Square Kilometre Array (SKA)

 

Help us bring the SKA project to Africa

	The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be a mega radio telescope, about 100 times more sensitive than the biggest existing radio telescope.
	SKA is a €1.5 billion project, with operating costs of about €100 million a year.
	It will be the first to provide mankind with detailed pictures of the “dark ages” 13.7 billion years back in time.
	This mega telescope will be powerful and sensitive enough to observe radio signals from the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.
	If there is life somewhere else in the Universe, the SKA will help us find it.
	At least 24 organisations from 12 countries, including Australia, Canada, India, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA, are involved.
	The SKA will consist of approximately 4 000 dish-shaped antennae and other hybrid receiving technologies.
	Both South Africa and Australia have suitably remote, radio quiet areas for hosting the SKA and have competing bids to host the SKA.
	If Africa wins the SKA bid, the core of this giant telescope will be constructed in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape Province near to the towns of Carnarvon and Williston, linked to a computing facility in Cape Town.
	Other countries where stations will be placed include Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya and Zambia.
	South Africa is already building the Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) which is a precursor instrument for the SKA, but will in its own right be amongst the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world.
	Why is Africa the best site for the SKA?       Most valuable for science           Low levels of radio frequency interference and certainty of future radio quiet zone.           Significant investment in skilled human resources - bursaries for scientists from across Africa, training for technicians and artisans.       Best imaging           An ideal physical environment (little water vapour, calm stable weather conditions).       Most Affordable           Required land, labour and support services available and very affordable.       Most Reliable           Core basic infrastructure of roads, electricity and communication already in place .           Ideal geographical location, sky coverage and topography.           Safe and stable area with very few people and no conflicting economic activities.       Most Options           The astronomical "richness" of the southern skies & strong tradition of astronomy.           Excellent academic infrastructure to support SKA science and technology.
More info...    Who is the barefoot astronomer?

The Southern Star Party (2011 March, Bonnievale, South Africa)

The Southern Star Party | Suidelike Sterrefees
2011 March, Bonnievale, South Africa

The mere utterance of the words "star party" makes me tingle. As a school kid I read with wide-eyed longing of Stellafane, a mystical place far, far away where all they did at night was look at deep sky objects and spent the days pushing glass. It's taken a while, but the first inkling of a local Stellafane happened this past week-end just outside Bonnievale in the Western Cape.

 Read it all...

•  SSP photo gallery

Square Kilometre Array - Newsletter

• Read about all the SKA achievements

Vriende van Boyden Ope-aand, 19:00 op Vrydag 25 Februarie

Vriende van Boyden Ope-aand,

19:00 op Vrydag 25 Februarie
English translation follows at the bottom

Bespreek asseblief vroegtydig!

Bel 051 401 2561 tydens kantoorure
Of stuur 'n epos aan vjaarsdp@ufs.ac.za
Toegang: R 30 per motor
Verversings en ligte etes te koop.
Aangebied deur: Vriende van Boyden Sterrewag en die Amateur Sterrekunde Vereniging

Die Ingenieurswese agter Sterrekunde 

Sterrekunde het by die publiek en selfs die wetenskaplike gemeenskap die gesig van mooi foto’s, sterrekundige data en uiteindelik wetenskaplike resultate. Daar is egter ‘n enorme ingenieurspoging nodig om dit alles te laat gebeur – die meeste daarvan ongesiens agter die skerms. Willie Koorts se lesing sal op hierdie aspek fokus en sal aantoon hoe instrumentasie en beheersisteme op die voorpunt van die tegnologie wat vir die moderne sterrekunde noodsaaklik is, tot stand kom.

Willie Koorts werk vir die afgelope 23 jaar as ’n Elektroniese Tegnikus by die Suid-Afrikaanse Astronomiese Observatorium in Kaapstad. Hy het begin by SAAO se buite stasie in Sutherland in die Karoo en skuif later na hulle hoofkantoor by die sterrewag in Kaapstad as deel van die ingenieurspan. Hier ontwerp en bou hulle die beheersisteme en instrumentasie vir die teleskope in Sutherland. Die SAAO het ook die kontrak gekry om twee kameras vir SALT te bou waarby Willie Koorts nou betrokke was, spesifiek met die verantwoordelikheid vir die installasie van dié baie duur detektore.

