Carnival of space #435

Hello and and welcome to Carnival-of-Space #435. If you are from North America maybe you saw (or still able to see ) the Venus daytime occultation today (7-Dec-2015). I am from Israel and the occultation is long after the moon sets. Here is a photo from this morning they are so close and getting closer by the hour! Venus is at the bottom left. the photo was taken with a smartphone camera (LG G4). Indeed anyone can take such a photo so go and try (Just make sure that the sun is blocked from your view)!

The moon and Venus (bottom left) 7-Dec-2015

Here is also my video from 2007. Also, get ready for the Gemenid meteor shower next week. Plan ahead for either Saturday, Sunday or Monday night according to your location and enjoy.

And holidays are taking place. The Jewish world is celebrating Hanukkah and others are getting ready for Christmas and new year. Here is the traditional Menorah with Venus and Jupiter as candles. Happy holidays to you all, regardless of your faith and beliefs, may your life be filled with light and happiness!!!

Whats in CoS this week?

From Planetaria:

• Drones on Mars? small ‘helicopter-like’ scout could be added to Mars 2020 rover mission.

From EverydaySpacer

• The Year in Space 2016 looks like a great Calendar.  Steve Cariddi has done it again!  In cooperation with The Planetary Society, read about the next great Wall Calendar that's more like a changing poster.  More beautiful pictures, bio and historical facts will entertain you for another 12 months!

From NextBigFuture:

• Russia is planning moon missions and a lunar base in the 2020-2030s

• "NASA’s Solar Probe Plus mission — which will fly closer to the Sun than any spacecraft has before — reached a major milestone last month when it successfully completed its Critical Design Review (CDR).

• "President Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) into law. This law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.
• "A team of astronomers have used the LCOGT network to detect light scattered by tiny particles (called Rayleigh scattering), through the atmosphere of a Neptune-size transiting exoplanet. This suggests a blue sky on this world which is only 100 light years away from us. The result was published in the Astrophysical Journal on November 20 (and is available on ArXiV).They observed several transits of GJ 3470b, a warm Neptune analog around an early M dwarf, in four different bands with the LCOGT and Kuiper telescopes."

• "China carried out a sixth flight test of its new high-speed nuclear attack vehicle on Monday designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses or carry out global strikes. The ultra-fast maneuvering strike weapon known as the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle was launched atop a ballistic missile fired from the Wuzhai missile test center in central China’s Shanxi Province, according defense officials.The vehicle separated from its launcher near the edge of the atmosphere and then glided to an impact range several thousand miles away in western China, said officials familiar with details of the test."

From UniverseToday:

• New Horizons Takes Closet Image Ever of a Kuiper Belt Object

• What are the Earth’s Layers?

And an interesting fresh photo of Earth and moon from Japanese mission Hayabusa 2 from last week taken 3 million KM from Earth toward an Earth flyby in the way to its destination. I like "Earth from space photos" and collected many of them to this article in the link mentioned. That's all for this week. 

Earth and moon. Hayabusa 2 25-11-2015. Credit: Jaxa

Stars of Joseph

The dreams of Joseph is a  known episode from the bible (Genesis 37 9): "Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”" (The quote is from NKJV but you can see many other translations here")

An interesting question, from an astronomer's point of view is just which eleven stars Joseph saw in his dream (If you are a soccer/football fan you can probably think of your favorite team). I didn't find much discussion on this or an answer so I will suggest my own interpretation to the text.

My attempt is to give the dream a realistic meanning. The first thing to notice is that Joseph could not see the sun and moon and the stars together. While it is possible to see the sun and the moon together it is impossible to see stars during daylight (surly not 11 stars). So the dream is not a single moment but span over some time. Another  thought is that Joseph saw the planets but at that time in the ancient world only 5 planets (beside the sun and moon) were known which leaves us with six unidentified stars. Another option is to choose the brightest stars in the sky (seen from latitude 32 North), However what is the meaning of a bowing star, and the brightest stars are not seen at the same time or even in the same season, and it seems just to be random stars which is quire meaningless.

