Terry's Astronomy Thread.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 1, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 1, 2014

-The first of three or more CMEs en route to Earth are expected to arrive late in the day on April 1st. None of the incoming clouds is squarely Earth-directed. The series of glanciing blows, however, will rattle Earth's magnetic field and possibly spark auroras. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on April 2nd.

-The biggest and brightest asteroids, 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta respectively, are only about 2° apart in eastern Virgo, some 12° northeast of Mars. They've brightened to magnitudes 7.1 and 5.9, respectively. They'll be at opposition in mid-April.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 1, 2014

Source:
In the next 60 seconds you will be 300 km closer to the planet Mars. As April begins, Earth and Mars are converging at 5 km/s or 300 km/min for a close approach two weeks from now. This matrix of images, taken by Puerto Rican photographer Efrain Morales Rivera, shows how the Red Planet has grown in the eyepiece of his 12-inch telescope over the past month. Even the smallest of Rivera's images shows the martian North Polar Cap, orographic clouds over volcanoes near the equator, and a bright blue cloud filling Hellas Basin in the south. Only an experienced astrophotographer can produce this kind of Hubblesque detail using backyard optics. Novice observers looking through the eyepiece of a small telescope can still see a lot, however, including the rusty-red disk of Mars and bright smudges corresponding to the polar cap and Hellas Basin. Closest approach, Earth to Mars, occurs on April 14th at a distance of 92 million kilometers. Mark your calendar and get ready to see Mars at its best.


Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 2, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 2, 2014

-Arriving a little later than expected, at least three CMEs are still en route to Earth. NOAA forecasters expect glancing blows to commence on April 2nd with a 60% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the impacts begin. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

-In the night sky, there are thousands of stars visible to the unaided eye, and thousands of times more stars in range of backyard optics. Not a single one of those faraway balls of fire, however, looks any bigger than a pinprick. For a better view of a star, you need some daylight. This star is the sun. Francois Rouviere of Mougins, France, took the picture on March 31st using no more than a 7-inch refracting telescope and an "H-alpha" filter tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen.

"I caught this impressive explosion at the sun's western limb near sunspot AR2014," says Rouviere. "The inset, which is at a wavelength 1 Å shorter than H-alpha, shows fast moving material blue-shifted by the Doppler effect."

Got a solar telescope? NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares on April 2nd. Train those optics on the daylight sky.

-The crescent Moon shines below the Pleiades, Aldebaran, and the V-shaped Hyades, as shown below.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 2, 2014

Source:
A bright pair of sky objects will be visible together during the next few months. Mars will shine brightly in its familiar rusty hue as it reaches its brightest of 2014 next week. The reason that Mars appears so bright is that Earth and Mars are close to each other in their long orbits around the Sun. Spica, on the other hand, shines constantly as one of the brightest blue stars in the night sky. Pronounced "spy-kah", the blue-hued star has been visible throughout human history and the sounds that identify it today date back to ancient times. Pictured above, the planet and the star were photographed rising together toward the southeast after sunset last week through old oak trees in Sweden.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 3, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 3, 2014

-With binoculars or a telescope, North Americans can watch the waxing crescent Moon crossing the Hyades star cluster. The Moon's dark, earthlit limb will occult three 4th- and 5th-magnitude stars depending on where you are.

-NOAA forecasters have downgraded the chance of geomagnetic storms on April 3rd to only 1%. This follows a storm warning on April 2nd when a group of CMEs were expected to sideswipe Earth's magnetic field. However, all of the CMEs appear to have missed our planet.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 3, 2014

Source:
This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame. Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. The image celebrates the upcoming 24th anniversary of Hubble's launch onboard the space shuttle orbiter Discovery on April 24, 1990.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 4, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 4, 2014

-Spot Mars and Spica in the southeast after dark and look far left from them to find Arcturus, the "Spring Star," shining in the east. Arcturus forms the pointy bottom of the long, narrow kite asterism made by the brightest stars of Bootes. The kite is currently lying on its side to the left of Arcturus, with its head at the far left bent slightly upward. The kite is 23° long, about two fist-widths at arm's length.

