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.
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.
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.
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.
.
**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