Lets consider the action of "bowing". Bowing is a gesture in which one falls down and then rise up again, and this reminds me of a setting or rising star. A setting star performs the bowing and the rising star gets up from that same bowing.

Pondering all these points, here is my  suggestion. Joseph saw 11 stars setting or rising, together with the sun and the moon. The number 12 is a famous one. There are 12 months in the calendar and there are the twelve tribes (Sons of Jacob) and there are the 12 constellations which represent the different months. Let us assume that each star is actually the brightest star in one of the Zodiac's constellation (or the complete constellation) so Joseph saw all 11 constellations. This is possible every night if you observe from sunset to sunrise.

Joseph's dream spanned over an entire night. Immediately after sunset Joseph saw the little moon crescent sets as well and than saw some constellations set and some rise. The old Jewish scholars also paired between each tribe and a month/constellation so which constellation Joseph didn't see? His own constellation of course which is either Aquarius or Pisces (according to different Jewish traditions).

Notice that the moon sets immediately after the Sun (and before the stars) so the time was a new Lunar month which is the beginning of a new month in the Hebrew calendar. Taking that information a leap forward and calculating the age of Joseph (17 at that time) from the creation we find that the dream happened in the beginning of the 11 or 12 Lunar month of year 2216 from Adam which in converting to our Gregorian calendar will be circa January or February 1544 BC (the conversion formulas are not accurate to give a specific day). I
I find it interestng that such intepretation can lead to an actual date.

Also I find the intiutive solution to the dream to be wrong. Jacob, Joseph's father interpret the 11 stars as Jospeh's brother and sister while he is the sun and Josephe's mother (poor Rachel which has passed away alread) is the moon. I suggest to think about the 11 stars as eleven years that passed on Joseph in Egypt with 2 more years until he was released from prison. The sun was an important god for Egypt and the fact that all celestial objects bows to him means that he will have some control over the nature as he had some lter during the drought years.

Joseph's dream - Unknown artist from Henry Davenport Northrop book 1894

For some reason this well known picture of Vincent van Gogh "Starry Night" reminds me of Joseph's dream.

Starry night - Van Goch 1889 -  (MOMA New-York)

A huge moon and 11 stars and maybe the tree seems a bit like a bonfire which resemble the sun...

The painting gave inspiration to Don McLean with his version of "Starry Night" in the song "Vincent"

Almost occultation of Aldebaran

Another miss for 23-Dec-2015. Occultation seen from Europe but not from Israel. This time I just took 4 different photos and put them together to demonstrate the fast movemet of the moon

Almost occultation of Aldebaran 23-Dec-2015

It was very near, but no occultation from my place. After five days of rains I almost forgot from this event but as I looked at the moon I noticed a bright star so close to it. I knew there wont be an occultation from my place but I forgot that it will be that close.

So I took my camera (Canon SX50 HS) out and this is how it was 2030 (UTC) about 45' apart (from edge of moon). Taking both objects in one shot is not simple as the moon is about 10000 brighter. Aldebaran is in the lower left

Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29

About an hour later the moon gets nearer (The moon moves, Aldebaran is fixed) and as a bonus a bird fly in front of the moon) 

Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29

After another 45 minutes the moon is really close. So close that I can't see Aldebaran with the naked eyes anymore and needs binoculars. However the camera sees it perfectly and just 30 minutes more to the closest point.

Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29

As it turned out, a huge cloud came and rain again so no chance for more photos, so good night (0030 here) until the next chance...

Planets conjunction 09-Oct-2015

The planets are aligned very nicely this morning (09-Oct-2015) with the crescent old moon in the East. Venus and Jupiter (which starred earlier this year) together with Mars in the Leo constellation. You can almost draw a straight line between the planets as they are all lay on the same plane the ecliptic.

