The Pithy Amateur Astronomer

I changed the comment moderation on the blog where followers can comment without me having to check every post.

I hope to see this grow in the future but without the proper mountings, my pictures are not worth the quality to upload.

Addendum: Apparently I chose the wrong setting. Now Google users can make posts. I will still be watching them to avoid the spammers.

Still snowing outside (not that I hate snow or anything) and I have had only one good day of weather and that was to photograph the moon and view Saturn for the first time.

So since there is nothing going on that I can see, let's look at what NASA has to offer on the Astronomy Picture of the day

Explanation: This beautiful cosmic portrait features NGC 891. The spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark obscuring dust. Also apparent in NGC 891's edge-on presentation are filaments of dust that extend hundreds of light-years above and below the center line. The dust has likely been blown out of the disk by supernova explosions or intense star formation activity. Faint neighboring galaxies can also been seen near this galaxy's disk.

Just a quick shout-out to my 2 commenter's and 1 follower. Thanks guys!

Maybe one day I'll get 2 people!

Finally there was a break in the weather and I was able to go outside and observe the moon and Saturn.

Unfortunatly, Saturn was not very photogenic tonight. However, I do I have a picture of the moon for your viewing pleasure.

Just for informational purposes, the moon phase was waxing crescent. My favorite feature is where the light meets the dark. There is more definition on the craters in my honest opinion.

NASA's new wrap-around porch is up and running. By that I mean the newly installed cupola on the ISS (International Space Station), giving the astronauts a more full view of the heavens (or the Earth).

I'm sure a view like this beats looking through a small window or computer monitor any day of the week.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1594.html

I never paid much attention to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day until my wife got me my all-time "wants" for Christmas (a telescope). Since then, on clear nights, I always want to find and identify stasrs.and planets.

Anways, NASA released this interesting photo of 4 Vesta.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100218.html

Explanation: Main belt asteroid 4 Vesta is at its brightest now. The small world is near opposition (opposite the Sun in the sky) and closest to Earth. But even at its brightest, Vesta is just too faint to spot with the naked-eye. Still, over the next few days it will be relatively easy to find in the constellation Leo, sharing a typical binocular field of view with bright star Gamma Leonis (aka Algieba). In fact on February 16 Vesta passed between Gamma Leonis and close neighbor on the sky 40 Leonis. Gamma Leonis is the brightest star in these two panels, while the second brightest star, 40 Leonis, is directy to its right. As marked, Vesta is the third brightest "star" in the field. Vesta shifts position between the two panels from well below 40 Leonis on Feb. 14 to near the top of the frame from Feb. 16, shooting the gap between the close Gamma/40 Leonis pair. Of course, premier close-up views of the asteroid will be possible after the ion-powered Dawn spacecraft arrives at Vesta in August of 2011. 

4 Vesta is the second most massive object in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of about 530 km[1] and an estimated mass of 9% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt.[10] It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807,[1] and named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, Vesta.

Still bound to my computer and other tasks because the weather has been so poor. I have not even been able to see anything except Betelgeuse and that was for 2-3 minutes till fast moving clouds moved in. So to show off some coolness that I do not take credit for, check out today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100215.html

 

Explanation: If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn's unusual protrusions were rings and that when the Earth crosses the ring plane, the edge-on rings will appear to disappear. This is because Saturn's rings are confined to a plane many times thinner, in proportion, than a razor blade. In modern times, the robot Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn now also crosses Saturn's ring plane. A series of plane crossing images from 2005 February was dug out of the vast online Cassini raw image archive by interested Spanish amateur Fernando Garcia Navarro. Pictured above, digitally cropped and set in representative colors, is the striking result. Saturn's thin ring plane appears in blue, bands and clouds in Saturn's upper atmosphere appear in gold. Since Saturn just passed its equinox, today the ring plane is pointed close to the Sun and the rings could not cast the high dark shadows seen across the top of this image, taken back in 2005. Moons appear as bumps in the rings.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/astronauts-urine-recyler-repair-100210.html

I used to wonder how the astronauts on the space station got all their provisions such as food and water. I used to think that various missions brought those provisions and off-loaded them into a reservoir. It turns out that urine, sweat, and any other condensation produced on the ISS is purified using a $250 million dollar piece of equipment.

Sound gross? What do you think the water treatment plants on Earth do?

