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31 December 2012

Sahara Sky Hotel Observatory, Sahara desert, Morocco


The Sahara Sky Hotel, Sahara desert, Morocco
Credit: Stefan Lamoureux / Astronomy club Toutatis
 December, Sahara desert, Morocco

For all of you who are serious stargazers, amateur astronomers or even professionals in the space domain, The Sahara Sky hotel is the place to be.

This fabulous Hotel situated in the middle of the desert with nothing around it except for a couple of local tent settlements and a big dune, is completely isolated from the world. This Moroccan style "fortress" called Kasbah is a very inviting building. The high sealings and the large rooms (dinner room, bar and study) are majestic and you feel in a royal palace type of rooms. On the second floor you find cozy rooms with terraces on a breath taking panorama view of the Sahara desert landscape.

We arrived at night and the night sky just blew out our minds. But the next morning when I opened the balcony doors, It stroke me silly the view out into nothing, only sand and table top mountains (highlands) and sand and more nothingness. I really had to look a couple of time outside to believe where i was. Just crazy!

This hotel in the middle of the desert is not only a hotel, it is also the first private observatory of North-Africa. On the hotel roof terrace, many high end telescopes are at the disposition of clients if they wish so. Great quality telescopes and fair accessories with GOTO technology to enhance the experience.

Fritz Gerd Köring
Sahara Sky hotel, Morocco
To top it all out, the owner and founder of the Sahara sky observatory and Sahara Sky hotel is a true astronomer and friendly man named Fritz Gerd Köring. You are curious about astronomy? You want a great mentor to teach and show you the ropes in a class 1 environment of night sky observations, he is your man!
This man is incredible, the knowledge he has on astronomy and the vibrant way he tell it is just contagious. He bursts with energy when he speaks about astronomy, you immediately feel it. His passion straight away robes on you.

Mr Köring as he mentioned is a nomad by nature. At a young age he started to travel and see the world. He worked all over the planet in the animal health industry . As his nomadic nature took over he moved on and travel the world to America to make his fortune. Like he says it is not the money that is important, it is what you want to do with it. He built his Observatory and that  is more than all the money he could have, says Mr. Köring.

Now retired Mr. Köring lives with his wife half of the year in Casablanca and the rest of the year in his fortress of solitude in the Sahara desert. He still has many projects he wants to work on, and by the looks of it, he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Thank you very much for your hospitality Fritz! Your place is simply magical. An amateur astronomer like me dream come true!

Please visit the Hotel website HERE.
Please visit Sahara Sky Observatory (first private Observatory in North-Africa) HERE
Continue reading post 6 of 7 on trip to Morocco HERE

28 December 2012

Morocco: Astronomy trip in photos



Impressive Startrail over cupola in the Sahara desert
Credit: Stefan Lamoureux / Astronomy club Toutatis
Click on picture to enlarge
December 2012, Sahara desert, Morocco

For the 2 year anniversary of our astronomy club Toutatis, we flew to Morocco to catch a glimpse of the Moroccan astronomy and the beautiful night sky of the Sahara desert.

Omega Centauri globular cluster or NGC 5139
Credit: Stefan lamoureux / Astronomy club Toutatis
Click on picture to enlarge
We traveled first to Marrakesh where we met with Ali from the 3AM astronomy club of Marrakesh and the fabulous Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh (Read previous article on Marrakesh observatory). Next step, we crossed the mighty Atlas mountain range over to the Sahara desert. There we hang out at this awesome hotel in the middle of the desert to enjoy the Geminid meteor shower and other wonders of the night sky. we manage to shot many things during our trip and here are the pictures we captured.
Please have a look at our pictures on our astronomy club's Flickr gallery HERE
Representation of the Solar system with rocks
of the Sahara desert  Cerdit: Stefan Lamoureux
Click on picture to enlarge

Settlement in the Draa valley, Morocco
Credit: Stefan Lamoureux / Astronomy club Toutatis
Click on picture to enlarge





Small village in Atlas mountains
Credit: Stefan Lamoureux
Click on picture to enlarge
Please have a look @ our pictures of the trip HERE

Read post 5/7 on trip to Astronomy Morocco HERE 

27 December 2012

Morocco: ASTEROID 4179 TOUTATIS REDUX


December 2012, Sahara desert, Morocco

Our Astronomy club Toutatis visited Morocco and the Sahara desert. We wanted to celebrate our 2 years anniversary of the club in a warm place, where we could have great skies.

