angles of the launch.

I'll leave you now with another prairie sunset video, a bunch of individual images taken with my Canon 40D and stitched together to produce what you see below.

Conjunction Of Venus And Jupiter In Sagittarius

Venus, Jupiter conjunction January 31, 2008

Don't wanna seem like a braggy Bob, but I got a some real cool pics of the Venus , Jupiter conjunction. The weather co-operated apart from it being -30c, the camera still working at those temps, just amazing. Took an image the day before and the day of to show Jupiter's dance with Venus. If you missed the conjunction you can still see them close together and the Moon joining the gathering on Sunday February 3rd. early morning around 8am EST.

Venus, Jupiter conjunction February 1, 2008

Conjunctions are fun, everyone can enjoy them, just walk outside your house to view the gems in the sky, no equipment required. Some upcoming conjunctions are,

1. February 27, Venus and Mercury; dawn sky.

2. March 24, Venus and Mercury again; dawn sky.

3. September 11, Venus and Mars; dusk.

4. December 31, Jupiter and Mercury; dusk.

After a 2 month delay Shuttle Atlantis is set to launch Thursday February 7th. at 2:45 EST, that is as long as a bent hose for the Shuttle's radiator cooling system checks out okay. Shuttle Atlantis's main mission is to deliver and install the ESA's Columbus laboratory, if you can, check out NASA TV , they have cameras everywhere during the launch, very cool to watch.

Haven't had an animated GIF which seems like forerver, so I'll leave you with what I like to call "Moonset over water", I took this image a couple weeks ago with the Canon 40D.

Smokey Sunset

It's been pretty cloudy and miserable around here for the past week, since I got the new camera not much time to use it, feel like I'm all dressed up and no where to go. The last time I was able to get out and use it was over a week ago during the Quadrantids meteor shower, so when we got a break in the clouds, got the chance to get out and get me another sunset. There was some kind of what smelt like burning forest fire smoke in the atmosphere, gave the Sun a real cool look, awesome colors.

Shuttle Atlantis (STS 122) has a new target launch date, February 7th., this should give NASA plenty of time to install and test the new connection which replaces the faulty one that caused false readings in the engine cutoff system. Atlantis's main mission is to install and activate the European Space Agencies Columbus Laboratory. Shuttle Endeavour (STS 123) scheduled to launch on February 14th. will be pushed back to the middle of March. One of Endeavour's main missions is to deliver and install Dextre a robotic arm addition. Dextre is a sophisticated dual arm robot for very precise work.

Endeavour will also be delivering the first part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo, an experimental module/laboratory focusing on space medicine and biotechnology.

I'll leave you now with an animated GIF of my latest sunset.

Lunar Images and Black Holes

Finally a break in the weather, was able to get some good detailed shots of the Moon's surface. The last month or so we have either had cloud cover or frosty skies making the Moon look like a giant frosty ball, not good for taking pics. The above picture is a 68% of full Moon. I'd like to thank Anna over at My Only Photo for helping me figure out how to get the GIF file below working on my post, she had a great reflecting Full Moon on one of her recent posts which I just had to replicate with one of my Moon shots.

I also got good shot of a 43% of Full Moon a few nights back. I used a yellow filter to bring more of the Lunar surface detail out.

Hopefully the weather co-operates cause December 23/24 we have a Full Moon, which is cool but that's not all, here in Saskatoon Mars is going to get very close to the Moon as well, might be a good photo op, actually if you live in N.W. Canada, Alaska, Northern Russia or Eastern Europe, you will get what they call a Lunar occultation of Mars, that is when Mars slips behind the Moon, I'm not quite far enough N.W. to get to enjoy the occultation but Mars and the Moon should get close enough to get in the same image, we'll see.

Okay now here is a Black Hole with some serious attitude! NASA called a special news conference last Monday to announce the awesome discovery of what they are calling "The Death Star Galaxy" In the image above the bigger galaxy's black hole is shooting out massive amounts of X-Rays and Gamma Rays to its smaller probably friendlier neighbor galaxy. The effect of this unprovoked attack could be disastrous to any planets in it's path, especially since the galaxies are only 20,000 light years apart. Scientist figure this happened about 1 million years ago. Because of the rarity of the event NASA will be paying close attention to this one. To put this into perspective, a death ray this size would basically destroy our ozone layer within a manner of months and life as we know it would eventually cease to exist.


NASA has just announced that they have found the cause of Shuttle Atlantis's faulty fuel sensors. The problem has been traced back to an over sized electrical socket that bridges the interior and exterior of Atlantis's external tank. They now have to figure out if the repair can be done in time for the new January 10th. launch date.

