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:
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From Slooh member, OlafB:
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From Slooh member, TaviG:
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Slooh member AloysiusO took this image with his Nikon D80:
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!
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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.
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.
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.
For most astronomers, vanishing moons are not especially extraordinary. If one knows when and where to look, and given a clear sky and the proper equipment, he or she could probably observe at least one disappearing moon each night of the year.
Without any visual assistance, we see our own moon disappear every month as it passes between us and the sun; a standard pair of binoculars easily reveals four of Jupiter’s moons regularly slipping in and out of visual range; and larger telescopes will unveil even some of the most distant known moons, like Titan, Oberon, or Triton, passing behind their giant hosts. When you think about it, disappearing moons really do seem rather ordinary.
There is one occurrence of vanishing moons, however, that is not so usual. It occurs just a few times each century and it typically lasts but a few short minutes. Fortunately, it is an event that is readily predicted and easily observed, and we will be watching it this week through the SLOOH telescopes.
At any given time, we can see the Galilean satellites accompanying Jupiter like tiny pearls on either side of a brilliant bauble. In fact, you really never see Jupiter without at least one of its four main moons nearby. Never, that is, unless you happen to be watching at just the right time, and one of those times happens to be this week.
Late on the night of May 21, all four of the Galilean moons will vanish from sight, and they will remain invisible together for nearly twenty minutes. For the first time in years, Jupiter will appear to be moon-less. SLOOH will feature this special event with a solid block of Jupiter missions, from 03:40 through 04:20, in Dome 2 on the Member Channel. We’ll also include live commentary from one of our SLOOH SkyGuides to discuss the recorded history of this special event and to explain more about exactly what’s happening with each of those four ‘invisible’ moons.
