Thierry Legault with his customized satellite tracking system. Photo courtesy Thierry Legault.
UPDATE:Thanks to several people on Twitter who pointed out that what is seen in the footage here is the the upper stage of the Falcon 9, the Dragon capsule, and the ejected solar panel covers moving along together in orbit around the Earth. And as Phil Plait pointed out, since this was taken a few minutes after the capsule separated from the rocket upper stage, all the individual things you see here were still near each other in space.
We need to say it: astrophotographer Thierry Legault has done it again! Here’s an absolutely fantastic capture of the SpaceX Dragon capsule just 25 minutes after it launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as it passed over Europe. Here, Legault captured footage of Dragon crossing the Big Dipper as seen from Paris at 19:50 UTC, April 18, 2014.
“It was an incredible vision: 4 bright dots moving together!” Legault told Universe Today via email.
Check out more of his amazing astrophotography and even some of his tips and tricks at Thierry’s website.
Here are a few upcoming and ongoing astronomy classes and photography contests that our readers may be interested in.
Once a year, the One-Minute Astronomer — aka Brian Ventrudo — offers a detailed course called “The Art of Stargazing,” and you need to act fast on this one, as the final signup date is March 24, 2014. This 12-month course breaks down everything you need to know about stargazing into bite-sized pieces… detailed sky tours, choosing and using the best binoculars and telescope for you, and a smattering of science to help you understand a little about your place in the universe. It also shows you how to find and enjoy hundreds of achingly beautiful sights you will remember for the rest of your life.”
You have until noon (GMT) this Monday, March 24 to begin your personal odyssey through the heavens. As the Brian says, “You’ll come away from The Art of Stargazing with everything you need to become a skilled backyard stargazer.”
The cost is $197 USD, and there are payment plans, as well as a lifetime of followup information and email advisories. Get all the details here.
There are also two astrophotography contests going on right now:
Ciel et Espace Photos in France is having their Photo Nightscape Awards, and are looking for submissions of Earth and night sky photos. Photos must be taken between January 1, 2014 and August 31, 2014. One photo submission per photographer, and all formats are accepted: panoramic, square, mosaics.
Prizes will be awarded Sunday, November 9, 2014 at the Rencontres Sky and Space (NCE) which will take place from 8 to 11 November 2014 at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie.
They have two categories: pro and amateur. Prizes include a trip to the Very Large Telescope from ESO, a trip to the Alqueva Dark Sky Resever in Portugal for first prizes, and second prizes are a pair of Binocular from Nikon.
The judge for the contest is Miguel Claro, whose astrophotography we feature often here on Universe Today.
Get more information and find all the rules here.
A second photo contest comes from our friends at TWAN—The World At Night with their 5th annual International Earth and Sky Photo Contest, which is part of Global Astronomy Month in April 2014. The TWAN the contest is open to anyone of any age, anywhere around the world.
This year’s contest theme, “Dark Skies Importance,” has two categories: “Beauty of the Night Sky” and “Against the Lights.” Photos submitted to the contest should address either category: either to impress people on how important and amazing the starry sky is or to impress people on how bad the problem of light pollution has become. Both categories illustrate how light pollution affects our lives. Photographers can submit images to one or both categories.
Submitted photographs must be created in the “TWAN style” — showing both the Earth and the sky — by combining elements of the night sky (e.g., stars, planets, the Moon or celestial events) in the backdrop of a beautiful, historic, or notable location or landmark. This style of photography is called “landscape astrophotography”. This is similar to general “Nightscape Photography” but with more attention to the sky, astronomical perspectives, and celestial phenomena.
Occultation of Saturn on Feb. 22, 2014 by Colin Legg
Or, more accurately, watch the Moon pass in front of Saturn. Either way you get the same result: a beautiful video of planetary motion in action!
On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 22, the Moon drifted in front of the planet Saturn from the point of view of certain locations on Earth. Luckily one of those locations was Perth, Australia, where astrophotographer Colin Legg happens to be, and thus we all get to enjoy the fantastic results of his photographic and astronomical acumen.