As you may have noticed, our club is named after the Asteroid 4179 Toutatis      ( Read On the search for asteroid Toutatis and the origin of our astronomy club's name).
We wanted to catch the asteroid for ourselves and see first hand what kind of object the asteroid was. It was very exciting to search for 4179 Toutatis.
We had at our disposition a 400mm Meade telescope GOTO and the coordinates for the asteroid. But never the less, when we entered the coordinates and centered the asteroid in the eyepiece, we only saw light dots and it was very hard to tell what was a star and what was the asteroid (fast moving object). We then set the camera as the eyepiece and took short (30 sec. to 2 minutes) exposure to see if something would stick out as a longer "line". Believe me, at first there was nothing different on the camera screen. As we checked and rechecked the coordinates of the asteroid, we took an other series of short exposures to see if we got it this time. 

Asteroid 4179 Toutatis reveals itself
At our great surprise, we saw a line stand out on the camera screen and that is where I shouted: "We got it!!!" After 23 years of hearing about Asteroid 4179 Toutatis, i finally got to see it with my own eyes, well with the camera eyes. It was an exciting moment!  After many short exposures to set the focus right and to center the asteroid, I manage to take 60+ shots of it and make an animation of 4179 Toutatis as it hurdles through space.

You can see on the animation on the upper left, the asteroid is tumbling through space. We have in this animation 60 frames with an exposure of 30 seconds each for a total of 30 minutes of tumbling asteroid. If you look closely the "lines" should be of equal lengths, but you notice that they are not. This is due to the rotating asteroid in it's path. Very exciting!

Asteroid 4179 Toutatis is by far the most challenging and the most rewarding object that I found in the night sky. Even with the coordinates, a good telescope and support while looking for it, it was still very exciting to search for Asteroid 4179 Toutatis.
Thanks to every one present during the session, here we have it: Asteroid 4179 Toutatis ladies and gentelman! Wouhhouu! :D

Please visit wikipedia Asteroid 4179 Toutatis HERE
Please see article on close up gif animation of rotating asteroid 4179 Toutatis HERE
Please read article and see photos of asteroid Toutatis by Nancy Atkinson on Universe Today HERE 

Read 4/7 posts on club's astronomy trip to Morocco. HERE

26 December 2012

Morocco: Geminids revisited in the Sahara desert


Geminids meteor shower 2012
December 2012, The Sahara desert, Morocco

Our Astronomy club Toutatis visited Morocco for the Geminid meteor shower of 2012. Our trip continued through the Sahara desert in Morocco.
The Geminids in the Sahara desert where stunning. I counted as much as 2 meteors per seconds at the peak on December 13, 2012. This means the average peak would have been more then 7000 meteors a hour. It was incredible! After discussing the rate of meteors with my partner, we agreed that it was more 4 meteor per minute making the average peak to 240 a hour. There where big green "flash" meteors, rapid slime ones, slow long bright ones, short split second lines and explosive-core-breaking shooting stars all in one, a real light show.
The group of people watching the meteor shower with us where having a blast and where cheering every moment. Many times, the meteors where falling in our backs and the people in front of us where shouting "look behind you!" but it was too late.
The blackness of the Sahara desert night sky was the best place to enjoy the meteor shower.  Never seen as much meteors as in the Sahara desert.
I manage to catch one on the image on the left. I was surprise that i didn't catch more of them on camera, the camera was pointed to the north star (Polaris) for a circular startrail over the cupola of the hotel. I took over 400 pictures and only one meteor manage to be caught. An incredible experience at a mild temperature considering we come from Finland.

Read More on club's astronomy trip to Morocco HERE

25 December 2012

Morocco: Astronomy Club Toutatis visit Morocco


December 2012, Marrakesh, Morocco.

For the 2 years anniversary of the foundation of our astronomy club Toutatis we flew to Morocco. Our plans where to visit the Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh and the only private observatory of north Africa, the Sahara sky hotel in the Sahara desert.

We flew into Marrakesh where we met Mr. Mohamed Ali Hafili. Ali as he called him self is a member of the Astronomy club 3AM of Marrakesh founded in 1999 by Mr. Zouhair Benkhaldoun, professor of astrophysics and director of the Observatory Universitaire Cady Ayyad "OUCA" of Oukaimeden. We where curious about the astronomy there and wanted to see what kind of events and observations the Marroqui astronomers where doing.

