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Chinese Moon Festival 2009

The Chinese Moon Festival this year occurs on October 3rd. How is the date of the Mid-autumn festival determined?

The holiday marks the 15th day in the 8th month of the lunar calendar year, i.e. the 8th full-moon of the year. So on 10/3/2009 the moon will be its fullest and brightest. Also notable in the sky along with the full moon will be the planet Jupiter shining brightly as well. Jupiter is very easy to spot as the 2nd brightest object in the night sky. This is because Earth recently passed Opposition with Jupiter, which is the point at which Earth is closest to Jupiter during Earth's yearly orbit.

Uranus is between the moon and Jupiter this night, but a better time to track it down would be when the moon is not full and brightening up the whole sky.

In Chinese culture, a dessert called "Moon cakes" are eaten during the Moon Festival. Usually they are about 1.5 inches thick and square, about 3 inches on each side. See the images below of one (tasty) example:

What is especially unique about this year's Moon Festival is that less than 6 days afterwards, the LCROSS launch vehicle upper-stage will crash into the Lunar South Pole. You can watch it live online as seen from the LCROSS spacecraft.

LCROSS Impact on the Moon Visible from Western Hemisphere

Shortly after the launch of the NASA LRO/LCROSS spacecrafts from Florida on June 18, 2009, I checked to see if the moon would be in North America's part of the sky at the time of the estimated impact of LCROSS into the surface of the moon. The result: NO :-( *sniff sniff*. The moon would be over Asia, and seeing the moon from the USA would require looking directly through the Earth.

Flash forward to today and well you already know the good news from the title, the LCROSS impact of the Lunar south pole will be visible from the entire Western Hemisphere!. I verified this by checking the LCROSS official website, which has a projection for the impact time in October listed. Then I opened Home Planet 3, put in my location of Redondo Beach, CA, and the impact time, and the sky view shows the moon almost directly at the zenith (right overhead)! Therefore, I either made a mistake when I checked the moon's location the first time, or there was a change to the ETA of the impact.

Encoded on this blog post is an applet that automatically checks the official LCROSS website and displays just the projected impact time here, so this post (though not this email) will always be up-to-date even though it is written over 3 weeks before impact:

Projected Impact at time of this writing: Oct 9, 11:30 UT (7:30 EDT, 4:30 PDT)

Also, the following image shows Earth and the Moon projected onto the Earth at the time of impact.

Location of Moon over Earth at time of LCROSS impact on Lunar South Pole

The phase of the moon shown is correct, waning gibbous. Also, here is the view of the sky from Southern California that night:

I have heard that the impact will be in the shadowed part of the moon (i.e. not the illuminated side, but also not the "dark side" of the moon that humans on Earth never see either), close to the terminator (line between light and dark). So when the dust flies up from the impact, it will be illuminated by the Sun.
I've also heard that it will only be visible with at least 10 inch telescopes, but I will still try myself anyways, with my humble 3 inch refractor.

Good luck watching! (Here's an official link to observability: lcross.arc.nasa.gov/observation/amateur.htm) Also I checked to see if any locations outside of North/South America will have a view of the moon during impact, and the result is that the moon will be near the horizon for Western Europe and Africa, and the East coast of Asia (including Korea, Japan, and East Russia). South America will be entirely bathed in the sunlight of morning, and the hour in Europe will be the afternoon, making viewing with smaller aperture telescopes even less likely there.

Winning Hubble Telescope Contest Target

Towards the end of January I wrote a post about the contest that NASA held online to vote from a panel of six candidates for a target to point the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at. As you probably already heard, a great choice was made by the voters: Arp 274, a group of three interesting galaxies. It received about 47.9% of the vote, out of about 140,000 votes.

Arp 274 HST Image

The above image is the result of the contest. The galaxy group was imaged from April 1-2, 2009. It reveals that the three galaxies are in fact not gravitationally perturbing one another, as previously thought. That is because the galaxies are all keeping their shapes intact, and therefore are not actually near one another but only coincide in our line of sight.

A high-resolution image can be downloaded here, where you can see in detail for yourself the beautiful barred spirals and smaller compact galaxy. Of course, the voting contest for the naming of the new International Space Station module garnered much more attention, but the only thing that came out of that was an exercise bike dubbed COLBERT.

