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SUN-EARTH DAY:
March 20th is the vernal equinox--the first day of spring in the
northern hemisphere. To celebrate the change of seasons, NASA is
hosting a special Sun-Earth
Day webcast. Tune
in on Friday at 1 pm EDT to hear a panel of solar physicists
discuss recent discoveries
and teach students how to make their own space weather forecasts.
SPACESHIP SIGHTINGS:
For the next 7 days, space shuttle Discovery will be docked to the
International Space Station (ISS). Together, the two spacecraft
are so bright "they shine through clouds and pine
trees," says Jamie Jones who witnessed a flyby over Cheney,
Washington, last night:
"It was a great opportunity to test out my new
Kodak
ZD8612 IS," he says. "The streak shows how far the
ISS moved during the 16-second exposure."
When Jones took the picture, Discovery astronauts
Steve Swanson and Ricky Arnold were asleep inside the space station's
Quest airlock. Spending the night in reduced air pressure prepares
their bodies for spacewalking. On Thursday, March 19th, they will
step outside for 6.5 hours to install the space station's new 32,000-lb
S6
truss
segment, the final piece of the station's massive exoskeleton.
Space station construction is such a big deal, you
can actually see
it happen through backyard telescopes. Click
here for viewing times.
more images: from
Abe Megahed of Madison, Wisconsin; from
Ken Scott of Suttons Bay, Michigan; from
Clair Perry of Charlottetown - Prince Edward Island, Canada;
from
Jacob Kuiper of Steenwijk, the Netherlands;
RAINBOW PLANET:
Something special is happening to Venus. The brightest of all planets
is hanging low in the western sky at sunset, and if you look at
it with a backyard telescope, you'll see that it is a slender 3%
crescent. But that's not the special part.
What's special is, Venus looks like a rainbow:
Make that a "living rainbow," says photographer Peter
von Bagh, who noted a vigorous shimmering of Venus' rainbow colors
when viewed through the turbulent atmosphere of Porvoo, Finland.
He took the picture above using an 8-inch telescope and a Canon
EOS 400D.
Venus resembles a rainbow because Earth's atmosphere acts like
a prism. When Venus is near the horizon, refraction separates the
red crescent from the blue. The crescent is so thin, the splitting
of colors is obvious. Later this month, Venus will disappear into
the glare of the spring sun--so catch the rainbow planet while you
can!
more images: from
Mark D. Marquette of Boones Creek, Tennessee; from
Lecleire Jean-Marc of Torcy, France; from
P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from
Eugene Miller of Brooklyn, New York; from
Sam Cole of Austin, Texas; from
Matteo Marzo of Rome, Italy; from
Maurice Gavin of Worcester Park SW London UK; from
Zlatko Pasko of Stara Pazova, Serbia; from
Radek Karwacki of Ostrzeszów, Poland; from
Sadegh Ghomizadeh of Tehran, Iran; from
Joe Ricci of Rochester, New York; from
Elias Chasiotis of Markopoulo, Greece; from
Lorenzo Comolli of Tradate (VA), Italy; from
Paul Kinzer of Galesville, Wisconsin;
from Alan Simpson of Renfrew, Scotland; from
Frederic Caron of Victoriaville, Qc, Canada; from
Paul Schneider of Wilton, Connecticut;
March
2009 Aurora Gallery
[previous Marches: 2008,
2007, 2006,
2005, 2004,
2003, 2002]
Comet
Lulin Photo Gallery
[Comet
Hunter Telescope: review]
[Comet
Lulin finder chart]
Explore
the Sunspot Cycle
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