-Yesterday, during the late hours of April 3rd, three active regions on the sun exploded in quick succession. Play the movie, then consider the question: Was that three explosions, or just one? Visually, the rapid-fire explosions appear to be causally linked, and indeed they might have been. Since 2010, when SDO was launched, solar physicists have increasingly appreciated the interconnectedness of explosions on the sun. SDO's full-disk view has shown that magnetic instabilities can hop from one sunspot to another, propagating hundreds of thousands of kilometers to cause chain reactions on a titanic scale. The Global Eruption of August 2010 is the iconic example.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 4, 2014

Source:
Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, draped in planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus, make up the western part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the original supernova explosion likely reached Earth over 5,000 years ago. Blasted out in the cataclysmic event, the interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. The glowing filaments are really more like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue-green) gas. Also known as the Cygnus Loop, the Veil Nebula now spans nearly 3 degrees or about 6 times the diameter of the full Moon. While that translates to over 70 light-years at its estimated distance of 1,500 light-years, this wide image of the western portion spans about half that distance. Brighter parts of the western Veil are recognized as separate nebulae, including The Witch's Broom (NGC 6960) along the top of this view and Pickering's Triangle (NGC 6979) below and right of center.

[igotrhythm]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Skydiver almost gets clocked by meteor in dark flight.

DUDE

[PrawnSkunk]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

We seriously need a Terry's Astronomy Thread Discussion Thread.

I feel so guilty contaminating this unadulterated thread with my impure posts.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

If people want a separate discussion thread by all means I can create one. Also igotrhythm, if that rock made it that far into the atmosphere, no doubt it landed somewhere in the forest below, and probably had an impressive streak of light. Do you know where this was filmed and exact day and time? Depending where it may be possible to track down where it came from even though this was posted days ago.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 5, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 5, 2014

-The Moon passes below Jupiter in Gemini this weekend, as shown at right. Although they look close together, Jupiter is currently almost 2,000 times farther away. And it's 40 times bigger than the Moon.

-All week look above Jupiter for Pollux and Castor, left of it for Procyon, and farther right of it for Capella. Way down below it is Betelgeuse, the top corner of Orion.

-A slight increase in solar energetic particles swarming around Earth probably heralds the imminent arrival of two CMEs that have merged en route from the sun. NOAA forecasters expect a glancing blow from the amalgam on April 5th. Chance of geomagnetic storms = 55%. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

News Posted Today:
April 4, 2014
LADEE Skims the Moon Before Crash


Astro Picture of the Day:
April 5, 2014

Source:
Tidally locked in synchronous rotation, the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon's farside can become familiar, though. In fact this sharp picture, a mosaic from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's wide angle camera, is centered on the lunar farside. Part of a global mosaic of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011, the highest resolution version shows features at a scale of 100 meters per pixel. Surprisingly, the rough and battered surface of the farside looks very different from the nearside covered with smooth dark lunar maria. The likely explanation is that the farside crust is thicker, making it harder for molten material from the interior to flow to the surface and form the smooth maria. The link below is a direct link to the full resolution image which clocks in at 1.12GB in size and a massive 34748 x 34748 pixel frame.

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/WAC_GL180.tif

EDIT: I downloaded the full resolution image and decided to take a look at the Mare Mosoviense:


At full resolution, the crater inside the Mare Moscoviense:



looks like this:



Slightly further zoomed out:

[igotrhythm]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

If people want a separate discussion thread by all means I can create one. Also igotrhythm, if that rock made it that far into the atmosphere, no doubt it landed somewhere in the forest below, and probably had an impressive streak of light. Do you know where this was filmed and exact day and time?

I don't have an exact location/timestamp, but the link seems to hint that it was somewhere in Norway during the day. The Youtube channel says that the divers were Jon Vegar and Anders Helstrup.

Further investigation reveals that the place was someplace called Rena. Here's a documentary-style review of the incident, in Norwegian with English subs:

It seems that they've yet to find the rock after 2 years of calculation and searches.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

I don't have an exact location/timestamp, but the link seems to hint that it was somewhere in Norway during the day. The Youtube channel says that the divers were Jon Vegar and Anders Helstrup.

Further investigation reveals that the place was someplace called Rena. Here's a documentary-style review of the incident, in Norwegian with English subs:

It seems that they've yet to find the rock after 2 years of calculation and searches.

Very interesting documentary, from it we can gather the following data:

The skydive occurred on June 17, 2012.
The name of the skydive company is Oslo Parachute Club.
Nearest major town is Rena.
The airport is Østre Æra, Åmot, Norway.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/%C3%98stre+%C3%86ra+flyplass/@61.2472588,11.6694133,6541m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x466a2164d992d7d3:0x6bbdd2ea5a1d1aed

At 1:47 of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkfY23ezha8

You can see a small lake which on the google maps link appears just to the southwest of the airport. It seems to heading closer towards the skydiver from the initial visible frame to the last,

From NASA's North American camera environment, they were able to pick up a pair of fireballs on that day, but unfortunately it doesn't seem that either match the description of this one:

http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/20120617.html

I did some digging and discovered CEMENT, the Central European Meteor Network:

http://www.live.fireball.sk/archive/index/order/date:desc/2076

Regretfully they only archive a year's worth of meteor sightings, putting this one out of scope. The fireball likely would have been heading eastward over the east Atlantic. Perhaps there's a smaller Scandinavian observatory that has records that I do not know about? But the landing site of this meteorite is likely southeast of the airport, just west of the road to the southeast of the airport, somewhere in that thick jungle.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 6, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 6, 2014

-First-quarter Moon. It's shining near Jupiter, which by no coincidence was at quadrature (90° east of the Sun) just a few days ago.

-When the weekend began, several sunspots had tension-filled magnetic fields that posed a threat for Earth-directed eruptions. Now, however, those magnetic fields have relaxed, and the chance of flares is dropping. Solar activity should remain low for the next 24 hours.

-This week, the International Space Station is making a series of bright passes over towns and cities in North America. On April 5th in Albany, Missouri, Dan Bush witnessed an ISS-lunar conjunction:

"The moon was surrounded by a beautiful ice halo when the space station passed by," says Bush. "This is a composite of eight 20-second exposures."

Soon, the streak the ISS makes when it passes overhead will double. On Monday, April 14th, SpaceX will launch a Dragon spacecraft to rendezvous with the space station. Filled with almost 5,000 pounds of scientific experiments and supplies, the Dragon will dock with the ISS two days later on April 16th. Prior to docking, sky watchers might be able to see the two spacecraft, ISS and Dragon, moving in tandem through the night sky.

Dragon will remain attached to the space station's Harmony module until mid-May and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California with more than 3,000 pounds of experiment samples and equipment returning from the station.

-The first very visible ISS pass happens tonight at approximately 9:28pm EST over Toronto. Go to Heaven's Above, change your observing location to your city on the map or somewhere close to you, and click the ISS link on the home page: http://www.heavens-above.com/main.aspx

For Downtown Toronto residents, the following is the path of the ISS pass:

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 6, 2014

Source:
Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. Pictured above, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. The unusual surface features dubbed tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Why Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon Mimas, approximately the same size, appears quite dead. Most recently, an analysis of slight gravity deviations has given an independent indication of underground oceans. Such research is particularly interesting since such oceans would be candidates to contain life.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 7, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 7, 2014
[left]-Mars is at opposition — its closest opposition since December 2007. Mars is actually nearest to Earth on the 14th, but the difference is barely a trace. This is the month for Mars with your telescope!

-With no sunspots actively flaring, solar activity is low. NOAA forecasters put the odds of an X-flare today at no more than 1%.

-"A year ago, I was standing in the staircase on the top floor of my apartment building talking to a neighbor," recalls Peter Rosén of Stockholm, Sweden. "Suddenly he noticed a perfect image of the Sun slowly moving across the wall behind me. The Sun was shining through a keyhole which acted as a lens, just like a gigantic pinhole camera. It only lasted for a couple of minutes."

Rosén is a photographer, and he wanted to record the phenomenon. "Unfortunately I had not taken note of the exact date and time. So, this spring, I have been waiting for days with my camera ready on a tripod." Finally, on April 4th, the alignment occurred:

"When the Sun finally appeared on the 4th of April, there was not one but two perfect tiny Suns, slowly moving across the opposite wall," says Rosén. "Our building is perfectly oriented to the cardinal points so theoretically it could have occured on the spring equinox, but as the windows are slightly offset, we have to wait for 2 more weeks before getting this perfect alignment."

"But it still is like having a miniature Stonehenge at home!"

-The International Space Station made a bright pass over Toronto last night at approximately 9:30pm EST. I stepped outside of my house and recorded the appearance as it passed between the moon and Jupiter. It appears as the long streak in these images. Check http://www.heavens-above.com for additional times in your region when the ISS passes over!