Orion Astrophotography Webinar

I receive emails from Orion® Telescopes & Binoculars every so often (ever since I made a purchase online), sometimes with informative articles and sometimes with advertisements for astronomy goodies.

The last email I received today not only advertised a free shipping sale applicable over the weekend, but also an Astrophotography "Webinar". Since I am quite interested in getting into astrophotography myself, I am telling whoever reads this about their webinar.

It is actually an encore of a past webinar, back by popular demand, entitled "Introduction to Astro-Imaging". It will occur online on Thursday June 4, 2009, from 5pm to 6pm Pacific time. Here is the link to register. The email states that virtual space/seats are limited. First come, first served.

If you are lucky, see Shuttle Mission STS-125

As you are aware, Space Shuttle mission STS-125 is currently orbiting high above the Earth, with the famed Hubble Space Telescope (HST) captured and mounted perpendicularly in the bay. I was curious if there would be any opportunities to see the combination of HST and Space Shuttle streaking by in the night sky for us in North America, so I consulted a great online tool to determine suitable overhead tracks (if you are not in North America, then try it for yourself and perhaps you will have better luck).

Heavens Above is a very informative site that any amateur astronomer should have in his or her toolbag (i.e. bookmarked in your browser). It can display Earth orbiting satellite overhead tracks, customized for any latitude and longitude. The site also keeps track of the brightest comets currently visible, as well as other interesting tidbits.

What it shows for Los Angeles is that STS-125 will pass overhead early in the morning on May 22, from 05:26 to 05:28 PST, albeit at a mere 10 to 12 degrees in altitude. It will appear towards the south, and orbit towards the southeast.

STS-125 is scheduled to land at 11:41 am EDT, so California is fortunate to have this one opportunity to see the bright reflecting shuttle streaking by, although the telescope will already be separated from the shuttle by that time.

Unfortunately, the shuttle overhead pass is below the horizon for people residing much further east of California. Floridians will be able to hear the sonic-boom as the shuttle descends through the atmosphere however!

Double Moon Shadow Transit across Jupiter

Tonight Jupiter's Galileon moons Callisto and Io will transit the disk of Jupiter. It is very difficult to see the moons themselves when they are in front of Jupiter, but what is special is that their shadows will also fall on the planet Jupiter simultaneously for a few hours. It is much easier to see the shadows track across the planet, and I have seen a single moon transit once with my humble 70mm refractor.

The Sky and Telescope Jupiter moons utility tells exactly when each moon shadow transit starts and ends:

Moon Event	Time (UTC)
Callisto's shadow begins to cross Jupiter	5/17/2009 04:38
Io's shadow begins to cross Jupiter	5/17/2009 07:52
Callisto's shadow leaves Jupiter's disk	5/17/2009 09:36
Io's shadow leaves Jupiter's disk	5/17/2009 10:14

Cassini Website Wins Webby Science Award

I am a few days behind the curve reporting this, but it is an honorable mention. The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its largest moon Titan has returned an unfathomable amount of extraordinary science data and breathtaking images. If you have not yet visited the mission website, it presents the latest processed images in a very cool way, and makes it easy to search for archived images, articles, and other information. You can even view raw images, and attempt to spot interesting details before the Cassini scientists themselves do.

With that background, it is not a terribly big surprise that a U.S. government or NASA website took first prize for the 2009 Science Webby award. Speaking of which, NASA.gov also clenched the title for best government website again this year.

Cassini JPL Website

See Venus during the Daytime

Just in case you're one of those people who need to sleep at night, there is still hope to see cool things in the sky. You have seen the moon during the day with the naked eye, but you can also see Venus through binoculars or a telescope during the day. CAUTION: Never point a magnifying device at the Sun, such as a telescope or binoculars, as it will cause you to become permanently blind.

That being said, a few weeks ago my wife and I went to the beach on a clear sunny day equipped with beach towels, a parasol, and binoculars. Currently Venus is to the west of the Sun in the sky, so as I was lying under the parasol being certain that it was blocking the sunlight, I scanned west of the Sun with binoculars until I spotted the crescent Venus. It looked AWESOME! The shape was like a boomerang.

