Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. | | | ASTEROID FLYBY: Massive asteroid 1620 Geographos is flying past Earth today at a distance of 12 million miles. After sunset, point your telescope at these coordinates to track the strangely oblong space rock glowing like a 13th magnitude star in the constellation Monoceros (near Orion). movies: from Dennis Simmons of Brisbane, Australia; from Alberto Quijano Vodniza of Pasto, NariƱo, Colombia. ST. PATRICK'S DAY: So the city of Chicago dyed a river green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? That's nothing. Greg Piepol of Rockville, Maryland, offers up to the Leprecauns an entire star: "This is today's sun, photographed through my Coronado SolarMax90 Calcium K telescope and colorized for March 17th," he says. "Tiny sunspot 986 is at the top." Happy St. Patrick's Day! LAVA AND STARS: "This looks like an ordinary scenic of the Milky Way, but it isn't," says photographer Stephen James O'Meara writing from the Big Island of Hawaii. "The real excitement is the fiery red glow at lower left." What is it? Scroll down for the answer: Photo details: Canon 20D, 229 second exposure, f/4, ISO 1600 If it's Hawaii, it must be a volcano. Photographed on March 14th, "this is first time incandesence from molten rock beneath the surface has been sighted at the summit of Kilauea volcano in more than a quarter century!" he says. "The last time red was seen at the summit crater, Halemaumau, was in April/May 1982 during a brief fissure eruption." O'Meara's close-up shot is truly hot stuff. more images: from Jim Pastore flying in a helicopter above the Big Island of Hawaii. |