Google Sky

When I first started writing this blog we were not yet into the full effect of the mobile, digital revolution. Since that time so many great tools have appeared and one I use almost every time I search the skies is Google Sky.

Google Sky is available in the Android Store or from the applications directory for your type of phone. You can also find more information about Google Sky from http://www.google.com/sky/about.html where you will have the choice to view Google Sky inside of Google Earth.

The Android mobile version has helped us learn much about the night sky. Although it does not include man-made satellites like Starry Night or Stellarium (for Linux) it does include a massive listing of celestial bodies as well as Messier objects and even outlines and names the constellations. It does have the ability to toggle between day and night display which helps greatly for night viewing.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

As a side note, not that I am into Astrology but it is rather obvious, Mercury, Uranus, Venus, Neptune and the sun are aligned with Aquarius. For what that is worth.

Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight February 20, 2008

Tonight will be the final total lunar eclipse until 2010 and may turn the moon blood red when it is in the full umbral shadow. If you're in my area (Atlanta, Georgia) you're going to have a great view. The sky is perfectly clear and the backdrop is as dark as, well, night.

The show will start at 8:43 PM so you're going to have to decide between watching the girl's final 12 on American Idol and watch the eclipse. Unless, that is, you have a nice CCD connected to your laptop so you can watch both!

The fullness of the eclipse will be at about 10:01 and the show will be completely over around nine minutes past midnight. If you walk outside and snap a photo every 5 minutes you'll have a nice animation to play back later.

Obviously you will be able to see the full eclipse without the aid of any telescope or even binoculars. Of course those will bring the action much closer and magnify the excitement. I'll be using a pair of 10x50's and 8x32's (binoculars) to watch this one and taking some photos and video.

However there will be a nice surprise in the dark sky and that is Saturn itself. You'll want at least a small 25x telescope to see the ringed orbed but I'll be going with a full 8" refractor and an assortment of eyepieces. Unfortunately I still haven't purchased a CCD to capture images - silly me.

So I've got about 20 more minutes to have my batteries charged and some hot cocoa ready to go. Of course I'm watching the eclipse and recording American Idol!

Okay - it's 20:19EST and here are a couple of photos taken during the last 25 minutes.

US Federal Government to Shoot Down Satellite

Want to watch this event? You'll have to be in the right location.

I won't be able to watch the actual shot but I will get a last chance to look at the satellite. I live in the metropolitan Atlanta area so between 6:26 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday I will be able to see the spy satellite USA 193. That is, of course, if skies are clear and I scan the south/southeast horizon. The satellite will be visible for about four minutes as it tracks to the east/northeast and will be visible with the naked eye as a "dot" moving rapidly across the sky.

We don't actually know when the satellite will be shot down or where it will be at the time but we do know it will be sometime after Wednesday, February 19, 2008.

Moons of Jupiter

Wow, I did not realize it has been a year and a half since I last posted. We did build a home last year but we never stopped star gazing. Since my last post we have seen many things. Most recently we have been able to clearly see the moons of Jupiter in the ESE night sky at around 10PM Eastern.

On the night of our Memorial Day celebration several people who had never looked through a telescope were here and we able to see our moon Luna and four moons of Jupiter! It was a wonderful experience. If you are in the Southeastern US Jupiter should rise almost East and move to ESE by about 9:45PM it should be about 30 degrees above the horizon. It will be the brightest light in the ESE skies.

I do not know for sure but I am guess we are seeing the Galilean moons, Io, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. We have not yet purchased a CCD or tracking mount but that is next on the list! When I do I will post photos of our sightings.

We have also been satellite spotting and, even with the bright ambient lights in our area, we are able to see multiple units each clear night. Mostly between 9:15P and 10:30P. If you have never spotted a satellite it is fairly easy. The best time to spot them is just before sun rise or just after sun down. Look up for at least 15 to 20 minutes and look for a moving star. If it is not flashing or emitting vapor or noise it is most likely an orbiting object.

Fortunately I was also able to see the Space Shuttle just after it separated from the International Space Station thanks to a heads up from someone at my office. I was at home, walked outside, looked in the direction they indicated and there it was! I did see it fairly well with my eyes but much better with my 10x50 binoculars.

The Christmas Star

If you've heard the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth you've almost certainly heard of the star which guided the three wise men to Jesus. Here is a great link about The Christmas Star.

Let me answer a question that you may have for me, "do you believe that story?"

The more I study, the deeper I get an understanding of the nearly infinitely larger macrocosmos and the seemingly equally infinite microcosmos the more I believe in God. Not just "a" god but the God written about in the Bible used by Christians and the older writings used in the Jewish religion. Oh, I believe that a lot of the stories in there are inadequate expressions of older generations who failed to completely understand, as we do, the fullness of their experience.

In every way that I examine our existence I see less likelihood that we "just happened". Intelligent design is the buzzword today for creation. I think more than anything my thoughts are affirmed in science which gives me faith. If you study quantum physics and master the understanding of the increasingly small and if you study the heavens and explore the increasingly large I believe it is impossible to not question how it all happened which ultimately leads to the question of why it all happened.