As Ali invited us to visit the Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh, he explained us the concept behind this fabulous center of knowledge that it's owner Mr. Omar Hila should be very proud of. The Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh, led by director Phillippe Baracco is a place to see art galleries, exhibitions on fossils and rocks found in Morocco (space rocks too) and astronomy observations and events. Also the center can be adapted to all kinds of events from music concerts to alternative art galleries and more. The conference room is a delight and the telescope found on the roof terrace is sublime.
The 600mm Richtey Chrétien telescope (the Valmeca T600) is fully remote controlled and is very user friendly. Attached to the telescope is a CCD camera where Ali can take pictures of the night sky and do some serious astronomy. But as Ali says, the hours he puts on organising events and observations in the astronomy club 3AM and the public showings at the cultural center shortens his time for astrophotography and science data gathering.
He almost admit that working a full time job in astronomy with the public is taking all his time and he finds it hard to dedicate his efforts on his passion of astronomy. Never the less, Ali had a way to explain to us the universe of astronomy in Morocco and inspire us with his contagious passion for space and astronomy.

Conference room @ Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh
The Observatory and cultural center is open to the public on observation nights and offers great opportunities to see and try out the telescope says Ali Hafili. The main purpose of these observation nights is to give the public a taste of a large telescope and see wonderful things in the night sky. For the astronomy club 3AM, Ali is continuing on organising great events and observation nights with it's members. Thank you so much Ali for your hospitality and hope we can organise joint events with us here in Finland to you in Morocco.

Please visit 3AM astronomy club Marrakesh on their facebook page HERE
Please visit Observatory and cultural center of Marrakesh homepage HERE
Please see the specs of the Valmeca T600 HERE 
First picture caption: From left to right: Uolevi Leppäkoski, Mohamed Ali Hafili and Me with the T600 telescope @ the Observatory.

Continue to read on club's Moroccan astronomy trip HERE

21 December 2012

It's the end of the world as we know it!


Mayan Calendar ends on 21.12.2012
So here we are, this year the winter solstice brings us mayhem and discomfort. The end of the world is knocking at our door!
The Mayan calendar is coming to an end and the frenzy on the internet and in books are just overwhelming.

The winter solstice is some kind of "passage" to the other side as well. The winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun's daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest. Since the winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, other terms are often used for the day on which it occurs, such as "midwinter", "the longest night", "the shortest day" or "the first day of winter". The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied from culture to culture, but most Northern Hemisphere cultures have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.

Direct observation of the solstice by amateurs is difficult because the sun moves too slowly at either solstice to determine its specific day, let alone its instant. Knowledge of when the event occurs has only recently been facilitated to near its instant according to precise astronomical data tracking.
It is not possible to detect the actual instant of the solstice (by definition, one can not observe that an object has stopped moving until one makes a second observation in time showing that it has not moved further from the preceding spot, or that it has moved in the opposite direction). Further, to be precise to a single day one must be able to observe a change in azimuth or elevation less than or equal to about 1/60 of the angular diameter of the sun.
Observing that it occurred within a two day period is easier, requiring an observation precision of only about 1/16 of the angular diameter of the sun. Thus, many observations are of the day of the solstice rather than the instant. This is often done by watching the sunrise and sunset or vice versa or using an astronomically aligned instrument that allows a ray of light to cast on a certain point around that time.
Source: Wikipedia

10 December 2012

On the search for asteroid Toutatis and the origin of our astronomy club's name


Asteroid 1749 Toutaits AC
Credit: Goldstone radar image 1996
4179 Toutatis was first sighted on February 10, 1934, as object 1934 CT, and then promptly lost. It remained a lost asteroid for several decades until it was recovered on January 4, 1989, by Christian Pollas, and was named after the Celtic god Toutatis/Teutates.

The next close approach will be December 12, 2012, at a distance of 0.046 AU (6,900,000 km) and at magnitude 10.7. At magnitude 10.7, the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, but may be visible to experienced observers using high-end binoculars and telescope.

As you may have noticed by now (referring to our blog header) our Astronomy Club here in Finland is name after Asteroid 1749 Toutatis/1989AC. As a kid the news of a new found asteroid harbinger of death and destroyer of the world a.k.a Asteroid Toutatis was a kick start for me in Astronomy.

In 2010, we formed our astronomy club and had 2 names proposed for it . The first one was "Event horizon" which is in Finnish "Tapahtumahorisontti". It was a nice though but hard to pronounce. The second was Kustar for the location of the club in Kustavi, Finland, but as we slept on it for a couple of nights, one morning i woke up screaming "By Toutatis!" i got it!
All the memories of the old newspaper space-articles I collected on my wall (incluing the one with asteroid Toutatis) came back to me. I just knew it was right. Felt appropriate and it reflected well my relation with Astronomy. The vote passed in favor of my enthusiasm and the name stuck.
Now for the second anniversary of the club, we are travelling to Morocco to look for asteroid Toutatis in the Sahara desert. See you all when we come back!

