SLOOH Skylog

Saturday’s Lunar Eclipse was a real success through the Slooh telescopes, with many members collecting images and several creating collages and animations. The evening included live eclipse missions, lunar-science commentary, and a selection of moon-themed songs.

Following is a sampling of members’ eclipse creations. If you have eclipse images you’d like to contribute, send an email to tavianne@gmail.com and we’ll add them to the collection.

From Slooh member, DaveM:

 …………………………………………………………………….

 From Slooh member, OlafB:

………………………………………………………………………..

From Slooh member, TaviG:

…………………………………………………

Slooh member AloysiusO took this image with his Nikon D80:

On August 16, Luna will pass through Earth’s shadow to bring us this year’s final lunar eclipse. Fortunately, Slooh’s Teide observatory is well-placed to observe much of the event, including the moment of greatest eclipse.

Saturday’s event is a partial eclipse, lasting just over three hours. With greatest eclipse occurring twenty-five minutes after the observatory opens, Slooh members will be able to witness three of the five contact moments of the eclipse. These include the last few moments of the first penumbral and all of the umbral and final penumbral phases.

Just as we’ve done with past lunar eclipses, the Slooh telescopes will target the moon to give members a close-up, real-time look at an eclipse as it occurs. We’ll also feature music and live commentary on SloohRadio throughout the event. Members can snap images of the evolving eclipse as various lunar craters slip through Earth’s shadow, while Slooh SkyGuides describe the interaction between our planet and its only moon.

This is an early evening event for the Teide location, beginning just after the observatory opens. Lunar missions have been scheduled, by Team Slooh and members, all throughout the eclipse, from 20:45 UTC through 23:50 UTC. Actual moon mission times will be noted to this Saturday’s Teide 1 Member Channel schedule on the Slooh Launchpad. And, of course, the event can be viewed and images snapped through the Member Channel on the Mission Interface.

Slooh SkyGuide Marleen Bryan compiled several of her Slooh images from March 2007’s partial lunar eclipse to create the following video, offering a preview of what we can expect to see with this Saturday’s event.

NOTE: SloohRadio can be accessed from the Mission Interface or through the SloohRadio link via your computer’s media player. The SloohRadio link works only during live airtimes.

This month marks one of the northern hemisphere’s best meteor showers of the year, the Perseids, and already, members are capturing a few streaks through Slooh’s All-Sky camera and in their Slooh images.

This year, scientists predict that the shower will peak between the hours of 1130 UTC and 1400 UTC on August 12 - prime observing hours for the pacific US timezone at 0330 PDT through sunrise Tuesday morning. Almost as much fun as the main event are the nights immediately preceding and following peak hours, with the most significant numbers of “extra-curricular” Perseids typically prominent in the hours just before dawn.

With that in mind, because the actual peak occurs during daylight hours on Teide, we’ll feature a special Slooh Mission Alert on Tuesday night, August 12, at 11pm EDT / 8pm PDT - that’s 0300 UTC Wednesday morning. We’ll target some better-known objects in and around the constellation Perseus, we’ll talk more about the Perseids and meteor showers in general, and we’ll even try listening for meteor pings through one of several live public radio streams.

The following slideshow is an introduction to meteor showers and the Perseids. To view the fullscreen version, select “View Slideshare Presentation” at the bottom left corner of the slideshow.

The constellation Lyra is one of our favorite summer constellations.  Its brightest star, Vega, is part of the “summer triangle” (along with Deneb in Cygnus, and Altair in Aquila.)  Vega is important for another reason - due to precession, a process where the Earth’s axis “wobbles” like a spinning top, Vega will be our north star in about 12,000 years from now.  (set your clock…)
 
As its name suggests, Lyra represents a lyre or harp.  Its shape is formed by a triangle (with Vega at its tip) connected to a parallelogram.  The star Zeta Lyrae joins the two shapes.  The triangle is the harp’s handle, and its imaginary strings would be stretched over the parallelogram.
 
When we think of the constellation Lyra, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the impressive Ring Nebula, M57.  But, have you ever seen “the other ring nebula” in Lyra?  This is only one of several deep-sky beauties hidden in the small constellation. 
 
