Archive for the 'astronomy' Category

Noctilucent nirvana

Published Thursday, 18 June, 2009 astronomy 6 Comments
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Well you wait for noctilucent cloud season to start and then they appear three nights in a row! I missed Tuesday night’s display so here are some images (click them to enlarge) captured from Bristol from Wednesday (17th) night between 10:30 and 11:45 local time. The clouds last night were full of contrast and were tinged with the classic electric blue colour. An impressive sight looming over the horizon, like something from a movie. If the last few weeks of displays are anything to go by this is going to be a good summer for NLCs.

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A wider angle looking at the whole display:
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A shot with a zoom lens to reveal some of the fine detail in the clouds:NLC_170609_3

Early morning NLCs

Published Tuesday, 16 June, 2009 astronomy Leave a Comment
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Getting up to grab a glass a water at 3:30am this morning I popped my head out the window to hear the dawn chorus. I’m glad I did, as it gave me my first sight of noctilucent clouds this year. These ‘night-shining’ clouds appear to glow as the rising or setting Sun scatters off tiny ice particles within them.

NLCweb1Noctilucent cloud patterns at dawn. Credit: WillGater.com

They are found much higher in the atmosphere than ‘normal’ clouds, typically around 80km or so. You can often see them in the summer months about an hour after sunset and before sunrise. They appear whiteish blue and don’t appear silhouetted against the bright dawn or twilight sky like lower clouds tend to be (some high cirrus clouds can often look similar to them though). Sometimes they show beautifully intricate glowing patterns and other times simple swirls.

NLCweb2Type II NLCs towards the bottom of the image. Credit: WillGater.com

To find out more about NLCs there is some excellent information on Les Cowley’s great site and more on the different forms of NLC here. I’ve put two pictures I captured of this morning’s impressive display in the post above. So if you are up early or are enjoying a twilight walk, keep an eye out for these impressive and ethereal clouds.

Get to know our neighbour this Moonwatch week

Published Monday, 30 March, 2009 astronomy 2 Comments
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moonwatch1The Moon — an incredible sight through even a small telescope. Credit: WillGater.com

In the UK we’ve just started the Spring Moonwatch week, as part of the International Year of Astronomy. It’s the first of a handful of special lunar observing weeks planned throughout the year aimed at getting everyone out having a look at our nearest Solar System neighbour, the Moon.

Even a good pair of small binoculars can show you interesting features on the Moon’s surface like the larger craters, the darker maria (which are vast expanses of smooth basalt) and ray ejecta (the brighter streaks of material stretching across the Moon from when an asteroid hit the surface). If you own a telescope and maybe haven’t used it in months/years/decades why not get it out of the cupboard, dust it off and see what the Moon has to offer? And if you’re already a dedicated amateur astronomer then here’s a perfect opportunity to show some friends some stunning selenogical sights through your scope — there’s nothing quite as rewarding as giving someone their first view of the lunar surface at high magnification. Also be sure to look up your local astronomy society, as they may well have their own Moonwatch events already planned that you can join in with; a good place to start is the IYA UK events page here.

moonwatch2The craters Eratosthenes, Archimedes, Clavius and Plato as well as the rille the ‘Straight Wall’ are all visible during Spring Moonwatch. Credit: WillGater.com

The April Sky At Night Magazine has a special 6-page guide to the Spring Moonwatch week and there’s more info. about the whole project over on the Society for Popular Astronomy’s website here. Lastly, if you do observe the Moon and you tweet about them on Twitter, remember to tag it with #starparty. Happy observing!

Catching Comet Lulin

Published Monday, 23 February, 2009 astronomy , comets Leave a Comment
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Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) is currently putting on a good show in the night sky, having brightened as it makes its journey through the inner Solar System. Earlier this month Lulin had been fairly low down during the wee-small hours, for us UK astronomers anyway, but as the days have gone by it has slowly climbed higher — meaning it is now visible in the southern part of the sky during the late evening around midnight.

This past weekend I managed to observe and take a few pictures of the comet from a reasonably dark sky site. On Friday and Saturday night it was easily visible, against the background stars, as a slightly teardrop shaped grey smudge (with a hint of the dusty anti-tail) through a pair of 10×50 binoculars; during periods of good transparency I believe I glimpsed it with the naked eye too.

Tonight Comet Lulin appears close to Saturn in the sky and tomorrow it makes its close approach to Earth, at a distance of some 61 million km (38 million miles). On the 28th February it will be very close to the bright star Regulus in Leo. Interestingly, NASA observations made with the Swift spacecraft suggest that in late January Lulin was ejecting around 3000 litres of water every second! The Society for Popular Astronomy, here in the UK, have a webpage (scroll down to links for detailed charts) showing the location of the comet over the next few days. So if you are interested, don’t miss this opportunity to see a visitor from the outer Solar System as it gracefully passes us by.

Are you 2009’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year?

Published Monday, 19 January, 2009 BBC Sky at Night magazine , astronomy 1 Comment
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apotyimage1The night sky provides a wealth of astro-imaging targets. Image credit: WillGater.com

Each month the astro-magazines, Internet forums and websites fill with countless stunning amateur images of nebulae, galaxies, the Moon and more. Often they’ve been taken with a huge range of equipment; from a point and shoot camera held over the telescope eyepiece to many thousands of pounds worth of equipment and CCD cameras. It’s no secret that today accomplished ‘amateur’ astronomers, with quite modest equipment, are producing images whose quality is on a par with (and in some cases far excels) those from professional telescopes, taken a few decades ago. You just have to look at the monthly reader Hotshots pages of Sky At Night Magazine to see what amateur astro-imagers are capable of nowadays!

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To celebrate the burgeoning nature of this exciting aspect of astronomy the Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with BBC Sky At Night Magazine, have just launched the 2009 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. It’s open to everyone around the globe so, if you’ve taken an amazing astro-image that you want to show off to the world, now’s your chance to enter. There are several categories, to cover the many different celestial subjects, including; “Earth and Space” which is for landscapes with an astronomy interest, “Deep Sky” for galaxies and nebulae and “Our Solar System” for pictures of the Sun’s celestial family. The overall winner will receive £1000, with runners up etc. receiving other prizes. Getting youngsters interested in the night sky is also vitally important for astronomy, as both a hobby and a science, so there’s also the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition for entrants under 16 years of age.

When the results have been decided there’s going to be a free exhibition of the winning images at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich from 10th September 2009 to 10th January 2010. You can find out more and read all the rules on the National Maritime Museum/Royal Observatory’s website here. I’m on the judging panel and I genuinely can’t wait for the images to start coming in, so I can see the fruits of your labours. So good luck to those of you who enter and let’s hope 2009 brings us all some nice clear skies to savour!

APOTY logo courtesy & copyright NMM/Royal Observatory Greenwich

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