You have to see it for yourself.

A bit childish, but a picture is worth a thousand words

According to Horizons, Venus is currently about 35% illuminated and waxing, and will be 50% illuminated from our point of view on June 7, 2009.

As you probably know, you can view the Sun itself if you use an appropriate sun filter on your telescope, which I do not have but am interested in of course. That discussion, however, is for another post.

NASA Mission Madness Contest

NASA's TV program NASA Edge is holding a contest to democratically elect the public's favorite "space" mission. I put "space" in quotations because it is arguable that some of the competitors did not technically go into "outer space" as the accepted definition of "space" holds, which is 100 km above sea level (SR-71 is one such example, whose justification is that the pilots needed to wear pressurized spacesuits to go to their operating altitude).

The final winner will be narrowed down in 6 stages, from two starting groups of 32 competitors each. NASA attempted to make the contest as similar to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association, for once that is not a space related FLA (Four-Letter Acronym)) basketball March Madness setup as possible, see for yourself here: NASA Mission Madness bracket.

Actually, the official Mission Madness bracket looks more basketball related than the NCAA contest's bracket that it tries to be like, see the following comparison:

NASA Edge Mission Madness tournament bracket

Note the basketball and hoop

NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament bracket

No such basketball paraphernalia pictured in the original March Madness bracket, except for some faded out X's and O's on a court play strategy in the background.

I have digressed. The contest began yesterday March 19, 2009 and ends on April 8, 2009. As an email to NASA personnel explained, the public can also "learn about mission goals..." "and predict which missions their fellow fans will vote for during the single elimination round." The contest also has no limit to the number of votes allowed per person, so if you really want a particular mission to win, you could skip sleeping and vote for it 24/7. The place to go to vote (again and again) is: http://mission-madness.nasa.gov

As hinted at above, there is quite a range of missions to vote for, from the early Gemini IV mission to the LRO/LCROSS spacecraft which has yet to launch this year, and from an altitude that the NASA modified B52 called NB-52 flies at to outside of our solar system with Voyagers 1 and 2. On the site you can pull up quick info on each mission before you vote.

Saturn Opposition

The planet Saturn will be in opposition March 8, 2009. Opposition in this case means that the Sun, Earth, and Saturn are lined up, with Earth in the middle. This is important, because this is when Saturn is the closest to Earth during the year, and closer means brighter and marginally larger in a telescope view.

The closest that Saturn will be to Earth is 8.394 AU, around 17 hours UTC on 2009-Mar-08 (also, it takes the shortest amount of time for light from Saturn to reach us, at 69.814 minutes). If you've looked at the ringed planet recently, you know that the rings appear nearly edge-on right now. They will be edge-on from our point of view on Earth this September, 2009, which also happens to be near the time of Saturn conjunction.

Saturn is currently in the bounds of the constellation Leo, South of the asterism's hind legs, but the brightest object in that general direction, so you can't miss it. It also has a noticeable golden tint. Good luck seeing Saturn during opposition this year.

Comet Lulin's Path

Here is an addition to the previous post that I wrote about the Comet Lulin.

From here on out
The following animation displays the path that Lulin will take over the next month and a half, from 2009/02/28 until 2009/04/17. It was the brightest the last few days, and will now dim.

Actually, the comet remains in much the same location in the sky (near the West foot of Gemini) for months after that. That is just due to how the orbits of Earth and the comet play out. Before long, the sun will move between the Earth and Lulin, and the green comet will be too dim to be seen by all but the most powerful telescopes by then. The animation also shows a couple other interesting combinations with the moon, such as Saturn near the moon on the morning of 2009/04/07, the comet on either side of the moon the mornings of March 7th and 8th, and the moon passing closeby the comet the morning of April 2nd.

The NASA Swift spacecraft captured the following image in ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths on January 28, 2009.

Comet Lulin in X-ray and UV, by NASA/Swift/Univ. of Leicester/Bodewits et al.

