Latest Posts by astrotidbits-blog - Page 3

still a little bit of their beauty is captured in the man made technology

The Handle 2 camera, another doomed Kodak instant, 1979.

Cameras, cameras, and more cameras. Cameras!

Eclipse News at AstroTidbits

Don’t know how to prepare for the coming total eclipse of the sun?  Get some info at http://www.astrotidbits.com and be ready.

Getting ready for 8/21/17

I am making a journal as I get ready for the total eclipse of the sun on 8/21/17 and you can find it on http://www.astrotidbits.com.  Irregular posts as I do something new or learn new ways of doing things.

What are comets made of?

Starry Night Castle. Credit & Copyright: P-M Hedén

The Pleiades star cluster seems to lie just beyond the trees above a dark castle tower in this dramatic view. This starry sky also features bright star Aldebaran below the Pleiades and a small, faint, fuzzy cloud otherwise known as Comet Holmes near picture center at the top of the field. Starry Night Castle might be an appropriate name for the medieval castle ruin in the foreground. But its traditional name is Mörby Castle, found north of Stockholm, near lake Skedviken in Norrtälje, Sweden.

Drifting Memories

Comet McNaught.

1705 Halley Documents Comet British astronomer Edmund Halley predicted the return of the comet that we now call Halley’s comet. He documented historic comet sightings and found patterns that led him to theorize that comets, which until then were considered baffling and even potentially dangerous because of their irregularity, actually had calculated orbits around the sun and would return periodically. He believed that the comets witnessed in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the same comet and predicted it would return in 1758. Even though Halley died in 1742 the comet arrived on schedule and later became known as Halley’s Comet.

Rosetta: Alarm to sound for comet mission

One of the most daring space missions ever undertaken reaches a key milestone on Monday.

Europe’s Rosetta probe was launched a decade ago on a long quest to chase down and land on a comet, and has spent the past two-and-half-years in hibernation to try to conserve power.

But at 10:00 GMT, an onboard “alarm clock” is expected to rouse the spacecraft from its slumber.

Continue Reading

European Spacecraft Pulls Alongside Comet “After 10 years and a journey of four billion miles, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft arrived at its destination on Wednesday for the first extended, close examination of a comet. A six-minute thruster firing at 5 a.m. Eastern time, the last in a series of 10 over the past few months, slowed Rosetta to the pace of a person walking, about two miles per hour relative to the speed of its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.”

Find out more from the nytimes.

FLAIR FLIGHT   A contrast-enhanced image produced from the Hubble images of comet ISON taken April 23, 2013 reveals the subtle structure in the inner coma of the comet; the coma decreases in brightness proportionally to the distance from the nucleus.  Comet ISON, thought to have travelled from the Oort Cloud surrounding our solar system beginning a million years ago, will make its closest approach to the Sun on Thursday.  (Photo: NASA via AP / The Telegraph)

Two comets pass in the night bound for your telescope

Remember comets Lovejoy and C/2012 X1 LINEAR? We dropped in on them in late January. On Feb. 6 the two cruised within  2 degrees of each other as they tracked through Ophiuchus before dawn.  Were it not for bad weather, astrophotographer Damian Peach would have been out to record the cometary conjunction, but this unique photo, taken two mornings later, shows the two comets chasing each other across the sky. Of course they’re not really following one another, nor are they related,  but the illusion is wonderful.

Image credit & copyright: Damian Peach

Comets by David Cartier

The Pillars of Creation and Spotting Comet Lovejoy

This week in space news, a new makeover for one of the Hubble Telescope’s most famous images, and tips on spotting Comet Lovejoy in the night sky.

ESA Rosetta has just released this marvelous video clip of 3 images,18 minutes apart, of a spectacular outburst on Comet 67P. This is what happens when comets, in their orbits around the Sun, start getting close enough for the ices they are made of to warm, turn to vapor, and erupt from below the dark, encrusted surface to form a jet, often entraining icy and rocky particles in the process.

It is the growing number and strength of such jets that form as the comet nears the Sun that produce the magnificent tails that can stretch long and mythical across the night skies of Earth.

And here, you are witnessing the process from its beginnings.

Hosanna to Comet 67P!

ESA: Outburst in action

Comet shapes and characteristics from a Chinese silk book (Boshu) written during the Han dynasty (206 BC-22 AD)

How I Discovered Halley’s Comet, by Edmond Halley

On Monday, June 10, in the Evening, the Sky being very serene and calm, I was desirous to take a view of the disk of Mars (then very near the Earth, and appearing very glorious) to see if I could distinguish in my 24 Foot Telescope, the Spots said to be seen on him. Directing my Tube for the purpose, I accidentally fell upon a small whitish Appearance near the Planet, resembling in all respects such a Nebula … The Reverend Mr. Miles Williams, Mr. Alban Thomas, and myself contemplated this Appearance for above an Hour … and we could not be deceiv’d as to its Reality; but the slowness of its Motion made us at that time conclude that it had none, and that it was rather a Nebula than a Comet.

Read more. [Image: Wikimedia Commons]

Comet PanSTARRS

Gorgeous picture of Comet PanSTARRS taken by Carl Gruber on March 2, 2013 at a mountain lookout in Melbourne.

Amédée Guillemin, Les comètes (1875)

Milky Way & shooting stars.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/62255585

Comet Panstarrs captured in gorgeous time-lapse above the skies of Boulder, CO by Patrick Cullis. Lovely stuff.

Comets are mysterious frozen chunks of stellar and planetary debris, these dirty snowballs that wander in darkness until their tails are blown bright and wide by solar winds. Some follow paths so random and eccentric that they may pass a star only once, or perhaps not at all, instead floating through interstellar space, never to be known. But for those fleeting moments, like Panstarrs’ current passage, they are like icy candles lit for our enjoyment by the breath of the sun.

A song of ice and fire, indeed.

on Nov. 28, 2013, comet ISON will fly through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million km from the stellar surface. If the comet survives without breaking up it could emerge glowing as brightly as the Moon, visible near the sun in broad daylight.

Kindly share this, so that no one could miss that event!

A once in a lifetime event visible every 75-76 years, Halleys comet returned in 1986. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth. It has been documented since 240 BC.

Comet lander Philae wakes up: How it happened and what’s next

By Lauren Raab

Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, surprised and delighted scientists this weekend by waking up and reestablishing contact with Earth, seven months after running out of power. It “spoke” for more than a minute, according to the European Space Agency, and it’s expected to be able to continue gathering information and sending it home.

Here’s a look at what the lander has done so far and what will happen next.

Continue Reading.