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)

Happy Halloween

I'll probably hide in my basement tonight with the lights off, since I failed to get candy, and what is the point of buying a huge bag for about 7.5 kids that show up?  That stuff just isn't as good tasting as it used to be.
I saw this photo on Phil Plait's blog and liked the pumpkin, just thought I would share this one.

In Seattle, every clear night is a special night.

Finally had a break in the weather last night.  Didn't last too long, but enough for a midnight peek and get a few shots of Jupiter last night.  Skies were very stable probably about 8/10 if I can rate our skies.  Grabbed some videos of Jupiter while I could.  I was going for some more as the red spot rotated around the side of the planet, but then it all went dim on my screen.  Leaned out the door and peeked up and saw some wispy cloud gunk had gone between me and Jupiter.  Decided to quit at that time and send my data into the house for processing.
Pretty happy with the results.  This was probably the best of the few that I tried last night, but I can usually improve processing when I try it when awake - rather than at 1:45am.
Io is the moon that can be seen just to the left of the planet.

(click for bigger)

Not much change in about 40+ years.

I was at mom and dad's house this afternoon digging through dad's ties trying to find something that would possibly look good for an interview this week (already nervous about this).  I thought I would paw through some of the old slides to see what was in there.  Found a few photos of myself that were kind of fun and thought I would share them.  A little embarrassing maybe, but then I guess I'm still pretty much the same after 40 years.

The first photo is me sitting in the first officer's seat in a 747 that I got a tour of.  Dad and I were in the YMCA "Indian guides".  I wasn't wearing my feather and leather vest at this time.
The father of one of the boys in the tribe(?) was a pilot and flew this plane.  We all got a tour of it and I was totally impressed.  Funny thing I remember was that the dad had a thumb that was stubby, it was cut off in the past, but not sure how.  Still they let him fly a 747 even with a stub!
My interest in the manned space program is evident in the next photo.  This was back in about 1971, probably around the time Apollo 14 was going to the moon.  I was quite impressed with the missions and followed them closely while in my jammies sitting on the living room floor. I did have a few plastic models including the now valuable "Gulf Oil" LEM cardboard model which hung from the ceiling lamp in my bedroom.
So as you can see in this photo, I was simulating my own landing mission on the moon in the living room.  Obviously, I was the commander of the mission and my sister was lunar module pilot and lying down on the job.  I had the proper paper helmet, and a PLSS on my back ready for the EVA on the moon.  From the serious look in my face, I was probably dodging a boulder filled crater that the computer was trying to set me down in!

(Click the photos to see full size)

Expedition 31 crew photo and poster.

I always enjoy NASA's new sense of humor in the crew "movie posters".  Seems that the official crew photo this time has some Van Gogh in the background.
Too add a little more to the fun, I spotted a Cherokee 140 down at Boeing Field late this last summer, which also had similar artwork on it's tail. I wasn't sure at first about the logo on the vertical stabilizer  but after seeing photos from "Burning Man" I realized that this plane was a participant in the desert festival.  That could be a fun trip down there an land in the desert, but not really sure if I'm into running around naked wearing nothing but paint and cardboard covered with feathers, bubble gum and rubber bands (just made that up, but you know what I mean).  If you ask me, I think a plane like that is just asking for the dreaded FAA ramp check!

| Full sized crew photo link |

| See more on the CollectSpace posting |

Summary of all shuttle flights.

There is a new document out to test out the ink on your color printer if you want.  I'm sure you can burn through most of your colors if you want.  NASA has published a pretty nice 300 page document in .pdf format that is free for download. It contains a summary of each of the shuttle flights in about 2 or 3 pages each.  Timelines, photos and other goodies.
|Click here to download it (36 Meg .pdf file) |