The Trilogy is Complete — GigaGalaxy Zoom Phase 3

Part 3 featuring M8 (Lagoon Nebula) is now posted.
–Ben

The Trilogy is Complete — GigaGalaxy Zoom Phase 3

The third image of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project has just been released online, completing this eye-opening dive into our galactic home in outstanding fashion. The latest image follows on from views, released over the last two weeks, of the sky as seen with the unaided eye and through an amateur telescope. This third instalment provides another breathtaking vista of an astronomical object, this time a 370-million-pixel view of the Lagoon Nebula of the quality and depth needed by professional astronomers in their quest to understand our Universe.

370-million-pixel starscape
of the Lagoon Nebula

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-36-09.html

http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/

WE HAVE SUNSPOTS!

WE HAVE SUNSPOTS!

I Haven’t seen them due to clouds over my house but SOHO has.

Nice one at the 8:00 position.

–Ben

The Very Latest SOHO Images

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html

Planck First Light Survey results confirm excellent performance

fyi:

VERY COOL satellite.

“…Planck the coldest object in space at just 0.1° above absolute zero (-273.15°C)…”

–Ben

First Light Survey results confirm excellent performance

The Planck space observatory, ESA’s mission to study the early Universe, has successfully completed its initial test survey of the sky, confirming that both of the scientific instruments and the sophisticated cryogenics, all of which the UK played a key role in building, are working well. Following the successful survey, Planck has now embarked on its 15 month mission to map the structure of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) – the relic radiation from the Big Bang…

…The Planck satellite was launched along with the Herschel satellite on 14th May 2009 from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket. During its 6 week journey to its observation point around L2, 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from Earth, the scientific instruments were cooled to extremely low temperatures, making Planck the coldest object in space at just 0.1° above absolute zero (-273.15°C). It took around 6 weeks for Planck to cool down to these low temperatures, after which a further 6 weeks were spent calibrating the instruments…

http://planck.cf.ac.uk/node/136

Smallest exoplanet is shown to be a solid, rocky world

Cool!
–Ben

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Smallest exoplanet is shown to be a solid, rocky world

*The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet, CoRoT-7b, has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe.

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=45518

ESO unveils an amazing, interactive, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire night sky

Nice eye candy of the backbone of night.
has both large image files and quicktime pans

–Ben

ESO unveils an amazing, interactive, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire night sky

The first of three images of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project — a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO’s observing sites in Chile — has just been released online. The project allows stargazers to explore and experience the Universe as it is seen with the unaided eye from the darkest and best viewing locations in the world.

This 360-degree panoramic image, covering the entire celestial sphere, reveals the cosmic landscape that surrounds our tiny blue planet. This gorgeous starscape serves as the first of three extremely high-resolution images featured in the GigaGalaxy Zoom project, launched by ESO within the framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). GigaGalaxy Zoom features a web tool that allows users to take a breathtaking dive into our Milky Way. With this tool users can learn more about many different and exciting objects in the image, such as multicoloured nebulae and exploding stars, just by clicking on them. In this way, the project seeks to link the sky we can all see with the deep, “hidden” cosmos that astronomers study on a daily basis. The wonderful quality of the images is a testament to the splendour of the night sky at ESO’s sites in Chile, which are the most productive astronomical observatories in the world.

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-32-09.html

Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe

The NEW Hubble images are here…. The NEW Hubble images are here!

Great NEW shots of NGC 6302 (Butterfly Nebula, Bug Nebula), Jet in Carina, Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) & Stephan’s Quintet

They are cool… as all HST images are.

–Ben
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Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/

Hubble 3D to Reveal Unprecedented Views of the Universe in IMAX(R) Theatres Starting March 19, 2010

Mark your calendars.
–Ben
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Hubble 3D to Reveal Unprecedented Views of the Universe in IMAX(R) Theatres Starting March 19, 2010

Audiences to Accompany Spacewalking Astronauts as They Perform the Final Upgrade to the Hubble Space Telescope

IMAX Corporation (Nasdaq:IMAX) (TSX:IMX), and Warner Bros. Pictures today announced that Hubble 3D will be released exclusively in IMAX(R) and IMAX(R) 3D theatres worldwide beginning March 19, 2010, with expansion to additional IMAX locations on April 23rd, timed to the Hubble Space Telescope’s 20th Anniversary.

The IMAX 3D camera, which flew onboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, captured stunning 3D images of the intricate spacewalks required to service the telescope during the most recent mission last May. Shot by the STS-125 astronauts, this intimate look at the complexities of repairing the telescope will put IMAX audiences right there along-side the spacewalking astronauts. Hubble 3D will combine this awe-inspiring IMAX footage with breathtaking up-close imagery of distant galaxies, the birth of stars and planets, and more — revealing the cosmos as never before.

“We have waited a long time to get the IMAX camera back into space and finally the opportunity came with the amazing final repair mission of the Hubble Space Telescope,” said Toni Myers, director, producer and editor of the film. “In Hubble 3D, audiences will be able to float in space alongside the astronauts as they perform the repairs and upgrades to the telescope, and then fly to the edge of the universe, through its first new images. Hubble’s incredible legacy changes the way we see and think about the universe, and it is an honor to give people a chance to experience its breath-taking images in IMAX 3D.”

On Wednesday, September 9th, NASA will unveil the first images from the newly re-furbished Hubble Space Telescope. Visit www.nasa.gov for more information.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29129

New Slackers

For those of you who listen to the podcast, you know that we’ve added Mike Simonsen to the Slacker Astronomy podcast crew. Mike is a funny guy, an accomplished amateur astronomer, a member of the AAVSO staff and a friend of ours for many years. Mike is a go-getter and has been doing interviews for us already! He also has his own astronomy blog, Simostronomy, which is very interesting and well-written. We are really lucky to have Mike on board with us.

You also may have noticed some new blog posts by Ben Huset. Ben is an avid follower of space and astronomy news and tidbits and he will be posting some of his findings on the blog. If you’ve gotten used to the fact that we don’t post much on the blog, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Make sure to subscribe to the blog’s RSS or Atom feed to get the latest from Ben.

Remember that the door is always open to you, too! Send us some audio, show ideas, questions or challenges and we will do what we can to do something entertaining with it.

New show in the works, so stay tuned! You haven’t heard the last of Aaron, Rebecca and Travis either…(queue suspenseful music)

Mt Wilson Fire stuff

interesting fire satellite photos here:

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/09/01/satellite-images-of-california-wildfires-mt-wilson-update/

Interesting fire blog posts by /Hal McAlister, Director /CHARA Array @ /Mt Wilson /on (http://www.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/fire.php)

fire map here
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1856/

Mt Wilson is on the SE edge of the fire

*The Mount Wilson webserver has gone down, most likely due to a backfire infiltration of a pull box containing telephone lines that bring us our T1 internet service. The will be no more updates from the Towercam, the last one being upoaded at 13:49:06.

All news updates have now been moved to a different server and are posted here .

Last picture from Mt Wilson webcam posted here
http://mwcam.pna.ucla.edu/towercam.htm