Geminids Meteor Shower Tonight

If you had to pick one night for watching the 2017 Geminid meteor shower, it’d probably be December 13 (morning of December 14). The nights before and after should be good as well. On a dark, moonless night, the Geminids are known to produce 50-120 meteors per hour, or nearly 1-2 meteors per minute. This year, with the Geminids’ parent object – 3200 Phaethon – nearby, you might see more. Plus, the moon is in a waning crescent phase for this year’s shower; it won’t interfere, and it’ll be passing some predawn planets.

Check out EarthSky for the top 10 tips for watching this shower. 

NGC 7000 - The North America Nebula

During the later part of November when we had some nice run of clear, moonless nights, I imaged a lot of DSOs (Deep Space Objects).  Finally got around to processing NGC 7000.

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to Deneb (the tail of the swan and its brightest star). The remarkable shape of the nebula resembles that of the continent of North America, complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico. It is sometimes incorrectly called the "North American Nebula". The North America Nebula is large, covering an area of more than four times the size of the full moon; but its surface brightness is low, so normally it cannot be seen with the unaided eye. Binoculars and telescopes with large fields of view (approximately 3°) will show it as a foggy patch of light under sufficiently dark skies. However, using a UHC filter, which filters out some unwanted wavelengths of light, it can be seen without magnification under dark skies. Its prominent shape and especially its reddish color (from the hydrogen Hα emission line) show up only in photographs of the area. The portion of the nebula resembling Mexico and Central America is known as the Cygnus Wall. This region exhibits the most concentrated star formation. (Wikipedia)

NGC 7000  -  November 20, 2017
EdgeHD11 w/Hyperstar and QHY10 Camera
30x180sec subs at f/2

I had imaged this object with my William Optics 102mm APO, but the EdgeHD11 with Hyperstar lens really pulls out the detail.  There is however, some issues with my setup of the Hyperstar.  If you look closely at the top left of the image the stars are actually small donuts; at the bottom right they are pinched. I'm pretty sure this is an issue with the camera not aligning properly to the Hyperstar lens; something which I have struggled with in the past to correct.

Cars in Space - you bet!

Elon Musk  (SpaceX) tweeted a few days ago:

"Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent."

Yikes - a Roadster in orbit!

Complete story at: Elon Musk - Roadster to Mars

Equivalence principle passes another test

A team of researchers from the French Aerospace Lab and at the Côte d'Azur Observatory working on France's MICROSCOPE satellite project has further confirmed the equivalence principle by recreating Galileo's free-falling objects experiment in a satellite.


Read more at: PhysOrg

Talk about Quality Engineering ...

If you tried to start a car that's been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use.

An artist concept depicting one of NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft. Humanity's farthest and longest-lived spacecraft are celebrating 40 years in August and September 2017. The Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980. They are located on the back side of the spacecraft in this orientation. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Voyager 1, NASA's farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or "puffs," lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.

See the complete story at: JPL

The Seven Sisters (Pleiades) Star Cluster

Early Thanksgiving day morning I imaged a favorite star cluster of mine, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. The Pleiades, also known as Messier 45), are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.  The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Dust that forms a faint reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over from the formation of the cluster (hence the alternative name Maia Nebula after the star Maia), but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium, through which the stars are currently passing. (Wikipedia)

M45 (The Pleiades) - Nov 23, 2017
WO-GT102 and QHY10 Camera
30x300sec Subs at -20C  - f5.5

This image is a processed stack of 30, 5 minute subs, taken with my WOGT102mm APO refractor and QHY10 camera.

New Images

I just noticed that a good portion of my past images have not had the correct dark frames processed on them. This means that thermal noise from my camera was not getting subtracted out. Granted the QHY10 operating at -20C doesn't produce a lot of thermal noise, there is still some there and it should be removed.

Adjusting for the new parameters in PixInsight I re-ran the M33 image taken with my WO GT102 APO. The image is a little darker, but the noise is greatly reduced. I may decide to reprocess some of my past images to allow for this improvement.

Updated M33 with Dark Frame Subtraction

On November 24, 2017, I placed my main telescope on automatic and scripted it to take ~3.5 hours of NGC 891, an edge on spiral galaxy while I got some needed sleep :).  Results were really good. 44 subs, each 300 seconds long were taken in the wee hours of the morning. Here is the end result of that session.

