Step into the spotlight for too long and you might forget what the sun feels like.
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Hey I'm Ken, sketch artist, art, civil rights, equality & science enthusiast live blogging his interests. New Yorker from uptown Manhattan, originating from the Dominican Republic.
Laser Trails and Star Trails
40 minutes of exposure time on the summit of Mauna Kea. Keck II was using the laser adaptive optics system. From left to right are the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, Subaru, Keck I and II, Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. — Sean Goebel
Star Trails and low earth flash over the 3RF Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus Observatory. — Phillip L. Jones
Big Dipper and Magic Telescope
Stars of the constellation Ursa Major (the Big bear) form the familiar dipper-like asterism in the northern sky as photographed from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary island of La Palma.
The starry night sky is reflected from one of a pair of 17 meter diameter, multi-mirrored MAGIC telescopes. The MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov) telescope is intended to observe gamma rays indirectly by detecting brief flashes of optical light, called -Cherenkov light. — Babak Tafreshi
OGLE and the Magellanic Clouds
Copyright: Yuri Beletsky, Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Institution for Science
From Home to the Universe
A dream of every amateur astronomer, an observatory some feet away from your bedroom! Amateur astronomers today contribute to research at the cutting-edge of science.
Here at Mario Motta observatory near the Atlantic coast at Gloucester, Massachusetts, a home built 32” (80cm) telescope with research level accuracy is being used to measure variable stars and detecting transiting extrasolar planets.
Dr. Mario Motta is a physician but also has an active role in the fight against light pollution, a board member of International Dark Sky Association (IDA).
The single exposure photo has captured rotating dome of the observatory, caused it to look transparent. In this moonlit night Orion is rising on the left and Taurus and Jupiter are above it. — Babak Tafreshi
The 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, and set against the starry background of the southern sky.
Credit: ESO/H. Dahle
Standing out in the image, the Milky Way — our home galaxy — can be seen as a hazy stripe across the sky. Dark regions within the Milky Way are areas where the light from background stars is blocked by interstellar dust. In addition, the Large Magellanic Cloud appears to the right of the telescope as a foggy blob in the sky.
This nearby irregular galaxy is a conspicuous object in the southern sky. It orbits the Milky Way and there is evidence to suggest that it has been greatly distorted by its interaction with our own galaxy.
Celebrated Keck Telescopes Seek Funding on 20th Anniversary
A celebration of the W.M. Keck Observatory’s 20th anniversary this week will also include a plea for more money to keep the iconic telescopes running in the next year.
“We’re a little concerned because of what’s going on in Washington,” said Debbie Godwin, director of advancement for Keck’s foundation.
Roughly $6.5 million, more than a quarter of the Keck Observatory’s annual budget, comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation, but that could change due to across-the-board federal cuts coming under the sequestration process, Godwin said.
Adaptive Optics
One of the four 8-meter VLT telescopes (Very Large Telescope) located in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) site on Cerro Paranal is photographed under starry sky of Atacama Desert in Chile. Strong laser of Adaptive Optics system is beamed to the sky from the telescope. Our galactic neighbors, the Magellanic Clouds, highlight the image.
As explained by the European Southern Observatory “one of the major difficulties of astronomers is the Earth’s atmosphere, which makes celestial objects appear blurry when observed by ground-based telescopes. To counteract this, astronomers use a technique called adaptive optics, in which computer-controlled deformable mirrors are adjusted hundreds of times per second to correct for the distortion of the atmosphere.
Astronomers beam a powerful yellow laser into the sky from the observing telescope. The beam creates a glowing spot — an artificial star — in the Earth’s atmosphere by exciting a layer of sodium atoms at an altitude of 90 km. This Laser Guide Star is part of the VLT’s adaptive optics system.
The light coming back from the artificial star is used as a reference to control the deformable mirrors and remove the effects of atmospheric distortions, producing astronomical images almost as sharp as if the telescope were in space.” — TWAN Christoph Malin
Clouds, Comet and Crescent Moon
In silhouette against the colorful evening twilight glow, clouds part in this much anticipated magic moment.
Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)
The scene captures naked-eye Comet PanSTARRS peeking into northern hemisphere skies on March 12. The comet stands over the western horizon after sunset, joined by the thin, flattened crescent of a day old Moon.
Posing for its own beauty shot, the subtly lit dome of the 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope is perched above cloud banks on the Canary Island of La Palma. While PanSTARRS has not quite developed into the spectacular comet once hoped for, it is still growing easier to see in the north. In coming days it will steadily climb north, farther from the Sun into darker western evening skies.
Giant Eyes of Past
Night at the historic Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Lowell Observatory was established in 1894 by Percival Lowell, placing it among the oldest observatories in the US, and is designated a National Historic Landmark for prominent astronomical discoveries made here including discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.
The Observatory’s original 24-inch refractor telescope (pictured here) is still in use today for education and public observation. — Dennis Mammana
Phantom of Mauna Kea
The black silhouette of the CSO (Caltech Submillimeter Observatory) against the Milky Way and Zodiacal light, on the “Millimeter Valley”, under the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano, Hawaii. — Serge Brunier
When Gemini Sends Stars to Paranal
From a radiant point in the constellation of the Twins, the annual Geminid meteor shower rained down on planet Earth this week.
Image Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de America), TWAN
Recorded near the shower’s peak in the early hours of December 14, this skyscape captures Gemini’s lovely shooting stars in a careful composite of 30 exposures, each 20 seconds long, from the dark of the Chilean Atacama Desert over ESO’s Paranal Observatory. In the foreground Paranal’s four Very Large Telescopes, four Auxillary Telescopes, and the VLT Survey telescope are all open and observing.
The skies above are shared with bright Jupiter (left), Orion, (top left), and the faint light of the Milky Way. Dust swept up from the orbit of active asteroid 3200 Phaethon, Gemini’s meteors enter the atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.
Evening Twilight over the dome of 2.5-meter Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma, Canaray Islands. — Nik Szymanek
Celestial Beauty: Moon and Venus
Conjunction of the Moon and Venus in the evening sky above Korean National Observatory on Mount Sobaeksan, South Korea. — Kwon, O Chul
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