astronomy

Meet 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), but make it fast, because it’s already leaving. Source: First-known interstellar visitor is a bizarre, cigar-shaped asteroid This is one of the most exciting news stories of the year. We've…

They are right when they say there is nothing quite like a total solar eclipse. I had seen an annular eclipse in my senior year of high school as it cross over Vermont. Wandering out there with our physics teacher,…

This infographic summarizes how many people are expected to travel to the path of totality and where they will congregate. The patterns of converging lines to the path of totality represent the quickest drive paths from…

After previous missteps, Tokyo needs their hosting of the Olympics to not only go smoothly, but to wow visitors in order to regain some face. If Japan-based research company Star-ALE has their way, they'll be the ones to…

Pluto is a completely different colour from the one we thought it was, according to new images that also show the huge heart that seems to be carved into its side. Source: Pluto is red: New Horizons images throw out…

Rosetta - an album on Flickr . In 4 hrs we'll know if we managed to shoot a probe into space and harpoon and land on a comet successfully. Even if the landing is not a success, the images coming back from the inbound are…

Yesterday I was listening to an episode of the Common Wealth Club on the B612 foundation . They are fund raising $200M to build a space telescope to detect and track all the asteroids that are big enough to destroy a…

“The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our contemplations of the Cosmos stir us. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” ― Carl Sagan , Cosmos "It's time to get going again." ― Neil…

Even though I was only 4 at the time, Cosmos left a distinct impression on my when I was a kid. My path into science and engineering probably can be traced back to being filled with things like Cosmos and NOVA during my…

We lost a few features moving mhvlug.org from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, as modules just didn't exist. One of the ones I missed the most was the Planet function provided by UD Planet. This was an extremely simple to use…

This is what we can do when we work together, on science, on the future. We can land a rover, by sky hook, on a planet so far away that it takes 14 minutes for light and radio signals to get back to earth. This is what…

As I was packing up my telescope at midnight last night, calling it a night from our Star Party , I decided to take a short walk. And I did so looking up. The milky way was rising, and as civilization was shutting down,…

Yesterday I saw something with my own eyes that's only been seen by humans 7 times in human history, and won't happen again for 105 years: Venus moving across the face of the sun. That view, I'll remember for the rest of…

This wikipedia page is just great, and includes such hits as: 1 million years: Highest estimated time until the red supergiant star Betelgeuse explodes in a supernova . The explosion is expected to be easily visible in…

This weekend I bought and rooted a Nook Simple Touch. The reason? I've been looking for an eink platform that one could make astronomy applications and data available for. Eink is ideal for a hobby where stray light…

This is a great infographic on the kinds of planets we now know exist, and an idea of how much of the galaxy we can actually look at to find these. Very cool to be living at a time when the discovery of planets around…

This amazing picture was taken in the AM over in Australia in the last day. Comet Lovejoy, which became the closest sun grazing comet ever observed, managed to survive it's trip into the sun, and is now flaring up as it…

An amazing look at our planet earth from the ISS, as a timelapse video. Make sure to run it full screen to get the full mind blowing effect. The [vimeo page](http://vimeo.com/32001208) has the details on what's being…

This print was bought at least 2 years ago, finally got around to building the frame for it. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, just need to sort out some hangers and it will be the new art up over my home office…

Slightly over a month away, I'm starting to gear up on one of the biggest MHAA events of the year. Last year we had about 100 guests come to our Observe the Moon event at Vassar Farms, so I'm hoping we'll top that this…

While shopping on Amazon for some red filters for Astronomy proofing things I came across this:Who knew there was enough DIY around this to make it a bundle at Amazon.

One of the more impromptu parts of our vacation was a realization that without going too far out of the way (adding only about an extra hour of driving to DC) we could hit up the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in…

A new moon, not a cloud in the sky, and it's above freezing. That's very rare combination of things in the North East. But this year at AOS we got just that on Saturday night. After 1am we started struggling with dewing…

This isn't a very good picture, but it's notable for being taken just by putting my EVO up to my solar telescope and taking a picture. It does give you the sense of some of the more spectacular features going on on the…

For those with an Android smartphone out there, with an interest in Astronomy, the 🔗💀 Heavens Above app is something you should install immediately. It provides look ups for satellite crossings based on your location,…

Tonight I got in the first real night of observing since a series of equipment upgrades this April. Yes, it took until June to actually get in a clear dark night. The views of Saturn don't really count, as I was doing…

No matter how many times you've seen a Shuttle launch on TV, you are not prepared for the event in person. This was made even better by being surrounded by fans and enthusiasts of the US Space program. The only other…

So many of my adventures over the last 10 years have been because I met and made such a good and diverse pool of friends while I was at Wesleyan University. These adventures have taken me visiting to Puerto Rico, India,…

A couple years ago I briefly got back into table top gaming, building up a Blood Bowl collection, and gathering up all my old RPG books and games from attic storage up in Vermont. It was a fun summer/fall, but less…

This is a great video about the James Webb telescope, but my favorite part is the statement that you have to Increase the Awesome. I agree.

