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ASTEROID FLYBY TONIGHT:
Newly-discovered asteroid 2009 FH is flying past Earth tonight only
85,000 km away. That's about twice the altitude of a geosynchronous
communications satellite. Advanced amateur astronomers in North
America can photograph the 20-meter-wide space rock racing through
the constellation Gemini after sunset on March 17th. It should be
about as bright as a 14th magnitude star. [ephemeris]
[3D
orbit]
A LITTLE SOLAR ACTIVITY:
The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar
minimum in almost 100 years. At such a calm time, even a little
solar activity is remarkable. Here
it is. SOHO recorded the movie on March 16th; it shows a minor
CME billowing away from the sun's eastern limb. When the sun is
active, we see several such CMEs on a daily basis. Now, the rate
is about one per month. That's very little solar activity.
RAINBOW PLANET:
Something special is happening to Venus. The brightest of all planets
is hanging low in the western sky at sunset, and if you look at
it with a backyard telescope, you'll see that it is a slender 4%
crescent. But that's not the special part.
What's special is, Venus looks like a rainbow:
Sadegh Ghomizadeh took the picture from Tehran, Iran, on March
10th. It shows the view through his 11-inch
Celestron. "The seeing was poor, but Venus was still bright
and beautiful," he says.
Venus resembles a rainbow because Earth's atmosphere acts like
a prism. When Venus is near the horizon, refraction separates the
red crescent from the blue. The crescent is so thin, the splitting
of colors is obvious. Later this month, Venus will disappear into
the glare of the spring sun, so catch the rainbow planet while you
can!
more images: from
P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from
Alan Simpson of Renfrew, Scotland; from
Frederic Caron of Victoriaville, Qc, Canada
AURORA BLARNEYALIS:
Green auroras over Greenland? It must be St. Patrick's Day. The
celebration began last night with this display over Nuuk:
"They were not the most powerful auroras," says photographer
Thomas Bojer Eltorpbut, "but it was such a beautiful display."
He took the picture by opening the shutter of his Nikon
D3 for 90 seconds at ISO 1600.
More green is in the offing. A solar wind stream is heading for
Earth, and it could spark even stronger geomagnetic activity when
arrives on or about March 20th. Arctic sky watchers
should be alert for auroras on the first night of Spring.
Happy St.
Patrick's Day!
March
2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Marches: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2004,
2003, 2002]
Comet
Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet
Hunter Telescope: review]
[Comet
Lulin finder chart]
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the Sunspot Cycle
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