Lunar Real Estate

Still can't think think of what to get for that someone special for Christmas? How bout real estate? How bout Lunar real estate? For a mere $36 you can purchase one acre of prime view Lunar property. Dennis Hope of the Lunar Embassy back in 1980 made a claim for the entire Lunar surface at his local Government claim registries office, and it was accepted and registered! But Dennis, or the "Head Cheese" as he likes to be called, didn't stop there, he also sent a letter of intent to claim and sell extraterrestrial property to The UN, USSR and the US governments. To this date no one has contested his claims so Dennis Hope was able to take it to the next step, to copyright his work with the US copyright registry office.

NASA has said "property rights on the Moon are governed by the United Nations" "The Moon comes under the same jurisdiction as international waters" I say who is NASA to say anything, just sour grapes that they didn't think of claiming the Moon first. The Outer Space Treaty , that's right the Outer Space Treaty, forbids countries from claiming celestial bodies but nothing in the treaty says an individual or corporation can't.

To date over 4 million people have bought property on the Moon, including celebs like George Lucas, Barbara Walters, a few ex-Presidents, some NASA employees and me. That's right me, mock me now but when my Great Great Grand kids are negotiating with NASA to buy their property because they want to build a Helium-3 Processing Plant, I'll be having the last laugh, well I won't, I'll be dead but my Great Great Grand kids will be alive and laughing all the way to the bank. So what do you get for your 36 bucks, you get your Lunar Deed, your Lunar map of where your property is , The Lunar Constitution and a short story "You Own The What" which includes the Declaration of Ownership filed with the US, USSR and United Nations. They have an excellent FAQs area, questions such as "Can I get to the Moon Now?" to a vitally important question "Do you believe in the prime directive?" (alien bases far side).



NASA just announced hours ago that they have again delayed the launch of STS 122 Atlantis due to another faulty fuel sensor. These fuel sensors protect the Shuttle's main engines by shutting them down in the event of unexpectedly low fuel. The launch has been rescheduled for January 2nd.

Tatiana over at Totally-Useless has honoured me with her Totally Useful and deserving blogger award, I accept the award and will post it proudly on my blog. Tatiana has a great blog about her personal philosophies and things that may seem useless on the surface, usually aren't. I would like to pass this award on to 3 blogs I visit and enjoy regularly.

JD at The Uneasy Supplicant , awesome writings and images.

Will at Healthy Living for People and Planet Earth , great advice for a healthier life.

Rick at Deep Sky Blog another awesome astronomy site to visit for your astronomy/astrophotography updates.

Shuttle Atlantis STS 122

Shuttle Atlantis has been given the green light to launch Thursday December 6th. at 4:31pm EST. STS 122 main mission is to install the the European Columbus space laboratory onto the newly installed Harmony Node 2 on the International Space Station. NASA's website has had a cool makeover, very user friendly and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, check it out, has something for everyone, even the kids.

Anna over at My Only Photo tagged me with "Proudest Moment Of My Life". I have been tagged numerous times but being the introvert I am have not followed through with any of them. I am going to do something different this time, the last 3 tags I have received this week I will group in this post.

The proudest moment of my life besides being married of course was holding my new born baby girls in my arms for the first time, I was in the operating room for both procedures, very surrealistic, one moment they were in their mother's body, the next thing I knew I was holding a living breathing being in my arms, to this day I am proud of the fine young ladies that they have become.

DrowseyMonkey over at DrowseyMonkey has tagged me with name 5-10 courses you would like to take to improve your life and then one you would like to take with the person that tagged you.

1. A University course in Astronomy, I would love to learn more of the technical aspects and theory of the cosmos, also to help me sound more professional when I post about astrostuff.

2. Computer Science/networking, so I could be a computer IT guy, I just want to say to somebody over the phone, "is it plugged in?"

3. Automotive repair 101. lets face it wouldn't it be nice to be able to fix your car or at least do more then check that the battery cables aren't loose when your car doesn't start.

4. Photo shop, there is so much in this software that I would like to know how to use besides the saturation and contrast features.

5. Creative Writing, so I don't sound like a caveman when I do work memos or blog posts.

The last part of the tag is to pick a course you'd like to take with the person that tagged you, that would be the astronomy course, no particular reason for that choice other then the fact I love to share the wonders of the Universe and I think drowseymonkey would like that pick.

The last tag came from Tatiana from Totally- Useless, list 7 random or weird facts about yourself and tag 7 others.

