NightSky.ie

Geminid Meteor Shower 2011

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:20:05 +0000

The Geminid meteor shower returns every December, thanks to the Earth’s plowing through debris left by a boiled asteroid. The best time to watch is between 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, Dec. 13 and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

This represents the view from mid-northern latitudes at about 9:00 p.m. local time around December 13.

“Observers with clear skies could see as many as 40 Geminids per hour,” predicts Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office. “Our all-sky network of meteor cameras has captured several early Geminid fireballs. They were so bright, we could see them despite the moonlight.”

The best time to look is between 10 pm local time on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14th. Geminids, which spray out of the constellation Gemini, can appear anywhere in the sky. “Dress warmly and look up,” says Cooke. “It’s that simple.”

The source of the Geminids is near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Most meteor showers come from comets, so having an asteroid as a parent makes the Geminids a bit of an oddball.

Science Week Talk about Phobos-Grunt Project

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:52:27 +0000

The Phobos-Grunt received its first substantial funding in 2007. By the beginning of 2008, the Phobos-Grunt project was in an active development stage and it is set to launch by the end of 2011. If you would like to learn more the Planetary Society are presenting a talk in Dublin, Galway and Cork about the Russian Phobo-Grunt and NASA Mars Science Laboratory missions to Mars, launching on November 8th and 25th. Full details of these free talks can be found at www.planetary.ie/msl.

Supermoon

paul — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:45:23 +0000

The next full moon will be the largest in about 20years but it can be hard to tell the difference without a point of reference. Try to catch it near the horizon and don’t listen to any nonsense about it creating floods or volcano’s.

Enceladus

paul — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 09:38:20 +0000

The Cassini spacecraft watches over the northern latitudes of Saturn’s geologically active moon Enceladus while the planet’s rings peek through in the distance in this snapshot. What a great shot!

Enceladus

Flythrough the Saturn System

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:04:35 +0000

outside in is a ground-breaking giant screen film animated from hundreds of thousands of still photographs and supported as a non-profit project funded by individual supporters. Using Cassini images this is a fly through the Saturn system which is truly amazing.

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

Bioluminescence and Star Trails

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:26:00 +0000

I recently came across this image of bioluminescence in the Gippsland Lakes. My first impression when I saw this was that it was a great photoshop image. Take a closer look at it appears to be the real deal. You can read the full story on Phils Harts Blog to find out what is behind the images. There is also a selection of pictures in the gallery which are well worth checking out.

Bioluminescence in waves lapping at a beach in this 1.5 hour exposure on the Gippsland Lakes.

Journey through the Solar System

admin — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:54:53 +0000

The Solar System

When I heard that Kepler had some candidate planets in the habitable zone of their stars I wondered what it would be like in those distant solar systems. This got me interested in looking at some of the best images of our own planetary system and from that came this video. Please feel free to forward and share. This is a journey through our solar system throught the eyes of the spaceprobes whe have sent into space over the last 30-40 years.

A Sense of Planetary Scale

admin — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:30:07 +0000

A great video showing what it would be like if different planets in out solar system shared an orbit with our Moon.

Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

Great Sites for Astronomy Pictures

admin — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:06:38 +0000

Here are my top sites for new and exciting astronomical photos.

APOD: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Jan-Erik Ovaldsen: Acclaimed Norewegian astrophysicist, author and astronomy evangelist
The Universe Today: Great news and photos on a daily basis
Astronomy Online: Ricky Leon Murphy’s first stop astronomy resource site
Wide Field DSS2 Images: Charles Shahar’s stunning renditions of imagery exposed through the 48-inch Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers: A great group of enthusiastic astronomers!
Cosmotography: Presenting images of interesting astronomical subjects obtained with modest, commercially available telescopes and CCD cameras
The Bad Astronomy: Skeptic, lecturer, and author
Stéphane Guisard : Fantastic images!
Robert Gendler: The universe in colour
AstroPhotography Tonight: astrophotographic news, reviews and tutorials

Jupiter Over the Mediterranean Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)

Oldest Galaxy Record May be broken (Again)

admin — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:56:18 +0000

Hubble appears to have beaten the record for the oldest galaxy observed by over 120Million light years.

While there may be some confirmation to do on the discovery , the candidate Galaxy named UDFj-39546284, is seen as it was just 480 million years after the Big Bang at a distance of 13.2 billion light years away. Current theory suggests we shouldn’t find any galaxies more than about 13.5 billion light years away. So going from 13.1 to 13.2 billion light years represents a significant step closer to that ultimate limit. The results were published online today in Nature.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Rychard Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz and Leiden University) and the HUDF09 Team.

Betelgeuse and 2012

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:56:34 +0000

I was a little surprised to hear that there are reports regarding the possibility of the star Betelgeuse exploding in 2012. Surprised for a few reasons, but mainly that anyone thinks we could possible predict this to such a high degree of accuracy. Here is the link suggesting a twin Star could be visible from earth if Betelgeuse explodes in 2012 (not to mention how long that light takes to get to us!)
Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012 but in reality we don’t know when this star will go supernova

Betelgeuse as seen from Hubble

If you want to know the real deal try the following sites: Astronomer Phil Plait explains all on his Bad Astronomy site on Discover and astronomer and 2012 doomsday debunker Ian O’Neill can clarify everything for you at his post on Discovery Space.

Moonrise from space

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:50:28 +0000

Moonrise as seen by astronaut Paolo Nespoli on board the International Space Station!

Paolo Nespoli has a Flickr page where he posts amazing pictures he’s taken from space. Click to see a much larger version.