For further reading, check out http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090520-space-urine.html

I learned just yesterday that Venus is the home of two cyclones at the pole.

I don't know a whole lot of answers of what kind of storms these are except apparently they are a permemant fixture. What I thought was interesting was that the storms are in close proximity to each other and unlike Earth tornados that are big at the top, these tornados are big at the bottom.

More to come if I ever figure out why this is the case.

My goal was when I started this blog was to post pictures of certain objects I find in the sky as an amateur astronomer and [amateur] astrophotographer. However, the weather has been just miserable for the past few days (it has actually been horrible since I have started blogging) so I have not been able to take any pictures.

So in the meantime, enjoy this from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Explanation: Most galaxies have a single nucleus -- does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible in this image. The central cloverleaf is rather light emitted from a background quasar. The gravitational field of the visible foreground galaxy breaks light from this distant quasar into four distinct images. The quasar must be properly aligned behind the center of a massive galaxy for a mirage like this to be evident. The general effect is known as gravitational lensing, and this specific case is known as the Einstein Cross. Stranger still, the images of the Einstein Cross vary in relative brightness, enhanced occasionally by the additional gravitational microlensing effect of specific stars in the foreground galaxy.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/pluto-20100204.html

I am one of those people who think Pluto should still be a planet. So when I heard that there are new images of Pluto that shows it is going through some changes, the first thing I could thing of was "HAH!"...but that could mean anything.

It appears that Hubble has made a map of Pluto showing seasonal changes. Now one can only hope that future telescopes may be able to image Pluto in more detail.

While doing some reading about stars, I never noticed the Greek letters beside certain names as uncommon. This is because I have taken 1 year of Greek and when I saw the letters, I didn't think twice about what that letter was.

Below is a small picture that may help if you see a funny looking symbol near celestial names.

Example: α Centauri (α is alpha).

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2837262/Space-UFO-baffles-boffins.html

Apparently there seems to be talk of a UFO somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. Now when I mean UFO, I am not talking about little green men in spaceships obviously (that would be silly). It is said to be the result of two objects colliding at around 15,000 kilometers (around 9,320 for the non-metric crowd). I would have liked to have seen that collision in real time though.

It brings images to my head of a scene in Star Wars where the asteroids are colliding while the protagonists are trying to escape the Empire. Good times...good times...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100203.html

http://www.space.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=SP_100129_solar-eclipse-from-space

An interesting view of a solar eclipse from space. The last time I saw a solar eclipse was in 3rd grade and "I" broke the pinhole camera. I actually didn't break it by myself because I was the last one to look at it after a room full of 3rd graders handled it. It just so happens that someone before me handled it poorly and since I was the only one who got the camera examined it was passed around. All I'm saying is DON'T ASSUME WITHOUT EVIDENCE.

Uh...anyways...enjoy!

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/01/no-moon-missions-thats-a-relief/

Being fair to both sides, Fraser Cain brings up a good point.

What's the best way to extract fuel from an asteroid? How can ion engines cut down flight times? Is there a better way to make a spacesuit? What are some good materials for space elevators? What are some safer rocket fuels? How can we make rocket launches better for the environment? Is there a way to make velcro better?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/01/barack-obama-nasa-moon-budget
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/01/moon-mission-obama-budget

So you can cut budgets to something with great research and historical value but you can spend money everywhere else? Why not cut some more lame programs Congress has set up and do something worth the money?

If you ever wanted to explore the sky from your home, there are free software available to you that can help you achieve this.

Stellarium - http://www.stellarium.org/ - Good for looking at what the sky would like like from your back yard. You can go to different moons of different planets and see what the planet would look like while on that moon (Search Io, then press control + g, it's pretty cool)

Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ - I haven't used this one too much but I like to just type a keyword in and it will take you to that location. It provides a different point-of-view but I haven't figured out how to master the software yet.

Google Earth - http://earth.google.com/ - Google Earth has a sky mode. It also lets you explore the Moon and Mars. Also there is a flight simulator that lets you fly a plane on Earth, the Moon, and Mars. I challenge you to start at a random spot on Mars and fly to the Olympus Mons (the biggest known mountain in our solar system).

WIKISKY.ORG - http://www.wikisky.org/ - I have looked at this one a bit and it's similar to using Google Maps to navigate the sky. It is handy if you just wanted to browse and are not able to install software or just don't want to spend the time messing with software.