Willie Koorts het as ’n amateur sterrekundige geïnteresseerd geraak nadat hy in Sutherland, en as deel van ’n UNISA Rekenaarwetenskap kwalifikasie, sommige B.Sc. Astronomie modules geneem het. Hy is ook ’n amateur teleskoopbouer (ATB) en werkskaf ook met die aanpassing van webkameras en donkerlig videokameras vir astronomiese gebruik. ’n Ander belangstelling van Willie Koorts is sterrekunde geskiedenis waaroor hy navorsing gedoen het en ’n paar artikels gepubliseer het. Hy het ook geïnteresseerd geraak in satellietopsporing en het ’n rekenaarbeheerde montering vir die opsporing van satelliete ontwikkel - ’n geheime Amerikaanse spioensatelliet is onlangs met so ’n sisteem opgespoor. Ander belangstellings is fotografie en in die laaste tyd, Geocaching- die “sport” om skatte te vind (en te versteek) met die gebruik van ’n GPS.

Vir die laaste vier jaar was Willie die redakteur van MNASSA (Maandelikse Notas van die Astronomiese Vereniging van Suidelike Afrika). Hy skryf gereeld vir die WEG, De KAT en ONS EIE en vertaal ’n paar publikasies vir Struik Uitgewers. Hy is die voorsitter van die OWG (die Orion Waarnemingsgroep), ’n informele sterrekundeklub in die Boland en is taamlik betrokke by die Voortrekkers en reik spesiale astronomie kentekens uit. Ander publieke uitreikaktiwiteite sluit in sy rol as toergids vir die jaarlikse ATKV bustoer vanaf Wellington (sy tuisdorp) na Sutherland.

 
Friends of Boyden Open Evening,

19:00 on Friday 25 February
Reservation is Required. Book early!

Contact 051 401 2561 during office hours
Or send an e-mail to vjaarsdp@ufs.ac.za to book.
Entrance: R 30 per car
Refreshments and light meals will be for sale.
Presented by: Friends of Boyden Observatory and the Amateur Astronomy Association.

The Engineering behind Astronomy

The face of astronomy to the public or even the scientific community are pretty pictures, astronomical data and ultimately scientific results.  But a huge engineering effort is required to make this all happen - most of which happens unseen, behind the scenes.  Willie Koorts’ talk will focus on this aspect and reveal how the cutting edge instrumentation and control systems needed in modern astronomy comes about.

Willie Koorts has been working as an Electronics Technician at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town for the past 23 years.  He started at SAAO's observing outstation in Sutherland in the Karoo and later moved to their head quarters in Observatory, Cape Town as part of the engineering team there.  Here they design and build the control systems and instrumentation for the telescopes in Sutherland.  SAAO also got the contract to build two of the cameras for SALT with which Willie was intimately involved, with the responsibility of installing the super-expensive detectors himself.

Willie got interested as an Amateur Astronomer after starting in Sutherland and, as part of a UNISA Computer Science qualification, did some BSc Astronomy modules.  He's also an ATM (Amateur Telescope Builder) and tinkered with modifying webcams and low-light video cameras for use in astronomy.  Another interest is Astronomical History for which he did some research and published a few articles.  He also got interested in satellite tracking and developed a computer controlled mount for tracking satellites - a secret American spy-satellite was recently tracked down using such a system.  Other interests are photography and, lately, Geocaching - the "sport" of finding (and hiding) hidden treasures using a GPS.

For the last four years Willie has been the editor of MNASSA (Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa).  He regularly writes articles for WEG, de Kat and Ons Eie and translated a few publications for Struik Publishers.  He's the chairman of OOG (the Orion Observation Group), an informal astronomy club in the Boland and is quite involved with the Voortrekkers, presenting special astronomy badges.  Other public outreach activities include being the tourguide for an annual ATKV bustour from Wellington (his hometown) to Sutherland.

Invitation to the Southern Star Party (2011 March 04-06)

You're invited

Join us for a week-end of star gazing and friendly chat at the Southern Star Party, which will be held on March 04-06 on a farm just outside of Bonnievale, near Robertson, in the Western Cape.

The GPS position to point your car to is 34:00:45 South, 19:59:43 East.

The organizers of the event are Willie Koorts, Edward and Lynnette Foster, Martin Lyons, Suki Lock and Auke Slotegraaf.

Visit the website at the Southern Star Party blog for more.

Programme

As of this writing, the programme will consist of:

1. "What astrophotography teaches us about the deep sky" – Dr Dieter Willasch
2. "Basic astrophotography with a digital camera" - Kos Coronaios
3. "The next step: astrophotography through a telescope" - Lucas Ferreira
4. "How to care for and clean your telescope" – Willie Koorts
5. "Fossils, Light & Time" – Edward Foster
6. "Astronomy for beginners" – Edward Foster
7. "Deep Sky Observing Workshop" – Auke Slotegraaf

There will also be an "Astronomy Pub Quiz", and a sale table.