NGC 891, Nov 24, 2017
EdgeHD11 at f7.0 - 44x300sec subs with QHY10

NGC 891 (also known as Caldwell 23) is an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 6, 1784. The galaxy is a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. It has an H II nucleus.

Back in business

A few nights ago my main telescope mount started to act erratically. It would swing uncontrollably in the RA axis and resetting power didn't help.  Thinking the worst - a bad motor control board or motor, I removed the RA motor and tested it out.  Sure enough, when the RA motor was connected to the DEC axis the problem occurred. The issue is definitely correlated to the motor.

I contacted Ed at DeepSpaceProducts for the availability of a new motor. after describing the issue to him he suggested I first open the motor's encoder casing and check to see if the encoder assembly is OK since it sounded like an encoder problem to him. I found that the encoder disk was loose. Once tightened the issue was resolved. That saved me about $180. And, as usual, Ed is more interested in getting his customers back in business than he is just selling product.

Testing on real imaging last night reveals that the RA motor is fixed.

Not to waste a clear night, I set up the William Optics 102mm APO to capture some galaxies. Here is M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy.

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.

M33 - Nov 22, 2017
WO GT102 - F/5.5 29x300sec QHY10 Camera

M77 - A galaxy in the constellation of Cetus

M77, October 20, 2017
EdgeHD-11, f/7
39x180sec at -20C  QHY10 Camera

Messier 77 (also known as NGC 1068) is a barred spiral galaxy about 47 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus. Messier 77 was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780, who originally described it as a nebula. Méchain then communicated his discovery to Charles Messier, who subsequently listed the object in his catalog.^[5] Both Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster.^[5] Today, however, the object is known to be a galaxy.

Wikipedia

New Images - The Crab and Dumbell Nebulae

With the string of nice clear nights recently, I finally got a chance to spent a good amount of time repairing both my mounts and then imaging some popular DSOs (Deep Space Objects).

First, the iOptron replacement mount was delivered last Friday from the manufacturer and the new mount (they finally agreed to replace the mount rather than try to fix it for the third time) now operates flawlessly. I was actually able to take a few 3 minute subs without autoguiding! Still need to do a few more tests, but it does look encouraging.

Now the main mount (CGEM) has been giving me trouble for the past 10 months, and I finally got around to readjusting the gear meshing. Then I reloaded the software that controls the mount. Alas, I finally got the mount to operate within specs once again. It seems like the combination of some mechanical adjustment and resetting the software parameters got it back to working order.

With the CGEM now able to track well enough for imaging at near prime focus, I was off to photographing a bunch of objects while the skies remained clear and the moon out of the picture.

So here are the first two objects of the five I imaged that I have processed.

M1 - October 21, 2017 - EdgeHD-11
40x180sec, f/7, -20C
QHY10 Camera

M1, the Crab Nebula, is a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus. Recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion. At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions. The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 2.0 kiloparsecs (6,500 ly) from Earth. It has a diameter of 3.4 parsecs (11 ly), corresponding to an apparent diameter of some 7 arcminutes, and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi/s), or 0.5% of the speed of light.

M27 - October 19, 2017 - EdgeHD-11
26x180sec, f/7, -20C
QHY10 camera

M27, the Dumbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light-years. This object was the first planetary nebula to be discovered; by Charles Messier in 1764. At its brightness of visual magnitude 7.5 and its diameter of about 8 arcminutes, it is easily visible in binoculars, and a popular observing target in amateur telescopes.

Can It Be?

I've been watching the local weather forecast and the 'Clear Outside' forecast for a couple of days, and ... is it possible ... clear, cool, transparent skies, without the moon, for 5 days??!!   Yikes.  Got to plan my imaging runs :)

Cassini: End of an era

End of an era: the Cassini craft is due to plunge into Saturn on 15 September 2017.

Artists’s impression of the Cassini craft around Saturn. (Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Flying closer to Saturn than ever before, the Cassini spacecraft has spent the last few months diving between the planet and its rings, collecting new and unique data ahead of its suicidal plunge into the planet on 15 September.  Full story at:  Physics World

Check out the NYTimes link at: NYTimes Cassini   for a fantastic animation of the history of Cassini.  Well worth the effort to check out.

Asteroid Florence Makes a Close Approach to Earth

3122 Florence is a stony trinary asteroid of the Amor group. It is classified as a near-Earth object (NEO) and potentially hazardous object (PHO). It measures approximately 3 miles in diameter. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 93 – 232 million miles once every 2 years and 4 months (859 days). 