This month events are (I added illustrations for event with more than 2 celestial objects)
9-Oct-2015 - Venus Old Moon Mars and Jupiter
17-18/Oct - Jupiter and Mars less the 30' apart (less than a full moon width)
27-28/Oct - Jupiter Venus and Mars creates a close traingle
3/Nov - Venus and Mars together
7/Nov - Jupiter, the old Moon Venus and Mars




7-Nov-2015
Here is an illustration

The old Moon, Jupiter Mars and Venus 7-Nov-2015 simulation

27-Oct-2015
Here is an illustration

Jupiter Mars and Venus 27-Oct-2015 simulation

9-Oct-2015

Planets' conjunction 09/10/2015

This is an illustration of the View from Israel. US watchers will see the moon further down and closer to Mars.

The brightest planet is Venus and the second one is Jupiter. Mars is quite dim but you will able to see its red tint in the photos. Mercury rises as well but it is very low and dim so you need a dark place with no obstructions in order to see it.

Planets' conjunction 09/10/2015

 And here is a wider photo in which the entire Leo constellation is visible.  I used Canon 700d with 28-80 lens and was able to capture the entire LEO group (Leo-B Denebolla is at the bottom left)

 This photo is not related but I wanted to see if my knew wide Lens can capture the entire winter hexagon. It can! From Sirius through Rigel and to Castor and even Capella is there, but this is a matter for another post

Carnival of Space #422

Hello everybody and welcome to the #422 edition of Carnival of Space.  I am getting ready to the last total lunar eclipse in the current tetrad. Hope that you will be able to see it wherever you are. Another thing I am waiting for is the movie based on the book "The martian" I am sure it will look great in 3D.

Carnival of Space

Saying all that let's go right down to buisness with these week articles

From Universe Today

• NASA and New Horizons team pick post-Pluto target … and serve up an awesome video
• This one really amazed me. Legault is the master of such photos. Thierry Legault Meets His Own Challenge: Image an ISS Transit of a Solar Prominence
• August Full Moon Anticipates September’s Total Lunar Eclipse

From Planetaria

• Back to the ice giants: proposed new mission would re-visit Uranus or Neptune (or both!)
• Testing panspermia: searching for ‘bubbles of life’ in the galaxy

From NextBigFuture

• NASA Glenn Research Center, GRC, currently has several programs to advance near-term photovoltaic array development. One project is to design, build, and test two 20 kW-sized deployable solar arrays, bringing them to technology readiness level (TRL) 5, and through analysis show that they should be extensible to 300 kW-class systems (150 kw per wing). These solar arrays are approximately 1500 square meters in total area which is about an order-of-magnitude larger than the 160 square meters solar array blankets on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS has the four (pair) sets of solar arrays that can generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity. Each of the eight solar arrays is 112 feet long by 39 feet wide and weights 2400 pounds. There were space missions involving astronauts working in space to install and deploy the ISS solar panels. Alliant Technical Systems, ATK, was selected in 2012 by NASA's Space Technology Program under a Game Changing Technology competition for development of a promising lightweight and compact solar array structure. The MegaFlex™ engineering development unit, EDU, was tested at NASA GRC Plumbrook facility this year. See below for the ATK deployment of the demonstration unit. Use of high-power solar arrays, at power levels ranging from ~500 KW to several megawatts, has been proposed for a solar-electric propulsion (SEP) demonstration mission, using a photovoltaic array to provide energy to a high-power xenon-fueled engine.
• NASA has selected the potential next destination for the New Horizons mission to visit after its historic July 14 flyby of the Pluto system. The destination is a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69 that orbits nearly a billion miles beyond Pluto.
• Researchers have developed a method for printing optical holographic lenses that could greatly simplify their fabrication. Because the method can be performed quickly and easily, it could potentially be used by astronauts to print lenses while in space for holographic lens telescopes. While current holographic lens fabrication methods are often expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, the new printing method can produce a lens in just a few seconds using only a single step. The method uses a nanosecond laser pulse to create interference patterns on a transparent substrate coated with light-absorbing materials.
• Axanar is the first fully-professional, independent Star Trek film. While some may call it a "fan film" as we are not licensed by CBS, Axanar has professionals working in front and behind the camera, with a fully-professional crew--many of whom have worked on Star Trek itself--who ensure Axanar will be the quality of Star Trek that all fans want to see. Axanar is in pre-production now and will start filming in October 2015 with an anticipated release in the first half of 2016.