Extrasolar planet obscuring Big Dipper star

This sounds like a difficult event to observe, but I thought I would mention it anyways. The star HD 80606, which is one star in a binary star system located in Ursa Major, has a planet about twice the diameter of Earth orbiting it. The interesting thing is that on February 14, 2009, the planet (named HD 80606b) will be passing right in front of its parent star (from our perspective on Earth), and there's a 15% chance that it will be detectable with small telescopes¹.

What's more, the orbital period of this extrasolar planet is a 111 days (i.e. its "year" is 111 days long). So if you're able to locate the star (RA: 09h 22m 37.5679s, Dec: +50deg 36' 13.397")², you should see the star dim and brighten in a matter of hours, as the transit will last about 17 hours. The two stars are both about magnitude +9, so you'll have to use binoculars at least to spot their location.

HD 80606/80607 binary system, by NASA/GALEX

The two images below are centered on the RA/Dec of the binary star system. The red circle in the middle marks the spot.

I would highly recommend finding this binary system before the night of the 14th, to get some practice in. The system is located along one of the front legs of the "bear". The Big Dipper handle in the above diagram is extending to the upper left, out of the frame. You could start with the dipper part of the constellation, and star hop down towards the "knee" of the leg, which is close to the binary stars.

References:

1. Yahoo News - Odd planet's extreme global warming: Highs of 2240
2. Wikipedia - HD 80606
3. NASA Spitzer - Spitzer Watches Wild Weather on a Star-Skimming Planet

Beginning of the Universe

This post is about an issue that I've been thinking about lately.

Background

Current theory holds that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. The most popular beginning of universe event theory is dubbed the "Big Bang". At the time of writing, the most distant object detected is Quasar J1030+0524 at 14.5 billion light-years distance from Earth, by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)¹. This means that the light from that quasar took 14.5 billion years to reach us. (I don't know how that would be possible if the universe started only 13.7 billion years ago...)

Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory is deduced in particular from observations that, from a holistic viewpoint, galaxies are collectively moving away from each other in the universe more often than towards one another. In other words, the universe is continuously expanding as far as we can see.

Big Bang Theory says that the whole universe was once a tiny, infinitely dense pinpoint of energy which exploded and expanded into what we see and experience now. This then begs the question:

Where did that dense point of matter/energy come from?

Let's hold off on that for the moment.

NASA/WMAP Science Team

Genesis Chapter 1

From the first chapter of the first book of the Bible:

16 God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

(Read the chapter leading up to here)

Here's a summary of the first chapter of Genesis:

Day 1 - Water-covered planet "Earth" created with Day and Night
Day 2 - Sky created
Day 3 - Land created with plants
Day 4 - Sun, moon and stars created
Day 5 - Fish and birds created
Day 6 - Land animals and mankind created

Big Discrepancy

After Adam was created on Day 6, the Bible lists the lineage of him up until Jesus, including their ages, so the number of years since the beginning of creation is summed up as about 6000 years (4000 BC to 2000 AD). When you compare that figure, 6000 years, to the 13.7 billion years of the apparent age of the universe, there is a huge discrepancy. Many may say, "Well, the Bible must be wrong." But, if God can create the universe, surely He can also create a universe that is aged by 13.7 billion years already.

When He created Adam, he didn't create him as a fertilized (or unfertilized) embryo, and grow it to an infant, then grow the infant to a man. God created Adam and Eve as adults. In the same manner, God created an "adult" universe, that already contained mature galaxies. What about the time that it takes for the light to travel from the stars to Earth? Well, there is nothing stopping God from created the light rays already streaming and propagated from the stars and galaxies to Earth, that they may be visible on the 4th night.

References:

1. Three Distant Quasars Found at Edge of the Universe - Sloan Digital Sky Survey press release
2. WMAP Spacecraft - Timeline of the Universe
3. SDSS - FIRST LIGHT: ASTRONOMERS USE DISTANT QUASAR TO PROBE COSMIC 'DARK AGE,' UNIVERSE ORIGINS
4. SDSS - Sloan Digital Sky Survey Finds Most Distant Object Ever Observed
5. BBC News - Most Distant Objects Observed

Post 19: Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon, Feb 9th

The moon will be passing through the penumbra of Earth's shadow the night of February 8th, 2009 (as opposed to the darker central umbra). It will be visible in most of North America as the moon is setting on the western horizon, but not the East Coast (sorry!). It should make for very excellent photographs of the moon just above the horizon (for those in the dotted-blue area in the graphic below), so get your camera and tripod ready.

Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC

First contact between the shadow and the moon is made at 12:37 UTC, and the moon fully exits the shadow at 16:40 UTC (therefore, this will occur in the early morning for North Americans on 2/9/2009). The bright star of Leo, Regulus, will be closeby to the East.

The penumbra is darker towards the middle, so look closely at the North of the moon, and most of all, don't miss it! Get out and look even if you don't look at it through a telescope: binoculars or just your eyes are sufficient.

Post 18: Barack Obama Addresses NASA on Day of Remembrance

President Barack Obama addressed NASA employees today in an email for the NASA Day of Remembrance (January 29, 2009). He wrote:

The arrival of a new year reminds us that life is a journey, one that takes us on many unexpected paths. NASA's role is to pioneer journeys into the unknown for the benefit of humanity. Along the way, we sometimes experience tragedy instead of triumph.

Today, we pause to reflect on those moments in exploration when things did not go as expected and we lost brave pioneers. But what sets us apart as Americans is our willingness to get up again and push the frontiers even further with an even stronger commitment and sense of purpose.

On this Day of Remembrance, we remember the sacrifices of those who dared to dream and gave everything for the cause of exploration. We honor them with our ongoing commitment to excellence and an unwavering determination to continue the journey on the path to the future.

President Barack Obama

The newly appointed Acting Administrator Christopher J. Scolese (announced in my post earlier this week: Temporary NASA Leaders Appointed by Obama) also emailed NASA employees with a message commemorating the Day of Remembrance:

Today we honor the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia crews, and all members of the NASA family who lost their lives in the exploration of space. We honor their commitment as well as the loss to their families and friends.

The last Thursday of each January, NASA's annual Day of Remembrance, obliges us to reflect not only on the sacrifices that have been made by our fallen friends and co-workers, but to also consider what each one of us can do in their honor...

...With each mission and every challenge, we build upon their technical achievements, benefit from their discoveries, and tap into their bravery and spirit. I am honored to remember these members of the NASA family, and to work side by side with those in NASA and in our communities, to fulfill the vision of these extraordinary people, of living and working in space.

Christopher J. Scolese
Acting Administrator

This day is dedicated by the United States' Space Administration to those who have gone before us in pursuit of exploration and discovery.

Post 17: Make Hubble Your Telescope

That's right. As part of the International Year of Astronomy, the Hubble team is allowing the public to vote on which one of six targets will be imaged. The 6 target choices which have never been targeted by Hubble before are: (links open in a new window/tab)

NGC 40 - Planetary Nebula
NGC 6072 - Planetary Nebula
NGC 5172 - Spiral Galaxy
NGC 4289 - Edge-on Galaxy
NGC 6634 - Star-forming Region
Arp 274 - Interacting Galaxies

The poll deadline is March 1, 2009, so make sure to cast your vote before this time. The final image of the winner will be released by April 5th.

After you're done voting, check out the Bradford Robotic Telescope, which lets you choose what to image with a quality telescope and astrophotography setup, no voting required!

Post 16: Temporary NASA Leaders Appointed by Obama

Ok, it's not astronomical out-of-this-world, but NASA does explore the universe. NASA employees were sent an email notifying that the Obama administration chose several interim leaders to manage, taking effect immediately. The email details these appointees as follows:

Christopher Scolese, NASA's associate administrator, will serve as acting administrator until a successor to Michael Griffin has been nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Ronald Spoehel, NASA's chief financial officer and a political appointee from the previous Administration, has been asked to continue in his present position.

Several other posts usually held by political appointees will have acting leaders until the positions are filled by the Administration.

Mary D. Kerwin, deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, will serve as acting chief of the Office of Strategic Communications and the acting assistant administrator for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Robert Jacobs, deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Public Affairs, will serve as the office's acting assistant administrator.

Kristen Erickson, deputy director of the Communications Planning Division of the Office of Strategic Communications, will serve as the acting division director.

These are the individuals who will be directing the exploration and discovery of everything extraterrestrial by the United States.