On the 1st of September, 2017, Florence passed at a distance of 4,391,000 miles from Earth (approximately eighteen times the average distance of the Moon). This is the asteroid's closest approach since 1890 and the closest until after 2500.

On September 3rd I was able to image Florence through my 4" William Optics Apo Refractor.  Here are two images: one is a time lapse movie showing the movement of Florence against the star field. This sequence is sped up to show the asteroid's relative motion (Florence's actual movement rate across the sky was about 0.336 degrees per hour - a pretty hefty clip).

Florence's relative motion in the sky
Rate is 120x actual

 The second image shows the asteroid's position every 60 seconds of time.

Annotated Chart showing Florence's march from south (bottom) to north (top)
Chart spans 1.0 x 1.2 degrees

Solar Eclipse Sequence

Here is a sequence image showing the partial phases before and after totality.  Photos from my Canon 70D operating with a Phottix Aion Wireless Timer and Shutter Release taking a photo every 10 minutes. The total phase image was inserted into the sequence after all photos were taken.  The third from last image is missing due to cloud cover at that time.

High Detail HDR of Corona

Here is a re-process of the eclipse image set with an emphasis on getting the fine detailed structure of the corona more visible.  The brightness is decreased in this process as well as the extent of the corona.

HDR Enhanced Photo of the Sun's Corona

Here is my first HDR (High Dynamic Range) image of the eclipse.  This image  was a 9 exposure bracketed run of images ranging from 1/4 sec to 1/1000 sec at ISO200 designed to bring out the subtlety of the sun's corona (shows approximately what the human eye was able to see).

All images were taken with a Canon 50D attached to a William Optics 102mm APO refractor mounted on an iOptron iEQ30 mount.  The processing was accomplished with PixInsight and Paint Shop Pro.

Eclipse (HDR Image)
August 21, 2017
Canon 50D on WO GT102 at f/5.5

Complete details, for those interested, will be in a future blog.

Total Eclipse 2017 - Initial Photo from Salem, SC

Well, I finally got to see my first total eclipse of the sun, and WOW ... fantastic.  Words can't describe the images of the sun blacked out, the diamond ring was awesome - photos don't do it justice.

I'll post more info on the effect later, but here is the first single exposure, unprocessed image of the eclipse about 20 sec or so past mid-eclipse.  Later I'll explain why I don't have images when it started!!

Efficient Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Be Possible Afterall

Science Photo/Adobe Stock

The promise of cheap energy via the Hydrogen Fuel Cell has just become more of a reality thanks to a serendipitous discovery!  Researchers at the US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground Research Laboratory were developing a high-strength aluminum alloy when they made a startling discovery - water poured over its surface started bubbling and producing hydrogen gas. And it kept producing gas contrary to the typical reaction where aluminum exposed to water oxidizes, creating a protective barrier to prevent further reactions from occurring.

See the complete story at:  Science Alert

Are you ready for the Solar Eclipse?

Unless you've been completely out of touch with news of any kind you should be aware that there is going to be an eclipse of the sun on Monday, August 21, 2017.  Much of the US will experience a Total Eclipse as the map below shows.

Sky and Telescope

For those fortunate enough to be in the eclipse's path, you are in for a real treat.  There is nothing that matches a total solar eclipse. I have yet to see one - but this year I'm expecting to, weather permitting.

There are lots of internet sites that will explain the whole story about eclipses, so I'm not going to spend time here explaining it. Just Google "Eclipse 2017" and I'm sure you'll get a boatload.  I've added a link to Sky And Telescope which has a lot of good info.

If you are staying in the Maryland area, around Baltimore/Washington you will see a partial eclipse, reaching about 80% at the peak.  Times are:

Start:            1:18 PM
Maximum:   2:42 PM
End:             4:01 PM

Remember to use eye protection during the eclipse.

Sky and Telescope Magazine has a lot of good information on the eclipse.

I'll post images after the event.

New Comet!

A new comet crept up on us this past weekend, one that should be visible for northern hemisphere observers soon.  I'm excited, as my favorite pastime in astronomy (besides just general astrophotography) is imaging comets.

