Comet Lovejoy - moving through Columba

Here is a 15 minute animation of the motion of Comet Lovejoy late on Christmas night taken with my EdgeHD-11 telescope. No tail visible as yet (probably because of the light polluted skies and low altitude here in Maryland.)

Comet Lovejoy brightens - visible in the S-SW Sky

Another Bright Comet Visible from the Baltimore Area

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is the 5th comet discovered by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy of Brisbane, Australia. Discovered on August 17, 2014, Lovejoy is brightening nicely and should be visible in binoculars and small telescopes late December and January. The comet is currently low in the South but will be steadily climbing throughout late December and January.  Although the waxing moon will interfere some, Lovejoy is expected to reach magnitude 4.4 on January 10, 2015, bright enough to be visible even with the full moon which occurs on January 4, 2015.

Here is a chart for the Reisterstown, MD area (Mikey's Observatory) with positions at 10:00PM local time from Dec 27th through Jan 17th.

Interesting data, observation and interactive orbital charts can be found at In-The-Sky.org and more details about the comet can be found at Astronomy.com

NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft awakens for encounter with Pluto

The New Horizon's spacecraft will begin observing the distant dwarf planet January 15 and fly by Pluto in July. Full story at Astronomy Magazine.

Orion Blasts Off

On December 5th, NASA successfully launched the first test flight of its Orion capsule. Scheduled to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit in the 2020s, the spacecraft is NASA’s first deep-space people transporter since the Apollo days. - See more at: Sky and Telescope

NASA scrubs Orion launch after multiple delays

NASA's first attempt to launch Orion, a new exploration capsule, was scrubbed Thursday after numerous delays. The ultimate goal for Orion is to take astronauts to Mars, but that won't happen until at least the 2030s.

Orion is the Apollo-like capsule NASA is developing to fly astronauts to an asteroid by the 2020s, and potentially Mars by the 2030s.

For the full story see the USAToday article.