Six more wheels on Mars!

Need I say more?  :-)

Return of the Saturn V class beast?

Infographics are always fun.  Here is a nice one of NASA's plan for the SLS booster.  Something bigger than the Saturn V with nearly 10 million pounds of thrust - now THAT would be one to see in person!
So 2017 for the first flight of the SLS, I'm betting that SpaceX will fly their Falcon Heavy first though.

| Click the here to see full size |

Another reason Seattle should have gotten a shuttle.

New York already broke Enterprise!
It would have been a quick trip across the street from BFI's large runway to the Museum of Flight's hanger that was ready for the shuttle.

| Damaged at sea (CollectSpace.com) |

Will we, or will we not?

No surprise at all that Seattle astronomers were again thwarted in our plans to see the annular solar eclipse the other week.  I did try to image a view of the backyard getting darker at totality then brighter again.  My efforts were unimpressive since the passing thicker/thinner clouds ruined the effect since it was always pretty dark in the first place.

Not totality yet, but did it even matter?

Last night we had plans to do our yearly star party for the Mt. Si high school up at Snoqualmie Point park.  A few of us did go up despite totally overcast skies.  It was cancelled but we mainly got out just for a nice drive to the mountains, and chat with some astronomer friends for a while and shake our fists at the sky cursing as the full moon did peek through a small hole now and then.

Click for larger view

Next week we'll have the chance to see an event that won't happen again in 100+ years - the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.   

Forecast for Tuesday - 

• Tuesday: Showers. High near 61. South southwest wind between 10 and 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%.
• Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 47. 

Hey!  Interpolate between 80 and 30% we may have about 50% chance of seeing something?  Or maybe that's just the chances we'll be outside and not get rained on.  Ah, yeah...

I've pretty much learned not to get too worked up over these things anymore, otherwise I'd be very disappointed, so I just shrug and say "meh....if it happens, great.  If not, there is the internet streaming view of the sun and Netflix for the evening".  hopefully soon my Netflix will be gathering dust as the summer weather arrives.  

If the rain gods spare us, I'll probably stop by Bellevue College and see the event from there.  

Clear skies!

| Transit times map |

Late afternoon on the rim of Endeavour.

I'll have to admit that I've been slacking on blog updates lately.  Just been busy (stressed?) with a lot of changes lately.  Mainly getting used to a new job. Very hard to do after getting pushed out of a job after 7 years, but things are settling down after a couple months now.
So I'll try to resume again with some cool stuff from space, Earth, and whatever else catches my eye.  Again, Seattle hasn't been very astronomy friendly over the last months with lousy skies, so I haven't taken any new images to post, but maybe that will change in the near future since rumor has it that La Nina is dead, and we may get something that resembles "spring" this year - eventually!

So, here is a photo that has been floating around the internets yesterday that is just very spring like. I like this comment on the description of the photo "This crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, or about the same area as the city of Seattle."  I'd like to see a Photoshop comparison of that!

| Click here for larger and more info on the photo |

When Oppy sees her shadow, does that mean a longer winter on Mars?

Another one of those very cool "Ooooooh!" photos that us Earthbound Mars explorers can appreciate from our virtual rides along with Oppy on Mars.  Hard to believe that the little rover is still alive and well after EIGHT YEARS now!   My old rover T-shirt that I bought at Kennedy Space Center years ago is already worn out and used as a greasy rag, but at leas one of the rovers is still going.
From the look of the panels, it does look like Oppy could use a direct hit from a dust devil to clear off that coating of dust. But the rover is now in position for the Martian winter, tipped toward the sun for maximum solar power.
Look at the photo below, that little bump on top of the hill shadow is the shadow of the rover, with the sun glory around it.  Very cool!

| Full size view |

| The Road to Endeavour Blog |

A shooting star is not a star at all

Just a fun little video I came across.

Guide to the ISS.

Now that the International Space Station is complete, a guide has finally been published by NASA.  Nice thing is, this is a free download, and  you can burn through all your printer ink if you decide to print out all 130 pages.  Looks like a good publication, tons of photos diagrams, cutaways and other goodies.  I wonder if NASA will sell printed versions of this?  I'd go for it since I have the attention span of a goldfish when reading books on a computer screen!

| Download it here |

Jupiter from a few weeks ago.

It just hasn't been a very good time these days for observing in Seattle.  Years ago, we seemed to have better skies, but just never seem to get very many really good nights these days.  Clouds, fog, crud or just plain unstable.
This photo of Jupiter was taken earlier this month on a fairly stable night.  I've done better, but I have to take what I can get.  Jupiter is in a very good position near the meridian after sunset now, so you don't have to stay up too late for the best viewing through less atmosphere.
This is about 600 frames stacked with Registax 6.  I got it running in Linux and for some reason it really performed well and was faster than Windows 7, but I think it may have been using dual processors for that, I'll have to experiment with both OSs for some more comparisons.  
Volcanic moon Io is casting the shadow on the planet clouds.  You can just make it out on the lower right in the cloud band.

Aussies get all the luck with comets.

Been a while since I posted something on the blog site, so I need to get caught up again.   I'll just say 2011 has been a year to put behind me, and looking forward to starting 2012 - even if the Mayan calendar says this is our final year!

Comet Lovejoy seen from the ISS

So, once again there is a way cool fancy comet in the skies that favors those that walk upside down below the equator.  A few years back, they got the best view of Comet McNaught (but it was discovered by an Aussie anyway), and now Comet Lovejoy is showing off down there.  I guess I can't get too annoyed, even though we have had the 2nd driest December here in the NW, the skies have been quite foggy and hazy this month, so there haven't been that many really good observing nights.
Australian amateur Terry Lovejoy, discovered the comet and had it named after him.  The comet is known as a "sungrazer" since it appeared to be heading directly toward the sun and it's doom.  The SDO spacecraft has imaged a lot of these kamikaze comets over the years.  This comet barnstormed over the sun and reappeared on the other side surviving the  87,000 mile skimming of the solar surface.   It's now showing up in the "Down under" skies and putting on an amazing show!
(Although, the crew on the ISS has a much better view if you ask me).

Orbital time-lapse

Another really pretty video of the Earth from the space station along with a bunch of auroras and thunderstorms flickering in the clouds.   Very cool, but I think they could have used some better music.
Watch it in band-width sucking HD and full screen for best effect.



Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Cub Scouts visit the Highlands Astro-shack Observatory

I've had a few contacts through the club website lately asking about club members that could come to a scout meeting and demonstrate or teach some things about astronomy and telescopes.  I thought it would be more fun, and a lot easier to invite the Cub Pack (or is it a Troop?) over to our backyard observatory for a viewing.  Ok, November is getting into the dangerous month for storms and rare clear skies, but at least I can show them the telescope and how it works.
A small group of local scouts came over on a field trip the other night for a tour of the sky and telescope.  Skies were clear during the day, but hazed over later around sunset (it never fails!), but the moon was out and Jupiter was just clearing the tree in the backyard.  I was able to give them a fairly good view of the moon, and as it was lost in the oncoming haze, I swung around to Jupiter and showed them the cloud bands and the 4 moons.  NASA (or is it Russia now?) was cooperative and provided a space station flyby also which I pointed out to them.
Despite lousy skies, it was a great success!  The kids had a lot of good questions (as well as the parents) and I was able to answer them as fast as I could (they had a lot of questions that were fired at me in rapid succession).  Another group of scouts are coming next week, and the parents were so pleased that they asked if I could host a few more evenings with a few more groups.  Of course I said I would do it.

(click photos to view full size)