• Category Archives Astronomy

  • Solar Maximum.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    For years and years (no, really… since I was about 12 years old and read about in a book) I have wanted to see the northern lights.
    I mean, take a moment, and check this video out!

    Aurora Borealis timelapse HD – Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

    How can you not be moved by that??!!!!

    Anyway, I guess I am just dreaming out loud that I might get a chance since I am now on a hunk of dirt that goes far enough north that I could drive up there and see (and photograph!!) it myself.

    So what am I waiting for?
    Two things.
    1. Solar Maximum.
    The northern (and southern) lights are driven by solar partials smacking into the upper atmosphere. In a nut shell, they are a lighting storm in space.
    Well, to have the storm, you need the sun to be spewing out its partials, to do that, you need sunspots. The sun has an 11 year cycle that it goes through, at the top of the cycle, you get lots of sun spots, lots of particles, and thus lots of light shows. At the moment, we are coming out of the minim, so there are a few shows, but nothing like we are going to have over the coming years.
    2. Since I want to drive up, I need some time and money to make it happen. Since I have a few years to wait, I can see how my dream pans out.

    Oh, so if you want to track the solar cycle, you can, just click on the ‘weather-astro‘ link on my menu, the graph is at the bottom of the page.


    Astronomy

  • Family photo

    Posted on by beno Comment

    So, when was the last time the solar system got together for a photo?

    Cant remember?

    Yeah, family get togethers can sometimes be like that…….Last one I remember for sure was in 1990…… At the request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the solar system, to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth and every one else.

    Subsequently, the title of the photograph was used by Carl as the primary title of his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. (Which I have read a few times, and sadly sold in Australia at a garage sale).

    Here is the family shot from back then;

    Thankfully, its also been on someones mind other than just ours…..
    Back in November, they instructed the Mercury mission to turn around take a shot of of the family. The results were released late last week;

    Sadly, Uranus and Neptune were just too small to be seen, so only their positions were marked, don’t bother looking, they aint there. (But isn’t that always the way when the family gets together, there is always someone mucking about hiding their face or what not).

    All jokes aside, its pretty mad cool that these photos can be taken.
    I hope that I don’t start taking them for granted.
    I’m not going to wax all crazy about how everything that ever happens on this planet happens on that one pixel dot like Carl did…. As most of you know, unlike Carl, I believe that somewhat larger forces are at work, not just those on that dot.

    Rather, I am just go to leave an incomplete thought here… I find it weird that our planet that we know so well looks odd when viewed from a different location, sort of like the traffic lights at the corner of Rancho California and Yenz look to me. Every now and then, I have a double take on them, they just don’t look like Australian lights at all……..


    Astronomy Life in the USA

  • A whole day in one photo.

    Posted on by beno 3 Comments

    Its not all that often that I see a photo that makes me do a bit of a double take.
    Usually, its a nice photo and I will glance at it or some such, but this one made me really stop look and think.

    This guy has taken things to a whole new level for this sort of photo;

    http://www.greeksky.gr/files/photos/landscapes/20101230Sounio24.htm

    If your a little geeky, you will want to check out the link to how he made it.
    If you look at it and go ‘Meh’, then that’s fine too.

    You either get it or you don’t. Either is cool with me.

    In other news I started editing my first video for work today.
    Can you say ‘steep learning curve’?
    Thus far I am really, really digging it.
    I will blog when its done.


    Astronomy

  • Fathers Day

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Had a pretty good fathers day.
    By far the highlight was taking the Nate Harrison Grade road down from the summit of Palomar (where Freddy and I were giving tours of the 2oo inch Hale Telescope as we always do on the third Sunday of each month).
    I have been wanting to take the road because its such an important part of the history of Palomar Mountain. A lot of the dome and 18 inch telescope parts were taken up that road.
    The road is a little rough at the top, but the bulk of it is really good.
    The views, wild flowers and twisty nature of the road is just a joy to be there.
    I think Freddy enjoyed it just as much, if not more than I did.

    Nate Harrison Grade
    Nate Harrison Grade

    Click on it to make it bigger.

    Came home to a nice bottle of red wine and Freddys cooking.


    Astronomy

  • Sleep over.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Had a fantastic opportunity Saturday night….. The 200 inch Hale telescope is having its mirror supports refurbished. This means that there are no astronomers using the telescope. In fact, for this one weekend, it also meant that there were no engineers working either…. so the place was pretty much empty…… Enter the docents!
    Freddy and I were invited to sleep over at the Observatory along with a few others.
    We arrived just after sundown and had the chance to look at some of the work going on in the 200 inch dome.

    IMG_2615

    I took the above photo of the Rangie parked outside the dome. It was pretty cool to be the only ones there other than Jean, the telescope operator.

    It goes with out saying that I was really excited to be there, here is a photo of Freddy being excited about being there with me…..

    IMG_2588

    Ever the suffering geeks wife, she made the best of hanging around in a very quite dome…. Apparently she almost feel asleep!

    George Hale changed the way astronomy was done by having sleeping quarters, houses and workshops on site with the telescope.
    Back in the day, astronomy (sadly) was limited to a mans domain, so the sleeping quarters were called the monastery. To this day, they are still called that.
    Here is a photo at night of the monastery that we ate and slept in.

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    I don’t have a photo of dinner, the food was just too good to break away from!

    Next morning, I was up before dawn to take some photos. You just don’t get a chance to be up there before sunrise, so I was not going to waste it with sleep!

    IMG_2682

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    That’s the 60 inch and 200 inch domes in the morning glow.

    Once back with the rest of the sleepyheads, we had breakfast;

    IMG_2784

    This is the same table that the greats of the Hale Telescope would have had breakfast and dinner at!

    It was one of the best few hours sleep I have ever had! The place is so quite and despite my excitement, I was sound asleep a few minutes when we retired at might night.

    It was a great chance to get to know some of the other Docents better and off the job so to speak. We shared stories and photos, it was a lot of fun and really interesting.

    All in all, just an amazing experience. I wonder if I we will ever get the chance to do it again?
    I would like to thank Scott and Susan for making it all happen.


    Astronomy Life in the USA