New Comet ASASSN1 (C/2017 O1) already glows aqua from carbon-laced gases.
The comet is currently visible in the pre-dawn sky through modest-sized telescopes.
Rolando Ligustri

C/2017 O1, or Comet ASASSN1, is currently fairly dim and requires a medium sized telescope to see, but may brighten to within binocular capability as the year progresses. In fact, since its discovery on July 19th it has brightened almost 100,000 fold. It was discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN).

Details can be found at SkyAndTelescope  and Universe Today.  

New Horizon's Next Target

The Kuiper Belt object (known as 2014 MU69, 4.1 billion miles from Earth)
passes in front of a star and winks it out

Check out this article about the next target for the New Horizons spacecraft.  One of the team members that went to Argentina to capture the occultation (when one object passes in front of another - in this case, the Kuiper Belt object in front of a star) was Steve Conard, the lead engineer that built and tested the LORRI camera on New Horizons at APL in Laurel, Maryland. Steve is a member of the Westminster Astronomical Society, whom I met when I joined WASI back last year.

Complete article at NASA.

Uh-oh, bad news for life on Mars

The Martian surface may be even less hospitable to life than scientists had thought.
Ultraviolet (UV) radiation streaming from the sun "activates" chlorine compounds in the Red Planet's soil, turning them into potent microbe-killers, a new study suggests.

Complete story on Space.com

Geostationary Satellite in trouble

A satellite may be falling apart in geostationary orbit. On the morning of June 17, the Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES lost control of a large satellite in geostationary space, nearly 36,000km above the Earth's surface. Shortly after, the satellite operator began working with another company that specializes in space situational awareness to track the drifting machine, AMC-9. A few days ago that company, ExoAnalytic Solutions, saw the AMC-9 satellite begin to fragment.

There is a video showing the breakup and more details at:  ARS Technica

Jupiter - Like you've never seen it before - Part Three!

Just when I thought I had posted an awesome image of Jupiter from the Juno spacecraft, along comes this video (made up of multiple stills) of Juno's orbit around the poles of the planet.  This is absolutely fantastic. Never before have we seen the poles in such detail. And when the spacecraft gets to Perijove (closest point to Jupiter), it just knocks your socks off (at least I am currently barefoot!!)
And the music picked - perfect (extra points if you know the movie it came from).
Click the link below - you won't regret it.

Juno at Perijove

Jupiter - Like you've never seen it before! (Part two)

NASA’s Juno spacecraft was racing away from Jupiter following its seventh close pass of the planet when JunoCam snapped this image on May 19, 2017, from about 29,100 miles (46,900 kilometers) above the cloud tops. The spacecraft was over 65.9 degrees south latitude, with a lovely view of the south polar region of the planet.

You really need to head over to Nasa.gov to see the latest hi-res images from the Juno spacecraft!!

Jupiter - Three moons and Two shadows

Wow.  This year has really been awful as far as clear skies on moonless nights is concerned.  Hard to get any decent deep space imaging done under these conditions.

So I decided to see what's up in the lunar and planetary domain. Playing around with Starry Night Pro, the planetarium software I use to select and point my telescope to objects I want to image, I noticed an interesting configuration of Jupiter's moons on the night of June 3rd. Three of the brightest moons will be close to the planet, IO will transit the face of the planet and both IO and Ganymede would cast shadows on the planet surface - all during a few hours on the 3rd.

Checking the calendar I saw that the 3rd was a Saturday. Oh boy, a weekend night, I could stay up and not worry about work the next morning. And it turned out to be a clear night to boot.

So out came the telescope and imaging equipment. And although the atmospheric seeing was terrible (the images of Jupiter were boiling and roiling like crazy - not a good night for detailed planetary imaging) the event was interesting enough to make a go of it.

Jupiter and its Moons - June 3, 2017
EdgeHD11 - ASI120MC Planetary Camera
FL = 7200mm - Approx 1000 frames stacked

So here is the result - a mosaic of four images showing the progression of the three moons about Jupiter.  Clockwise from the top left: 10:30 PM, 10:44 PM, 11:12 PM, 11:17 PM. IO closest to the planet; IO's shadow to the left; Ganymede top right with it's shadow top center of planet; Callisto bottom right. You can see IO transiting the planet and just about ready to exit in the third image of this group. Seeing was so bad I could not capture IO's complete transit against Jupiter.

Jupiter - like you've never seen it before!

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

With the first set of science results from the Juno spacecraft, we are seeing a whole new Jupiter.  This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). The oval features are cyclones, up to 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three separate orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color, and stereographic projection.