This past weekend was the North East Astronomy Forum, which is one of the biggest Amateur Astronomy gatherings in the US, and definitely the biggest anywhere that I could get by car. A 2 day event with 140 vendors in…

After both of our Astronomy outreach events at Vassar I've gotten comments from folks that we should have a sign out at the main street to direct people into the event (which also might bring in folks that didn't know…

All bundled up at the Saturn Watch event (flannel lined jeans are excellent for star gazing) showing people the views through my telescope.

"Oh my god. I can see the Rings!" -- 50 different people last night Last night was awesome. Last night was the Mid-Hudson Astronomical Associations observing event at the Vassar Farm Preserve, titled Saturn…

That is Earth and Moon taken from the Messenger probe last year, though it's been wandering the blogosphere this week as Messenger successfully entered Mercury's orbit. It's a little brighter than the Pale Blue Dot , but…

I bought a telescope almost three years ago now, and I'd still consider myself pretty novice, but learning. One thing I was sure that I was doing wrong over the years was colimnation, which is aligning the optics in your…

The Kepler mission dumped another 3 months worth of data into the public yesterday, which brings their candidate planet list up to 1200 right now. It's clear by the rate of finding candidates vs. confirmations, that most…

We've managed to get 2 stories in the local papers about the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association in the last week. The first came from the New Paltz Times : Since 1985, a group of professional, amateur and the simply…

As confirmed yesterday I'm going to be presenting my Android development talk from CPOSC (with a few tweaks for the local audience) at the Poughkeepsie Chapter of the ACM this month. Mon, Jan 17 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm (Ulrich…

This picture is of the partial solar eclipse that just occurred. That sun spot at the top of the Sun isn't a sunspot, it's the International Space Station in transit. It crosses the surface of the sun in less than a…

This isn't totality, but it's just about as far as we got to see before those clouds you can see moving in blocked out the rest of it. I shot this by just holding my Canon S90 up to the eyepiece on my telescope.

If you are in North America, there will be a total Lunar Eclipse Tonight between 12:30am and 6am something like this is going to happen ( courtesy of wikipedia ): Friends on the west coast will have slightly better times…

Last night I finally got time to re-setup eclipse after the Ubuntu upgrade and did a couple of quick fixes for Where is Io. One includes making my ghetto math for the Diorama slightly less ghetto. It still needs future…

On one of the photo sites I follow someone posted this image with a leading title that suggested this was a ufo confirmation: In 5 of the 21 frames that make up the animated gif there are 2 red, a blue, and a green dot,…

Tonight I'll be giving the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association talk on the basics of celestial mechanics, and what I figured out to make my Where is Io application. The talk picked up the poetic "Tracking the…

Things are going to be quiet here for a few days as I prep for 2 upcoming talks, both which are about aspects of Where is Io. The first of which is this Saturday at the Central PA Open Source Conference , which I'm about…

Lack of familiarity with the night sky has led a number of people in Washington state to call 911 for a UFO sighting . The police pulled out their binoculars, and correctly determined that it was Jupiter. This happens a…

While Jupiter having moons is what most people remember from what they learned of Galileo, the observations of Venus were the ones that actually changed the way that we look at the world. Not only does Venus have…

This is not photoshopped: That is the death of 2 stars that you are seeing, as they let off material in their 800 year orbit of each other. Phil Plait has lots more detail over at Bad Astronomy .

It turns out that while I was coming up with the idea of figuring out if we could do an astronomy outreach event at the Vassar Farm , Keri VanCamp (the Vassar Farm & Ecological Preserve manager) was developing a…

From SpaceWeather.com : Last night, the atmosphere over Australia settled into a state of rare, crystal-clear transparency -- and it did so directly above the observatory of world-famous astrophotographer Anthony Wesley.…

We used to think Pluto was all on it's lonesome out in it's far away orbit. It turns out, we just got lucky in finding it, and it's part of a class of objects, now called Trans Neptunian objects . As more and more…

If you've seen an email, or heard from your friends, about how incredibly bright Mars will be on August 27th... it's a hoax . Snopes has the entire history of the event . I've corrected 3 people now on the subject…

http://www.eso.org/public/archives/djangoplicity/shadowbox3/libraries/mediaplayer-licensed/player-licensed.swf This is way too cool . The European Southern Observatory just released a press release with data for a exo…

Last night was our monthly star party for the Mid-Hudson Astronomical Association . It was just about a perfect August night, not too hot, not too humid, and with very clear skies. Apparently the effort that I've been…

http://widget.nbc.com/videos/nbcshort_at.swf?CXNID=1000004.10045NXC&widID=4727a250e66f9723&clipID=1242077&showID=243 What could be better and geekier than a rap about Hubble vs. the James Web on Late Night…

Thanks to John Lesica with helping on some of the design. Also available as PDF for printing .

The Android tablet space that is starting to heat up is all running after Apple's iPad at the moment. It's got a nice form factor and a nice screen, but it's entirely unsuitable for a whole set of applications that I…

Phil Plait's Bad Universe is coming to Discovery this fall. Can't wait.