Check out the video below:
The occultation — as such events are called whenever one celestial object passes in front of, or “hides,” another (the root of the word means “to conceal”) — may make it look like a tiny Saturn is getting absorbed by a giant Moon. But (obviously) they are separated by a vast distance: at the time of the occultation, 9.658 AU, or about 1,444,816,000 kilometers (897.7 million miles).
These sort of events will become a bit more common as the Moon is “headed towards a ‘shallow’ year in 2015 relative to the ecliptic; it will then begin to slowly open back up and ride high around 2025,” according to a recent Universe Today article by David Dickinson.
For those of you interested, Colin lists his equipment as a Celestron C8, f/10, prime focus. His camera is a Canon 5D2, running Magic Lantern RAW video firmware in 3x crop mode @ 1880 x 1056 resolution. Footage was taken at 1/60 sec exposure, ISO 200, 10 fps.
Astrophotographer Michael Phillips with the gear used to capture the Jupiter rotation animation. Credit-Michael Phillips
It’s always a thrill to watch the action at Jupiter, as its moons pass in front of and behind the gas giant planet. We wrote recently about this month’s opposition of Jove on January 5th, marking the start of the Jupiter evening viewing season for 2014.
Astrophotographer Michael A. Philips also recently undertook a challenging series of sequences of Jupiter and its moons Io and Ganymede, with stunning results. You can see the motion of Jupiter’s rotation, the Great Red Spot and even a bit of cloud swirl as Io disappears behind Jupiter and Ganymede begins to transit in front and cast a shadow back onto the Jovian cloud tops.
Concerning the capture, Michael wrote on his blog:
“This night was a lucky night. I had not looked at the weather forecast enough to know if it would be good or not. Cold temps aside, I decided earlier in the day to set up and go out with the 14” f/4.5 scope named Akule. As an added bonus, Mitchell Duke tipped me off to a transit of the Jovian moon, Ganymede.”
Note that Jupiter and its moons are currently casting their shadows nearly straight back from our perspective. Expect that to change, however, in the coming months,as Jupiter heads towards eastern dusk quadrature on April 1st and we see the action from a sideways angle. Watch the video in full screen mode and you’ll note that Mike captured some detail on the surface of Ganymede as well! Generally, at the eyepiece, the moons of Jupiter disappear entirely due to low contrast against the bulk of the planet, with only the black dot of the shadow seen… this video capture gives the ingress of Ganymede at the start of the transit a great 3-D appearance.
Webcam imaging of planets has really taken off in the past decade, with backyard astronomers now routinely capturing images that far surpass professional and textbook images from just a decade prior. Great images can be taken using nothing more than a telescope, a laptop, free image stacking software such as Registax, and a webcam converted to fit into an eyepiece holder… you may find that you’ve got the gear sitting around to image Jupiter, tonight.
Mr. Phillips rig, however, is a little more advanced. He notes in the description of the video that he’s using a Flea3 camera from PointGrey Research with a 5x Barlow lens yielding a 9200mm focal length. He’s also shooting at 120 frames per second, and taking successive red, green and blue images for 30 seconds. Finally, a derotation of Jupiter – yes, it really rotates that quickly, even in a short sequence – is accomplished using a sophisticated program named WINJupos.
Video stacking gives processors the ability to “freeze” and nab the best moments of seeing from thousands of frames. Some imagers hand select frames one by one, though many programs, such as Registax, use algorithms to nab the best frames from a preselected percentage of the total shot.
Local seeing conditions also play a key role in image capturing.
“I moved far away from the house as possible, and I think that helped some,” Michael noted. “I also started cooling the spit out of the mirror, aggressively. Even when cooled for a few hours in the winter, the heat in the Pyrex mirror comes back. I think there’s a small heat engine inside the beast!”