Night-time events include:

1. "What's up in the sky tonight" – Willie Koorts
2. "Learning the Constellations: Using ConCards to find star patterns and bright deep sky objects" – Auke Slotegraaf
3. "A Guided Binocular Starhop" – Auke Slotegraaf

Find out more

For more details, and the all-important booking and registration, visit the Southern Star Party blog. Space is very limited, so please book right away.

Valentines day in NGC 2547 in Vela

 Click to enlarge

 Hi all Stargazers

May you have health, wealth, prosperity and joy in abundance this year!

About 7 years ago I “discovered” this cluster and took the liberty of naming it the Heart Cluster. I made mention of it in my book as well. It is cluster NGC2547, located near the bright multiple star Gamma Velorum in the constellation Vela.

 

I have copied Neville Young, a member and friend of the Pretoria Centre for ASSA. Hope you like it Neville!

Look Up and Discover the Cosmic Gems We All Deserve to See!

Best regards

Wayne Mitchell,

Author of the STAR GAZER'S DEEP SPACE ATLAS

Member of the Pretoria Centre of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa

www.deepspaceatlas.com

Eclipse Photo Gallery: January 4, 2011

On Jan. 4, 2011, the Moon passed in front of the sun, slightly off-center, producing a partial solar eclipse visible from Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia

• More images

Transit of the ISS during the Solar Eclipse of January 4, 2011 from Oman

 

Photo: Thierry Legault

•  Visit his website for more information and images

Help! Is this book available in South Africa? Where?

Has anyone seen this book (2nd Edition) in a bookshop in South Africa.

Email and let us know!  (assabfn@gmail.com) or post a comment!

The book

Finding your way around the sky is easy with this Atlas

Atlas of the Southern Night Sky – by Steve Massey and Steve Quirk
This top-selling, Australian-authored and -published hardcover atlas has been specially produced for Southern Hemisphere stargazers.
Fully revised and updated with new information, images and maps, the latest edition has easy-to-follow starcharts and details of astronomical objects that are within reach of most backyard telescopes.
Beginning with a basic introduction to the night sky—what you can see, how to find your way around the sky and what to look for— Atlas of the Southern Night Sky then delves into lunar and planetary observing, with authoritative information on how best to observe these celestial targets. This comprehensive reference book will be appreciated for years to come.

• 290 full-colour pages, hardcover
• Over 100 star charts and maps (use in conjunction with the Red Light Torch included in this pack)
• Maps of the Moon and planets
• Fully illustrated with images by Australian and New Zealand amateur astronomers to give a realistic perspective on what can be seen and photographed
• List of constellations and astronomical objects visible throughout the year
• Tips and tricks
• Guide to astrophotography and image processing

Go Voyager! Go!

The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was about 16 light-hours away from Earth as of 9 October 2010. It took that space probe 33 years to cover that distance, and will take over 18,000 years to reach one light-year at the same speed.

Voyager 1 is about to kiss the solar system goodbye.

The plucky spacecraft – one of two Voyagers launched more than 30 years ago and now bound for interstellar space – appears to have reached a region within a broad boundary between the sun's influence and interstellar space where the speed of the solar wind's outflow reaches zero, scientists report.
The region is known as the heliopause, where the solar wind – a continuous flow of charged particles that streams from the sun in all directions at roughly 1 million miles per hour – is brought to a standstill as it meets interstellar winds head-on and gets deflected sideways.

"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, the mission's project scientist, in a statement. The Voyager team presented its evidence at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, currently under way in San Francisco.
The boundary between the sun's influence, known as the heliosphere, and interstellar space is thought to consist of four onion-like layers: the termination shock, where the solar wind grows increasingly turbulent as the sun plows through interstellar space; the heliosheath, where the wind grows turbulent and get compressed and heated; the heliopause, Voyager 1's current location, and the bow shock, the outermost region where the solar system in essence generates a wake in the tenuous gas and dust between stars.

Voyager 1 passed through the termination shock and into the heliosheath in December 2004. The craft passed into the heliopause last June, at a distance of some 10.6 billion miles from the sun. It's currently traveling at 38,000 m.p.h.


How much time remains before Voyager 1 enters interstellar space?

