 The
space shuttle is docked to the ISS. Would you like a call when the
pair fly over your backyard? Sign up for SpaceWeather
PHONE. VENUS IN THE BEEHIVE:
Did a supernova explode in the
Beehive star cluster? No, that's just Venus. The brightest of
all planets is gliding through the cluster's verge tonight. After
sunset, take your binoculars
outside, face west and scan the sky around Venus. Behold the Beehive:
sky map.
TWO SPACESHIPS: Astronauts
from the space shuttle Atlantis are working hard on the International
Space Station, installing a new pair of solar wings to power the
station. Yesterday, during their first
spacewalk, the space station orbited over the Netherlands where
Ralf Vandebergh used
a digital camera and a backyard telescope to make this movie:
Click to play the
movie!
"During the flyby, I watched the spacewalk live on NASA TV,"
says Vandebergh. "It was an amazing experience to see the ISS
through my viewfinder and, at the same time, to hear mission control
announcing 2 minutes until sunset."
As Vandebergh's images show, Atlantis and the ISS are easy to see
through backyard telescopes, and the view will improve in the days
ahead when astronauts unfurl the station's new solar panels. The
trick is knowing when to
look.
more images: from
Frank Ryan Jr of Shannon, Ireland; from
David Campbell of Didcot, Oxfordshire, UK; from
Rudolf Dobesberger of Neuzeug Austria
BLUE PLANETS: Winds of 30
to 40 mph were swirling around DeSoto, Kansas, last week when photographer
Doug Zubenel "stepped
outside to enjoy the windy black night. Immediately, I noticed a
corona around Venus," he says, and it
was blue.
Next, he turned his telescope toward Jupiter, and it was blue,
too:
"Note three of Jupiter's largest moons lined
up next to Jupiter at the 8 o'clock postion," says Zubenel.
Where did all this blue come from? Atmospheric optics
expert Les Cowley measured the diameter of the halo and concluded
that "it was caused by dust particles about 38 micron (1.5/1000")
across. Coronas are mostly created by diffraction
around the rims of small particles. It hardly matters whether the
particles are water drops, pollen,
stratospheric
dust or in this case dust raised by local high winds."
2007
Noctilucent Photo Gallery
[Listen!]
[Night-sky
Cameras]
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