For best results, imagers tend to go after planets when they’re at their highest in the sky, and viewed through the least amount of turbulent atmosphere. This is when a planet is transiting the local north to south meridian, and when it’s at opposition, which Jupiter is this month. At opposition, a planet transits at local midnight. The same goes for the best opportunities for visual observing as well.
Shadow transits of Jupiter’s moons are also just plain fun to watch. In an often unchanging universe, they offer a chance to see something unfolding in real time. Jupiter has the fastest rotation of any planet at 9.9 hours, and the large Galilean moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are tidally locked in their rotation, keeping one hemisphere permanently turned towards Jupiter like the Moon does orbiting the Earth. The inner three moons also keep a 1:2:4 orbital resonance, assuring you’ll never see more than three of the four Galilean moons transiting from your line of sight at once. You can see two of the inner three moons, plus Callisto in transit, but never all four at the same time! A triple transit last occurred on October 12th, 2013, and will next occur for observers in eastern Europe and Africa this year on June 3rd.
We’re also currently in the midst of a series of shadow transits for the outermost Galilean moon Callisto, which end in July 2016. Can you identify the different moons by the size and hue of shadows they cast? Sky & Telescope publishes a great table for the ingress and egress of Jupiter’s moons. You can also check them out using the freeware program Stellarium.
The double shadow transit of February 6th as seen at 11:22 UT. Created by the author using Starry Night Education software.
Can’t wait that long? A double shadow transit involving Europa and Callisto occurs in just a few weeks for western North America from 10:20 UT-12:44UT on the morning of February 6th, a chance for another stunning animation sequence…
Universe Today is proud to announce that we are partnering with OPT Telescopes and SpaceWeather.com for a brand new Comet ISON Photo Contest, with over $10,000 in prizes to give away!
Comet ISON is one of the most anticipated sky events for years, and already astrophotographers have been busy trying to capture images of this comet. But as it gets closer to the Sun, hopefully it will become even brighter and visible to more people – not just the astrophotographers with the really great equipment!
This new photo contest features several different chances to win some great prizes, thanks to OPT Telescopes, the folks behind this contest. There will be a popular vote on Facebook with winners of first, second and third places, as well as images judged by a panel of experts with three winners in that category as well.
And so its not just about having great equipment. “It’s about the overall image and it can be in any ‘style’ at all,” says OPT Telescopes. “We’ve seen some amazing submissions shot with DSLR’s and point and shoot digital cameras in the past, and encourage everyone, regardless of skill level or equipment owned, to participate.”
Who can participate? Anyone aged 13 years and older who has a valid email address. (Employees of OPT, Universe Today and Spaceweather.com are not eligible for entry.) Images must be the original work of the contestant.
The contest begins today, November 1st, 2013 and ends midnight December 31st, 2013. Winners will be announced by January 7, 2014.
There are two ways to enter:
The first is through Facebook on this OPT Telescope page. Entrants are required to submit their date of birth, email address, real name and technical information about their image and location captured, as well as “liking” OPT Telescopes on Facebook.
Your image will become part of OPT’s Facebook gallery. One image, per day, per entrant is allowed.
If you’d rather not go through Facebook, you may submit via email to this address. Emailed entries are also required to list date of birth, and information about their image in regard to equipment used and location captured. All emailed submissions will be manually entered onto the OPT Facebook gallery to participate in the popular vote. Again, one image, per day, per entrant is allowed.
We also encourage those who enter to also upload their images to Universe Today’s Flickr Group page, so more people can see your images! We also feature many of the images uploaded there in our articles.
What are the prizes? As of November 1st, the prize donations are still rolling in! We now have over $10,000 in astronomy gear to give away to the winners of this contest. Final prize packages will be announced November 5th. So, stay tuned.
Images of aurora in Alaska captured by two digital SLRs. Differences in the left and right pictures allow researchers to measure at what altitude the electrons were. Credit: Kataoka et al., 2013
Ever stood outside looking at the aurora and felt as though it was swirling just a short distance above your head? It’s hard to judge altitude when looking at sky phenomena because there are few landmarks above us. (The moon effect at the horizon is an example.) But it turns out there is a way to measure aurora altitude.
