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.

Phoenix Mars Lander

I haven't been this excited about a spacecraft landing, well since way back in '97 when little Rover Sojourner landed on the red planet and into our hearts, while at least mine, never seen anything like it before, the thing could roam, get out and look for things and drill, anyways it was very cool. May 25th. the Phoenix Mars Lander enters the Martian atmosphere to begin it's mission which is to uncover clues to the geologic history and biological potential of the Martian arctic.

There are 3 major reasons why I think this is a pretty cool mission. I'll start with number 3 and work my way to number 1.

3. It is actually going to use rockets to land like a real spacecraft, not inflatable balloons. I've always thought what an undignified way for the little rovers to land, bouncing around, making them all dizzy and such. Phoenix's heat-shield will hit the Martain atmosphere at around 12,000 mph. Approximately 7 minutes later it's parachutes will open, then descent rockets cut in reducing the speed to 5.4 mph before landing on 3 legs, now that's the way to land.

2. Phoenix has a built in lab, and a neat robotic arm, get the picture? With its robotic arm Phoenix can dig down below the protective top soil layer to the ice water below, bring the sample to its lab and perform complicated scientific analysis to further NASA's overall Mars science strategy, "Follow The Water".

1. My most favoritist reason I love this mission is, it's going to land the furthest north of any craft on Mars to date, where there is going to be frozen water within reach of the lander's gathering equipment, now isn't that cool. There is one advantage the little rovers have over the lander, lets say there is ice water 40" away from the lander and the lander's robotic arm is only 39" long, well it would suck to be the lander, the rovers would just rove over, but with the lander, it's not like wheels are going to pop out of the landing legs and then rockets pop out of the wheels, although that would be cool, unfortunately the lander is stationary.

Right now 3 Mars orbiters are adjusting their orbits to be at the right place at the right time to be able to observe and record the Phoenix landing as well as trying to determine the ideal landing site for Phoenix, even the rovers are helping out by simulating transmissions from Phoenix for tests with the orbiters.

This coming Wednesday March 5th. we got a beautiful conjunction going on, just before the Sun rises look to the SE. to see a crescent Moon, Mercury and Venus all huddled together, perfect photo op, I'll be ready weather permitting with my camera.

Below is my most current Sunset image as an, that's right 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.

Solar Halo and Blue Moon

Solar Halo February 19 11:45 am

The day before E day (eclipse), I was outside and happened to notice a huge Solar halo starting to form, got my camera and headed just outside of town to capture the above halo, within 30 minutes it had formed a complete circle around the sun and had developed some beautiful colors. Just as fast as it had formed it disappeared as the Cirrus clouds broke apart, and it was no more, you can see it posted at Sky and Telescope website as well as one of my other halos. Solar halos are the result of the Sunlight being reflected and refracted off ice crystals high in the Cirrus clouds, wispy clouds located above 23,000 feet.

Blue Eclipsed Moon February 20, 2008




I just had to post one more image of the Total Lunar eclipse. I didn't post this image initially because it looked gray and colorless except for some blues , which I thought was just wrong, very little reds, I actually thought, great I broke my camera because of the cold weather and the taking it in and out of the house and the fact it was actually starting to make strange noises, but upon further investigation I found out the blue/ greens are a result of the Sunlight passing through the ozone layer which scatters or blocks the reds of the Sun's light, making the light getting through to the Lunar surface bluer. There was only a couple out of the many shots I took that had this much blue in it, makes for a very cool and different eclipse. I did have to put it through Photo shop curves and brightness and contrasted it to bring the browns and blues out more.

Mercury, Venus, Jupiter February 23, 2008

There is another conjunction happening right now, Mercury and Venus are getting very close together and will be their closest February 27th. Look to the South East just before the Sun rises to see Mercury and Venus close together and Jupiter further South. I took the above image of the trio this morning around 7:14 am cst.

Don't know if you have seen this video on You Tube, it is supposed to be the actual shooting down of the US Spy Satellite, pretty cool video.

I'll leave you now with my Solar halo on reflecting water.

Total Lunar Eclipse February 20, 2008

Total Lunar Eclipse February 20, 2008

Almost Totality February 20, 2008

Start of Lunar Eclipse, February 20, 2008



Saturn and Eclipsed Moon February 20, 2008

They were calling for snow right up to the day before, but those silly weather guys were wrong, the weather was great, got some good pics of the eclipse, makes me a happy Bob, got a picture of the February Full Snow Moon and a picture of a Total Lunar Eclipse all in the same night, the last Total Lunar Eclipse till 2010. Native Americans called the February Full Moon, "Full Snow Moon" because it was usually the month with the heaviest snow falls and hunting became very difficult, in fact some North American tribes such as the Kalapuya called it the Full Hunger Moon.

Some interesting facts about an eclipse; during totality the Moon's brightness is reduced by a factor anywhere from 10,000 to 1,000,000 times; during an eclipse the Earth gets between the Moon and the Sun, the reds and oranges of the lunar eclipse are caused by the Sun's light passing through and being refracted through our Earth's atmosphere which scatters or blocks the blues and allows the reds and oranges of the Sunlight through to the Lunar surface much in the same way it does for Sunrises and Sunsets, in fact the color of the Moon during totality is the direct result of all the Sunrises and Sunsets happening simultaneously around the world at the time of the eclipse. If the Earth had no atmosphere, the Lunar surface would be totally black.

Total Lunar Eclipse August 28, 2007

Some more great news, Shuttle Atlantis and her crew landed safely Wednesday at 9:07 am EST. after a successful mission to deliver Europe's first permanent orbital laboratory to the ISS. During it's 13 day mission Atlantis circled the Earth 202 times covering 5.3 million miles.

UPDATE: The US shot down the spy satellite late Wednesday, they figure they got the fuel tank. The missle was launched from the USS Lake Erie from the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii at 10:26 EST. over 130 miles high and 24 minutes after the launch.

Due to high swells in the North Pacific the US has missed it's first window of opportunity to shoot down the crippled spy satellite Wednesday, they have another 10 days to give it a go before the satellite will tumble to the ground and supposedly release it's toxic gases.

I'll leave you now with my latest Sunset as an animated gif.