NGC 7008 or the "fetus" nebula

While waiting for Jupiter to get higher in the sky last night, I used that time to experiment with some imaging of a planetary nebula in Cygnus. There is a LOT of cool gassy stuff around that area to explore.
This one is 2,800 light years away, so this is one of the closer objects than some of my other targets. Still hard to image well though. I'm not totally happy with the focus on this since I think I had a little of the dreaded and familiar LX200 "mirror flop" when I went vertical. But then again, I am my own worst critic as usual. NGC 7008 is called the "Fetus Nebula". Maybe because it kind of looks like the Star Child from 2001:A Space Odyssey?
As always, click images for full size.

Jupiter hit seen from Renton backyard.

I got my chance last night to check out the view of the asteroid/comet (or spreading monoliths?) hit on Jupiter. Despite the 85+ degree temperature at midnight the skies were fairly stable and Jupiter wasn't looking too bad despite still being a little low in the sky. I took this image with the 12" Meade LX200 with a 2x barlow and the Vesta Pro webcam. It's a stack of a few hundred images, processed with Registax5, tweaked and fiddled with using The Gimp.
It's a little faint in my image, but the impact cloud can be seen in the shot. It seems that it will come around the planet and be centered in the view about 2 hours after the Great Red Spot passes.
I'm wondering how long this will be there before it dissipates?
(click the image to see an enlargement)

| Spaceweather.com - for the latest amateur images |

ISS across the sun.

Once again Thierry Legault has come up with another one of his stunning ISS/Shuttle images. This time it's the ISS with Endeavour parked at the station crossing the sun. The full solar array, shuttle wings and everything are visible against the sun. Way cool! Did I mention this is really totally cool? Yeah, very VERY nifty, awesome, cool!
Thierry is also one of the featured photographers in the new book that just came out this month by Robert Gendler - "Capturing the Stars: Astrophotography by the Masters."
I don' thave the book yet myself, but pawed through it at the bookstore. It's on my list of books that I must buy.

| Thierry Legault's web page |

First peek from updated Hubble camera - Jupiter

I guess this chance was too good to go to waste, so testing on the Hubble camera was pushed aside to point the spacecraft at Jupiter. Unless you live in a cave, you probably know that Jupiter got smacked by a comet or an asteroid last week. This was discovered by an amateur astronomer (great job for us "little guys"!) in Australia. This chunk of stuff that hit Jupiter left a cloud of debris and smoke in the atmosphere that is easily seen in small scopes. (I'll give it a try this week from my backyard).
Scary thing is, if this was Earth, this could easily be an extinction type of thing for us. Good thing we have Jupiter out there sucking up stuff like a bit vacuum cleaner!

| More details from Hubble site |

Google moon Apollo tour

Google takes one giant leap ahead of Microsoft "Bing" once again. Ok, it's not another search engine war, but a feature in Google Earth software (the moon part) that is pretty nicely done. The Apollo sites are all marked and you can zoom in on the landing sites and see a 3d LM siting there as well as other goodies. I'm sure before long, the actual NASA images will be there, they have "almost live" images added to Google Mars all the time, so I'm sure this will also be a new feature.
If you zoom down to the Apollo 11 site, there is an animated audio tour by Andrew Chaikin and Buzz Aldrin with an animated landing, photos, sounds and other stuff.
Another good Google thing to totally get lost in and later realize that several hours have been lost......so be careful if you peek at this at work!

| Gizmodo.com article |

Jupiter hit.

Jupiter is trying to steal some news from Apollo 11, and the Shuttle these days. It seems to have attracted something and got whacked by a comet or most likely a very large asteroid or rock. Not much known yet, but it definitely took a hit.(Photo by Anthony Wesley, Australia)

| NASA info |

July 20 - Moon landing +40 years.

Where were you?
Me - I was just under 2 years old, staying with my grandparents since my parents were on a trip. They told grandma "make sure Tom watches the landing!". So I did see it, don't remember it, I was too busy drooling on my shirt and filling my diapers, but I can say that I was there!
I'll have to do a blog entry of my childhood sometime. I've been a huge Apollo fanatic since then.

CNN and the 40th anniversary

I'm a little disgusted with CNN over the last few days. I just saw a second headline about the Apollo 11 anniversary which once again mentions, hoax, fake, and lies in the headline and article.
Hey CNN, can't you give this some more respect than that? Praise the landings and the amazing accomplishments we did 40 years ago, save the hoax busting for later. Sad thing is, I read the other day that about 1/4 of the 18 to 25 year olds believe the landings were staged. Arrrgh!! That's so very wrong, what is it with people these days? The LRO has smacked the hoaxers already, and over time, it will give those hoaxers a good firm beating as the lower altitude images of the landing sites come down.
Well, they did dump Miles O'Brien who was the best CNN science guy they had, so what can you expect from them now?

| CNN article - read if you want, but won't hurt to just skip it too! |

Walter Cronkite - "That's the way it is...."

Sadly with all the Apollo stuff this week, we lost Walter Cronkite just a few days before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Walter always had something to say, but he was totally speechless after "Tranquility base here...the Eagle has landed"

Here is the original video, with the 1201 alarms, low fuel and Walter's famous "Whew! Boy!"

Apollo 11 photo essay - The Big Picture.

The Big Picture has a photo essay the other day, just getting around to sharing that now. Great photos as always.

| Apollo essay |

Apollo 11 and other sites seen from LRO - finally!

Here is the first views of the Apollo landing sites, including Apollo 11 of course, seen since the astronauts left the surface many years ago.
These are just the first peek, they will get 2 or 3 times better as the LRO's orbit is lowered. It's still working it's orbit down to it's final altitude.
Can we call the moon landing hoax busted now!?
Hey Bart Sibrel, bend over, and get ready for your much deserved whacking!

| LRO images released of Apollo sites |

STS-127 finally up after 6 tries....

Endeavour is safely in orbit as of yesterday and chasing down the ISS. I saw both fly over my house tonight. First the ISS, then about 10 minutes behind, the shuttle came over too. I would have tried some telescope images but they were North of the house and I have a couple of big trees there, and if you have ever tried to move a polar mounted scope on a wedge in a north position by hand, it's a frustrating endeavour (sorry!).
Chunks of ice and/or foam tore off the tank and gave the black tiles a good wack before the SRBs dropped off. Several white spots are seen where the black surface had been chipped away. More on this later as the tiles are insepected.

Here is the launch seen in HD. (look for the chunks flinging about 1:46 into the flight)