The eerie, green glow of the Northern Lights swirls about in the video you see above. A group of researchers used a unique but simple technique to measure how high the electrons were during the dazzling light display: they mounted two digital SLRs eight kilometers (five miles) apart in Alaska, and used that old astronomical friend, parallax, to measure distances.
“Using the parallax of the left-eye and the right-eye images, we can calculate the distance to the aurora using a [triangulation] method that is similar to the way the human brain comprehends the distance to an object,” stated Ryuho Kataoka, an associate professor at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan. “Parallax is the difference in the apparent position of an object when observed at different angles.”
Altitude measurements have been done before using this technique, but it’s the first time digital SLRs were employed, the research team said. A typical aurora has electrons that are between 90 kilometers and 400 kilometers (55 miles and 249 miles) high.
By the way, for all the amateur astronomy photographers, there’s a potential chance for you to get involved with future research activities.
“Commercially available GPS units for digital SLR cameras have become popular and relatively inexpensive, and it is easy and very useful for photographers to record the accurate time and position in photographic files,” said Kataoka. “I am thinking of developing a website with a submission system to collect many interesting photographs from night-sky photographers over the world via the Internet.”
Guillermo Abramson from Argentina takes a picture of himself waving at Saturn on July 19, 2013 during 'The Day the Earth Smiled' event. Credit and copyright: Guillermo Abramson.
For all our astrophotographer friends out there: If you haven’t heard about the Saturn Mosaic Project, you’ll want to take note of this. In cooperation with Astronomers Without Borders, the special project for the recent Cassini image of planet Earth, called The Day The Earth Smiled (TDTES) is sponsoring a Saturn Mosaic project, where you can submit an image you’ve taken of Saturn. Those received will be compiled into a mosaic that will look like image that Cassini took on July 19, showing Earth just below Saturn’s rings (see below). But when you zoom in you’ll see all the pictures from Earth that the mosaic is made of.
I received a note from AWB President Mike Simmons saying they need more submissions, and the deadline for submitting a photo has been extended to July 29, 2013.
“I know a lot more people will want to be a part of this if they know about it,” Mike said via email. “It’s something to tide everyone over and keep the buzz going while we wait for the final mosaic from Cassini.”
But you don’t have to be a seasoned astrophotographer to take part in the Saturn Mosaic. The image you submit doesn’t have to be one taken with a large telescope – just take a picture of Saturn as a “star” in the sky with an ordinary camera, capturing your surroundings as well. Or it could be an image you took earlier this year.
“There are other kinds of photos that anyone can submit that don’t even requiring imaging the sky,” Simmons added. “We didn’t want to limit this to only those with the ability and weather to image Saturn itself. Photos of outreach events or people waving at Saturn from JPL’s Wave at Saturn are good, too. Or just a portrait taken with the Lord of the Rings — a live view projected from a telescope or even a photo. Like a couple getting married at the time Cassini was taking their photo (and everyone else’s) posed with Saturn. I took the easy way and took a shot of me and Saturn in my office.”
These can be taken any time, so people can still take a shot and get into the mosaic (the image does need to have been taken in 2013, however.)
“It’s all about sharing and commemorating the excitement of the moment when the photo was taken, and the anticipation of the release of Cassini’s historic photos,” Simmons said. “Like all Astronomers Without Borders project, it’s open to everyone on Earth. And beyond.”
For a slide show of some of the great shots people have submitted so far, visit the Saturn Mosaic Project page to see things like Saturn with a T-Rex, outreach in Iran, kids drawings of Saturn in Ghana, and more.
Simmons said The World at Night will create the final mosaic, which is expected to be online and ready to view and zoom in on by August 4 or earlier.