Cloudy Night Astronomy

So it's rainy, snowy, stormy, or just plain yucky outside but you're itching to get a glimpse of your favorite space object. What to do? You're in luck! Some guy invented the internet just for you.

You could do a little digging and find these resources on your own but since I've already done some of the work I thought it would speed up your enjoyment to share. Some of these sites have images that are very large and if you're on dial up they'll take a long time to download. Fortunately the developers of many of the sites used low res (low resolution small file size images) so you can enjoy a smaller version of the same photo.

I've tried to include only sites that give indepth information about the images you'll find or sites that provide good search engines. Otherwise how will you learn anything new?

http://www.seds.org/images/ is from Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) hosted by The University of Arizona. It includes a searchable and browsable database of a lot of images and all good quality with too short information - but the search engine makes up for some lack of info. The main site does provide a great amount of indepth information, too.

http://www.kopernik.org/spaceimages/index.asp The Kopernik Polish Cultural Society of Broome County was founded in 1973 to help commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Mikolaj Kopernik, a man known to the world as Copernicus - "the father of modern astronomy". The Kopernik Society undertook construction of the Kopernik Observatory in the fall of 1973. When the Observatory was opened to the public in June of 1974, the Kopernik Society donated the facility to the community to be operated by Roberson Museum and Science Center. Since that time hundreds of thousands of school children and families have seen the wonders of the universe through the Observatory's large telescopes.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/ probably doesn't need much explanation. Some of the greatest deep space images of all time. The Hubble space telescope will soon be decomissioned but we have the images and you can access them any time from the dryness and comfort of your own home.

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.html who could do space images and information better than NASA? You guessed it: nobody. Here is one of the most information packed collection of space images I've found. Enjoy!

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery.html the NSSDC photo library provided by NASA and FirstGov is very cool, too. It also provides, being a part of NASA, the same quality of images and information.

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/app/gallery/search.asp great images from the Canadian Space Agency. Good information with each photo but a litte hard to use unless you know what you're looking for. The search engine is good but you'll need to know what to search for. Try typing in nebula or mars.

http://www.spacetoday.org/Weblinks/spacepix.html Space Today Online is very easy to read and provides very good basic language information. If you like Beginning Astronomy - Sky Watchers you'll love STO, too! "STO is a definitive news, information and education site on the World Wide Web dedicated to space science, astronomy and related subjects. By communicating the record of human activities in and about space, Space Today Online delivers on its commitment to a greater public understanding of and enthusiasm for human space research and travel."

Watching Satellites

Did you know that you can see satellites with just your eyes? Incredible as it may seem this is one of the things that really got me interested in looking skyward. I was 20 years old when I realized that I saw my first satellite. After that I looked for them frequently. They look, to me, just like stars only they are moving ... some very quickly.

The next memorable experience of satellite watching was when my son was about 12. I told him we could see satellites just like on "Rocket Boys" and that got him excited. Within about 20 minutes he saw his first satellite flying over. Unlike me he's still not very interested in star watching or space exploration.

Do you want to see a satellite? It's really quite simple. I've noticed that the best time to view is either about 30 minutes after the sun sets or about 30 minutes before the sun rises. Obviously you need to have clear skies because satellites circle the earth high above the clouds. Most are orbiting at about 500 miles above the surface of the planet.

There are several internet sites that have information about spotting satellites. Here are some including my favorite one other than Starry Night software.

J-Track Satellite Tracking from NASAis my favorite free to use tacking software. It's pretty simple to use and gives you the exact time to walk out and look up. As long as you know where you live (go to this link and type in your address) you can be sitting inside playing a video game or reading about space exploration and walk out just in time to look up and see the satellite pass over.

Heavens Above is a site that I've used often but it provides great information about satellites and their locations. This site is more text based and a little harder to use than J-Track (above) but they have recently added more active graphics.

Most satellites are smaller than your family car. Some, such as the International Space Station or the one of the NASA Space Shuttles are much larger. Some satellites are orbiting in what is called a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite(GOES) which means it appears to you, if you are standing on the ground looking up, to be stationary. They orbit the earth high above and at a speed matching the rotation speed of the planet. They are also harder to see because they orbit the earth at about 22,000 miles high. The Shuttles orbit at about 140 miles and is very easy to spot when in orbit.

Polar Orbiting Earth Satellites (POES) go around the earth at about 1000 miles and move very quickly, about 1000 miles per hour. With any satellite the orbiting speed depends on the height of the orbit. The higher the orbit the slower it can move in relation to the surface.

The earth rotates from east to west at 1041 miles per hour. If you want to match the speed of the rotation of the earth and you are high above it you need to do some math to determine your "space speed". Physics are required and an understanding of centripetal force is key to determining the correct speed of orbit. That's a little too advance for this article but if you want a sneak preview just look at this link.

To end this article I recommend you plan on spending some time laying on your back or in a reclining chair on a clear night just after sunset and looking for "stars" that are moving. You'll know when you find a satellite. They don't flash, the don't change speed or direction and they move a little faster than most jetliners. Let me know what you see, we're all interested!