Storms the size of earth.  Magnetic fields that are stronger than expected.  A north and south pole that are vastly different from each other.  In the next few months we will learn a whole lot more, and with the Great Red Spot as one of the new subjects for study, the excitement continues.

See Nasa.gov for the complete story.

Re-processed image of Comet Johnson

Using a technique of creating a synthetic flat from the original subs I was able to reprocess the image of Comet Johnson to bring out more detail and almost eliminate the gradients.

Gravitational Waves Are Permanently Warping The Fabric of Space-Time

Researchers have proposed a method for detecting exotic events in physics by looking for the scars they leave behind on the fabric of space.

By identifying how objects like cosmic strings or evaporating black holes leave behind memories of their existence on the Universe, it might be possible to move some rather strange phenomena from theoretical to empirical science.

Complete story at ScienceAlert

Comet Johnson

As promised, here is Comet Johnson from my imaging session on Monday, May 15th.  My light box is still not operating properly so I didn't take any flats to correct for the vignetting and other gradients. That is the reason for the slight ring-like halo around the image. And since I didn't have flats I couldn't stretch the image as much as I would have liked, but the result is not all that bad.

Comet C/2015 V2 Johnson - May 15, 2017
EdgeHD11 w/Hyperstar f/2
50x120sec Subs -20C QHY10

Comet Johnson C/2015 v2

Monday evening was one of the first clear nights that I was able to actually get out and image some astro-objects.  With comet Johnson high in the eastern sky and the moon out of the way (until at least just after midnight) I setup the Edge11 early to cool down before the image run.

SkyTools recommended over a two hundred 30 sec subs, but I knew that the Hyperstar on the Edge was able to do 120 sec subs without any significant fogging due to light pollution.  So with everything set I started the sequence run of 50 x 120sec subs starting at 10:28 pm, just about 18 minutes after the start of Astro-Dark skies (the time slot recommended by SkyTools).

Of course it wouldn't be a 'Mangieri' night of imaging without some problem cropping up. This time it wasn't the weather, or the mount, or the guiding, but the QHY10 camera.  For some reason it took almost an hour to cool down to the -20C temperature.  It has always completed this cool down in about 10 minutes. Post analysis showed that using the QHYCCD software EzCap (supplied with the camera) completed the cool down at the normal rate. Since I just downloaded and installed the latest release of SGP (my normal imaging software) I suspect that the issue may lie there. Anyway, the evening was a success and I captured 50 nice subs of the comet. The sequence ended at 00:48 am (the extra 40 minutes taken up with downloading each sub to the computer). I tried to use my home-build light box to create a set of flats to improve the post processing, but the light is way too bright to work with the Hyperstar - got to get that fixed.

Since I need some time to process the images, I decided to create a time lapse video of the comet movement among the background stars (accelerated quite a bit!). As the frames progress you can see the ever 'popular' aircraft light streaks! The ugly 'pea soup' sky is because I did not process removal of sky glow (light pollution). It will be removed when I process the still image of the comet.

In the next few days I should be able to post the full color image of Johnson.

Comet Johnson - I'm almost ready for you

Between the full moon, clouds, daylight savings time, and having to get to my real job on the weekdays, I have yet to capture a decent image of comet Johnson, now visible in binoculars in Bootes fairly high in the eastern sky around 10:00 PM.  Johnson is still brightening and will reach best viewing in early June.

According to weather forecasts (and Clear Outside software) Monday through Wednesday next week should provide some decent sky conditions. The only issues might be a warmer air mass with some moderate humidity.

If you want to try viewing Johnson, look high overhead due east (almost 70 degrees from the horizon) just to the left of the 3rd magnitude star Delta Bootis.  Johnson remains high in the sky most of the evening, but the moon will interfere around 2:00AM.

Starry Night Pro 7

View to the east, 11:00PM - May 15, 2017

Starry Night Pro 7

Enlarged area of Constellation Bootes

Nice Arrangement of Jupiter's Moons

If you have a telescope that can view Jupiter (and most small telescopes of reasonable quality can) there is a nice arrangement of Jupiter's four largest (and brightest) moons on the night of May 9th. The image below shows the moons at 11:15 PM.

Jupiter and its four moons
May 9, 2017

Even a good set of 20x binoculars will probably be able to see them provided the binoculars are held on a tripod or you happen to have those really nice (but expensive) image stabilized versions.