The Day the Earth Smiled: Sneak Preview. In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn’s rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Moonlight and zodiacal light lights up the skies over ESO's La Silla observatory. (Credit: Alan Fitzsimmons/ESO)
We don’t put much stock in astrology or horoscopes here at Universe Today, but there’s one thing related to the zodiac that’s all science and no superstition: zodiacal light, captured here in a gorgeous photo by astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons above ESO’s La Silla Observatory.
Created by sunlight reflected off fine particles of dust concentrated inside the plane of the Solar System, zodiacal light appears as a diffuse, hazy band of light visible in dark skies stretching away from a recently-set Sun (or before the Sun is about to rise).
The Moon is located just outside the frame of this picture, bathing the observatory in an eerie light that is reflected off the clouds below.
The La Silla Observatory is located at the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert at an altitude of 2400 meters (7,900 feet). Like other observatories in this area, La Silla is located far from sources of light pollution and, like ESO’s Paranal Observatory, it has some of the darkest night skies on the Earth.
The dome in the foreground, just to the right, is the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope named in honor of the famous Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–83).
Three-image panorama of the Milky Way arching of the Badlands of South Dakota. Credit and copyright: Randy Halverson/Dakotalapse
We’ve oohed and ahhed many times over the handiwork of Randy Halverson and his Dakotalapse timelapse videos and imagery of the night sky. He may have outdone himself with his latest timelapse, called “Horizons.” Randy shot the footage from April – October 2012, mostly in South Dakota, but also some at Devils Tower in Wyoming.
“Growing up in South Dakota the landscape itself can be beautiful at times,” Randy says, “but that doesn’t compare to what the sky can do, especially at night.” Not only is the imagery absolutely breathtaking, but the accompanying music is an original called “I Forever” by Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Defiance, Battlestar Galactica, etc) his brother Brendan McCreary and his band Young Beautiful in a Hurry.
There’s a four-minute version below, but also available on Vimeo On Demand is a full 30-minute feature . Enjoy!!
The lead image and this one below are recent images from Randy that he has posted on Flickr.
Mirrored Aurora – Aurora mirrors off a small lake in central South Dakota on June 6, 2013. Credit and copyright: Randy Halverson/Dakotalapse.
The Centaurus A Extreme Deep Field. (Image Courtesy of Astrophotography byRolf Oslen. Used with Permision).
Sometimes, you just have to say “Wow!”
The view you’re looking at above is of Centaurus A (NGC 5128), a galaxy about 10-16 million light years distant in the southern hemisphere sky. It’s a favorite of astrophotographers and professional observatories alike.
But what makes this image so special is that it was taken by an amateur astrophotographer.
To construct this amazing image, New Zealand-based astrophotographer Rolf Wahl Olsen exposed the field of view for 120 hours over 43 nights spanning February to May of this year.
Rolf recently shared his motivation to construct this image;
“Over the past few months I have been on a mission to achieve a long time dream of mine: taking a deep sky image with more than 100 hours of exposure.”
Rolf also noted that the stars in the frame are visible down to magnitude +25.45, which “appears to go deeper than the recent ESO release” and believes that it may well be “the deepest view ever obtained of Centaurus A,” As well as “the deepest image ever taken with amateur equipment.”
Not only is the beauty and splendor of the galaxy revealed in this stunning mosaic, but you can see the variations in the populations of stars in the massive regions undergoing an outburst of star formation.
One can also see the numerous globular clusters flocking around the galaxy, as well as the optical counterparts to the radio lobes and the faint trace of the relativistic jets. The extended halo of the outer shell of stars is also visible, along with numerous foreground stars visible in the star rich region of Centaurus.
Finally, we see the dusty lane bisecting the core of this massive galaxy as seen from our Earthly vantage point.
To our knowledge, many of these features have never been captured visually by backyard observers before, much less imaged. Congrats to Rolf Wahl Olsen on a spectacular capture and sharing his view of the universe with us!
Read more on the Centaurus A deep field on Google+.
-Check out the comparison images of the Centaurus A deep field showing the relativistic jet (!) background galaxies and clusters.
-Explore more of Rolf’s outstanding work at his website.