Please join us on Sunday night August 3 at 9 pm EDT (0100 UT on August 4) when Sky Safari will tour the constellation Lyra. We’ll follow-up the live feature with an extended presentation, here. NOTE: Sky Safari: Constellation Lyra has been rescheduled to Monday night August 4 at 925 pm EDT (0125 UTC on August 5).

And, don’t forget your road map!

_________________________________________________________________________

Extended Presentation of Sky Safari: Constellation Lyra (Select “view on slideshare” for Full Screen option. The animations of RR Lyrae and Beta Lyrae, slides 18 and 34, can be seen in their active form on RonaldB’s Variable Star Animations page.

By now, many members have noticed the recent changes to the SloohRadio programming, and several have asked, “Why the change?”

The new format is a first step towards a greater focus on Slooh’s unique “live” experience. With time, you will see more guided tours and Mission Alert features, as well as ambient music interlaced with astronomy and missions commentary.

Even as we develop this new format, several favorites will remain, including Phil Harrington’s StarWatch and Jeffery Bass’ Starry Nights. A general description of the current programming is noted at the top of the SloohRadio page. More detailed information about the individual shows can be found within the daily radio schedule, and often, here on the SkyLog.

Other programs of the past; such as mini-tutorials, upcoming sky events, and occasional astronomy news; will be featured here on the SkyLog page. Check back often for those.

Your enthusiasm for SloohRadio is appreciated and has been inspiring. Slooh looks forward to your continued support and patience as we move forward.

Not so long ago, we believed that the Moon was much like our planet. To earth-bound observers, lunar features appeared as great seas and even vegetation-covered plains. Today, of course, we know that quite the opposite is true and that the lunar landscape is not like Earth’s at all.

From Earth, the major features of the Moon’s surface appear simply as lighter and darker regions, but these features are anything but simple. They represent vast basins, sprawling lava plains, and even a few mountain ranges.

Luna’s brighter highlands are riddled with ancient impact craters that can be seen even today. In the darker mares, those impact sites are not so apparent - likely due to flows from hot material during early lunar existence.

One of the most prominent lunar features is Tycho Crater. Visible as a bright ridged circular region near the Moon’s lower limb, and believed to have been formed by a relatively recent impact, this crater has been a target for many telescopes and the subject of much scientific study.

The following slidecast, the first in a series of several featuring the lunar surface, offers a more in-depth look at this fascinating lunar feature.

When we look to the night sky, the one thing that we can be sure to see is stars. Certainly, there are other objects to be seen - distant galaxies, nearby nebulae, maybe a planet or an asteroid - but even each of these would not be seen were it not for the luminous property of stars.

There are many tens of billions of stars in our galaxy. The entire Universe is believed to house more than 70 thousand million million million stars. These stars come in many colors and sizes, all of which tell us something about the stars themselves - their compositions, their expected lifespans and likely manner of death, even whether or not they might host planets.

Stars also come in a variety of groupings - as individuals, as asterisms and constellations, in denser globular clusters, and in younger open clusters. For many observers, open clusters are the prettiest, appearing as a sprinkling of diamonds against a velvety backdrop of the night sky. But for scientists, open clusters offer specific insight into stellar structure and evolution. Their astronomically close distances also enable more accurate calculations of intergalactic distances.

About 1100 open clusters are known within our galaxy, but scientists estimate that there are probably more than 100,000. What are some of those known clusters, and what can they tell us about our solar system, our galaxy, and the Universe? This Saturday evening, at 935pmEDT / 0135 UTC, we’ll target four open clusters with a SLOOH Mission Alert to answer these questions and to explore what makes each of them so special. And for your listening pleasure, we’ll surround the Alert with ambient space music, beginning at 9pmEDT / 0100 UTC.

On Earth, the life-shaping forces of nature seem harsh and unyielding; yet compared to the vast star-forming regions of the Milky Way, our planet is a gentle world. For us, tornadoes and heatwaves can be extreme. But imagine a place where the average temperatures range from -400F to 14000F, twisters extend more than 3 trillion miles, and light is so energetic that it erodes everything around it.

