Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Monday, February 27, 2017
FOUR QUASAR IMAGES SURROUND A GALAXY LENS Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Sherry Suyu et al.
An odd thing about the group of lights near the center is that four of them are the same distant quasar. This is because the foreground galaxy -- in the center of the quasar images and the featured image -- is acting like a choppy gravitational lens. A perhaps even odder thing is that by watching these background quasars flicker, you can estimate the expansion rate of the universe. That is because the flicker timing increases as the expansion rate increases. But to some astronomers, the oddest thing of all is that these multiply imaged quasars indicate a universe that is expanding a bit faster than has been estimated by different methods that apply to the early universe. And that is because ... well, no one is sure why. Reasons might include an unexpected distribution of dark matter, some unexpected effect of gravity, or something completely different. Perhaps future observations and analyses of this and similarly lensed quasar images will remove these oddities.
IMAGES OF THE SUN FROM THE GOES-16 SATELLITE PANEL OF SIX COLORED IMAGES OF THE SUN
These images of the sun were captured at the same time on January 29, 2017 by the six channels on the Solar Ultraviolet Imager or SUVI instrument aboard NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite. They show a large coronal hole in the sun’s southern hemisphere. Data from SUVI will provide an estimation of coronal plasma temperatures and emission measurements which are important to space weather forecasting.
SUVI is essential to understanding active areas on the sun, solar flares and eruptions that may lead to coronal mass ejections which may impact Earth. Depending on the magnitude of a particular eruption, a geomagnetic storm can result that is powerful enough to disturb Earth’s magnetic field. Such an event may impact power grids by tripping circuit breakers, disrupt communication and satellite data collection by causing short-wave radio interference and damage orbiting satellites and their electronics. SUVI will allow the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center to provide early space weather warnings to electric power companies, telecommunication providers and satellite operators.
NASA successfully launched GOES-R at 6:42 p.m. EST on November 19, 2016 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It was renamed GOES-16 when it achieved orbit. GOES-16 is now observing the planet from an equatorial view approximately 22,300 miles above the surface of the Earth.
Image Credit: NOAA
ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE FROM ARGENTINA Taken by Mariano Ribas on February 26, 2017 @ Sarmiento, Argentina
It was one of the biggest astronomical experience! I took this image of the Annular Solar Eclipse in a desert place 40 kilometers North of Sarmiento, in the argentinian Patagonia. I used a 80 mm. refractor, with a solar filter, and my Canon T5i digital camera. I will never forget this thin Ring of Fire.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
COMET SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN (73P) Taken by John Drummond on February 25, 2017 @ Gisborne, New Zealand
Heres an image of 73P - or rather the two main fragments of the comet which recently split.
35cm f10 ACF SCT, SBIG STF8300M CCD, Clear, 3x3, 20 x 20 sec. I stacked on the two fragments and the stars turned into a swirl! Possibly a result of the two fragments orbiting a common center of gravity.
ECLIPSE Taken by Edson Luiz Duffeck karlson on February 26, 2017 @ São José dos Pinhais, Paraná
Solar eclipse in my oil paint. 26/02/2017
PARA VER EN HD ABRIR SIGUIENTE LINK
A SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM CLOUD OVER MONTANA Image Credit & Copyright: Sean R. Heavey
Is that a spaceship or a cloud? Although it may seem like an alien mothership, it's actually a impressive thunderstorm cloud called a supercell. Such colossal storm systems center on mesocyclones -- rotating updrafts that can span several kilometers and deliver torrential rain and high winds including tornadoes. Jagged sculptured clouds adorn the supercell's edge, while wind swept dust and rain dominate the center. A tree waits patiently in the foreground. The above supercell cloud was photographed in 2010 July west of Glasgow, Montana, USA, caused minor damage, and lasted several hours before moving on.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
IMERSA SUMMIT
Yesterday at the IMERSA Summit. Chuck Rau from Seiler Instruments, representing ZEISS in the United States and Canada talked about professional consultant work in our field at the System Matters session and may have triggered a discussion on honest marketing comparing 8k fulldome systems (actually 6.5k) with "true" 8k systems. It should be in the interest of customers and all partners in the industry to market correct numbers, also knowing that resolution is only one point in the spec of fulldome systems. Image quality and good perfomance are depending on many other aspects of hardware and software.
Good to have such meetings to avoid confusions.
Good to have such meetings to avoid confusions.
DELICATE BALLET
A solar prominence gathered itself into a twisting cone, then rose up and broke apart in a delicate dance of plasma above the sun (Feb. 20, 2017). The event, observed in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, lasted just about four hours. Prominences are unstable clouds of plasma suspended above the sun's surface by magnetic forces. This kind of event is not uncommon. The brighter area near the bottom of the images is an active region.
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA.
JOVIAN ART
NASA’s Juno spacecraft skimmed the upper wisps of Jupiter’s atmosphere when JunoCam snapped this image on Feb. 2 at 5:13 a.m. PT (8:13 a.m. ET), from an altitude of about 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) above the giant planet’s swirling cloudtops.
Streams of clouds spin off a rotating oval-shaped cloud system in the Jovian southern hemisphere. Citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko reconstructed the color and cropped the image to draw viewers’ eyes to the storm and the turbulence around it.
JunoCam's raw images are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam for the public to peruse and process into image products.
More information about Juno is online at http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko
ALL PLANETS PANORAMA Image Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)
For 360 degrees, a view along the plane of the ecliptic is captured in this remarkable panorama, with seven planets in a starry sky. The mosaic was constructed using images taken during January 24-26, from Nacpan Beach, El Nido in Palawan, Philippines. It covers the eastern horizon (left) in dark early morning hours and the western horizon in evening skies. While the ecliptic runs along the middle traced by a faint band of zodiacal light, the Milky Way also cuts at angles through the frame. Clouds and the Moon join fleeting planet Mercury in the east. Yellowish Saturn, bright star Antares, and Jupiter lie near the ecliptic farther right. Hugging the ecliptic near center are Leo's alpha star Regulus and star cluster M44. The evening planets gathered along the ecliptic above the western horizon, are faint Uranus, ruddy Mars, brilliant Venus, and even fainter Neptune. A well labeled version of the panorama can be viewed by sliding your cursor over the picture, or just following this link.
PARA VER EN HD ABRIR SIGUIENTE LINK