Astro Picture of the Day:
April 7, 2014

Source:
Has a solar eclipse ever been seen from the Moon? Yes, first in 1967 -- but it may happen again next week. The robotic Surveyor 3 mission took thousands of wide angle television images of the Earth in 1967, a few of which captured the Earth moving in front of the Sun. Several of these images have been retrieved from the NASA archives and compiled into the above time-lapse video. Although the images are grainy, the Earth's atmosphere clearly refracted sunlight around it and showed a beading effect when some paths were blocked by clouds. Two years later, in 1969, the Apollo 12 crew saw firsthand a different eclipse of the Sun by the Earth on the way back from the Moon. In 2009, Japan's robotic Kaguya spacecraft took higher resolution images of a similar eclipse while orbiting the Moon. Next week, however, China's Chang'e 3 mission, including its Yutu rover, might witness a new total eclipse of the Sun by the Earth from surface of the Moon. Simultaneously, from lunar orbit, NASA's LADEE mission might also capture the unusual April 15 event. Another angle of this same event will surely be visible to people on Earth -- a total lunar eclipse.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 8, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 8, 2014

-Mars, blazing at magnitude –1.5 in Virgo, is at opposition. It rises around sunset and dominates the southeast after dark. Fainter Spica shines about 7° below it during evening. They're highest in the south around 1 a.m. daylight-saving time.

-Now's the time for Mars in a telescope! It's practically at the 15.1-arcsecond diameter it will display when passing closest by Earth on April 14th.

-Mars was imaged by Christopher Go on April 5th from the Philippines, where Mars is seen about half a rotation out of phase with the view we have from the Americas. South here is up.
This is the "interesting" side of Mars. Dark Syrtis Major is left of center. Sinus Sabaeus and Sinus Meridiani are upper right of center. Go writes, "Hellas [south of Syrtis Major] is covered with bright cloud. Utopia and Ismenius Lacus [in the north] are well resolved. There are morning clouds at Chryse (left) and evening clouds at Aetheria (right)." The North Polar cap has shrunk, exposing the dark band around it. Faint lines paralleling sharp edges are a processing artifact.

-With no sunspots actively flaring, solar activity is low. NOAA forecasters put the odds of an X-flare today at no more than 1%.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 8, 2014

Source:
The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image composite in assigned colors taken by the Hubble Space Telescope wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 9, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 8, 2014

-This evening, look left of the Moon by about a fist-width at arm's length for Regulus in Leo.

-In only 5 days, Mars will make its closest approach to Earth since 2012. Australian astrophotograher Anthony Wesley couldn't wait. Using a 16 inch telescope, he took this picture last night. His high-reolution images shows the rapidly evaporating north polar cap (summer began there in February), orographic clouds over the Elysium volcanoes near the Martian equator, and an even brighter blue cloud over the Hellas impact basin in the southern hemisphere. Hellas is the lowest point on Mars, and some of the haze evident there could be icy fog. Getting such Hubblesque results from a 16-inch telescope requires a combination of good seeing and long years of experience. Wesley is one of the world's top amateur astrophotographers and he routinely produces images like this. Observers with less experience can take good photos, too, especially in the nights ahead as Mars nears Earth.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 9, 2014

http://vimeo.com/90101198

Source:
Asteroids can have rings. In a surprising discovery announced two weeks ago, the distant asteroid 10199 Chariklo was found to have at least two orbiting rings. Chariklo's diameter of about 250 kilometers makes it the largest of the measured centaur asteroids, but now the smallest known object to have rings. The centaur-class minor planet orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. The above video gives an artist's illustration of how the rings were discovered. As Chariklo passed in 2013 in front of a faint star, unexpected but symmetric dips in the brightness of the star revealed the rings. Planetary astronomers are now running computer simulations designed to investigate how Chariklo's unexpected ring system might have formed, how it survives, and given the asteroid's low mass and close passes of other small asteroids and the planet Uranus, how long it may last.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

That meteroite mystery in Norway has been solved, and it's a lot less exciting than what could have been. From igotrhythm:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/skydiving_meteorite_it_was_a_rock.html

The "meteorite" was nothing more than a rock stuck in the parachute, reasons explained in the link.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 10, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 10 , 2014

-Look above the waxing gibbous Moon this evening for Regulus. The Sickle of Leo extends nearly upright from Regulus.

-For the past 24 hours, plumes of hot plasma have been rising and falling over the sun's southeastern limb. April 10th began with this eruption recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The surge heralds the approach of a new sunspot. Because we cannot yet discern the complexity of the region's magnetic field, its potency remains unknown. However, the fact that it has been producing C-flares while still partially eclipsed suggests that much stronger flares are possible when the region fully emerges in the days ahead.

-NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring a pair of coronal holes straddling the sun's equator. They are the deep-blue wedges in this extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken mid-day on April 9th.