A research team led by University of Arizona physicist Ke Chiang Hseih has analyzed data from Voyagers 1 and 2, as well as from spacecraft closer, to suggest that the heliopause at Voyager 1's location is only about 21 astronomical units wide (give or take 6 A.U.), or roughly 21 times the distance between the Earth and sun.
The team acknowledges that its estimate represents a "very coarse cut" at taking the measure of "a very dynamic region." But if it's correct, Voyager could take as few as four years to clear the heliopause and enter the bow shock.

The estimate was published in August in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The latest data from Voyager 1 should help refine those estimates, researchers say.

Source Christian Science Monitor

• Today Voyager1 is 16 hrs 08 mins 22 secs of light-travel time from Earth

Catalina Sky Survey Discovers Possible Extinct Comet

Image: This image combines thirty exposures made with the Catalina Sky Survey's 60-inch telescope a few days after the initial discovery. It shows the outburst of (596) Scheila. (Image by Alex Gibbs and Steve Larson)

An asteroid discovered more than 100 years ago my not be an asteroid at all, but an extinct comet that is coming back to life, according to new observations.

The night of Dec. 11, Steve Larson, senior staff scientist with the Catalina Sky Survey, was searching for potentially hazardous asteroids when he came across what looked like a comet: a faint, wispy tail surrounding a bright, star-like core. Four images taken over the course of 30 minutes revealed the object was moving relative to the background stars.

"Its brightness of a total magnitude of 13.4 visual, which is about 900 times fainter than the faintest star you can see in a clear, dark sky, led me to suspect that it was a known comet, but I checked the comet database and got nothing," Larson said.

According to Larson, comets are thought to be a major source of Earth's water, and "extinct" comets may be useful resources for space exploration.

Further investigation revealed that the object was a known asteroid called (596) Scheila, discovered in 1906. The extraterrestrial rock is tumbling through space alongside thousands of similar objects in our solar system's main asteroid belt, roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, out of the ecliptic plane in which most planets and asteroids travel.

Catalina Sky Survey team member Alex Gibbs checked previous images in the survey's archives but found no activity until Dec. 3. At that time, the object appeared brighter and slightly diffuse.

Previous analysis of (596) Scheila's color indicated that it is composed of primitive carbonaceous material left over from the formation of the solar system and might be an extinct comet.

After the discovery was announced, the astronomical community responded by pointing many of the world's largest telescopes at the object to obtain images and spectra to determine if its tail consists of ice and gases spewing out of the body or if it is dust left behind from a collision with another asteroid. Preliminary spectra of the outburst show that the coma surrounding the asteroid is composed of dust, but more observations will be needed to understand just what is happening with (596) Scheila.

"Most asteroids are collision fragments from larger asteroids and display a range of mineral composition," Larson explained. "But a fraction are thought to be former comets whose volatile ices have been driven off by the sun. If the activity in Scheila proves to be cometary in nature, this will be only the sixth known main-belt comet, and about 100 times larger than previously identified main belt comets."

In 1998, Larson founded the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-supported project to discover and catalog Earth-approaching and potentially hazardous asteroids. It operates two telescopes in the Catalina Mountains and one in Australia and is currently discovering 70 percent of the world's known near-Earth objects, including one that fell in northern Sudan in 2008.

Source:spaceREF

# Download 2011 International Space Station Calendar

Download 2011 International Space Station Calendar in PDF-format

Source: NASA

•  7 Meg

• 74 Meg 
  
  

Asteroid Itokawa Sample Return

Hayabusa photographs its own shadow on asteroid Itokawa in 2005 prior to collecting samples from the big space rock. [more]

Source: Nasa Science News

Asteroid Itokawa Sample Return

Dec. 29, 2010:  The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa spacecraft has brought home to Earth tiny pieces of an alien world–asteroid Itokawa.
"It's an incredible feeling to have another world right in the palm of your hand," says Mike Zolensky, Associate Curator for Interplanetary Dust at the Johnson Space Center, and one of the three non-Japanese members of the science team. "We're seeing for the first time, up close, what an asteroid is actually made of!"

He has good reason to be excited. Asteroids formed at the dawn of our solar system, so studying these samples can teach us how it formed and evolved.
Hayabusa launched in 2003 and set out on a billion kilometer voyage to Itokawa, arriving a little over two years later. In 2005, the spacecraft performed a spectacular feat -- landed on the asteroid's surface⁽¹⁾. The hope was to capture samples from the alien world.
But there was a problem. The projectiles set to blast up dust from the surface failed to fire, leaving only the particles kicked up from landing for collection. Did any asteroid dust made it into the collection chamber?

