Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Budget Uncertainties Will Continue Well into 2011

The cancelled Constellation Program. Credit: NASA

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A temporary spending measure signed by President Obama on December 22 means NASA and other government agencies will stay at 2010 funding levels until March 4, 2011. This means, according to Jeff Foust at Space Politics, that among other items, the prohibition in the FY10 appropriations bill that prevents NASA from terminating any Constellation programs remains in effect, despite the human spaceflight plan enacted in the NASA authorization act signed into law in October.

The temporary measure, H.R. 3082, known as a continuing resolution, was passed by the House of Representatives on Dec. 21. With its signing by the president, NASA will continue to operate at spending rates proportional to the $18.72 billion appropriated for all of 2010, according to Space News.

An earlier version of the bill would have funded the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 and would have increased NASA spending by $186 million over 2010 levels and provided authority to cancel Constellation contracts and initiate new programs in the current fiscal year, but the measure stalled in the Senate under Republican opposition to earmarks contained in the $1.1 trillion funding package.

The continuing resolution, however, doesn’t not specify what money at NASA should be used for specific items, and so the additional shuttle flight that was deemed a certainty in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 that Obama signed into law Oct. 11, will likely still happen, but it’s not a sure thing.

NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said the agency was still reviewing H.R. 3082, but “The continuing resolution by itself does not endanger the extra shuttle mission, because on an annualized basis the continuing resolution provides enough funding to fly the mission,” Cabbage was quoted in Space News.
However, Foust suggested that “there remains the possibility that a new, more fiscally conservative Congress might seek to cut funding below the 2010 levels, either overall or for specific programs, when it convenes in January.”

So while NASA can’t cancel its Constellation contracts, the lack of specificity for NASA programs in H.R. 3082 gives the agency authority to continue developing a the Orion crew vehicle for deep space missions as called for in the authorization act. And because Congress provided $100 million for development of a heavy-lift rocket in the 2010 appropriation, NASA could begin work on that or a similar vehicle as directed in the authorization measure – all the while still paying for Constellation.

And the continuing resolution could pose potential problems for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, said Space News.

Under Obama’s 2011 budget proposal, NASA would have received $500 million for the effort to help commercial companies develop rockets and cargo ships capable of resupplying the space station. But because the program is new, and was not funded in the 2010 appropriation, NASA could be left to await new appropriations legislation before it can get started.

Many other NASA programs face uncertainty in their budgets, as well.

Sources: Space News, Space Politics

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Will the Milky Way’s Black Hole Become ‘Hyperactive’?

Composite images of galaxies Abell 644, left, and galaxy SDSS J1021+131. Illustration credit: Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Northwestern Univ/D.Haggard et al. Optical: SDSS

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From a NASA press release:

A new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory tells scientists how often the biggest black holes have been active over the last few billion years. This discovery clarifies how supermassive black holes grow and could have implications for how the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way will behave in the future.

Most galaxies, including our own, are thought to contain supermassive black holes at their centers, with masses ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. For reasons not entirely understood, astronomers have found that these black holes exhibit a wide variety of activity levels: from dormant to just lethargic to practically hyper.

The most lively supermassive black holes produce what are called “active galactic nuclei,” or AGN, by pulling in large quantities of gas. This gas is heated as it falls in and glows brightly in X-ray light.

“We’ve found that only about one percent of galaxies with masses similar to the Milky Way contain supermassive black holes in their most active phase,” said Daryl Haggard of the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, who led the study. “Trying to figure out how many of these black holes are active at any time is important for understanding how black holes grow within galaxies and how this growth is affected by their environment.”

This study involves a survey called the Chandra Multiwavelength Project, or ChaMP, which covers 30 square degrees on the sky, the largest sky area of any Chandra survey to date. Combining Chandra’s X-ray images with optical images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, about 100,000 galaxies were analyzed. Out of those, about 1,600 were X-ray bright, signaling possible AGN activity.

Only galaxies out to 1.6 billion light years from Earth could be meaningfully compared to the Milky Way, although galaxies as far away as 6.3 billion light years were also studied. Primarily isolated or “field” galaxies were included, not galaxies in clusters or groups.

“This is the first direct determination of the fraction of field galaxies in the local Universe that contain active supermassive black holes,” said co-author Paul Green of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. “We want to know how often these giant black holes flare up, since that’s when they go through a major growth spurt.”

A key goal of astronomers is to understand how AGN activity has affected the growth of galaxies. A striking correlation between the mass of the giant black holes and the mass of the central regions of their host galaxy suggests that the growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies are strongly linked. Determining the AGN fraction in the local Universe is crucial for helping to model this parallel growth.

One result from this study is that the fraction of galaxies containing AGN depends on the mass of the galaxy. The most massive galaxies are the most likely to host AGN, whereas galaxies that are only about a tenth as massive as the Milky Way have about a ten times smaller chance of containing an AGN.

Another result is that a gradual decrease in the AGN fraction is seen with cosmic time since the Big Bang, confirming work done by others. This implies that either the fuel supply or the fueling mechanism for the black holes is changing with time.

The study also has important implications for understanding how the neighborhoods of galaxies affects the growth of their black holes, because the AGN fraction for field galaxies was found to be indistinguishable from that for galaxies in dense clusters.

“It seems that really active black holes are rare but not antisocial,” said Haggard. “This has been a surprise to some, but might provide important clues about how the environment affects black hole growth.”

It is possible that the AGN fraction has been evolving with cosmic time in both clusters and in the field, but at different rates. If the AGN fraction in clusters started out higher than for field galaxies — as some results have hinted — but then decreased more rapidly, at some point the cluster fraction would be about equal to the field fraction. This may explain what is being seen in the local Universe.

The Milky Way contains a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, for short). Even though astronomers have witnessed some activity from Sgr A* using Chandra and other telescopes over the years, it has been at a very low level. If the Milky Way follows the trends seen in the ChaMP survey, Sgr A* should be about a billion times brighter in X-rays for roughly 1% of the remaining lifetime of the Sun. Such activity is likely to have been much more common in the distant past.

If Sgr A* did become an AGN it wouldn’t be a threat to life here on Earth, but it would give a spectacular show at X-ray and radio wavelengths. However, any planets that are much closer to the center of the Galaxy, or directly in the line of fire, would receive large and potentially damaging amounts of radiation.

These results were published in the November 10th issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Other co-authors on the paper were Scott Anderson of the University of Washington, Anca Constantin from James Madison University, Tom Aldcroft and Dong-Woo Kim from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Wayne Barkhouse from the University of North Dakota.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Shuttle Discovery Rolls Back to Vehicle Assembly Building

Space shuttle Discovery waits to roll back from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the early morning hours of Dec 21, 2010, with the beginning of the total lunar eclipse clearly in view. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

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Overnight, space shuttle discovery left launch pad 39A and was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. There, engineers can use digital X-ray equipment to look at the external fuel tank and attempt to determine what caused the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the intertank to crack during fueling on Nov. 5. Additionally, foam will be reapplied where 89 sensors were installed on the tank’s aluminum skin for an instrumented tanking test on Dec. 17. The sensors were used to measure changes in the tank last week as super-cold propellants were pumped in and drained out.

This rollback of Discovery was her sixth, and the 20th rollback in the space shuttle program. If everything checks out in the VAB, Discovery is slated to return to the launchpad around January 14, 2011. Discovery’s next launch opportunity is no earlier than Feb. 3.

Engineers also hope to verify their hypothesis that the stinger cracks occurred during cryogenic fueling because of unusual “stresses” on the support beams that took place during the tank’s construction.

And we’ve said it before: never say “last” when it comes to the space shuttle! Discovery’s “last” rollout to the pad was three months ago. And as Peter King from CBS news said on Twitter, not only do we get another rollout, we also get another “last” night launch if the date of February 3 holds. The original “last night shuttle launch” was the February 2010 launch of Endeavour, which I attended, but then the subsequent launch of Discovery in April ended up being a night launch because of delays. Looks likely we’ll have at least one more night launch that turns night into day at KSC.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Do the #ISSWave All the Way Around the World

C’mon, admit it. If you regularly watch for the International Space Station passing overhead you’ve probably waved or shouted a greeting as it sailed high above you. I regularly salute the ISS, even though I know the astronauts on board can’t see or hear me. But still.

Well, it turns out I’m not alone. Through Twitter, other people have found out that it is pretty common for people to wave at the ISS. So now, as a “celebration of human solidarity during the holiday season” a group of Twitters have organized “ISSWave.” For one week beginning Friday, December 24 through December 31, humans around the world can wave together and show their solidarity with their fellow humans in space (and on Earth) by waving at the ISS as she passes overhead at 28,000 kph (17,500 mph).

You can share your waves on Twitter — either alone or as part of an ISSwave tweetup (a physical gathering of twitterers, or tweeps) — by tweeting your zip/postal code and the hashtag “#ISSwave” along with photos and videos of their waves, thoughts, holiday wishes for the astronauts and cosmonauts, etc. Participants’ waves will be registered in real-time at www.isswave.org.

Astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station may even film themselves waving back at ISSwave participants. At least two astronauts, including Ron Garan, have voiced their support for ISSwave in emails and tweets.

How did this idea come about? Well, the organizers are Lucy Rogers (@DrLucyRogers), Richard P. Grant (@rpg7twit) and Karen James (@kejames). The idea for the wave emerged through a serendipitous twitter exchange among the three, and they discovered that watching ISS passes is even more exciting when done together with other humans, whether they are standing right next to you or watching from afar. To know that you are not the only one looking up in awe at this spectacle of human ingenuity and cooperation speeding across the night sky creates a special connection between us.

“The first time I watched an ISS pass I was surprised by how much it affected me,” said Karen James. “‘We made that’, I thought, ‘there are humans up there!’ All of my worries just seemed so tiny in the face of this symbol of human achievement and cooperation. I want to share that experience with other humans and also show my support to the ones living and working aboard the station.”

‘“I’d always wave up at the ISS if I saw it pass overhead,” said Lucy Rogers. “Someone laughed and said the astronauts wouldn’t see me.” So she asked on Twitter if anyone else waved – a lot of people did – and the communal ISS waving began. “When Karen moved to the USA she saw the ISS at a different time to us in Europe – which prompted the idea of a round-the-world wave,” she says.

We see the ISS because it is lit by the Sun. Sunlight reflects off it’s solar panels in the same way it glints off windows here on Earth. As the ISS travels round the world, the reflection can be seen in a broad sweep across the Earth. Due to the angles involved between the Sun, ISS and our location on Earth, sometimes we see bright, high passes and sometimes we can’t see it at all. During the week 24th – 31st December, most places on the Earth should get a good view of it at some point.

The three formed the Twitter account @ISSwave to coordinate, promote and provide updates on the event. Their hope is that seasoned and novice ISS watchers alike will experience the startlingly emotional experience of an ISS pass, amplified by solidarity with thousands of others watching around the world.

They also have a website, where you can find out how to see the ISS in your location, as well as find more info about joining the #ISSWave.

The team hopes the buzz around ISSwave will persuade those who have never watched an ISS pass to participate, marking an increase in awareness about the International Space Station and the existence of a community of space enthusiasts on Twitter (“spacetweeps”).

The wave also celebrates the 10th anniversary of continuous human presence in space with the ISS, which occurred on November 2, 2010 and the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space — the first human spaceflight — on April 12th 2011 (www.YuriGagarin50.org).

Posted on by Jon Voisey

A New Class for Tau Scorpii

Many classes of stars are named for an early, distinguished member of a certain type of stars. For example, Cepheid variables take their namesake from the periodic variable Delta Cephei, first recognized by John Goodricke, although Eta Aquillae, another Cepheid, was recognized as a periodic variable with the same period just before Delta Cephei. Since the time of Goodricke’s discovery, many more classes of objects have been discovered from T Tauri, to W Ursa Majoris, to Delta Scorpii.

But sometimes, stars must wait before more members of their class are discovered. Tau Scorpiiis a massive B0 star and one of the rare high mass stars for which magnetic fields have been measured. To distinguish it even further, studies have shown that its magnetic field is unusually complex, being much more tangled than most stars and not showing distinct dipoles. Additionally, this unusual star has been shown to have weaker stellar winds (and consequently, mass loss rates) than most B0 type stars, as well as spectral features that are simultaneously characteristic of stars on the main sequence and young giants. Meanwhile, the star is believed to be only a few million years old. A first step towards characterizing such odd objects is to find more. Fortunately, astronomers have discovered two more stars similar to Tau Scorpii.

The two new stars, HD 66665 and HD 63425, were first recognized as unusual from their spectra, taken by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Using these spectra, the team, led by Véronique Petit at West Chester University, recognized that these stars had the same peculiar winds as Tau Scorpii. While Petit’s group could not completely constrain the mass loss rates, they did place an upper limit on both, establishing that they too shared the “weak wind problem” in which the expected mass loss rate for such stars was roughly 20 times higher. This prompted the team to investigate each star for magnetic fields.

Although the team wasn’t able to fully analyze the magnetic fields during their observing run to determine just how unusual they were, the team did establish both stars did have magnetic fields present and that they were similar in strength to that of Tau Scorpii. These two pieces of information has led the team to conclude that HD 66665 and HD 63425, along with Tau Scorpii, constitute a new class of stars. Additional confirmation could come from similar conclusions on the age of the analogues.

Petit’s team doesn’t speculate as to the nature of this emerging class in this paper. However, an earlier work of which Petit was a co-author, examined Tau Scorpii specifically. In it, the team examined whether the unusual field was a “frozen in” fossil from formation, or actively produced by an unusual dynamo inside the star. Fields produced by dynamos require large portions of the interior of the star undergoing convection. Models of massive stars predict that convection is likely to be limited in such stars. Another key component is rotation. Tau Scorpii is an extremely slow rotator, so the team concluded that a dynamo is unlikely in this case. As such, the fossil-field theory was more likely. Further investigation of HD 66665 and HD 63425 will certainly be necessary to further compare these stars to Tau Scorpii.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

See the Changing Seasons on Earth from Space

Screenshot from the 'Change of Seasons' webpage.

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A new NASA webpage allows you to see – as well as share – the changing seasons here on Earth. From space, NASA satellites record the change of seasons, which scientists study regional patterns on Earth. These images also help show bigger changes that may occur over many years, and the slide show, “The Change of Seasons: Views from Space,” shows some of the ways seasonal change affects our planet, and invites you to share your own photos of seasonal change where you live.


Caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to its orbital plane around the sun, seasons have profound changes on our weather and climate. When seasons change, nature reacts differently, depending on location. Temperatures change, rain or snow falls, rivers may flood, to name just a few effects. See the changes in action at the “Change of Seasons” webpage.

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Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

New Images Indicate Tectonic Activity on Rhea

Hemispheric color differences on Saturn's moon Rhea are apparent in this false-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image shows the side of the moon that always faces the planet. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

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Saturn’s second largest moon Rhea has gotten a couple of close-up looks by the Cassini spacecraft which show dramatic views of fractures cutting through craters on the moon’s surface. The new images reveal a history of tectonic rumbling, scientists say. The images are among the highest-resolution views ever obtained of Rhea, including a 3-D look at a tectonically fractured region showing cracks as deep as 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).

“These recent, high-resolution Cassini images help us put Saturn’s moon in the context of the moons’ geological family tree,” said Paul Helfenstein, Cassini imaging team associate, based at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. “Since NASA’s Voyager mission visited Saturn, scientists have thought of Rhea and Dione as close cousins, with some differences in size and density. The new images show us they’re more like fraternal twins, where the resemblance is more than skin deep. This probably comes from their nearness to each other in orbit.”

Cassini made to two close passes of Rhea on Nov. 21, 2009 and March 2, 2010, and the flybys were designed in part to search for a ring thought to encircle the moon, the existence of which has now been ruled out. During the March flyby, Cassini made its closest- approach to Rhea’s surface so far, swooping within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the moon.

Icy fractures on Saturn's moon Rhea reflect sunlight brightly in this high-resolution mosaic created from images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its March 2, 2010, flyby. This flyby was the closest flyby of Rhea up to then. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

These unique views are among the best ever obtained of the side of Rhea that always faces away from Saturn. Other views show a web of bright, “wispy” fractures resembling some that were first spotted on another part of Rhea by the two Voyager spacecraft in 1980 and 1981. These images are helping to answer questions scientists have had about Rhea since the Voyager mission.

At that time, scientists thought the wispy markings on the trailing hemispheres – the sides of moons that face backward in the orbit around a planet – of Rhea and the neighboring moon Dione were possible cryovolcanic deposits, or the residue of icy material erupting. The low resolution of Voyager images prevented a closer inspection of these regions. Since July 2004, Cassini’s imaging cameras have captured pictures the trailing hemispheres of both satellites several times at much higher resolution. The images have shown that the wispy markings are actually exposures of bright ice along the steep walls of long scarps, or lines of cliffs, which indicate tectonic activity produced the features rather than cryovolcanism.

Wispy fractures cut through cratered terrain on Saturn's moon Rhea in this high resolution, 3-D image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The image shows a level of detail not seen previously. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Scientists combined images of the trailing hemisphere taken about one hour apart to create a 3-D image revealing a set of closely spaced troughs that sometimes look linear and sometimes look sinuous. The 3-D image also shows uplifted blocks interspersed through the terrain that cut through older, densely cratered plains. While the densely cratered plains imply that Rhea has not experienced much internal activity since its early history that would have repaved the moon, these imaging data suggest that some regions have ruptured in response to tectonic stress more recently. Troughs and other fault topography cut through the two largest craters in the scene, which are not as scarred with smaller craters, indicating that these craters are comparatively young. In some places, material has moved downslope along the scarps and accumulated on the flatter floors.

A mosaic of the March flyby images shows bright, icy fractures cutting across the surface of the moon, sometimes at right angles to each other. A false-color view of the entire disk of the moon’s Saturn-facing side reveals a slightly bluer area, likely related to different surface compositions or to different sizes and fine-scale textures of the grains making up the moon’s icy soil.

This global digital map of Saturn's moon Rhea was created using data obtained by NASA's Cassini and Voyager spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

The new images have also helped to enhance maps of Rhea, including the first cartographic atlas of features on the moon complete with names approved by the International Astronomical Union. Cassini will continue to chart the terrain of this and other Saturnian moons with ever-improving resolution, especially for terrain at high northern latitudes, until 2017.

An upcoming flyby should provide even more details about Rhea.

“The 11th of January 2011 will be especially exciting, when Cassini flies just 76 kilometers [47 miles] above the surface of Rhea,” said Thomas Roatsch, a Cassini imaging team scientist based at the German Aerospace Center Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin. “These will be by far the best images we’ve ever had of Rhea’s surface – details down to just a few meters will become recognizable.”

For more images and for higher resolution versions of the ones seen here, see the CICLOPS website, or NASA’s Cassini website.

Source: JPL

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Lunar Eclipse Images From Around the World, Dec. 21, 2010

Looking like a holiday card, this view of the lunar eclipse was taken by Stu Atkinson in the UK

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For the first time in almost four centuries a total lunar eclipse coincided with the solstice – mid-winter for northern hemisphere skywatchers and mid-summer for the southern hemisphere. For those with a clear view of the sky (I was not that lucky!), the entire event was visible from North America, Greenland and Iceland, while western Europe saw the beginning stages before moonset and western Asia got the later stages after moonrise. Australia also saw the late stages of the eclipse.

People with clear skies in the northern hemisphere saw the Moon transformed into a “coppery orb,” as Tony Hoffman from Queens, New York called it (see his image below.) The Moon didn’t disappear completely, as the residual light from its surface is refracted by our atmosphere, resulting in the Moon turning a coppery, red or brown color. The eclipse lasted for about three and a half hours. See some images and videos from around the world, below. Clicking on each image will bring you to the original source.

The Washington Monument is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth during a total lunar eclipse on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Washington. From beginning to end, the eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
A 'Coppery Orb' as seen by Tony Hoffman in Queens, NY. 'Well worth braving the cold and wind to catch,' Tony said, 'Relatively bright totality with Moon beautifully situated by the horns of Taurus.'
'Even with high cloud, a 7 second exposure brought out the beauty of the eclipsed Moon,' said Mark Zaugg from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The ruddy totally eclipsed Moon as seen by Nick Bramhill in Aberdeen, UK.
The Earth's shadow starts to creep across the Moon in this image by Stu Atkinson near Kendal in the UK

You can see the more pictures and the write-up Stu did about the eclipse on his website, Cumbrian Sky: Eclipse-Watching from Narnia.

Astronomer Amanda Bauer took several images of the eclipsed Moon rising over Sydney, Australia, as seen below. See her website, Astropixie, for more images she took of the event.

Astronomer Amanda Bauer took this image of the eclipsed Moon from the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia.
Efrain Morales from the Jaicoa Observatory in Puerto Rico took this sequence of images. 'The weather was not under under optimum conditions,' he wrote, 'but managed to take this sequence thru the cloud gaps until it finally covered it up.
This view of the red Moon was taken by Pete Riesett in Baltmore, Maryland.
An animation made from 60 images taken by an all-sky telescope in New Mexico
This image was taken by Jen Scheer (aka @flyingjenny on Twitter) from Merritt Island in Florida.

Former space shuttle technician Jen Scheer (@flyingjenny on Twitter) got up earlier than usual (she takes a daily sunrise picture from around Kennedy Space Center each morning) to capture some great shots of the eclipse. You can see more of her images at her Flickr page.

A total lunar eclipse begins as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
This was taken by Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, in Boulder Colorado. 'Deep into totality,' Phil said.

Here’s a video taken from Savannah, Georgia in the US:

And another video from UT frequenter, Brent (aka Hellobozos) from Orlando Florida. He took 6 second avi’s every 5 minutes for 6 hours, from 12:30am to 6am EST:

And one more from Carl Hamilton from Bowie, Maryland:

You can also see a great collection of images on JPL’s I’m There Flickr Group, this collection at a German astronomy website called ASTROTREFF, this amazing set of images from Slovakia, Carolyn Collins Petersen has a bunch of images she took from near Boulder Colorado, and this NASA Flickr page.

