Breaking News for sky aficionados

Pretty unusual stellar occultation by an asteroid highlight of November

2009-11-05T20:02:00.003+01:00

Asteroids are always causing interest, be it a discovery in New Zealand or a very small one occulting a very bright star along a narrow strip (so far either negative or clouded-out reports have been received). A more promising and scientifically important event is coming up on the morning of Nov. 21, however, when (234) Barbara hits at 7.5 mag. star - and this asteroid is double and has been measured by optical interferometry. Chords from the occultation - visible in Florida and Europe - would provide a crucial test of this method and could actually deliver higher resolution. Other than that only the Leonids (with a max. ZHR between 150 and 200 according to the latest models) and a Jupiter/Moon conjunction on Nov. 23 seem to be important in November; other previews here, hier, hier, hier and/und hier.

In other news three comets in one picture (one undiscovered at the time), two comets in one view and LINEAR. • Just for the record another impact hoax, this time in Latvia (more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more and more links, more or less enlightened). • Detailed analysis of an Antares occultation by the Moon. • Mars inside Messier 44 (a preview and Mars close-up) plus a Moon/Jupiter conjunction from the Philippines. • The largest sunspot in ages on Oct. 30, Oct. 28 (more) and Oct. 26 (more). • Nova Sgr 2009 #4 (more). • A Bright Star Monitor at work. • The Mellinger mosaic has now a press release, copied e.g. here and here. • What an almost blind astronomer can do. • An ISS/Moon transit from Germany. • And a fullmoon rainbow in the headlines.

An Orionids "peak" that never ends? ZHR ~40 for 3+ days now

2009-10-24T22:43:00.010+02:00

Expectations were for a prolonged maximum of the Orionids meteor shower this year, but with a more or less distinct peak either early on Oct. 21 or Oct. 22. Instead the activity remains high at a level of roughly ZHR ~40 since early October 20 - for three full days now and with no drop-off in sight. Some pictures, a report on the long maximum (earlier, still earlier), some analysis and for the record further previews here, here, here (earlier), here and here. • Finally some consensus re. the Leonids this year is building: The "500 or more" modeller has come down to ~200 as the max. ZHR - and his main 'competitor' is up to ~175. So it'll be a shower a bit below the Perseids this year? But in any case with less lunar interference! • The Canadian September bolide has led to several meteorite discoveries! A press release, an earlier one and coverage here and here. • From the Dutch/N German bolide much better pictures and stories here, here, here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier (mehr), hier and/und hier.

In other minor body news such a body of 5 to 10 meters exploded over Indonesia on Oct. 8 (well studied thanks to infrasound recordings), while a rock of similar size safely passed Earth a week later - and the exact events around the case of 2008 TC3 and the political 'impact' are still debated. • Meanwhile the largest NEO discovery in over one year has been reported (and doubted!); with a H~16 the size is around 2 km. • And in Russia a meteorite. • Elsewhere in the solar system comet 217P/LINEAR suffered an outburst - while never exceeding 10th mag., the comet looked a bit like 17P/Holmes in good pictures initially. Here are some of Oct. 22, Oct. 18 (more), Oct. 17 (more, more, more, more), Oct. 16 (more), Oct. 15 (more, more), Oct. 14 (more, more) and Oct. 13, plus a visual report from Sep.; the Indian observer wasn't impressed.

In other news a Moon/Antares appulse (actual occultation missed) and the morning planet/Moon arrangements of Oct. 16 in Germany and Italy and on Oct. 15 (more), Oct. 14 in the U.S. and Germany (sequence 1 - 2 - 3 and more) and Oct. 13, plus several more pictures. • STEREO images of a big prominence (alt.; more). • As this blogger also confirmed visually this morning, Epsilon Aurigae is at 3.4 mag., half-way between max. and min. The eclipse may have been delayed a bit - and while visual estimates are easy, though some)(it's easy, they can be off by several tenths of a mag., depending on the eye). • Will R CrB ever become bright again? The current minimum lasts 2+ years already! • Another amateur exoplanet detection. • Stellar occultations by Minerva are worth observing. • predicted effects from unusual experiments (see 16:37 entry) during a rocket launch led to weird sky effects over South Africa and Europe; see also here! • Finally winners of an astrophoto competition and another near-space balloon flight just for fun.

