Blue Skies on Pluto!

New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto

The first color images of Pluto’s atmospheric hazes, returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft last week, reveal that the hazes are blue. Not only that, but water ice is on the planet as well.  Not what I would have expected.

For more details on this finding check out  NASA.gov

Cotton Ball in the Sky

NASA successfully launched a sounding rocket Wednesday evening from its Wallops Flight Facility. The mission is designed to test new technology, with the aim of making future space missions less expensive and less risky. But part of the mission was to release vapor clouds using a new ejection system. Such clouds are used to study wind in space and the ionosphere.

Based on NASA broadcasts this vapor cloud, released about 130 miles above the Earth,  should produce a cloud with a mix of blue-green and red colors that will be visible along the east coast. I readied the camera and tripod, pointed to where I expected the cloud to be, and waited. Turns out, the camera was pointed a little too low. The cloud appeared - I quickly reset the camera - and got the last few seconds. Not all that impressive, more like a cotton ball in the sky - but I did capture it.

Canon 70D - 100mm  F/6.3 2sec ISO 800
Post processed with PixInsight

Although I looked for any evidence of the rocket's exhaust during liftoff none was seen. I guess the Black Brant exhaust was not bright enough to be seen all the way to Westminster MD.

Lunar Eclipse

Wouldn't you know it. As soon as I told friends that the clouds would prevent us from seeing the eclipse on Sunday evening, the sky developed a bunch of holes enabling 'patient' viewers to catch glimpses during the event - especially the partial phases where the moon is still bright enough to make it through the thin clouds.

I didn't setup the telescope and imaging equipment for fear of rain showers setting in (didn't happen after all - oh well). But I got out my Canon 70D, tripod and remote shutter release and captured one fairly good frame of the total phase.

I have others of the partial phase which I'll post later.

Should have set up that telescope :)

The "Almost Full Moon"

Last month I was experimenting with imaging the moon through my 80mm guidescope.  The entire moon would not fit in the field of view, so I decided to capture it with two images and stitch the two together.  These images are actually combination (stacked) frames of a video. Each video was about 2 minutes long capturing 2400 frames of data. The best 200 frames were then stacked and the image processed with RegiStax to enhance the detail.

Unfortunately the second video was corrupt and I couldn't add it to the mix.  So here is the 'almost' full moon. Maybe next time (November) I'll try again, since the full moon this month (and the eclipse) looks like its gonna be clouded out.

August 28, 2015 - Full Moon - Prime Focus ST80
200 Frames of video Stacked in RegiStax

First batch of Hi-Res Images from New Horizons

The New Horizons probe has started it's year long task of transmitting the high resolution images from July's historic flyby of Pluto.  The surface is even more varied than previously thought ... and extremely awesome!

Check out the details at NASA.gov

Venus - in the Daytime

Monday was such a great day (clear blue skies) and I was planning on spending the evening imaging some Deep Space Objects (DSOs), that I decided to set up early and catch Venus close to the sun.  So here is my image.

Venus -  September 7, 2015 12:30 PM
EdgeHD11 Prime Focus - ZWOASI120C Camera
Stack of 1000 Frames

It's always a problem capturing images during the day since the sun is beating down on the scope heating everything and causing air currents.  This image was processed from an AVI video of over 6000 frames (taken with FireCapture and my ZWOASI120C planetary camera).  The software (Registax) filtered out the best 1000 frames and then stacked them into a single 'best' image.  I then applied wavelet technology to sharpen the image.

Venus is currently the very bright planet in the morning sky. 

Have a look at Ceres’ bright spots

The new up-close view of Occator Crater from Dawn's current vantage point reveals better-defined shapes of the brightest central spot and features on the crater floor.

For more details see Astronomy.Com

What's Up for September 2015 - Total Lunar Eclipse on Sept 27th

Spoon on Mars?

A so-called "floating spoon" on Mars spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover is cooking up a storm on the internet but it's actually a cool rock formation sculpted over time by the Martian winds, officials with the space agency say.

More details at Space.Com

Now That's One Big Camera!

The construction milestone, known as Critical Decision 3, is the last major approval decision before the acceptance of the finished 3.2-gigapixel digital camera, said Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Director Steven Kahn: “Now we can go ahead and procure components and start building it.”
The telescope’s camera — the size of a small car and weighing more than three tons — will capture full-sky images at such high resolution that it would take 1,500 high-definition television screens to display just one of them.

Complete story at AstronomyNow

Double Moon

Recently a few of my friends have approached me asking about the rare occurrence of a 'Double Moon' - that Mars will be so close to us that it will appear almost as large as the moon and that on August 27, 2015 both will appear in the sky.

Well, I figured I'd best direct everyone to this article, "Two Moons on August 27?" (and there are many more) by David Emery of Urban Legends for an explanation.  Bottom line, if you don't want to check out the article:  it's a long lasting (surprisingly) - hoax!