The Pithy Amateur Astronomer

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110329.html

Illustration Credit: Jason Rowe, Kepler Mission
Explanation: Using the prolific planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have discovered 1,235 candidate planets orbiting other suns since the Kepler mission's search for Earth-like worlds began in 2009. To find them, Kepler monitors a rich star field to identify planetary transits by the slight dimming of starlight caused by a planet crossing the face of its parent star. In this remarkable illustration, all of Kepler's planet candidates are shown in transit with their parent stars ordered by size from top left to bottom right. Simulated stellar disks and the silhouettes of transiting planets are all shown at the same relative scale, with saturated star colors. Of course, some stars show more than one planet in transit, but you may have to examine the picture at high resolution to spot them all. For reference, the Sun is shown at the same scale, by itself below the top row on the right. In silhouette against the Sun's disk, both Jupiter and Earth are in transit.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110326.html

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona
Explanation: The yellowish star near center in this remarkable telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars. Nearby it is a dusty yellow cosmic cloud historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC 1555). Over 400 light-years away, at the edge of a molecular cloud, both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young (less than a few million years old), sun-like stars still in the early stages of formation. To further complicate the picture, infrared observations indicate that T Tauri itself is part of a multiple system and suggest that the associated Hind's Nebula may also contain a very young stellar object. The naturally colored image spans about 4 light-years at the estimated distance of T Tauri.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110323.html

Credit & Copyright: Peter Tuthill (Sydney U.) & James Lloyd (Cornell)


Explanation: What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as MWC 922, however, appears to be embedded in a nebula with just such a shape. The above image combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in California, and the Keck-2 Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A leading progenitor hypothesis for the square nebula is that the central star or stars somehow expelled cones of gas during a late developmental stage. For MWC 922, these cones happen to incorporate nearly right angles and be visible from the sides. Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run along the cone walls. Researchers speculate that the cones viewed from another angle would appear similar to the gigantic rings of supernova 1987A, possibly indicating that a star in MWC 922 might one day itself explode in a similar supernova.

Watch how NASA recovers the Solid Rocket Boosters. I never realized how big the SRB's were until I saw this video. It really puts things into perspective.

Source: http://www.space.com/11068-shuttle-discovery-astronauts-tribute.html

On the eve of space shuttle Discovery's final scheduled trip back to Earth, the six astronauts aboard the spaceship paid tribute to their tried and true orbiter.

"I think the legacy that this shuttle has made for herself is just nothing short than cause for celebration," said mission specialist Michael Barratt during a call with reporters today (March 8). "Just something that our country should be very, very proud of."


Discovery is finishing up its 39th and final voyage, a two-week mission to deliver supplies and a robotic astronaut helper to the International Space Station. [Photos from Discovery's Final Mission]

After this STS-133 mission, only two more space shuttle flights remain, and then NASA is retiring the fleet. Shuttle Endeavour is slated to launch on its STS-134 voyage in April, and Atlantis is scheduled to blast off one last time on the STS-135 mission in June.

Over the course of 39 missions, Discovery has launched probes and satellites, deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, and then visited to repair it. The shuttle has also contributed significantly to the construction and operation of the International Space Station.

"The legacy for the shuttle fleet and the shuttle program undoubtedly, in my mind, will be the space station," LeRoy Cain, NASA's mission management team chairman, told the media today. "We could not have assembled this marvelous facility in orbit without the capabilities of the space shuttle."
After the shuttles retire, they will be sent to U.S. museums for public display.

"I don’t know what the plaque is going to say, but hopefully it will talk about Discovery's legacy as a great ship of exploration, as a class of spacecraft with capabilities … unmatched by anything else we've ever seen in space and probably unmatched for a long, long time to come," said Discovery's commander, Steve Lindsey."Hopefully it will talk about not the crews, not us, but the entire space shuttle teams that span across the country that have allowed this to happen – the thousands and thousands and thousands of people to keep this vehicle running. Hopefully the legacy will be more about the people than anything else."

Discovery and the other shuttles are being retired after 30 years of service to make way for NASA's next step, a push to travel beyond low-Earth orbit to an asteroid and Mars. The space shuttles, while still functioning well, are simply considered too expensive to operate while NASA is also trying to develop and build its next-generation spaceship.[Gallery: Building Space Shuttle Discovery]

"There is not a single thing wrong with her," Lindsey said of Discovery, the oldest of the shuttles."Every single system and every piece of every system is working just like it's brand new."

Once it retires the shuttles, NASA will have to rely on Russian Soyuz spaceships to get to the International Space Station until American commercial companies start producing vehicles capable of doing the job. No spaceship under development will be able to carry so many crew members and so much cargo to the station as the massive shuttles have.

"It's going to be sad when it's over, when we land tomorrow or the next day," Lindsey said."The hardest part of this for me is giving up the capability. It can do everything except leave low-Earth orbit."
Yet he said it was the right thing to do.

"It's sad to give up this type of capability, but I really strongly believe in the next step to try to get out of low-Earth orbit, to try to go to an asteroid, go to the moon," Lindsey said. "We do need a new vehicle for that."

Other astronauts expressed similar sentiments.

"There are plenty of opportunities out there, and we're a great country that has done really, really amazing things with our space program and I really just hope that that will continue," mission specialist Nicole Stott said.

Discovery is scheduled to land tomorrow at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 11:57 a.m. EST (1657 GMT).

Amazing video. Worth the time to watch.



5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

Source: http://www.universetoday.com/83751/ground-based-observations-capture-spacewalking-astronaut-in-action/

More impressive ground based images of the STS-133 mission, this time, Amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands took images during one of the spacewalks for the mission, and likely captured astronaut Steve Bowen at work on the end of the Canadarm 2! Click on the image above, or go to Ralf’s website for a better view and more information.

Another amateur astronomer from the UK, Martin Lewis also took similar images of the spacewalk.
Ralf uses a 10 inch Newtonian telescope with a videocam eyepiece, and manually tracks the ISS and other objects across the sky. He takes most of his images in color to obtain the maximum possible information of the objects.

He took a similar image about 2 years ago of astronaut Joe Acaba on an EVA outside the ISS in March of 2009, which was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day. He has also taken images of of ISS and Dexter, the special purpose manipulator, or this one of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission.