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The Astronomy Stop

Last Updated:    Tuesday, February 07, 2023 

 


Welcome to The Astronomy Stop.

 I am a member of the Texas Astronomical Society and have been active in Amateur Astronomy and Astrophotography since 2001.

Enjoy the links on this site and take a look at my images.  They are updated frequently so check back often.

 

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Webb Detects Extremely Small Main Belt Asteroid

An asteroid roughly the size of Rome’s Colosseum — between 300 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters) in length — has been detected by an international team of European astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Their project used data from the calibration of the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid. The object is likely the smallest observed to date by Webb and may be an example of an object measuring under 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in length within the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.

More observations are needed to better characterize this object’s nature and properties.

 

An illustration of an asteroid. The asteroid roughly the size of Rome’s Coliseum — between 300 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters) in length — has been detected by an international team of European astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. They used data from the calibration of the MIRI instrument, in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid.

 The object is likely the smallest observed to date by Webb and may be an example of an object measuring under 1 kilometer in length within the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. More observations are needed to better characterize this object’s nature and properties.

Credits: ARTWORK: N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)

 


Astronomy Image of the Month
: Hoag's Galaxy

Look closely at the serpent constellation slithering through the northern sky, and you might see a galaxy within a galaxy within a galaxy.

This cosmic turducken is known as Hoag's object, and it has befuddled stargazers since astronomer Arthur Hoag discovered it in 1950.

The object in question is a rare, ring-shaped galaxy measuring some 100,000 light-years across (slightly larger than the Milky Way) and located 600 million light-years from Earth. In a recent image of the oddball object taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and processed by geophysicist Benoit Blanco, a bright ring of billions of blue stars forms a perfect circle around a much smaller and denser sphere of reddish stars. In the dark gap between the two stellar circles, another ring galaxy — much, much farther away from us — peeks out to say hello......More

Click on image to enlarge to full resolution.


 

Credit: ESA/NASA


Video from The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter To The Music of Claire de Lune

A new NASA video tour of the moon captures breathtaking views of the lunar surface.

Set to Claude Debussy's musical piece "Clair de Lune," this beautiful photomontage uses footage captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The video follows the sun through a lunar day, as the star rises and sets over prominent features on the moon. 

The video, created by NASA science visualizer Ernie Wright, made its debut at a concert titled "NSO Pops: Space, the Next Frontier." It accompanied a performance of the Debussy piece by the National Symphony Orchestra Pops on June 1 and 2 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The video was then released on YouTube on July 20, the 49th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.

Not only does the video pay tribute to the anniversary of Apollo 11, but it also honors NASA's 60th anniversary, according to a statement from the agency. [The Most Marvelous Moon Missions of All Time]

The LRO, which launched in 2009, measures the lunar terrain, collecting data that has been used to create a topographic map of the entire moon. Wright used this map, along with 3D visualization software and other images of the moon, to create this scenic tour of the celestial body. 

His video captures stunning views of lunar landmarks, including the sprawling ray system surrounding the magnificent Copernicus Crater and the jutting peaks of the Apennine and Caucasus mountain ranges.

In the video, sunlight sweeps across the landscape, revealing Aristarchus Plateau on the northwest part of the moon's near side. As the sun rises, it brings the bright Aristarchus impact crater and a number of prominent rilles — narrow grooves on the moon's surface — out of the shadows. The lighting captured in the video comes from the angles of the sun's rays during lunar days in 2018, according to the statement.

"The thing about the moon is that the shadows are everything," Wright said. "If you don't do that well, you've pretty much lost the game — there aren't vibrant colors like on the Earth or Jupiter or Saturn," Wright said.

Credit: Space.com
 


International Space Station
High Definition Earth Viewing

 

The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment places four commercially available HD cameras on the exterior of the space station and uses them to stream live video of Earth for viewing online.  The cameras are enclosed in a temperature specific housing and are exposed to the harsh radiation of space.  Analysis of the effect of space on the video quality, over the time HDEV is operational, may help engineers decide which cameras are the best types to use on future missions. High school students helped design some of the cameras' components, through the High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) program, and student teams operate the experiment.

Black Image = ISS is on the night side of the Earth. Gray Image = Switching between cameras, or communications with the ISS is not available.


Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

 


Video:

The Hubble Deep Field: The most important image ever taken. 

It is the farthest we have ever seen into space using the most advanced telescope we have.

 

 


Weather / Sky Conditions:

The Clear Sky Clocks below are the astronomers forecast. They show at a glance when, in the next 48 hours, we might expect clear and dark skies for one specific observing site. The site is specifically intended for amateur astronomers. The forecast data comes from a numerical weather model run by The Canadian Meteorological Center.

Clear Sky Clocks

ASTROTX Observatory

Atoka, OK


 

 

Billions and Billions:

Cerro Paranal is an astronomers paradise with its stunningly dark, steady and transparent sky. Located in the barren Atacama Desert of Chile it is home to some of the world’s leading telescopes.

Operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) the Very Large Telescope (VLT) is located on the Paranal mountain, composed of four 8 m telescopes which can combine their light to make a giant telescope by interferometry.

This film is made with footage from the November 2011 TWAN imaging expedition to Paranal assigned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).  Photographed 14 nights in a row from usually 05:30 pm to 08:00 a.m.


All video rights reserved by Christoph Malin and Babak Tafreshi
 

Journey to the edge of the Universe:

If nothing is faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) then we are crawling when trying to even break free of our own galaxy.  This video puts the distance of the universe into perspective. 

**Click on 'YouTube' in lower right of the frame to view the video in full screen mode. **


Stars: 101

They're some of the most common objects in the universe, but we know relatively little about the stars above us. What we do know, however, has led to incredible developments in the fields of astronomy, energy, and chemistry. Stars are not alive in the same way as we are, but they have a life-cycle all their own, along with spectacular deaths that light up the cosmos.

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**Click on Arrows icon in lower right of the frame to view the video in full screen mode. **

Credit:  National Geographic


Lunar Phases:

 A lunar phase or phase of the moon refers to the appearance of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer. The lunar phases vary cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon and Sun.  Click on each button to view the various phases or click on the 'Run Animation' button to view the entire lunar cycle.

 


Apollo Landing Sites

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image all six Apollo sites.

The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23, 2009 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit.

**UPDATE**
As of 09/06/11, NASA has now released improved images for Apollo's 12, 14, and 17. These images have been added below.

All images credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

Click each thumbnail image to enlarge

Lunar map of Apollo landing sites


Apollo 11

     

Left Image width: 282 meters
Right
Image width: 50 meters

Apollo 12
 09/06/11

     

Image width: 200 meters (about 656ft.)

Apollo 14
09/06/11

     

Image width: 538 meters (about 1,765 ft.)

Apollo 15

Image width: 384 meters (about 1,260 ft.)

Apollo 16

Image width: 256 meters (about 840 ft.)

Apollo 17
                                           09/06/11
     

Image width: 359 meters (about 1,178 ft.)

LRO Revisits Apollo Landing Sites

 

 

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This site was last updated 02/07/23

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