More ...

Venus is closest to the Earth today

If you're feeling romantic tonight, it might be because Venus is closest to the Earth today for 2011. Just 92,750,680km away. 

- Auke Slotegraaf on Twitter

Best Space Discoveries of 2010: Nat Geo News's Most Popular

• Enjoy the images!

Space Photos This Week

As the Stars Turn

Photograph by Kwon O Chul, TWAN

Star trails create arches over the horizon in a long-exposure picture of the night sky taken from Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

The shot, captured in July and released this week, shows the apparent motion of the stars around Polaris, the star that's almost exactly aligned with Earth's north celestial pole. Also called the North Star, Polaris is the brightest dot in the constellation Ursa Minor.

Equatorial regions, such as Kilimanjaro, are the only places on Earth where the celestial poles sit right at the horizon.

Published December 30, 2010

• More images

Cryosat ice mission returns first science

19 December 2010

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco 

The Cryosat-2 spacecraft has produced its first major science result.

Radar data from the European satellite has been used to make a map of ocean circulation across the Arctic basin.

Cryosat's primary mission is to measure sea-ice thickness, which has been in sharp decline in recent decades.

But its ability also to map the shape of the sea surface will tell scientists if Arctic currents are changing as a result of winds being allowed to blow more easily on ice-free waters.

"Nobody really knows how the Arctic is going to behave as the ice retreats, but we do anticipate that significant changes will occur," said Dr Seymour Laxon, a Cryosat science team member from University College London, UK.

"This is just the first data, and it shows we now have the tool to monitor what is happening," he told BBC News.

• Read more

 

Space Pictures This Week: Cosmic Gem, Sun Burp, Vegas

Cosmic Gem

Image courtesy ESA/NASA

Is it a massive opal? A huge holiday ornament? A multicolored stargate? No, it's the leftover cloud of hot gas and dust created by a star that ended its life in a violent explosion.

The new picture of this cosmic bauble, released Tuesday, combines data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Known as SNR 0509-67.5, the supernova remnant sits about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. Chandra's x-ray vision shows the soft greens and blues from hot material, while Hubble's visual-light data reveals the visible, glowing pink shell of gas being superheated by an expanding shock wave.

Published December 15, 2010

• More images

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outside edge of the solar system.

A NASA space probe dispatched 33 years ago for the first close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn has entered the tail of the solar system, a place where the constant stream of charged particles flowing from the sun ebbs.

This final phase of solar system exploration should last another four years, computer models show, though scientists overseeing the two Voyager spacecraft really don't know what to expect.

Voyager 1 is now about 10.8 billion miles from the sun, traveling in a region of space known as the heliosheath, a turbulent area between the sphere of space influenced by the sun and magnetic forces from interstellar space that lies beyond.

Read more ...

Magnetic Eruption on 14 December 2010

 

 

Click to play a 3MB animation

MAGNETIC ERUPTION : On Dec. 14th around 1530 UT, a filament of magnetism lifted up from the surface of the sun and--snap!--erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action.

 

The blast produced an hours-long C2-class solar flare and hurled a magnificent CME into space: SOHO movie. The expanding cloud is not heading directly toward Earth, but it might deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field two or three days hence. High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

Source: Visit  spaceweather.com

Coleman, Crew Members Fly to ISS

89 Instruments used for tank test on Discovery

IMAGE: Technicians prepare space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank for a tanking test on launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Teams have installed environmental enclosures on the tank, removed foam and prepared the tank's skin for approximately 89 strain gauges and thermocouples. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Shuttle Discovery's tanking test will occur no earlier than Friday as cold weather and strong wind have slowed preparations.

Workers at launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center continue to instrument the tank with temperature sensors, after work through the weekend finished attaching strain gauges.

In total, nearly 90 instruments are being placed on the tank's mid-section. Fresh insulating foam will be applied over those areas.

The sensors won't bond properly to the tank's metal skin in cold weather. Specially constructed environmental enclosures and thermal blankets are being used to control temperatures. 

Read more ...

Reuters Best Photos of 2010

Out of the half-million photos that Reuters photographers produce each here, Reuters has selected 55 as the Best Photos of 2010.  These photographs capture the human spirit at play and in turmoil within the natural world around us.  The Pakistani floods, the Gulf oil spill, the Shanghai World Expo, the Haitian earthquakes and more are all represented here with stunning symbolism.  These photographs are a visual record of the world in 2010, where human culture made its movement into yet another decade.  

• See all 55 at the Reuters Blog.

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

• Read more ...

