ESO’s Paranal Observatory in 3D

Published Tuesday, 13 October, 2009 astronomy 1 Comment
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The European Southern Observatory operates several observatory sites in the southern hemisphere, including the world famous Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope (the VLT). This afternoon I stumbled across an amazing video of the VLT which shows this incredible facility, high in the Atacama Desert, in a way I’ve never seen it before — it’s in 3D!

The video is the work of astrophotographer and head Optics Engineer on the VLT, Stéphane Guisard. Stéphane has recently been working with ESO and fellow astrophotographer Serge Brunier to create some truly stunning images for ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project, which you can check out here. There’s lots I love about this video. From the ISS zipping over to the excited movements of the telescopes and the way it appears the observatories are living and breathing things inspecting the skies above them. Grab a pair of 3D specs and check it out for yourself below.


© Stéphane Guisard. Many thanks to Stéphane for giving me permission to post this cool video on the blog. Click the video to go to a larger YouTube version.

Looking for LCROSS

Published Wednesday, 7 October, 2009 astronomy Leave a Comment
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lcrossAn illustration of LCROSS heading for lunar impact. Credit: NASA

The NASA LCROSS spacecraft, and part of the upper stage of its rocket, are due to deliberately crash into a crater (known as Cabeus) close to the Moon’s south pole on Friday (12:31pm UK time). Scientists are hoping that the huge plumes the impacts create will throw up material that can be studied for signs of water at the lunar pole. The LCROSS impacts come not long after the announcement of the discovery of small amounts of water found over much of the lunar surface. No doubt LCROSS will add something to this surprising result.

Astronomers, both amateur and professional, back on Earth are preparing to observe the impacts too, to add to the data from the LCROSS probe and other space based telescopes observing what happens. If you take an image of the LCROSS plume too you can also help out with a bit of citizen science. The UK isn’t well placed to observe the impact as, unfortunately, it will be daylight here and the Moon will be quite low. However if you have a large telescope (with a mirror diameter of 25cm or greater) it may still be worth a go. See here for more.

For those of us who won’t be able to look for the impact plume ourselves there are a few websites which will be broadcasting information and live feeds as the event unfolds. NASA will be having a live webcast of the event on NASA television with commentary and animations as well as live video from the craft. The remote observatory company SLOOH will also be showing live feeds from two telescopes located in the USA looking for the plume.

So with all that in mind, now all we have to do is wait.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year – The Results

Published Tuesday, 22 September, 2009 astronomy Leave a Comment
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A few weeks ago the results of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition were announced, at the opening of the exhibition of the winning images. As the media partner for the competition a few of us from the Sky At Night Magazine team, travelled to the Royal Observatory Greenwich for the opening night and whilst there we recorded an episode of the Sky At Night Magazine vodcast. I’ll let the vodcast explain the rest but if you want to see more of the amazing images from this stunning exhibition you can see them on the ROG’s website here or, if you’re in the area, at the observatory itself.

Cassini captures a shadowy Saturn

Published Monday, 21 September, 2009 Cassini , Saturn Leave a Comment
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saturnCredit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here’s another one of those stunning planetary images that really stops you in your tracks. It’s just been released by the Cassini mission imaging team and shows Saturn (and a few of its moons) as seen by the Cassini spacecraft, just last month. The eery illumination of the rings is due to the very low angle at which sunlight is striking them, combined with sunlight reflected off Saturn’s cloud tops.

Make sure you click the image above to see a much bigger version, to explore it in all its glorious detail, including the subtle pastel coloured bands of Saturn’s upper atmosphere. To give you a sense of scale, Saturn’s diameter (at its equator) is around 120,500 km. So you could fit just over 9 Earths across its disc. For more information on the image and what it shows see the Cassini website here.

An enduring eclipse

Published Monday, 10 August, 2009 astronomy , eclipses Leave a Comment

Ten years ago tomorrow, on the morning of August 11th 1999, I had butterflies in my stomach and tingles running down my spine. I was a 13 year old school kid obsessed with astronomy and that morning the south west of the UK (where I lived) was going to be plunged into darkness during a total solar eclipse. The forecast wasn’t good and as morning broke the clouds above south Devon seemed impenetrable. We didn’t give up hope though and early in the morning my whole family, grandparents too, travelled to my school in Torquay where we had planned to observe the eclipse from. Our school was lucky enough to be equipped with a decent observatory where many astronomers had gathered; as we drove up to the observing site (the school playing fields around the observatory) throngs of tents and telescopes greeted us.

For most of the morning I fiddled with a basic solar projector setup to safely observe the partial phases of the eclipse. It never really ’saw’ the Sun though. The few glimpses we had, to tell us the eclipse was progressing, came when the clouds momentarily broke, revealing a thin, ever diminishing, crescent. They were brief but exciting peeks at the drama unfolding above, which was revealed in full thanks to a television propped up outside the observatory, showing footage from an airplane above the clouds. As totality washed over us the clouds above us went dark, the temperature fell and for a brief moment we all enjoyed the spectacle of being in the shadow of the Moon. Around the horizon the sky was bright and, as soon as it had come, totality passed. And that was that.

I have many memories of that amazing morning, from the excited build up to the subdued darkness of the obscured total phase. Despite not seeing the Sun’s corona or any of the incredible phenomena associated with totality I have no strong memory of being utterly disappointed. In fact today when I think back about it, what we experienced that day was one of the most incredible & exciting things I’ve ever seen. The webpage from 1999 of my, then, local astronomical society is still up and is a nice record of the eclipse from our observing site. I just hope I can hold on long enough to see the next total solar eclipse from the UK mainland!

Out now…

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