Did you sleep through the auroras of November? Next time get a wake-up call: Spaceweather PHONE.
PROMINENCE ALERT: Grab your solar telescope. A large, flame-shaped prominence sprouted out of the sun's eastern limb during the weekend--and it's still there. Phil Jones of Frisco, Texas, took this picture using a Coronado MaxScope90.
LONG NIGHTS MOON: According to folklore, tonight's full moon is the Long Nights Moon. It gets its name from the long nights of December. There's something special about the Long Nights Moon: it travels extra-high in the sky, passing almost directly overhead at midnight. Go outside and take a look:
Photo details: Canon 10D, fisheye lens, 800 ASA, 6 sec. exp.
In this image from Peter Detterline of Douglassville, Pennsylvania, the Long Nights Moon is surrounded by a circular ice halo. Crystals of frozen water in high clouds catch the rays of the Moon and bend them as shown. When you see a Moon halo, be on the lookout for Moon pillars, 'dogs and other exotic arcs, too. They're all caused by ice in the sky.
more images: from P-M Heden of Vallentuna, Sweden; from Franck Vaissiere of Fronton, France.
FREQUENT FIREBALLS: Have you ever stepped outside after dinner to walk the dog--just in time to see a bright fireball streak across the sky? It makes you wonder, how often does that happen?
Pretty often, according to astronomer Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Using a computer model of Earth's meteoroid environment, he made this plot showing the global number of fireballs per day vs. the brightness of the fireball:
According to his calculations, fireballs as bright as Venus appear somewhere on Earth more than 100 times daily. Fireballs as bright as a quarter Moon occur once every ten days, and fireballs as bright as a full Moon once every five months.
The vast majority are never noticed. About 70% of all fireballs streak over uninhabited ocean. Half appear during the day, invisible in sunny skies. Many are missed, however, simply because no one bothers to look up. So grab a leash and a dog (optional), and head outside. The chance of a fireball is better than you think.
BONUS FIREBALL: This morning, Dec. 4th, photographer Jarek Olejnik caught a spectacular fireball over Nysa, Polska: image.