Postal Service new Eclipse Stamp

Now here is a novel idea for a commemorative stamp.  The Postal Service will soon release a first-of-its-kind stamp that changes when you touch it. The Total Solar Eclipse Forever stamp, which commemorates the August 21 eclipse, transforms into an image of the Moon from the heat of a finger.  The public is asked to share the news on social media using the hashtag #EclipseStamps.

Complete story at:  USPS News

Negative Mass - the world of Quantum Physics gets stranger!

Artist's abstraction (stock image) - Credit: © ktsdesign / Fotolia

Washington State University physicists have created a fluid with negative mass, which is exactly what it sounds like. Push it, and unlike every physical object in the world we know, it doesn't accelerate in the direction it was pushed. It accelerates backwards.

See story at ScienceDaily

LDRS 36 at Higgs Farm

When I heard that LDRS was coming to MDRA this year I had to come out of my 3 and a half year hiatus in rocketry (having two expensive hobbies can take a toll on your finances).  Although I had planned to attend on Thursday and Friday the weather was terrible and so I modified my plans and took the trip to Price, MD on Friday and Saturday.

Friday wasn't all that much better than Thursday as it turned out.  The winds were up to 20-30MPH and it was cold. I stayed most of the day, but didn't launch anything. I did, however, help a friend get his Level 1 certification, so the day wasn't a total wash.

Saturday was much better. Winds were still a bit on the breezy side but manageable. And the temperature was warmer.

I decided not to prep and fly the largest rocket in my fleet, the Talon-2, as planned, since I didn't like the winds and I was still feeling the effects of my cold that I was trying to shake for the last two weeks. But both the Emerald Fire and Mustang-XL were ready to go.

The Emerald Fire was first up. Loaded with a K805G motor (propellant is a green formulation appropriate for a rocket named Emerald Fire) and a Ozark GPS telemetry head in the nosecone, she raced off the pad for a really nice flight to 3,700 feet. She reached a maximum velocity of 322 ft/sec.

Plan was to capture some GPS telemetry data for plotting on Google Earth, but since I forgot to set the data recorder I got nothing. I guess when you're away from rocketry for over 3 1/2 years you tend to forget a few things - now where was that checkist :)

The Mustang-XL was a pure sport flight and it performed very well. Loaded with a J450 DM motor, the takeoff was loud, sparky and cool to watch. She quickly climbed to 4,700 feet with a maximum velocity of 670 ft/sec before landing off to the right about 2000 feet across Ell Downes road. The rocket was carrying a Trackimo device which sends GPS signals via the cellular network.

Video my two flights is up on YouTube:  Video

LDRS was a huge success, and I enjoyed my time back on the rocket field. According to MDRA there were a total of 713 rocket launches during the 4-day event.

Comet Johnson

Just got done with the processing of some subs I took of comet C/2015 V2 Johnson on March 3rd.  The fact that the comet was so close to the bright star Tau Herculis (mag 3.9) made it really difficult to get the image processed.  It's not great, but it is in there; green and all! 

C/2015 V2 (Johnson)
March 3, 2017
EdgeHD11 Telescope at f/7   40x180sec subs

Why green?  Many comets have an abundance of chemical compounds such as cyanide (CN₂) and carbon (C₂). When these compounds are ionized, due to the sun's energy, they emit light in the green spectrum.  Hydrogen (more common) also glows but is much fainter. 

Johnson's orbit really favors us northerners as she will be high in the NE - E over the entire time.  The chart shows Johnson on March 18, 2017 at midnight, with the future positions marked in red.  Note however, that every day the comet actually gets higher and higher due to the earth's rotation and the fact that the comet is following a rather straight path to the west.  It is about 37 degrees up from the eastern horizon right now, but by May 15th she'll be directly overhead at midnight.  So by then you could see the comet the same as now in March but at 9:00PM rather than midnight.

C/2015 V2 (Johnson) is a hyperbolic comet discovered on 3 November 2015 by Jess Johnson (Catalina Sky Survey) at an apparent magnitude of 17.1 using a 0.68-meter (27 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope (Wikipedia).  Since the orbit is hyperbolic, Johnson will not return to our solar system, but after passage later this summer she will head out to deep space.

I'll be imaging Johnson whenever I can.  By June she may even be visible to the naked eye in dark skies.  Certainly visible with binoculars.