Spectacular fireball over Netherlands this evening not the only one in recent days

2009-10-13T23:48:00.018+02:00

It happened near 17:00 UTC today over the Netherlands but was also seen - low in the sky - from Northern Germany: a bright fireball at dusk of which also a dramatic photograph exists. Soon more reports came in, like here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here (the latter with great pics of the smoke trail dispersing): The bolide split in mid-flight into half a dozen fragments, and a trail in the sky remained for many minutes. • There were also bright fireballs over New Mexico on Oct. 9 and Canada on Sep. 25 (a possible meteorite-dropper, also mentioned last time and also here, here, here and here). • Also an update on the Pacific bolide and an unusual bolide report from a soccer fan forum! • An all-too-often quoted prediction for the 2009 Leonids had them peak at a max. ZHR of 500 - but this calculation (never supported by other dust trail theorists) has now been retracted, with a max. ZHR of 200 instead. Still impressive perhaps, but only on a par with e.g. this year's Perseids. • More insights about the asteroid-turned-bolide-turned-meteorites 2008 TC3 have been published (alt., alt., more, more and more). And the impact risk for Apophis is all but gone as discussed in detail here.

In other news the La Sagra Sky Survey - just recently successful for the first time - has discovered its 2nd comet, with perihelion next January. • Recent studies deal with the rotation of the nuclei of comets Tempel 2 and Lulin (also discussed here). • Nice pictures of the tails of Garradd and 217P/LINEAR on Oct. 4. • Of the current morning sky show with various conjunctions of planets nice views of Oct. 13 (Saturn close to Venus) and Oct. 9 (Saturn close to Mercury), plus a Moon/M 45 conjunction on Oct. 7 (also a - controversial - composite attempt). • Meanwhile on Jupiter a dark spot on Sep. 19 (rotating), the surface of Callisto and a mutual event on Oct. 3 (another and yet another report). • Hi-res pics of the Moon. • An analysis and Oct. 3 report on Eps Aur's fade - and TT Ari is fading, too. • Finally Earth weather leaking into space, problems with Pan-STARRS, the sociology of Galaxy Zoo volunteers and a fine ISS in front of moon (not its shadow, of course).

The eclipse of Epsilon Aurigae has begun: 0.3 mag. drop evident

2009-09-30T22:47:00.012+02:00

Go to the light curve generator of the AAVSO, enter "eps aur" as the object, 60 or 80 days as the interval and select only "V" magnitudes: out comes a light curve that monotonously falls from a level 3.0 mag. to 3.25 mag. right now over approximately the past month (using "visual" instead leaves a much noisier picture). Thus the long-awaited eclipse of mystery star Epsilon Aurigae has clearly begun, the first in 27 years - and this time the interest is higher than ever, esp. with the (much promoted) Citizen Sky campaign under way. Here the lightcurve is discussed in detail (earlier, still earlier, even earlier); using the last eclipse of the weird long-period system as a template, the brightness should drop to 3.8 mag. over the next two to three months and then hover there throughout 2010. • Meanwhile an outburst of Z And has been reported.

In other news there were two sunspot groups on the disk simultaneously, something not seen in a long time! A close-up of one of the groups on Sep. 26 (when also a big prominence was seen) and reports from Sep. 23 (more), Sep. 22 and Sep. 21. • Sun-related also a comparision of H-alpha telescopes (but is it fair?) and new insights about the solar cycle and a current surge of cosmic rays due to the low activity level (more, more and more). • In the comet world we have the first discovery by the La Sagra Sky Survey, comet 217P over M 42 (also an AAPOD) and one day later, Garradd with a long tail (by F. Kugel), the case of Pigott-LINEAR-Kowalski and Christensen. • Big bolides have been reported e.g. from Argentina, Canada and Namibia, numerous new weak meteor showers have been recognized; we have a new PHA - and the discoverer of 2008 TC3 has now a piece of "his" asteroid after it turned into a meteorite shower over Sudan! There will be a conference on the subject right there, in December - including further meteorite searching!

• Here is a long report about a possible detection of Io's atmosphere by an amateur during a mutual event; also "normal" event reports of Sep. 26 (also as a dramatic video!) and Sep. 9. Plus fine Jupiter images from September and also July - the latter taken at Pic du Midi with 1 meter. • There's now another Galaxy Zoom concentrating on the center region (also reported here) - plus a direct comparision of the two full-sky mosaics discussed 2 weeks ago: Mellinger's has higher resolution becuase Brunier's is actually oversampled. (There's also a another mosaic of only the Lagoon Nebula.) • A short-lived rocket experiment created a glowing cloud in the U.S. sky, causing some news coverage (see also here, here and here). • Also a remarkable amateur picture of the HTV (see also here and here) - and amateur satellite watchers found out what a secret satellite is probably good for. • Sky highlights in October 2009 mostly deal with constellations of the planets.

