‘Latest News’ Archives
Mercury in “true” colour
I've posted images of Mercury recently and this little planet is getting some good press. Here is the latest image in colour. I've read a few posts about this, some claiming this is the actual colour. Well sorry to dissapoint but thats not quite true. Space.about.com gets it right however. "The color image was generated by combining three [...]
The “Iron” Planet Mercury
With the Messenger spacecrafts recent September flyby of Mercury in "safe mode" due to some power issues there was a concern that it wouldn't have been as useful a scientific opportunity as originally hoped. Indeed it only collected about half of the data it was hoping to. We do however have nearly a 100% detailed map of the surface. With this [...]
“Live” Telescopes online – High Tech features bringing Astronomy to the Internet
Want to take nice pictures of the stars but live in a city with lots of light pollution? Wish you could afford a telescope big enough to actually see something? Worried that if you buy a telescope it will be way too complicated to actually use and expect it will gather dust in the shed? If you answered YES to any of these then using the [...]
Kepler won’t be finding earth sized exoplanets for a while yet
Kepler has some calibration requirements before it is ready to find Earth sized planets. It may be a year or more before the issue is resolved. However this does not mean it won't be functioning or finding planets. Just not an earth twin...yet. William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator, reported the following on Ian O’Neill’s SpaceDisco [...]
The Cosmology of Distant and Dusty Galaxies
Before we had the visually stimulating images from Hubble there were other images and concepts inspiring cosmologists. Not all of those images are visible to the naked eye. The exploration of the universe is not limited to visible light and there is a full spectrum where visible light plays just a small part. Which brings me to a lecture I [...]
Taking pictures of the Moon – 6inch Telescope vs 300mm Zoom Lens
Tonight the moon was begging to be photographed. I looked out the back garden and saw it just hanging there, crystal clear and dashed for my camera then went for my telescope. I quickly snapped a few images using my300mm Zoom lens on my Nikon D50 (Digital SLR) using a tripod, so no telescope used for this shot. The thing I was surprised [...]
NightSky.ie: Story of the week: Volunteers Still Needed for Simulated Mars Mission | Universe Today
Each week I pick out a news item that's caught my attention but which typically didn't get much press. This week, with the flood of news about Ares 1-X I felt that this article slipped by without much notice. This post is by Nancy Atkinson from UniverseToday. --------------------------- October 28th, 2009 Volunteers Still Needed for [...]
Just for Fun! Duck Dodgers – why I like Astronomy
This article is just for fun and unlikely my usual posts, so if this is your first time viewing, then I suggest you look around the site for more serious/news based items which is more the usual format. Like many people, my interest in science and astronomy started by with watching cartoons like Duck Dodgers in the 24th and 1/2 century, and by [...]
Stunning Picture of the Night Sky by Axel Mellinger
It takes good equipment and great patience to take good pictures and this picture demonstrates plenty of both. This is an image of our night sky with the milky way as the center piece. It is an amalgamation of over 3000 CCD images. If you want details of the multiple locations used, PC it was processed on (Linux by the way) it is all here. Or [...]
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps the Apollo 17 site
The LRO was designed to take detailed pictures of the Moon, look for possible future landing sites, and eventually creating a detailed lunar map. The LRO has just entered low polar orbit approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) above the lunar surface and has taken an image of the Apollo 17 landing site. The image resolution is 50 cm per pixel. [...]
Jewels from the Jewel Box
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to show you this image of the "Jewel Box" a large cluster of stars located in the southern constellation of Crux (the Southern Cross). Enjoy..