08 December 2012

Closest approach of asteroid Toutatis on December 12. 2012

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/4179_toutatis.gif
Animation of Asteroid 4179 Toutatis flying by the Earth
between 10:55 and 11:05 UT on September 28, 2004.
Animation courtesy of Scott Sinclair from Automated Patrol
Telescopes Australia. Images taken with a Meade LX200 10" at F/4.5
and consists of 50 x 8 second exposures (15 second separation).
Field of view is FOV 14 x 21 arc minutes.
Toutatis, a potato-shaped asteroid about 4.6 km in its longest extent, will pass within 7,000,000 km of the Earth's center on Wednesday, December 12, 2012. This is roughly 18 times the distance from the Earth to the moon. Toutatis will not pass this closely again for the next 500 years. Because of an extensive set of optical and radar observations, the orbit for Toutatis is one of the best determined of any asteroid and there is no chance that this object will collide with the Earth during this encounter - or any other encounter for at least 5 centuries.
With the help of Toutatis radar observations, a shape and rotation model for this object has been developed. Details on this work by Steve Ostro, R. Scott Hudson and colleagues can be found at:
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~hudson/Research/Asteroids/4179/

This particular close approach by Toutatis is extra-special, because Chang'E 2 (China's erstwhile lunar orbiter) is on its way to a flyby, with a close approach on December 13. According to radio astronomer Michael Busch, Chang'E 2 will fly within a few hundred kilometers of Toutatis.
Chang'E 2 produced beautiful photos of the Moon, but it will be a major challenge for it to obtain photos of Toutatis. Chang'E 2's camera, like most mapping cameras on orbiting spacecraft, is a pushbroom-style imager that is designed to take advantage of the spacecraft's predictable, steady orbital speed to sweep an array of pixels along the ground, with the ground a fixed and predictable distance away from the spacecraft. This asteroid encounter bears no resemblance to an orbital mapping mission. Chang'E 2 will be passing Toutatis at a high relative velocity of 11 kilometers per second, which means that the distance to the target will be changing very rapidly. In order for Chang'E 2 to get a photo, it will have to very carefully aim its narrow-angle imager in the correct direction and slew the spacecraft in order to scan the linear camera detector across the asteroid and therefore acquire an image. It's a process that I described when I posted some Mars Express images of Phobos last year.
It helps that the orbit of Toutatis is extremely precisely known (thanks to all those previous radar observations), but still, it will not be easy for Chang'E 2 to succeed. If it does succeed, it will obtain at most two images, one on approach and one on departure, with resolutions of a few tens of meters. This isn't any better than the radar resolution, but images would identify albedo patterns and could help disambiguate radar-derived models of Toutatis' shape. This is an extremely challenging thing for China to attempt, especially given that this is their first deep-space encounter. They only recently brought online a radio telescope of the kind you need to perform the necessary deep-space communication and spacecraft tracking and navigation.

For you people having telescopes, this asteroid is a very challenging object to observe. You will find a good ephemeris chart to get the coordinates of the asteroid for many days HERE. For those who does not have the equipement necessary to observe this asteroid Paul Cox of slooh.com will be broadcasting live images of Toutatis in a couple of free public shows on the night of the 11th/12th Dec.
Cox will be setting up three of the slooh.com robotic telescopes to track the asteroid, including the Half Metre telescope. Details and timings of the shows are on the Slooh homepage.

The observatory is in the Canary Islands which is 4-7hrs ahead of USA time so the shows are at an ideal time for those who can't stay up late on a working day. We'll also broadcast a late show at the time of closest approach (2012-12-12T06:40UTC) with live images from Arizona, together with some popular objects using the Half Metre telescope at the Canary Islands Observatory.

Source:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news144.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Toutatis;orb=1
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?CGISESSID=5a08d81c65c4bf686ff13c0fc9b95490#results
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/12061004-toutatis-preview.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_2
http://www.slooh.com/slooh-home.php

Asteroid Meteor Shower, The Geminids hits again in December



Where to look for the Geminids NE
Look at the Geminids meteor shower peak between 12-15.12.2012
I read this great post of Andrew Cooper
at A Darker View blog about the Geminids.
Mr. Andrew Cooper is based in Hawai'i and for several years have lived and worked at the W. M. Keck Observatory. 

First observed over 150 years ago this is a interesting meteor shower. The parent body for the Geminids is not a comet as with most showers, but rather the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. It is somewhat of a mystery how this mostly rocky body gives rise to the debris stream needed to generate a meteor shower. The asteroid does orbit well inside the orbit of Mercury every four years, where intense solar heating may heat trapped ice and liberate loose material from the surface.