1. I've just found out that I use "your" instead of "you're" when writing, spellcheck of course doesn't pick it up, and when I proof read my brain doesn't see it as a problem, I'm sure you will find lots of stuff like that in my posts with other words I shouldn't be using, see point 5 above.

2.I'm the only guy I know my age that loves video games. Right now I have a fake steering wheel, fake orange gun and fake guitar that I play more then my real one.

3. People who have monotone voices make me sleepy and bored.

4. Can't stand the sight of blood, or medical diagrams/pictures, you know the ones that show the muscles and veins and organs, get wheezy just thinking about it. I was getting an eye exam and the doctor had a medical diagram and was explaining the procedure he was going to perform, talked in a slow monotone voice naming all the various parts of the eye, I thought great I am stuck looking at this diagram and getting queasy, my only hope is he puts me to sleep before I pass out, too late the next thing I knew they were asking me if I was okay and if I would like some water, geez I hate when that happens.

5. I hate big giant books with no pictures.

6. I sing and play my real guitar really loud when no one's home.

7. My 2 most prized possessions are a couple of Christmas song singing dummies called Bing and Dean.

Because it is that time of year, and everybody is probably busy shopping and getting ready for Christmas I will put off the tagging other people part for a later TBA date. I'll leave you now with a pic of my fav singing dummies.

Moon Rise In High Definition

The Japanese Moon Probe Kaguya has sent back stunning images of an Earth rise, the above picture and Earth set the below picture. Notice below in the Earth setting picture the Earth appears upside down, visible is Australia and Asia. The images were taken 62 miles above the Lunar surface. Bonus for us Canadians, the Discovery Channel HD in partnership with Japanese broadcaster NHK will be showing Return To The Moon which is about the probes mission to the Moon and will show the most current images. This program will be repeated throughout the coming weeks starting November 14/07. I will be PVRing mine this afternoon while I'm at work, very cool.

The Shuttle Atlantis made it's 7 hour 3 mile journey to it's launch pad in preparation for the December 6th. launch. This will be the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS. Atlantis's main mission will be to install the European Space Agency's Columbus module which will be dedicated to long term space research.

The Google AdSense ads have been working out great for me! So far I've purchased a 9.95 Earth rise Hi Res print, and 2,000 satellite TV stations for my laptop for only 50 bucks. the one ad said "Shocking discovery they don't want you to know", well who doesn't want to know what they don't want you to know? So now I have 2,000 satellite TV stations on my PC AND I now know what they didn't want me to know, check and mate, sometimes my own intelligence amazes even me.

I will leave you with a video I put together on Lunar travel using my Tycho perspective image, duplicated over and over again with the perspective changed a little each frame to give the illusion of moving over the Lunar surface.

A Matter Of Perspective

Imagine with me if you will, you are orbiting the Moon in spaceship Boba at about 150 miles distant from the Lunar surface traveling 2,000 mph on your way to Tycho City (Tycho is the crater at the top of the image with a central peak), and you look out your window and snap an image, the above image is what you'd see, no it's not taken by a lunar probe or any of the Apollo missions, it is one of my highly magnified lunar images, I figured out how to change the perspective of an image in photo shop so that it looks like your flying over the Lunar landscape as opposed to looking at it through a telescope. I was going through some of the images taken by lunar probes and the Apollo missions in Virtual Moon Atlas and thought it would be cool if I could get the same effect on some of my images, so after many hours of fooling around with the free transform edit tool in photo shop I was able to come up with a totally different viewpoint hence the above image. You may ask why would I spend all that time doing that, I ask why not, it looks cool, takes me away even further then I already am from our Earthly constraints to a place where you can imagine the impossible, besides a had a few hours to kill the other night.

The Shuttle Discovery arrived home safely yesterday at 1:01 pm. EST. after a successful and complex mission. This is space exploration at its finest, from the ability and ingenuity of being able to develop things like cufflinks to repair one of the International Space Station's solar arrays to preparing the Space Station for further space exploration with the installation of the Harmony module, this is why I blog so much about the Shuttle program, these people are making things happen up there so we can reach for the Moon and beyond, they are our modern day Columbuses!

Okay this is just too cool. Japan's Lunar orbiter Kaguya has just sent back high definition Images of the moon along with a HD Movie. The movie has 2 sequences, one of the Lunar polar area as in the above image, and another sequence of the Oceanus Procellarum region. The images were shot about 100km from the Lunar surface, how exciting is this?!

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center's Fabrication Plant released a picture of a mock up of the Orion crew module. It is America's first new manned spacecraft since the shuttle was developed 30 years ago. The Orion is part of the Constellation Program which will return us to the Moon by 2020.