Moon passing earth

At first I thought it is a photo-montage, later I though it is an hoax but finally I understood that it is real and that gave me a lot to thought about. Not everyday you see something from such a new point of view. So what is it?

The far (and illuminated) side of the moon. NASA

Clearly we see the Earth in the photo but what is the other orb? The first impression was that it is another of the photos which shows Pluto and Earth, but that's not Pluto. It is our own moon.

- But the moon doesn't look like that at all!

You are right, the near side of the moon, the only side that we can see from Earth doesn't look like that, but the unseen FAR side of the moon is what we see in this photo. Lets remind that the FAR side is the half of the moon that we can't see from Earth. The moon has a dark and light side but they are changing as the moon rotates around its axis (Just like day and night on Earth). A new moon is when the NEAR side that we see is also the dark side (All the sunlight is on the far side). A full moon is when the near side is fully illuminated. In between we see part of the lighted-side and part of the dark side.

DSCOVR spaceship which is between the Earth and the sun captured that image. The camera nickname is EPIC and the photo is epic indeed. Never before did we saw such a thing. DSCOVR is about 1.5 Million KM from earth at a point where the Earth and Sun gravitational force is balanced making the spaceship more or less "float" there.

DSCOVR's orbit. Nasa

The moon is very grey. This is the real color of the moon, it seems white to us only because it s so bright in the skies. Photos from the moon surface are also grey.
DSCOVR took many photos and NASA combined them to a stunning video



This is a totally new way to observe new moon (Which is a full moon on the far side). Usually you can see an 18 hours old moon. during solar eclipse you can get a hint of the new moon (you don't see the moon, but you see that it is there blocking the sun).
Everything is relative. Just change your point of view and a new moon becomes full. It is also another demonstration that you can always see new sides in familiar objects, and that Earth indeed is not the center of the solar system, the universe, or anything. It gives new perception about our little world. We see such photos of Earth back from Apollo and before and the "Earthrise" famous photo of Apollo 8 was mind-breaking. I was not around here at that time, but maybe this photo makes me feel similar feelings.

We will have other chances to see the familiar near side when it is almost half a lunar moon. We will see it goes BEHIND the Earth, and since it will be much further away from DSCOVR (1.9m KM and not 1.1m) it will be much smaller than the moon in this picture. It will be interesting to see the opposite as well. Full moon on earth and from 1.5m km a big black circle occultating Earth. Maybe in time that will happen as well.
Another theoretical possibility is to put a spaceship 15m KM from Earth and covering a whole cycle of a lunar moon. However there is no scientific value for such photos so I guess we will have to do with simulations.




More information about the photo at NASA site

To DSCOVR mission page

Simple Astro-photography's small adventure

Although astrophotography is a very professional disciplinary, it is also possible to create great pictures with simple equipment and proper techniques. It is mostly a matter to know your subject and what is suitable to our equipment. I already suggested a few simple astrophotography methods and it is time for more examples.

The timing was around the new moon even tough I didn't get too far from the urban area and the light pollution was high anyway. All the photos are without any post-processing (with the exception of crop). The main idea is to show what is possible before using nay software such as Photoshop or Lightroom in which the possibilities are endless. Personally I don't like post-processing. It can do wonders, it can do whatever you want if you know how, but sometime if a picture is too perfect it seems a bit fake. If I use software at all it is mostly to simple bright/contrast and level adjustments.

The first set is from Thursday 16/July/2015. The first shooting place was where a new bridge for the train gives some nice compositions. It was not planned but the big dipper just posed for a very nice image which may be a tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge"

The big dipper

This is not related to astronomy but just gives a hint on the surrounding.

The bridges

The next location was somewhat further away and inside a forest to eliminate some of the light pollution but the sky were still very polluted. In these photos I've used an Ioptron tracker to eliminate star trails. The tracker is quite new for me and  I still need to practice using it. I can't day that using a tracker is simple. most people will ot spend 300$ on such item which has a very limit purpose, but still it is an affordable and easy to setup. You can do without it for short exposures or for wide focal length. Most people use the 500 rule. divide 500 in your actual focal length (If your camera is a DSLR with cropping factor, don;t forget to calculate it as well), and this will give you the maximum exposure in seconds. usually you will need to use high ISO rate. So even for short exposure a tracker is suitable to use lower ISO value and maybe a closer aperture.