07 December 2012

Join the SPACE community on Google +

Space community on Google +
On Google + you can find a new way to be in touch with Space and Astronomy. Join communities of all kind on your favorite subjects as Space and Astronomy.

Join the Space community on Google + and view events all around the world, photos taken by Hubble space telescope and amateur astronomers alike, timelapses and videos on the facinating subject of Space.

JOIN SPACE COMMUNITY HERE on Google +



01 December 2012

Send us a SPACE POSTCARD, we will send you one in return.


Space postcard #001
Have a Spacey holidays and a happy astronomical year to everyone!

For the month of December on blog LINKS THROUGH SPACE, send a SPACE-POSTCARD to Astronomy Club Toutatis in Finland. Send us your space-postcard from your part of the world, we will send you one back in return. A friendly gesture for the holidays and a fun way to greet fellow astronomers. You will find our address bellow.
Astronomy Club Toutatis 
23360, Kustavi, FINLAND

Send us a self made space postcard with your return address at the back and we will mail you back a Spacey Holidays and a happy astronomical year to everyone postcard from us.

Spacey holidays and a happy astronomical year for everyone! Waiting to hear from you!

Disclaimer: No purchase required. Part of Astronomy Club's initiation in public relations.
Our holiday wall of Space
Send in we will post it!

28 November 2012

Real Substile Penumbral Lunar Eclipse


Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 28.11.2012 Credit:
Click on picture to enlarge
 I had to post this. I think this is a fantastic picture showing the difference of this substile eclipse called Penumbral Lunar Eclipse. Thanks to Ian Musgrave down under who captured these great shots of the Moon being eclipsed.

Follow Ian at his Astroblog down under in Adelaide. He speaks about what to see in the night sky "what to see in the sky this week". Posts astronomy events and speaks about them with his personal experiences of them (like this one of the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse). great astronomy blog over all! Here is his link Astroblog.
For us here in Turku, Finland. We where clouded out! No signs of the Moon at all. No gaps in the clouds, just a thick cover of clouds. Oh well!

27 November 2012

Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon 28.11.2012


Click to see details of the Eclipse Nov. 28 2012
On November 28, 2012 there will be a Penumbra Eclipse of the Moon. The eclipse will be at it's greatest at 14:33 UT (17:33 Finland time). The eclipse will start at  12:14:58 UT (15:14:58 FIN) and will last for 4 hours 36 minutes and 05 secondes, 16:51:02 UT (19:51:02 FIN).

Look at the East as the Moon rises around 15:34 FIN time and follow the Moon until you can dicern a faint change in the darkness on the face of the Moon.

In a Penumbral eclipse, the Moon only enters the outer part of Earth's shadow. This will results in a subtle darkening of the Moon's northern half. You still have to have a good eyesight to see the differents with a "normal" Moon. Best chance is to photograph the event.

Good luck and clear skies! This a event not to miss!

24 November 2012

Mars Curiosity Rover preparing for Thanksgiving Activities


Curiosity at rocknest Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity completed a touch-and-go inspection of one rock on Sunday, Nov. 18, then pivoted and, on the same day, drove toward a Thanksgiving overlook location.
Last week, Curiosity drove for the first time after spending several weeks in soil-scooping activities at one location. On Friday, Nov. 16, the rover drove 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) to get within arm's reach of a rock called "Rocknest 3." On Sunday, it touched that rock with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) on its arm, and took two 10-minute APXS readings of data about the chemical elements in the rock. Then Curiosity stowed its arm and drove 83 feet (25.3 meters) eastward toward a target called "Point Lake."
"We have done touches before, and we've done goes before, but this is our first 'touch-and-go' on the same day," said Curiosity Mission Manager Michael Watkins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It is a good sign that the rover team is getting comfortable with more complex operational planning, which will serve us well in the weeks ahead."
During a Thanksgiving break, the team will use Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) from Point Lake to examine possible routes and targets to the east. A priority is to choose a rock for the first use of the rover's hammering drill, which will collect samples of powder from rock interiors.
Although Curiosity has departed the Rocknest patch of windblown sand and dust where it scooped up soil samples in recent weeks, the sample-handling mechanism on the rover's arm is still holding some soil from the fifth and final scoop collected at Rocknest. The rover is carrying this sample so it can be available for analysis by instruments within the rover if scientists choose that option in coming days.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the rover.
More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl andhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at:http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at:http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