How must a place so violent look? How can such extreme conditions be anything but destructive? The Lagoon Nebula holds the answers to these questions. Though located some 5,000 light years away, towards the center of our galaxy, this stellar nursery is one of the most stunning and more prominent objects in the night sky. Even better, it is close enough to permit scientists an in-depth look at some of nature’s most intense forces at work.

Situated within the rich star fields of the constellation Sagittarius, the Lagoon Nebula is framed by several equally splendid and well-known objects; like the Trifid, Swan, and Eagle Nebulas; and some of which can even be seen in the same field of view.

Join us on Saturday evening at 9:30pm EDT / 0130 UTC for a special Slooh Mission Alert. We’ll focus on the Lagoon Nebula and take a neighborhood tour to learn more about our galaxy’s star-forming regions and the forces that create them.

Are the domes online? How’s the weather? Who’s on radio tonight? You may have noticed the mention of Twitter recently around Slooh, including here on the blog and wondered what it’s all about. Here are the answers to help you use this service to get more out of your membership.

Slooh uses Twitter to help keep members informed of observatory status, weather, special announcements, and current events. At minimum, Slooh members can receive this information on their computers by following the link to Slooh’s Twitter Page. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed to work directly in your browser or through a reader.

That’s only the beginning. At its best, Twitter will help you get to know other Slooh members as well as other astronomy enthusiasts and services. To do this you need to join Twitter (it is free!), which you can do right from the Slooh Twitter Page.

Simply defined, Twitter is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers (less than 140 characters) to one simple question: What are you doing? It is not instant messaging and it is not full-blown blogging (although some do call it “micro-blogging”). The content can include text and links to pictures and web resources.

The basic Twitter user interface is a web page where you can manage your account, send and receive “tweets,” explore and find other members and news feeds to follow. While this basic interface is a good start, to really enjoy the benefits of Twitter on your desktop you should consider installing Twhirl, a PC or MAC application (again, this is free). Twhirl gives you a self-contained application that makes using Twitter much more effective - it runs as a startup program and is available all the time whether your web browser is running or not.

You can use your cell phone to interface with Twitter as well. This allows you to receive all, or only selected updates wherever you are. (Note: please make sure you have an appropriate text messaging plan with your cell phone provider or this could get expensive). You can also post right to your Twitter account from your cell phone using SMS (text messaging). There are many other options available for interfacing with Twitter and new ones being added all the time.

Slooh chose Twitter to update members of timely information because it is safe and flexible. Twitter is a social networking application. By default, what you type is sent to those who are “following” you and is readable by everyone. However, many users easily opt to restrict their updates to only be viewable by those they approve. You are never forced to endure anyone you find unpleasant and your member identity and profile are based on what information you want to provide.

If you enjoy Slooh and want up-to-the-minute information on telescope operation and news give Twitter a try. Several members are already using it and you can search for Slooh related Twitter conversations on Summize, a tracking site. This is also good place to search for any keyword that interests you to find other interesting Twitter accounts (try @marsphoenix, tweeting from the surface of Mars:). I think you will also find it is a great way to participate in Slooh on your schedule.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope, this is more than an expression. Scientists learn a great deal about our Universe from image data alone.

In spite of a much-needed servicing visit, the Hubble Space Telescope just delivered yet another stunning image. The latest target is the Coma Cluster, one of the densest galaxy groups known to astronomers. Scientists will use the image to learn more about galaxy formation & evolution, and to compare galaxies in different environments.

Containing more than one-thousand galaxies, the Coma Cluster spans twenty million light years and resides some three hundred million light years away. Together, these galaxies represent one of two major components of an even larger group, the Coma Supercluster. The Hubble image depicts a remarkable menagerie of size, shape, interaction, and galactic evolution that is of particular interest to scientists.

Many of the cluster’s individual galaxies are visible through the Slooh telescopes and members have already run several missions to observe the region. Join us this Saturday evening at 9PM EDT/1AM UTC, as we focus on this fascinating cluster. We will observe three main regions of the Coma Cluster LIVE, including that of the Hubble image, as we guide you through the intricacies of the individual galaxies. Here’s your chance to take your own picture of this new Hubble classic.