Here are some more images sent in by readers:

Lunar eclipse from Fair Lawn. NJ. 'Wish I had a more powerful lens but it was well worth waiting up for,' said Universe Today reader Mary Durante Youtt.
Here's one from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. 'We had to dodge clouds, cold, and wind that jiggled the tripod,' said Beth Katz.
The eclipse as seen by photographer John O'Connor near Kennedy Space Center.

This image was taken by photographer John O’Connor, who normally takes images of rockets and spacecraft (see his website NASATech, for amazing virtual tours of spacecraft, launchpads and more). He was up in the middle of the night to take images of space shuttle Discovery’s intended rollback from the launchpad to the Vehicle Assembly Building, but the rollback was delayed because of a technical problem.

“I intended to take a couple of quick shots of totality before heading out but ended up spending 45 minutes shooting the moon, as they say,” John wrote me. “This is my first attempt at astrophotography. I shot it with a 300 mm fixed focal length lens with a doubler on it. With the 1.5 multiplier factor on the 2/3 size sensor, it was about 900 mm focal length. It was 4 second shot at 100 ISO with an f4.5 aperture, as wide as the lens would let me go. Note the smudged stars. Even at a 4 second exposure the Earth’s rotation is evident, blurring, ever-so-slightly, the lunar disk.”

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Big Moon, Little Moon

Titan and Tethys line up for a portrait of 'sibling' moons. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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This image reminds me of when I was young, my parents would line me and my siblings up for pictures, oldest and tallest in the back and youngest and smallest in the front. Here, the Cassini spacecraft sees two of Saturn’s moons lined up for a family photo, showing the hazy orb of giant Titan beyond smaller Tethys.

On Tethys, the large Ithaca Chasma can be seen running roughly north-south for more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Titan’s hazy atmosphere covers up the interesting surface below.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing sides of Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) and Tethys (1,062 kilometers, or 660 miles across).

See more about this image on the Cassini website.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Total Lunar Eclipse Information – December 21, 2010

Are you ready? As promised, here comes more detailed information on the 2010 total lunar eclipse. Step inside and find out where and when to watch!

The eclipse begins for eastern North America on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST and occurs on Monday night, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST for western North America. At that time, Earth’s shadow will appear as a dark-red crescent at the edge of the lunar disk. It takes about an hour for the Earth’s shadow to fully encompass the visible side of the Moon. Totality commences at 02:41 am EST (11:41 pm PST) and lasts for 72 minutes. Western Europe and the northwestern portion of Africa will also be treated to a portion of the eclipse at moonset. The point of deepest shadow will occur at 08:17 UT and totality ends 36 minutes later at 08:53 UT. At that time, a silver sliver will once again appear along the lunar limb, where for one hour and eight minutes it will continue until the Moon passes out of the umbral shadow at 10:01 UT. From there it will pass into the penumbral shadow for an additional hour and four minutes until the show ends at 11:05 UT.

Where will the Moon appear? Of course it will be along the ecliptic plane and in very good company – riding high above Orion. Be sure to look for a triple red treat as the show forms a triangle with blushing Betelgeuse and ruddy Aldebaran. As the Moon darkens, be sure to look for wonderful unaided eye deep space objects you can’t see during a full Moon – like the Plieades (M45) and the Great Orion Nebula (M42). What a Christmas treat!

Photographing or videotaping a total lunar eclipse is quite easy, but remember if you live in a cold climate that there are a few very important rules to follow. Number one is to be sure to protect your hands. It’s very easy to get involved with the equipment and ignore what seems like a slight discomfort. You don’t want to experience freezing your fingers to a metal surface or risking frostbite! The second rule is to remember that cold batteries drain very, very quickly. You can easily avoid frustration by simply keeping spares somewhere handy next to your skin. Of course, getting to them might be a ticklish situation! The last rule to remember is simply to dress for success. Multiple loose layers of clothing, hat, gloves and proper footgear are a must where the winter season means bitter cold temperatures.

Now all that’s left is just to let the hours count down… and enjoy!

Fun Facts from NASA: This lunar eclipse falls on the date of the northern winter solstice. How rare is that? Total lunar eclipses in northern winter are fairly common. There have been three of them in the past ten years alone. A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years. “Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21,” says Chester. “Fortunately we won’t have to wait 372 years for the next one…that will be on 2094 DEC 21.”