Jupiter gets its stripe back

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 24 November 2010 

BERKELEY — One of Jupiter's dark brown stripes that faded out last spring is regaining its color, providing an unprecedented opportunity for astronomers to observe a rare and mysterious phenomenon caused by the planet's winds and cloud chemistry.

Earlier this year, amateur astronomers noticed that the long-standing stripe, known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), just south of Jupiter's equator, had turned white. In early November, amateur astronomer Christopher Go of Cebu City in the Philippines observed a prominent bright spot in the unusually whitened belt, piquing the interest of professional and amateur astronomers around the world.

• Read more

More Space Pictures

• More Space Pictures

Best Space Pictures of 2010

• Visit and enjoy!

Secret military mini-shuttle lands in California

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.

Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.
Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout

(Reuters) - A miniature robotic space shuttle wrapped up a 224-day classified military mission and made an unannounced landing in darkness on a California runway on Friday, Air Force officials said.
The Orbital Test Vehicle, or X-37B, touched down at 1:16 a.m. PST at Vandenberg Air Force Base, becoming the first U.S. spaceship to land itself on a runaway.
The former Soviet Union's Buran space shuttle accomplished a similar feat in 1988.
"We are very pleased that the program completed all the on-orbit objectives for the first mission," program manager Lt. Col. Troy Giese said in a statement.
The project, which was started by NASA in the late 1990s and later adopted by the military, is intended to test technologies for a next-generational space shuttle.
Rather than carry people, however, the military is looking at the spaceplane as a way to test new equipment, sensors and material in space, with the intention of incorporating successful technologies into satellites and other operational systems.
Another key point of the project is to see if the costs and turnaround time between flights can be reduced from months to days.
The Air Force imposed a news blackout on the X-37B's activities while in orbit, though it was tracked by amateur satellite-watchers throughout its nine-month mission.
The X-37B looks like a space shuttle orbiter, but is smaller, with a similar shape and payload bay for cargo and experiments. But it measures 29 feet, 3 inches in length and has a 15-foot (4.5-metres) wing span, compared to the 122-foot (37-metres) orbiters with wing spans of 78 feet.
Unlike NASA's space shuttles which can stay in orbit about two weeks, X-37B is designed to spend as long as nine months in space, then land itself on a runway.
The Air Force plans to fly its second X-37B vehicle this spring. The spaceplanes were built by Boeing's advanced research lab, Phantom Works.
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Philip Barbara)

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.

Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout

Sky Guide Africa South 2011 on the shelves

Sky Guide Africa South 2011

The Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa

Sky Guide Africa South is an invaluable practical resource for anyone who has even a passing interest in the night skies of southern Africa.
Prepared yearly by the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa as a reference work for the novice, amateur and professional astronomer, it continues the tradition of the well-established Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa.
It presents a wealth of information about the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors and bright stars in a clear and accessible way, accompanied by a number of diagrams to support the text.

 Comprising 128 pages in A5 size, it is published and distributed by Struik Nature and is available from bookshops or on-line bookshops such as Loot.co.za or

• Kalahari.net
• Loot
• Exclusive Books

The recommended retail price is R85.

Ns. Ek was so bietjie teleurgesteld in die kopie wat ek as ASSA-lid ontvang het. Van die bladsye het swak gedruk - die registrasie was uit en dubbelle geblurde letters was die gevolg. So blaai eers mooi deur voor jy koop. (Hannes Pieterse)

Icy Particle Spray - Comet Hartley 2.

This movie made from images obtained by NASA's EPOXI mission spacecraft shows an active end of the nucleus of comet Hartley 2. Icy particles spew from the surface. The specks move as the movie toggles back and forth. Most of these particles are traveling with the nucleus. They are fluffy "snowballs" about 3 centimeters to 30 centimeters (1 inch to 1 foot) across.

The images for the movie were obtained by the Medium Resolution Imager on Nov. 4, 2010, the day the EPOXI mission spacecraft made its closest approach to the comet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

For more information about EPOXI visit http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi and http://epoxi.umd.edu/.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/Brown

NASA Nanosatellite Studies Life in Space, Demonstrates Technology

O/OREOS Nanosatellite Inspection

From left, Charlie Friedericks and Giovanni Minelli, with the NASA’s Ames Research Center inspect the Ames-managed O/OREOS nano satellite at Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, Oct. 17, 2010, in advance of the satellite's planned launch into orbit.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force/Lou Hernandez


 NASA Nanosatellite Studies Life in Space, Demonstrates Technology

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA is preparing to fly a small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread that could help answer astrobiology’s fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The nanosatellite, known as Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS, is a secondary payload aboard a U.S. Air Force four-stage Minotaur IV rocket planned for launch on Nov. 19, 2010. 

