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| Simulation from Stellarium |
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| Total Eclipse of the Moon - March 14, 2025 2:41 AM EDT William Optics GT102 with Canon 50D sensor ISO 400 - 8sec exposure |
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| Timeline of the Total Eclipse Sky and Telescope |
Soldiers Delight Star Party - March 15, 2025"Astronomical Phenomena: Eclipses, meteor showers, and other spectacular events in the night sky"
Astronomical phenomena such as eclipses, meteor showers, and other spectacular events in the night sky captivate our imagination and offer a glimpse into the vastness of the universe. Eclipses, whether solar or lunar, occur when the Earth, moon, and sun align, casting shadows and creating breathtaking visual displays. Meteor showers, like the Perseids or Geminids, result from Earth passing through the debris left by comets, producing streaks of light as meteoroids burn up in the atmosphere. Other phenomena, such as auroras, are caused by solar particles interacting with Earth's magnetic field, painting the sky with vibrant colors. These events not only provide stunning visuals but also deepen our understanding of celestial mechanics and the dynamic nature of our cosmos.
All programs rain or shine. Time machines will be provided by the Westminster Astronomy Club.
Activity: Dark Sky Wheel
You can find out about special local events by contacting us at https://www.westminsterastro.org/
Date: Saturday, March 15, 2025
Time: 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Location: Soldiers Delight Environmental Area
5100 Deer Park Rd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117
In a first for a commercial company, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander made a fully successful landing on the surface of the Moon. The landing occurred in the Mare Crisium on the lunar nearside early on the morning of Sunday, March 2nd at 3:34 a.m. EST / 8:34 UT.
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| Blue Ghost sees its shadow, on the surface of the Moon Firefly Aerospace |
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| Firefly's Blue Ghost lander witnessed lunar sunrise — the start of a new day on the Moon and two weeks of activities NASA |
Athena landed in the lunar south pole region but fell on its side. After its batteries quickly depleted, the mission ended.
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| This photo of the lunar surface was taken from the Athena lander on approach. Intuitive Machines |
Athena entered lunar orbit on March 3rd and initiated an initial descent orbit insertion (DOI) burn on March 6th at 5:33 a.m. EST / 10:33 UT, snapping images as it went. It touched down in the Mon Mouton region at 12:30 p.m. EST / 17:30 UT. However, early indications showed that the Nova-C lander was "not in the correct attitude," said Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, in a press conference Thursday afternoon. Indeed, a later image from the spacecraft confirmed it had landed on its side, similar to the fate of the company's first attempt, a year ago.
Athena managed to send back pictures confirming its position and activate a few experiments before going silent.
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| Athena took a picture from the surface of the Moon that showed the lander on its side. Intuitive Machines |
It's been a long time since I have attempted any planetary photography since I'm generally a DSO (Deep Space Object) imager. So, while setting up for another run at the IC 417 nebula I slewed the telescope to Jupiter just for the fun of it while I was waiting for the sky to get darker.
Even though I didn't have the planetary camera attached, the mono ASI2600 at the f/10 full FL of the EdgeHD11 did bring out some detail. I noticed the location of two of Jupiter's moons and the shadows they were casting on the planet so I ran a full 5000 frame video capture using SharpCap.
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| Jupiter - March 4, 2025 EdgeHD11/ASI2600mm f/10 2500 frames stacked in Autostakkert and Processed in Registax |
Maybe I'll get back to some planetary imaging later this Spring before the planets move out of my view. For now, it's back to DSOs.
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| This artist's impression shows part of the KM3NET neutrino detector, being built deep in the Mediterranean Sea. It's not to scale — the detector units are just 30 cm across, and they'll be spread across cubic kilometers under the sea. |
The planet Venus will be the brightest object in evening sky on Valentine's Day. Kinda neat since in Roman mythology, Venus was the goddess of love, sex, beauty and fertility. How fitting.
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| Venus’s greatest evening elongation in 2025 from the Northern Hemisphere as viewed through a powerful telescope. The planets are exaggerated 600 times in size. Chart via Guy Ottewell’s 2025 Astronomical Calendar. |
Venus reaches its greatest brilliancy for 2025 on February 14, where it is the evening star. You can't miss Venus! It outshines all other objects in our sky, except for the sun and moon. Look for it in the western sky just after sunset. In fact, it is so bright that you could probably see it before the sun sets if you know just where to look. And with small telescopes, it is visible in the daytime.