Comet 41P/T-G-K now easily visible in binoculars

Starting this week, and for the next 15-30 days or so, comet 41P should put on a good show.  In early April it may even reach naked-eye visibility (for those of us far away from any light pollution that is).  For the rest of us binoculars will do the trick.

Hisayoshi Kato

As an avid comet chaser I'm always ready to image new (and old) comets with my Edge11 and now with my new WO102. Of course, the latest snowstorm and subsequent cloudy and windy nights is making this a bit difficult. But there is still time, and as soon as the skies clear I'm out there.

Complete info on viewing 41P can be found at Sky and Telescope

Super-Earth is no place for a human

With all the news lately about newly discovered Super-Earths, its almost natural to assume that one of these planets may support life - and maybe we'll discover that in our lifetimes.  The problem is, of course, that the term Super-Earth is misleading at best.

I've always been wary of any news report claiming a likely 'earth like planet' has been discovered. Not that I want to quash any hopes of finding life out there in the universe, but the so called 'Super Earths' won't be the ones that probably have it.

The Forbes article here, by Ethan Siegel, explains why in just enough detail for almost anyone to understand.  I'm still hopeful that we will find a life supporting planet, but it may be awhile.

Seven Earth-Sized Planets Orbit Dim Star

Astronomers have found seven Earth-sized planets around a cool red dwarf, all of which have the potential for liquid surface water.

Article by Camille M. Carlisle | February 22, 2017 (Sky and Telescope) details the top news of the week.

New results from CERN - Fix to the Standard Model of physics?

Proton-proton collision in the LHCb. Credit: CERN

Of the many unanswered questions that stand in the way of the Standard Model of physics being able to adequately explain the Universe and everything in it, the mystery of matter-antimatter asymmetry is one of the biggest.

The equal amounts of matter and antimatter produced by the Big Bang should have cancelled each other out, resulting in a Universe with barely any particles, and yet, here we are. Now, new results from a Large Hadron Collider detector at CERN could be our best chance at explaining the paradox of our own existence.

For the complete story see:  Science Alert

Incredible images of Saturn's Rings from Cassini

As the Cassini spacecraft continues it's death spiral into Saturn it is returning some fantastic new views of that planet's ring system.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Head on over to Universe Today for some stunning images and descriptive story.

Get Your Iridium Fix Before It’s Too Late!

Ever seen an Iridium flare?  Don't know what they are?  Iridium flares are the sudden increase in intensity of sunlight bouncing off the highly reflective surfaces of the Iridium communications satellites, and they are awesome to see.  But, the window of opportunity to see them is closing as the replacement Iridiums are already being sent up (SpaceX’s Falcon 9 delivered the first 10 of a new generation of Iridium NEXT satellites to low-Earth orbit back on January 14th)  and these will not produce the famous flares.

Complete story and guide to how to locate and view the flares can be found at Sky And Telescope.

Metallic Hydrogen? Really!!

Silvera et al., Science

We all learned in school that hydrogen, the simplest of all elements (one proton, one electron), is a gas - lighter than air, and abundant in the universe.  In fact the early universe was only hydrogen, but that's another story.  But years ago scientists speculated and theorized that under the proper conditions (very cold temperatures and high pressure) hydrogen could become a metal - yes, a metal.

Well, more than 80 years after it was first predicted, physicists have actually created metallic hydrogen - a mysterious form of hydrogen that could be capable of superconducting electricity without resistance at room temperature.  Really amazing stuff considering that this is something that has never existed before!

Read the complete story over at Science Alert.

In the quantum vacuum, no one can hear you scream.

Physicists say they've manipulated 'pure nothingness' and observed the fallout

ktsdesign/Shutterstock.com

According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum isn't empty at all. It's actually filled with quantum energy and particles that blink in and out of existence for a fleeting moment - strange signals that are known as quantum fluctuations.

For decades, there had only ever been indirect evidence of these fluctuations, but back in 2015, researchers claimed to have detected the theoretical fluctuations directly. And now the same team says they've gone a step further, having manipulated the vacuum itself, and detecting the changes in these strange signals in the void.

Full story at:  Science Alert

SpaceX Does it Again

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — SpaceX launched 10 satellites to orbit today (Jan. 14) in a rousing return-to-flight mission that also included a rocket landing on a ship at sea.

SpaceX - First stage of Falcon-9 on drone ship after today's launch

Complete story and fantastic video footage of the launch and spot-on landing of the Falcon-9 first stage can be seen at:  Space.com