Twin comets approach closely in March

Illustration by Eddie Irizarry using Stellarium; EarthSky

Some of you might already know that one of my favorite activities as an amateur astronomer is to image comets.  Well, just found out that not one, but two new comets are heading our way.  Unfortunately they will be very difficult (probably impossible) to see with the naked eye.  No matter, I'll be out as soon as I get a chance and conditions are right and capture these beauties.  Probably won't make for a fancy picture, but just the fact that I caught them in an image against a starfield is good enough for me.

Details can be found at EarthSky.

Won't this weather ever clear?

Well I'm still waiting for a run of clear skies, preferably without the near full moon in the way.  The only two nights that were favorable a week or so ago I was sick, or had other plans.

On the night of February 11th - 12th I did manage to get the scope setup and start my imaging run for the second of three awards on Astronomy Forums for imaging the Messier objects.  There are 110 of them total (109 by some counts since one may be a duplicate - M101, a spiral galaxy may have been misidentified as another object M102).  The idea behind the awards is to recognize astro imagers success in the field by photographing the whole set of Messier objects.  You get an award for the first 40, then one for the next 40, and finally one for the complete set.  Of course the first 40 is fairly easy as we usually go for the 'low hanging fruit'.  I completed my first 40 last year.

So it was off to image M95 and M96.  M95 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo, the lion.  M96 is a nearby galaxy almost in the same field of view of my camera.  I set up the scope to automate the imaging of both galaxies during the night while I, of course, slept, since the next day was a work day.  I had planned to take 30 subs of each object, each one an exposure of 3min. 

When I checked the image capture on the morning of the 12th I discovered that I actually got 60 subs of M95 and none of M96.  After examination of the software logs later that day I noticed I had entered the commands to the scope incorrectly, and alas the issue was not with faulty software, but with faulty human operator :)

Anyway, I did get a pretty good image of M95, and as soon as the skies clear and the moon leaves I'll go for M96 again. 

The object centering function is still not working correctly (and I really believe it is a software or hardware problem this time and not human error) so I had to crop the image a bit.

Rosetta’s lander faces eternal hibernation

ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA

Philae ... So long and farewell!

With absolute silence since its last call to mother ship Rosetta back in July, the Philae lander is facing conditions on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that make it extremely unlikely that it will recover and 'phone home' once more.  But much of the science that was planned was completed, and Philae's landing was still an amazing feat; an accomplishment that made history.

A complete summary and prognosis can be found at Astronomy.com.

Big News!!! Einstein's gravitational waves 'seen' from black holes

Wow.  About 100 years since Einstein theorized gravitational waves they are finally observed.

Scientists are claiming a stunning discovery in their quest to fully understand gravity.

They have observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth.

The international team says the first detection of these gravitational waves will usher in a new era for astronomy.

It is the culmination of decades of searching and could ultimately offer a window on the Big Bang.
The research, by the LIGO Collaboration, has been published today in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Read about it at the BBC and Astronomy Magazine.

Small Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth March 5

A small asteroid that two years ago flew past Earth at a comfortable distance of about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) will safely fly by our planet again in a few weeks, though this time it may be much closer.
During the upcoming March 5 flyby, asteroid 2013 TX68 could fly past Earth as far out as 9 million miles (14 million kilometers) or as close as 11,000 miles (17,000 kilometers).

Full story on the JPL's site.

God's Awesome Universe

A video by Mikey

This is a collection of the best images of 2014-2015 taken by me on location in Reisterstown, Maryland and Luray, Virginia.

All images were taken through my Celestron EdgeHD-11" telescope on a CGEM-DX mount.
Planets imaged via an ASI120MC planetary camera and processed in Registax 6.
Deep Space Objects imaged with a Canon 50D and QHY10 Astro-camera stacked via Nebulosity4 (Stark Labs) and post processed in PixInsight (Pleiades Astrophoto - Pixinsight.com) and Paint Shop Pro (Corel.com).

Guiding by PHD2 (Stark Labs, www.stark-labs.com)
Image acquisition software APT - Astro Photography Tool (www.astroplace.net) and SGP - Sequence Generator Pro (Main Sequence Soiftware (www.mainsequencesoftware.com/)

Aldebaran Occultation - January 19, 2016

Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet

Well, Pluto may have been demoted, but look here - a possible new ninth planet!

Full story at Caltech

Big Explosion in Space ... Really Big!

What is 10 miles across, but powers an explosion brighter than the Milky Way?

Astronomers studying what may be the most powerful supernova ever seen ...

Supernovas are rare, but not uncommon.  Notable ones have occured a few times in the last 100 years or so.  But this one is big ... really big.  And it may require physical mechanisms that are currently beyond our understanding.  See Science Daily for the details. 

And Now For Something Really Beautiful

New Hubble Image of the Butterfly Nebula

Incredible new image of PN M2-9 shows extraordinary color and detail. Known variously as the Butterfly Nebula, Minkowski’s Butterfly, the Twin Jet Nebula, or PN M2-9, this is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula. It lies 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Complete story at AstronomyNow.

Pluto like a Lava Lamp!

New Horizons image shows where huge nitrogen ice blobs merged on Pluto's surface

The newest image of Pluto's ice fields offers a fascinating glimpse of what researchers believe is the movement of huge, solid nitrogen ice blobs on the surface of the distant dwarf planet.

For details and 17 new photos from the New Horizons spacecraft, click here.