Check out EarthSky for more details about Venus, why it is so bright and why it appears sometime in the east and sometimes in the west but never all night long.
Soldiers Delight Star Party - February 15, 2025I am back from the frozen north of Norway, in search of the Northern Lights. Turns out it wasn't actually frozen at all! I'll explain during the session this coming Saturday.
So come on out and join us for an exciting discussion of Gravity, Black Holes and what's up in the winter sky.
"Gravity and Black Holes"
Tonight, we delve into one of the most intriguing and enigmatic phenomena in the universe: black holes and the force of gravity that governs them. Black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, challenge our understanding of physics and the very fabric of space-time. These cosmic giants, formed from the remnants of massive stars, possess gravitational fields so strong that not even light can escape their grasp. Our discussion will explore the formation of black holes, the role of gravity in their behavior, and the profound implications they have for our understanding of the universe. Join me as we journey into the depths of these mysterious entities and uncover the secrets they hold about the nature of gravity and the cosmos.
All programs rain or shine. Time machines will be provided by the Westminster Astronomy Club.
Activity: Gravity Simulator: Explore Black Holes and Gravity
You can find out about special local events by contacting us at https://www.westminsterastro.org/
Date: Saturday, February 15, 2025
Time: 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Eastern
Location: Soldiers Delight Environmental Area
5100 Deer Park Rd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117
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| Astrophotographer Lionel Majzik captured these images of comet ATLAS G3 from Rio Hurtado, Chile, between January 18 and 20. |
The day was dark and cloudy and actually quite cold. Light rain and drizzle continued all day. We had booked a bus tour of the city of Bergen, but based on it's departure time of 5:00pm we decided to just stay in our stateroom. It was just too much to get out in the dark with that weather and there was some outside walking. So we enjoyed a good dinner and rested - after all, we needed to be up and ready to leave for the airport at 3:00am!
I snapped a few pics of the city from our ship docked in Skoltegrunnskaien (Bryggen, the Wharf), a port located in the heart of Fjord Norway.
Oh, I forgot to mention this on yesterday's blog:
I had a nice conversation with Captain Rune Loekling, who has been sailing with Viking for 10 years. We discussed the new ship (Vela) and his time with Viking and the topic of the storm came up during the conversation. When I mentioned it was kind of neat to be able to tell my friends that I was in a class 2 hurricane, he politely corrected me. Turns out it was a class 3 storm, with winds that actually reached 170 mph and sea swells of 80 ft. Yikes. No wonder we were tossed about. I asked him if he had been in similar storms and he said yes, a few, as the North and Norwegian Seas are notorious for these kinds of storms.
And the evidence of the storm's effect on the Vela were obvious today, as we saw a number of contractor crews out and about repairing stateroom closets, many areas around the pool, hallways, restaurants and just about everywhere you looked. Most damage was minor with some moderate damage requiring replacement of whole pieces of furniture and shelving areas. Lots of kitchen dishes needed to be replaced. One of the crew mentioned to me that there were even some dents in the ship's hull that will need repairing when the ship is between cruises.
So there - I can claim to have been at sea in a class 3 storm 😎. It was exciting, but I don't think I would like to do it again. Did we enjoy our cruise even considering the storm and the fact that we didn't get to our big excursions out in Tromsø and Alta? Yes. And, almost forgot, finally got to see the Northern Lights; at least a small display. But it was better than nothing, and I won't have to tell my friends that I went all the way to Norway and didn't see the Northern Lights😄.
And just before we retired for the evening, we got a letter from Viking informing us that we would be getting a voucher for a future cruise valued at 100% of our current expenditure - essentially, a free cruise!