This is a close up of the open clusters M6 and M7. These photos requires a zoom lens so a tracker is almost a must (unless using really high > 3200 ISO). When taking such shots take first with a high ISO and without noise reduction just to be sure on your composition. Then use lower ISO and able noise reduction to get the best shot possible. 

open clusters M6 and M7

This is part of Sagittarius with M22 and M8 visible in a wide-field photo. The area is rich with globular clusters but to get them a long focal length is required. I noted to myself to take several frames and stitch them together next time, using the longest zoom I have.

 part of Sagittarius 

And this is the entire Scorpion constellation. 

Scorpio

The next two photos are from July-18th. They were taken quickly from my roof just before the moon entered the clouds. It is a nice triangle of the moon Venus and Jupiter, and in the second photo Regulus of Leo is visible as well. These are quite simple photos with nothing but tripod. I didn't have the time to find nice compositions with terrestrial objects.

 The moon Venus and Jupiter and Regulus

The moon Venus and Jupiter

The last set is from Sunday July-19th from Tel-Hadid. In the first photo you can see me shooting the second sunset photo.

A photo of me taking the sunset photo below

Sunset with Thorns

And two sunsets

Sunset

Sunset

The main object of the evening was to shoot a time-lapse of the new moon Venus and Jupiter. Here it is, 2700 photos taken over 90 minutes from 20:15 to 21:45 in just 45 seconds (120x faster). Enjoy!

The best images from Cassini for 2015

With all the attention to New Horizons and Pluto lets not forget the veteran spaceship Cassini which makes wonders around Saturn and sometimes it seems as there is an artist photographer sitting there to get these great compositions.
Cassini is now on its 219's Rev around Saturn. The orbit is very elliptical and spans from about 200,000km to over 2,000,000km. Such an orbit is required to measure Saturn's gravitational field and also give chance to flybys around the moons. Each Rev is well planned in advance and is fully using the time to observe Saturn and the moons.

Here are some of the best photos of 2015

You can see many more at Cassini's website and I've added a link for each photo for more explanations and details in that website.

All photos are courtesy of NASA 

Lets start with an old photo which is not very familiar. This is a very known object from a completly different angel.

Southern pole of Jupiter: Cassini. NASA

This is an old photo of Jupiter when Cassini passed near him in the previous decade. The angle is unique. Never before we saw Jupiter from down under! The great red spot and the entire clouds' bands are visible in this magnificent image.

What do you see in the following unreal picture? Obviously you see the ring but what is behind the ring? It is the ring shadow in Saturn surface! Cubist art in its best.

Modern art in Saturn's rings

 This is moon Rhea. do I see that it also has a heart shape on it or is is my imagination?

Rhea

 A flying sponge? That's what most people think of Hyperion

Hyperion

And Tethys looks just like the death star from star-wars (Me and the children are eagerly waiting for episode VII!)

Tethys

Dione is beautifully aligned on Saturn ring which is extremely narrow in this photo. The dark silhouette of Saturn is a great background.

Dione

 Three moons in one shot and all of them thin crescent. hoe can that happen?

Titan Mimas and Rhea

Who's who? The large object is Saturn! look carefully for the thin ring in the right middle. The small object is Titan which is a very large moon but small in front of giant Saturn.

Saturn and Titan

 Janus and a tiny fraction of the rings below

Janus

Previous articles about Cassini and Saturn:

• Planet Saturn
• Cassini's highlight from 2012
• Cassini's highlights from 2013

Pluto and New Horizons

New horizons is finally arriving distant Pluto. After almost ten years the flyby is just hours away early on July 14th 2015. The spaceship will neither land on Pluto nor orbit it, but will pass in a mere distance of 11,000KM from its surface giving us unprecedented details and information about it.