Via reddit . (click image to enlarge) These images are always created by taking pictures of our sun then scaling them up and changing the color. It makes me wonder though: are really big stars are actually round? there…

Two years ago I got into amateur Astronomy. I bought an 8" dobsonian telescope (which is the perfect first scope), and joined the local astronomy club . I've come to realize that my biggest weakness is coming up…

You know you are rusty at camping when the list of things you forgot, which you are just now remembering in your head as you are driving away from home, gets long enough that you actually turn around. It has been at…

Ars Technica has a great article on the history of the telescope. But there was something entirely non astronomy related that struck me: In 1608, Hans Lipperhey in the Netherlands applied for a patent on a pair of…

The last Where is Io release was a few weeks ago. That's because I've been working through a new chunk of math that I'll need for a few new features. One of the things I needed was rise and set times for Jupiter and the…

Actually, the amount of refraction changes with air temperature, pressure, and the elevation of the observer (see Chapter 16). A change of temperature from winter to summer can shift the times of sunrise and sunset by…

In between cutting lumber for this set of shelves, I managed to push the Where is Io source code up onto github . The parts I wrote are under GPLv3, the parts that came from others are under their respective licenses.…

I just pushed Where is Io out to the Android market for the low low price of free. The application presents a "spirograph" view of the 4 large moons of Jupiter over the next 96 hours, including an indicator on…

I've made some more progress on what will be my first Android market application - "Where is Io". I've learned a lot about sqlite performance on the phone, which isn't bad as long as you limit the number of…

This weekend I learned about JNI... that's a blog post for another time. The net result is this: Yes, it looks like the glory of Atari land graphics, but that's not the important part. The important part is that it looks…

After nearly a month of tinkering with code, nearly giving up twice, and realizing that I was going to actually need to relearn my linear algebra to get a real solution, I managed to create this graph. It is the position…

From the Journal of Improbable Research : With the loss of Pluto, the number of major planets in our solar system has dropped to eight. If the current trend continues, then come April 13, 3703 the solar system will no…

This incredible xkcd comic is now available for purchase as a poster . I'm ordering mine today.

Last night I was fortunate enough to get out to a free screening of the Hubble IMAX movie out in Norwalk, Connecticut, which also included both an engineering and a science lecture up front about the Fine Guidance…

I've never seen a more striking demonstration of gravitational lensing than this image: Those 4 bright points aren't in that galaxy at all. The galaxy is acting as a lens for a quasar some distance behind it. The…

Tuesday night was the first night of the Mid Hudson Astronomy Association in their new digs, the Coykendall Auditorium at SUNY, New Paltz. I really like the venue. The lighting and environment is much better than the…

I've gotten asked a few times since I took up Astronomy whether or not I believed in UFOs. While I may have had a wishy washy negative in the past, after getting into amateur astronomy that became a definitive no. Once…

This is not the Sun. This is the star Betelgeuse, 600 light years away from us. 10 years ago we managed to resolve it as 12 pixels, earlier this year we saw it's outer atmosphere , and now we can see this view of the…

The last time I looked through my telescope at Jupiter I saw something very close to this (size and color are about what I could see from my deck): But that's not a picture taken from earth. It was taken from mars . But…

After a quite full day yesterday, I pulled out my telescope for the first in months (since Vermont in July actually), helped in part by the nudging by Jeremy during the week about when I would next do some observing. The…

When I found out that this weekend was the closing weekend for the Galileo exhibit at the Franklin Institute , I made some quick plans to go down and see it. The exhibit was about the age of science and discovery at that…

This is Betelgeuse , which is one of the brightest stars in the night sky (9th brightest over the entire sky). It is the shoulder of the constellation Orion. Betelgeuse is notable for a number of reasons, the first of it…

Last night I learned quite a bit about super massive black holes at the Mid Hudson Astronomy Association month meeting in a great presentation by Dr Barry McKernan. His overwhelming theme of the evening was that…

This is just incredible. This moon of mars is basically just little asteroid, so to have pictures this clear is completely new science.

Click through on the image for more info. While it doesn't look this awesome in a backyard scope, it still looks pretty amazing.

So very awesome.

Just because it's that awesome. You should definitely look at signing up to the APOD RSS feed .

While I love the snow part of winter (which we don't get nearly enough of down here in in Poughkeepsie), I used to hate the dark part of winter. The Sun setting at 4:45 in December is sort of depressing. I say I used to,…

Tonight we were at the library, as I needed to pick up an inter library loan book. As per usual they had a table of old books for sale, which I was flipping through. One of those books was "Astronomy",…

2 months ago I bought a telescope . I've wanted one for years, and finally broke down and did it while they were on sale at Orion. It arrived about 6 weeks ago, and I've had about a dozen good observing days since.…

Yesterday my new telescope showed up, after just over an hour of assembly it was ready to go. Unfortunately, darkness was still about 5 hours off. Once we finally got the darkness, we had a clear night, and a few friends…

This is from Astronomy Picture of the Day, pointed out to me by Chris .

The pictures mostly speak for themselves, and are really freaking cool.

Pretty cool!

A new planet has been discovered , and it turns out that "these icy super-Earths are pretty common. Roughly 35 percent of all stars have them." Wow! 1/3 of all stars have super earths. I still remember the…