Coronal holes are places in the sun's atmosphere where the ambient magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape. A double-stream of solar wind flowing from these coronal holes could reach Earth on April 12-14. It is possible that neither stream will be geoeffective as they flow north and south of our planet. On the other hand, a "brush pass" might still spark polar auroras. NOAA forecasters estmate a 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the streams arrive.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 10, 2014

Source:
That bright, ruddy star you've recently noticed rising just after sunset isn't a star at all. That's Mars, the Red Planet. Mars is now near its 2014 opposition (April 8) and closest approach (April 14), looping through the constellation Virgo opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. Clearly outshining bluish Spica, alpha star of Virgo, Mars is centered in this labeled skyview from early April, that includes two other solar system worlds approaching their opposition. On the left, small and faint asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres are seen near star Tau Virginis. But you'll just have to imagine NASA's Dawn spacecraft cruising between the small worlds. Having left Vesta in September of 2012, Dawn's ion engine has been steadily driving it to match orbits with Ceres, scheduled to arrive there in February 2015. Of course, you can also look near Mars for the Moon opposite the Sun in Earth's sky on the night of April 14/15 ... and see a total lunar eclipse.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 11, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 11, 2014

-The waxing gibbous Moon shines under Leo tonight. Leo is where you get if you follow the pointer stars of the Big Dipper far enough backward.

-Mark your calendar. On April 15th, there will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible from Australia, New Zealand, and all of the Americas. The action begins on Tuesday at 2 AM Eastern time.

-Two nights ago, astrophotographers Pete Lawrence and Ian Sharp stood in Sharp's back garden in Ham UK waiting for a spaceship to pass in front of the Moon. When it happened, their eyes barely registered the event. High-speed cameras, however, recorded a beautiful view of the ISS speeding over the Sea of Tranquillity. "Thanks to Pete Lawrence for alerting me to this," says Sharp, who took the picture using a 5-inch refractor. "Pete made the 5 mile trip to setup here and we both imaged the event separately and successfully."

The ISS transiting the Moon sounds like a rare event, but it happens more often than you might suppose. Only one night earlier, on April 8th, Maximilian Teodorescu of Daia (Giurgiu), Romania, photographed a similar flyby. Most transits go unnoticed because they are so brief. The ISS, moving faster than 17,000 mph, completes its trip across the lunar disk in only a fraction of a second. If you would like to catch the ISS in the act, check Calsky for predicted lunar transits over your home town.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 11, 2014

Source:
Tonight Mars is between opposition (April 8) and closest approach (April 14) looping through the constellation Virgo opposite the Sun in the night sky. That makes it prime season for telescopic views of the the Red Planet, like this one from April 3rd. The clear, sharp image was captured with a high-speed digital camera and 16-inch diameter telescope from Assis, Brazil, Planet Earth. Mars' north polar cap is at the top left. Also visible are whitish orographic clouds - water vapor clouds condensing in the cold atmosphere above the peaks of Mars' towering volcanos. The exact dates of closest approach and opposition are slightly different because of the planet's elliptical orbit. Still, get your telescope out on the night of closest approach (April 14/15) and you can view both Mars and a total eclipse of the Moon. Mars will be about 1/100th the angular size of the Moon.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 12, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 12, 2014

-This evening, look far lower left of the waxing gibbous Moon for fiery, glary Mars. By about midnight they're lined up horizontally in the south.

-A polar geomagnetic storm that began during the late hours of April 11th is subsiding now. At its peak, the storm registered 5 on the Kp scale of magnetic disturbances, which means it was a relatively minor event. Nevertheless, it was strong enough to spark naked-eye auroras. A family of "aurora addicts" traveling through Boden, Sweden, took this picture of the display. The cause of the storm is a fluctuation in the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). During the late hours of April 11th, the IMF tipped south, opening a crack in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in to fuel the auroras. As April 12th begins, solar wind conditions remain favorable for Northern Lights. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of continued polar geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 12, 2014

Source:
Aloha and welcome to a breathtaking skyscape. The dreamlike panoramic view from March 27 looks out over the 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawai'i. A cloud layer seeps over the volcanic caldera's edge with the Milky Way and starry night sky above. Head of the Northern Cross asterism, supergiant star Deneb lurks within the Milky Way's dust clouds and nebulae at the left. From there you can follow the arc of the Milky Way all the way to the stars of the more compact Southern Cross, just above the horizon at the far right. A yellowish Mars is right of center, near the top of the frame, with rival red giant Antares below it, closer to the Milky Way's central bulge.