I am updating this post frequently both with new photos and images but also with historic information. Don't miss the chance to find Pluto yourself looking at two original images from the Lowell observatory

14/7/2015 - Today is the day
Want to be super updated?
Check NASA-TV and @NASANewHorizons on twitter
As expected NASA released a very good photo just before the PR. While new data will arrive only in about 12 hours after the flyby you can have a small taste with thie fine photo

Pluto from 76000Km. NASA

Latest briefing from NASA (short 15-20 min Video, updated daily).

Recent update

13/7/2015 - Find Pluto yourself!!

This is Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto in 1930 when he was 24 years old.

Clyde Tombaugh. Source: Lowell observatory

Finding Pluto was not easy and required to scan thousands of photographic plates to notice small differences. Although there were no airplanes or satellite it was a hard task. Today computers are doing it in seconds. Here are the two original photos. Clyde Tombaugh had a special instrument on which he could flipped two photos. and if he looked carefully enough he would see a difference. Most photos has no difference and even if they had, most of them were specks of dust. But eventually one was a new planet. You can try for yourself using the following two photos. Where is Pluto? (Click on the photo to see it bigger and easily change to the second photo. Try go back and forth between the two). Answers at the end of the article but do try to find yourself!

Where is Pluto 1 (Lowell Observatory)

Where is Pluto 2 (Lowell Observatory)

12/7/2015 - Why Pluto is not a planet anymore
The decision to move Pluto out of the planet's list is because several reasons:
1) Its orbits is very elongated  and inclined to the ecliptic
2) There are many small bodies like it in the Kuiper Belt
3) He is not big enough and is more to be considered as a binary system together with Charon
However the IAU (International Astronomical Union) had some hard time to define the exact rules in its 2006 conference. For further reading you can look at my review of Mike Brown's "How I killed Pluto" book.

13/7/2015 - Chasms on Charon

The newest photo of Charon is very interesting. A possible impact craters and a huge chasm relatively larger and deeper than the grand canyon.

כארון 11/7/2015 - 4 מיליון קילומטטר. נאסא

What happens during the flyby?

The following info-graphic says it all. Many measurements with all the instruments on board. Just before the flyby a short transmission of the latest photos to Earth, probably for the PR section, and then 4 to 6 intensive hours of work, and only at the end a transmission of just a fraction of the data is planned. Want to see more? Check the eyes on NASA site

.

11/7/2015 

This 6Million KM photo of Pluto shows interesting feature. What is the Polygon?.

Pluto from 6 Million KM. NASA

Here is more or less the same photo but from 4 Million km.

Pluto from 4 Million KM. NASA

Pluto and Charon. NASA

Here is an example of how demanding is the communicating task. The entire NASA's Goldstone station is communicating with New-Horizons. check yourself in DSN now. It changes during the day, but that is a good example.

All antennas at Goldstone are pointing toward New-Horizons

9/7/2015 - The heart of Pluto

We love these photos. We can imagine things, and this shape is called the heart of Pluto. does it look like a heart? Not really, but our mind tends to look or familiar features so even this approximation is enough. The "Heart" length is about 2000km and is probably new layers of frost gases such as Methane. The dark feature left to the heart is called "The whale". 

Pluto's heart. NASA

Would you think that it is a hear if you saw this photo first? I am not sure

Pluto's heart. NASA

The superb space blog - Universe Today gave a list of all not required things in the spaceship. usually objects to give some emotional aspect to the mission. Here is the summary from UT site (with permission)

1. Some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh making him the human that reached the further away from earth,
2. A CD with 430,00 names of people who registered at NASA site. I am not one of them, but this has become a routine so check out and list your name in future missions.
3. Another CD with images of the entire mission's members.
4. A quarter from Florida. If ET will need to call home.
5. A flag of Maryland
6. Two flags of the USA
7. A small piece of Spaceship 1
8. A stamp from 1991 with the caption: Pluto - not researched yet

The spaceship itself looks like a big piano. Here are two photos from two different angles

New Horizons. NASA

New Horizons. NASA

So where is Pluto? You will find it much easier in these photos

Pluto - the moving dot. Lowell observatory

Pluto - the moving dot. Lowell observatory