21 November 2012

Direct Imaging of Exoplanet in constellation Andromeda


Direct imaging of exoplanet* Kappa Andromeda B
Credit: NAO/ Subaru/ J. Carson / T. Currie
Astrophysicists at the University of Toronto have discovered a new, huge exoplanet, 13 times bigger than Jupiter. It's in orbit round the massive star Kappa Andromedae, which is part of the constellation Andromeda. 
Kappa Andromedae is 2.5 times the size of our own sun, and at 170 light years away can be seen with the naked eye. The researchers used infrared images from the Subaru telescope in Hawaii to gather the faint images of the new planet.
"This planetary system is very different from our own," said Thayne Currie, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and co-author of the paper.
"The star is much more massive than our sun, and Kappa And b is at least 10 times more massive than any planet in the solar system. And, Kappa And b is located further from the star than any of the solar system planets are from the sun. Because it is generally much harder to form massive planets at large distances from the parent star, Kappa And b could really be a challenge for our theories about how planets form."
Direct imaging of planets outside our solar system is exceptionally rare, because the brightness of the host star nearly always obscures the planet from view. The team used a technique known as angular differential imaging to remove the overwhelming glare of  Kappa Andromedae. The resulting infrared image shows a tiny point of light that is Kappa And b.
"Although astronomers have found over 750 planets around other stars, we actually directly detect light from the atmosphere of only a few of them," explains Currie.
The discovery was a collaboration between astrophysicists at the University of Toronto and other institutions across the United States, Europe and Asia, as part of the Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) program.
The report on the super-Jupiter is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

16 November 2012

Planet wandering through space without a parent star


Artist illustration of rogue planet
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope have identified a body that is very probably a planet wandering through space without a parent star. This is the most exciting free-floating planet candidate so far and the closest such object to the Solar System at a distance of about 100 light-years. Its comparative proximity, and the absence of a bright star very close to it, has allowed the team to study its atmosphere in great detail. This object also gives astronomers a preview of the exoplanets that future instruments aim to image around stars other than the Sun.

Free-floating planets are planetary-mass objects that roam through space without any ties to a star. Possible examples of such objects have been found before [1], but without knowing their ages, it was not possible for astronomers to know whether they were really planets or brown dwarfs — “failed” stars that lack the bulk to trigger the reactions that make stars shine.


But astronomers have now discovered an object, labelled CFBDSIR2149[2], that seems to be part of a nearby stream of young stars known as theAB Doradus Moving Group. The researchers found the object in observations from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and harnessed the power of ESO’s Very Large Telescope to examine its properties [3].

13 November 2012

Total eclipse of the Sun explained.


Total eclipse of the Sun/ The diamond ring effect

"A total eclipse of the sun is one of nature’s most spectacular and awe-inspiring sights. For sheer beauty and magnificence, perhaps no celestial phenomena can compare with it", says Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre, two vivid eclipse chasers looking forward to the total eclipse of the Sun in Australia.
On Wednesday, Nov. 14, residents and visitors in Cairns, in Queensland, Australia, will witness the moon completely cover the sun for two minutes in the eastern sky an hour after local sunrise, provided the weather is clear (cloudy conditions could spoil the show). Because of the time zone difference, it will still be Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 13) in the United States during the total solar eclipse.
Cruise ships positioned farther east off the coast of New Caledonia and New Zealand will intercept the moon’s dark shadow, called the umbra, on the open waters of the South Pacific, giving passengers even longer durations of totality — up to 2.5 and 3.5 minutes, respectively. The eclipse will begin at 3:35 p.m. EST (2035 GMT) and last about 3.1 hours as the moon's shadow moves across Earth.
You can watch two live webcasts of the total solar eclipse here at SPACE.com beginning at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT).
If you have never seen a total solar eclipse before, here’s a list of eclipse events you can expect to seeduring the event, in chronological order:
First contact: This is the moment when the moon first takes a barely perceptible "bite" on the western edge of the sun, marking the official start of the eclipse. [How Solar Eclipses Work (Infographic)]
In Cairns, this occurs right after sunrise at local time on Wednesday (afternoon EST on Nov. 13), with the sun a mere 2 degrees above the eastern horizon. (Your closed fist held at arm's length covers 10 degrees of the sky.)
Vanishing crescent sun: Over the course of nearly an hour, the initial notch on the solar disk grows bigger and bigger as the moon continues to cover more of the sun. As the solar disk is reduced to a slender, rapidly dwindling crescent, look for pinhole images of the solar crescent projected by tiny spaces in between the leaves of a tree or shrub. The crescents can be seen on the ground or on any light-colored material, such as your T-shirt or notepad.
Fading daylight: About 15 minutes before totality begins, with about 80 percent of the sun now blocked, you’ll notice a drop in ambient light. As the partial solar eclipse deepens, daylight fades very quickly and dramatically. Shadows cast by the sun also appear much sharper. As totality nears, the surroundings lose much of their color, and the landscape takes on an unearthly grayish blue cast. [Video: Watch Path of Nov. 13-14 Total Solar Eclipse]
Dropping temperature: As more and more of the sun gets covered up, you may start to feel a slight cooling in the air.
Approaching lunar shadow: The moon’s dark shadow, called the umbra, which has been racing along Earth’s surface at up to several thousand kilometers per hour, is now rapidly closing in on your observation site. With 15 minutes to go before totality, the shadow now looms over the western horizon like a distant gathering storm.
Nature’s reaction: As day gradually turns to dusk, plants and animals usually behave as if night has fallen. Flowers close, birds stop singing, cows and chickens come home, and bats and nocturnal birds and fishes come out to feed. Soon everything becomes still and hushed in anticipation that something dramatic is about to happen.
Shadow bands: A few minutes before totality begins, the last rays of the sun are distorted by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, producing wavy patterns of alternating light and dark bands that move quickly across the ground. (Many observers often miss this solar eclipse phenomenon since their attention is focused on the sun and not on the ground.) Shadow bands are notoriously difficult to photograph since they are faint and fast-moving. A white blanket or towel laid out on the ground will help you see (or videotape) them better.
Inner corona: Less than a minute before totality, you might be able to glimpse the brightest part of the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, beginning to emerge. [Total Solar Eclipse of 2012 Explained (Gallery)]