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| Northern Lights as seen from the observation deck of the ship Sunday, Jan 19. |
Today we visited Stavanger, a city set on Norway's southwest coast. Stavanger boasts a rich history dating back to the last ice age. Known as one of Europe's most interesting old towns, Gamle Stavanger's cobblestone streets are adorned with a collection of wooden buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
We hadn't booked any excursions for this day, but decided, the last minute to do the Fjord Foray by RIB at midday. According to Wikipedia a rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull bottom joined to side-forming air tubes that are inflated with air to a high pressure so as to give the sides resilient rigidity along the boat's topsides. The design is stable, light, fast and seaworthy. The inflated collar acts as a life jacket, ensuring that the vessel retains its buoyancy, even if the boat is taking on water.
We had taken a similar ride on an RIB when we cruised to Iceland this past summer. However, this foray was quite a different story. With temperatures in the low 30s and the boat speed pretty high the wind chill was quite intense. And where did we have our heated gloves and socks? On the ship of course - poor planning!
Here are a few pics of the town, followed by the awesome, close-up beauty of the fjords as seen by RIB. I didn't get any pics of the actual town by foot as we were so cold from our return from the RIB ride.
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| Note the Burger King and 7-Eleven |
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| "Pulpit Rock" |
Our stay in Eidfjord was enjoyable - seeing some very interesting landscapes - and viewed a wonderful panoramic film in the Hardangervidda Natursenter; a museum and visitor center at Hardangervidda National Park in Vestland county, Norway.
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| What!! Is that what I think it is - sunlight on the mountain? |
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| The Voringsfoss Hotel. Situated completely on the edge of the water by the deep blue Hardangerfjorden The hotel has been running since 1889. |
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| Venus over the mountains in Eidfyord |
Our voyage continues south toward Eidfyord Norway - as we embark with another delayed start as the sea continues to be a little rough. The winds finally did die down, but the water still exhibited some high waves. Here is a photo of the coastline near Bergen (I had a video, but I can't seem to upload it at this time).
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| An artist's conception of the Blue Ghost lander on the Moon Firefly Aerospace |
SpaceX launched its Starship megarocket for the seventh time ever today (Jan. 16). The launch was beautiful (as usual for these Super Heavy rockets).
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| SpaceX's seventh Starship megarocket launches on a test flight on Jan. 16, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX) |
One of the goals of this test flight was to catch Starship's giant first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, back at Starbase's launch tower, using the structure's "chopstick" arms, which was accomplished back in October of last year for the first time during flight #5. SpaceX succeeded in doing so once again (see video at MSN).
But approximately eight minutes into the flight, SpaceX lost contact with the Starship upper stage, known as Ship and it went out with a bang. Preliminary analysis has indicated that some sort of pressure build up in the craft caused the explosion (video).
Jeff Bezos must be proud today as New Glenn launched for the first time ever this morning (Jan. 16). It launched off a brand new pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida's Space Coast at 2:03 a.m. EST.
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| Blue Origin launches its first New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Jan. 16, 2025. (Image credit: Miguel J. Rodríguez Carrillo/Getty Images) |
About 12.5 minutes later, the rocket's upper stage reached orbit — the main goal of today's test flight, which the company called NG-1. Unfortunately, the booster, which was expected to return for a landing on a barge, did not return.
See the full details of the launch at Space.com
Comet ATLAS G3 has successfully made its trip around the sun and is now visible just after sunset until about January 20 for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere observers will have the best views. For those of us in the north, things are a little more difficult. During this time the comet will be placed very close to the sun; within 5 degrees of the sun from our point of view (that’s about three fingers width held at arm’s length). ATLAS will stay relatively close to the sun (from our point of view) for a couple days on either side of perihelion. See Earth Sky for details on the orbital approach to the sun.
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| Steven Bellavia in Smithfield, Virginia, caught Comet ATLAS G3 on January 15, 2025. |
Although ATLAS is very bright it will be sinking to the south as it exits the sun’s vicinity and so for those of us at 40 degrees north latitude ATLAS will be difficult to see. But, if ATLAS develops a long tail, we might be able to see just the tail after sunset even though the head of the comet may be below the horizon. Back in 2007 Comet McNaught provided this very view.
Since I'm still on a cruise ship in Norway I doubt I'll be able to capture this comet.
On Sunday, March 23, a rare celestial event will temporarily cause Saturn’s rings to seemingly vanish from view. Known as a ring plane cross...