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STS-133 Flight Plan (Shuttle & ISS)

 Visit Spaceflight Now for a minute by minute Shuttle  Flight Plan...

Changes and additions:
- July 6: Posting initial release
- July 27: Launch time updated
- Sept. 4: Spacewalk tasks changed
- Sept. 17: Slight tweaks
- Oct. 25: Latest revision
- Oct. 27: Tweaks to docking, undocking and landing
- Oct. 30: New launch date of Nov. 3
- Nov. 4: New launch date of Nov. 5

DATE/EASTERN...DD...HH...MM...SS...EVENT

Flight Day 1

11/05
Fri 03:04 PM...00...00...00...00...Launch
Fri 03:41 PM...00...00...37...21...OMS-2 rocket firing
Fri 03:54 PM...00...00...50...00...Post insertion timeline begins
Fri 05:34 PM...00...02...30...00...Laptop computer setup (part 1)
Fri 05:49 PM...00...02...45...00...GIRA install
Fri 06:24 PM...00...03...20...39...NC-1 rendezvous rocket firing
Fri 06:44 PM...00...03...40...00...SRMS powerup
Fri 06:49 PM...00...03...45...00...SEE setup
Fri 06:59 PM...00...03...55...00...Group B computer powerdown
Fri 07:14 PM...00...04...10...00...SRMS checkout
Fri 07:24 PM...00...04...20...00...ET photo
Fri 07:34 PM...00...04...30...00...Wing leading edge sensors activated
Fri 07:34 PM...00...04...30...00...ET video downlink
Fri 07:54 PM...00...04...50...00...ET umbilical downlink
Fri 09:04 PM...00...06...00...00...Crew sleep begins

•  Visit Spaceflight Now for a minute by minute Shuttle  Flight Plan... 

Animation of the five closest-approach Hartley 2 images ( KFC Chicken leg or cucumber?)

Please visit Tha Planetary Society

Those of you who follow my blog must have known this was coming: now that I got all five new Deep Impact images of Comet Hartley 2 posted and explained, I had to make an animation. Here they are. I rotated them all counterclockwise by a quarter turn and aligned the frames, but otherwise did no processing.

Animation of Deep Impact close-approach images
About an hour after its closest approach of Hartley 2, Deep Impact downlinked five precious images taken during the nearest part of its flyby. The top two images were taken 82 and 16 seconds before closest approach, and the bottom three 18, 57, and 117 seconds after closest approach (image times are 13:58:07, 13:59:13, 13:59:47, 14:00:26, and 14:01:26 UTC on November 4, 2010). They show a very active comet with numerous jets. Credit: NASA / JPL / UMD / animation by Emily Lakdawalla 

DID EARTH ENCOUNTER PIECES OF AN ALIEN VISITOR LAST NIGHT?

This is how Comet Hartley 2 might appear in the eyepiece of a large amateur telescope. Located about eight degrees (16 full moon diameters) away from the bright star Procyon as it leaves the constellation Gemini, Comet Hartley will be best viewed high in the sky just before dawn. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)

Did Earth encounter pieces of an alien visitor last night? Apparently so! It appears tiny pieces of Comet Hartley 2 may have presented a spectacular and startling sky show across the country yesterday. NASA meteor experts had predicted it was a long shot, but the evenings of November 2nd and 3rd might display a meteor shower from dust which puffed off this visiting comet as it passed within twelve million miles of Earth. And indeed, the Center for Astrophysics has collected several sightings of bright meteors called fireballs, which result when comet dust burns up in Earth's atmosphere.

Helga Cabral in Seascape, California, reported after 9 pm last night, "I saw a bright white ball and tail, arcing towards the ocean. It was quite beautiful and it looked like it was headed out to sea and so picture perfect it could have been a movie!" Three thousand miles away just north of Boston, Teresa Witham witnessed a similar cosmic event. "I was in the Revere area about 7:15 last night, driving north on Route 1, when a brilliant object with a tail passed in front of me -- very similar in appearance to a shooting star but it appeared much lower to the Earth than a typical shooting star would be. If it weren't for the fact that I had my daughter with me, I'd begin to believe I'd imagined it."

Comet Hartley 2 has put on quite a nice show for amateur astronomers over the past few weeks, sporting a vivid green coma or halo around it and a golden auburn tail of dust. NASA's Deep Impact/EPOXI probe will present dramatic close-up images of the comet when it zooms past the nucleus on November 4th.