Baily's beads  Credit: Fred Espenak 1995
Baily’s beads: These bright, rosary-like beads of sunlight — named after British astronomer Francis Baily who first reported them during an eclipse in 1836 — become visible up to 10 seconds or so before totality as the moon blocks the sun’s disk and sunlight continues to stream through deep valleys along the moon’s rugged edge.
Dazzling diamond ring:  As the last traces of the sun’s disk is covered by the moon, a solitary bead of sunlight remains shining briefly, creating a spectacular "diamond-ring" effect. People start to cheer, whoop, clap and cry.
Prominences and the chromospheres: At the same time, the thin, neon-pink layer of the sun’s atmosphere, called the chromosphere, becomes visible on the sun’s eastern edge. Any solar prominences present will also be seen protruding from behind the rapidly encroaching black disk of the moon.
Second contact: This heralds the moment when the diamond ring is finally extinguished and the sun is fully obscured by the moon. Total eclipse begins. Simultaneously, the dark lunar shadow that has been growing in the west rushes in and engulfs everything. You are now standing in the shadow cast by themoon a quarter of a million miles away. The moon’s inky disk set against the sun’s pearly white corona appears like an eerie black hole in the sky.
In Cairns, second contact occurs at 6:39 a.m. local time, with the sun 14 degrees high in the sky.
Outer corona: During the brief period of totality, the full extent of the sun’s corona is displayed in all its glory. Take note of the solar prominences and the overall shape and size of the corona, which vary from eclipse to eclipse. Try to discern fine details in the corona’s structure — such as long wispy streamers as well as delicate brushes, loops and arcs — which are delineated by the sun’s powerful magnetic field.
Twilight colors and darkness: The daytime darkness during totality doesn’t really get as black as at night. It resembles more of a deep twilight. While the sky surrounding the eclipsed sun is dark, all along the horizon the sky remains bright, bathed in a vivid yellowish orange glow. It’s like being surrounded by a 360-degree sunset.
Planets and stars: The brightest planets and stars typically come out in the minutes leading to totality and remain visible throughout the total eclipse. On Nov. 14, Venus should be fairly easy to spot west of the eclipsed sun. Mercury to the east and Saturn in between Venus and the eclipsed sun might be more challenging. Keen-eyed observers can also try to glimpse the stars Arcturus to the north and Alpha Centauri to the south.
Temperature drop: If you have a thermometer in the shade, you can measure how much the  temperature has decreased since first contact. Depending on the duration of totality and how high the sun is in the sky, the air temperature can dip by as much as 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit).
End of totality nears: You’ll know that the show is almost over when the western side of the corona begins to brighten, and the chromosphere and prominences become visible again.
Third contact: After a few minutes of totality, as the moon begins to uncover the sun, observers will see a single bead of sunlight burst forth in slow motion from behind a deep lunar valley, forming a magnificent diamond ring. The total eclipse is over, and another round of loud cheering and applause erupts from the crowd.
Over the next hour, the various stages of the eclipse repeat themselves, this time in reverse order and on the western side of the sun. The moon’s shadow races to the east as Baily’s beads reappear. The corona as well as the planets and stars fade from view.
Daylight returns very quickly, as if somebody had turned off the celestial dimmer switch. As the razor-thin sliver of the sun grows larger, shadow bands briefly come into view. Everything goes back to normal, including plants, animals and humans. The solar crescents continue to grow wider as the moon slowly moves away from the sun’s disk.
Fourth contact: At 7:40 a.m. local time, the moon leaves the sun’s disk completely as seen from Cairns. The last solar eclipse of 2012 is officially over. Time to celebrate!
Good luck and clear skies!

source: Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre are veteran eclipse chasers and photographers with 10 successful expeditions to date (eight totals and two annulars).

11 November 2012

Total eclipse of the Sun


Total Solar eclipse 14.11.2012  Credit: Fred Espenak
Scientists and sky watchers are converging on the northeast coast of Australia, near the Great Barrier Reef, for a total eclipse of the sun on November 14 2012. 

For researchers, the brief minutes (2 minutes) of totality open a window into some of the deepest mysteries of solar physics. As you can see in the video below, They asked Fred Espenak a Nasa Solar eclipse expert on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you classify a total solar eclipse? The answer, responded Espenak was a million. this is a show to not miss.

Here are some links for the Total Solar Eclipse of 14.11.2012 (local time) and a video showing how the eclipse will pass in Northern Australia and the Pacific ocean.



and the video

06 November 2012

Read the Carnival of Space #274



Welcome to another installment of The Carnival of Space!
Ray Sanders @ Dearastronomer.com is our host this week.

In this week’s carnival we have a number of articles about Astronomy and Space.
News from rover Curiosity and recent Mars exploration, Elon Musk's Dragon X exploits , the scale of spiral-shaped objects and more
Enter the Carnival of Space
 
If you have a science/space blog, joining The Carnival of Space is a good way to meet members of the Space/Science blogging community and help your site reach a wider audience.

If you'd like to be a host for The Carnival of Space, please send an email to carnivalofspace@gmail.com

26 October 2012

Exoplanets: New Space-Satellite will study Super Earths


New Satellite to explore Exoplanets
PR 35 2012 - Studying planets around other stars will be the focus of the new small Science Programme mission, Cheops, ESA announced today. Its launch is expected in 2017.
 Cheops – for CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite – will target nearby, bright stars already known to have planets orbiting around them.
 


Cheops is the first of a possible new class of small missions to be developed as part of ESA’s Science Programme.

Through high-precision monitoring of the star’s brightness, scientists will search for the telltale signs of a ‘transit’ as a planet passes briefly across its face.
In turn, this will allow an accurate measurement of the radius of the planet. For those planets with a known mass, the density will be revealed, providing an indication of the internal structure.
These key parameters will help scientists to understand the formation of planets from a few times the mass of the Earth – ‘super-Earths’ – up to Neptune-sized worlds.
It will also identify planets with significant atmospheres and constrain the migration of planets during the formation and evolution of their parent systems.  
“By concentrating on specific known exoplanet host stars, Cheops will enable scientists to conduct comparative studies of planets down to the mass of Earth with a precision that simply cannot be achieved from the ground,” said Professor Alvaro Giménez-Cañete, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
“The mission was selected from 26 proposals submitted in response to the Call for Small Missions in March, highlighting the strong interest of the scientific community in dedicated, quick-turnaround missions focusing on key open issues in space science.”
Possible future small missions in the Science Programme should be low cost and rapidly developed, in order to offer greater flexibility in response to new ideas from the scientific community.
With a dedicated science focus, they would provide a natural complement to the broader Medium- and Large-class missions of ESA’s Science Programme.
Cheops will be implemented as a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, with a number of other ESA Member States delivering substantial contributions.
Planet orbiting host Star

“This continues the 40-year success story of Swiss scientists and industry at the forefront of space science,” said Professor Willy Benz, Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern.
The mission will also provide unique targets for more detailed studies of exoplanet atmospheres by the next generation of telescopes now being built, such as the ground-based European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
Cheops will operate in a Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 800 km. It has a planned mission lifetime of 3.5 years and part of the observing time will be open to the wider scientific community.

For further information, please contact:
ESA Media Relations Office

Communication Department

Tel: + 33 1 53 69 72 99

Fax: + 33 1 53 69 76 90

Email: media@esa.int

Source: ESA news
Pictures: Artist impression of cheops Credit: Uni. of Berne / Exoplanet orbiting Star Credit: CNES