When a comet approaches the Sun, it heats up unevenly, throwing off dust, ice and bits of rock. When the Earth encounters some of this space debris, it is seen as a beautiful meteor shower.

"Many people don't realize that the famous periodic meteor shower in August, the Perseids, is the remains of Comet Swift-Tuttle and the Orionids, appearing in late October, are leftovers from Comet Halley," said Tim Spahr, Director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA.

So for the next two evenings, we may see more of Comet Hartley 2. And if you have dark skies and a small telescope or binoculars, try to find Comet Hartley 2 itself. It will be near the bright star Procyon in the constellation Canis Minor near Orion the Hunter, which will be high overhead in the early hours before dawn.

ODIN SATELLITE OBSERVES WATER IN COMET 103P/HARTLEY 2

A map of water in Comet Hartley 2, observed by Odin on 29 October
2010. Copyright 2010 Swedish Space Corporation/Centre National
d’Etudes Spatiales/Observatoire de Paris.

The Odin satellite observed Comet Hartley 2 almost continuously from 29 October to 1 November. The water signature (line) was easily detected. Its extension and space distribution is shown on a map (Fig. 1). The production of water derived from the observations ranges from 180 to 300 kg (400 to 660 lb) per second.


This production of water (Fig. 2) is rapidly varying with time. This is in line with variations reported from other means of observation. It may be related to the rotation of the comet's nucleus, for which periods around 17h have been reported.

Comet 103P/Hartley 2 is a Jupiter-family comet orbiting the Sun close to the ecliptic plane, with a period of 6.5 years. Its return this year is exceptional. It passed perihelion on 28 October at 1.059 AU from the Sun (158 million km; 98 million miles) and on 20 October, it came close to the Earth, at only 0.121 AU (18 million km; 11 million miles). Furthermore, it is the target of NASA's mission EPOXI, which is to fly by the comet on 4 November.

At this occasion, this comet is the object of an intense, international campaign of observation which mobilizes all major astronomical resources, including the Herschel Space Observatory. The Odin satellite is participating to this campaign.

The Odin satellite is a small spacecraft, orbiting the Earth, designed and built by Sweden, in collaboration with Canada, Finland and France. It was launched in February 2001. Aimed for studying both the Universe (astronomy) and the terrestrial atmosphere (aeronomy), it allows for the observation of a number of molecular lines, at radio (submillimeter range) wavelengths, otherwise not accessible from the ground: in particular the fundamental water line at 556.9 GHz.

Odin is thus well suited for the study of water, the main constituent of cometary ices, released as water vapor following heating of cometary nuclei by the Sun.

Since its launch, Odin has observed about 15 comets. Now closed for astronomical observations, the Odin satellite concentrates on aeronomical studies, except for special occasions such as the passage of Comet Hartley 2.

Figure 2:

http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/jacques-crovisier/odin_hartley_2.jpg


The evolution of the production of water in Comet Hartley 2, as observed with Odin. Copyright 2010 Swedish Space Corporation/Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales/Observatoire de Paris.

Reference:International Astronomical Union electronic telegram No. 2524.

Solar ring sigbaar in Gauteng: Pretoria en Secunda

Foto:  Roland Friend, Secunda.

So 10:30 (Maandag 1 November) bel my broer Ben uit Johannesburg. "Daar's `n sirkel om die son! Gaan kyk! Ek besef dadelik wat dit is, want die vorige een was `n sirkel om die maan (Sien blog). Tog loer ek by die venster uit en sien niks. Dit het toe die vorige dag by hulle gereën en hoë cirrus wolke was nog in die lug. 

• (Sien blog vir sirkel om die maan).

Skaars `n halfuur later storm  kollega Nellie Friend  van die Universiteit by my in en vertel van die kring om die son, maar die son is te skerp en sy  kan dit nie sien nie. Haar seun, Roland Friend van Secunda het gebel en gesê sy moet kyk. Hy het ook die foto hier bo geneem en vir ons aangestuur. 

Ek kan nie die foto dadelik op die blog laai nie en stuur dit vir Auke Slotegraaf in die Kaap. Hy is toe in dieselfde bootjie - besig om van internet versakaffers te verander. Hy kon toe darem die foto gistermiddag op sy blog gaan laai.

Besoek dit gerus: psychohistorian.org en lees meer oor die verskynsel.

Solar ring visible in Gauteng Pretoria and also Secunda.