Oct. 6 morning: Largest elongation of Mercury with 18° (best morning apparition of the year for the Northern hemisphere; best view should be from Oct. 6 to 15)
Oct. 8 morning: Mercury just 0.3° SW of Saturn (which just emerges from the Sun's glare); Mercury 5 times brighter.
Oct. 10 morning: Venus, Saturn and Mercury close together
Oct. 12 morning: Moon close to Mars
Oct. 13 morning: Venus 0.6° W of Saturn (and 100 times brighter) - and the opposition loop of Jupiter ends
Oct. 16 morning: Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury and the Moon form a nice constellation
Oct. 21 late afternoon: The Moon occults Antares for Europe

Meteor-wise it'll be mainly the Orionids that should cause interest - and around their Oct.21 peak the Moon is practically gone. • Finally a report from the HHT, a star party in Eastern Germany (another, another and another report); also a note on a starparty on Palomar Mtn. - and the 1st issue of Practical Astronomy is out.

Who's got the best mega-mosaic of the whole sky in visible light?

2009-09-16T20:58:00.011+02:00

What an amazing coincidence: Practically simultaneously two color mosaics of the whole sky with more than half a billion pixels each have been published, one by a physicist, the other by a science writer, but both did their work as tireless amateur astronomers over many months. One is by Axel Mellinger who also describes his work in a scientific paper: Great care was taken to achieve photometric calibration and foreground subtraction. This amazing achievement went unnoticed in an ESO Press Release a few weeks later presenting another mosaic by Serge Brunier which has even more pixels but less photometric precision it would seem (the images were taken with a DSLR cameras and stitched with commercial software). Still ESO is incorporating the latter mosaic into its "Giga-Galaxy Zoom" project - let's see which mosaic will become the new gold standard (as Mellinger's original mosaic made from chemical pictures in 2000 might be called).

In other news we have a rare outburst of the suspected UGWZ star VX For (a sensation for some), the 125th supernova discovery by an individual amateur, the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (where everyone can help) and the Hyper-Velocity Stars Project utilizing the SDSS Galaxy-Zoo-style. • From the 22 July Total Solar Eclipse we have a hi-res corona composite and a 3rd contact by Druckmüller & al., the official word and a 21-min. video about the Indian commercial eclipse flight, pictures and a slide show from Wuhan, a report from Hangzhou, a narrated slide-show from Wuzhen (featuring yours truly; incl. Wuhan) and a report from Shanghai. There are also a very detailled report on the 1 Aug. 2008 TSE, a speculative "eclipsology" blog - and, vastly more on the fringe, the TSE/UFO madness of 2009 ... • Talking about the Sun, there are speculations about its fading B field (summarized here and discussed here) and facts about the - minuscule - climate impact of solar events. And it was 150 years ago that the most powerful flare ever struck.

• Many more mutual events of Jovian moons have been observed, e.g. on Sep. 12, Sep. 8/9 (more), Sep. 1, Aug. 24/25 (more, more), Aug. 19 (more), Aug. 15 and other dates. • Pictures of the Wesley impact spot on Aug. 18 and various dates; it's pretty much gone now. • There is yet another comet McNaught with a moderately promising outlook; we had unusual activity in 217P (earlier, more), the recovery of P/2003 A1 (LINEAR), a new Hill, the unusual asteroid 2009 QY6, indications on 17P/Holmes splintering in connection with its 2007 outburst, the 2009 Wilson Awards and the 50th comet discovery by R. McNaught. • There were lots of reports about an Irish bolide on Sep. 3 while more has been reported about the Belgian case - and fine composite images of the 2009 Perseids have been published. • A fine "Etruscan Vase" Moon (more here), other recent "Vases" of Sun & Moon and various atmospherical optics in Ireland, plus a visit to Tacande Obs. on La Palma. • Finally some highlights of September 2009 -

Sep. 16: Uranus in Opposition at 5.7 mag. (try it with the naked eye).
Sep. 17: Saturn in Conjunction with the Sun, spoiling attempts to follow the ring plane crossing events from Earth.
Sep. 29: The Moon visits Jupiter, still a great sight (and the main target of the Galilean Nights a month later).

While the planet Mercury is in conjunction with the Sun this month, it can still be "observed" very well near the end of it, by the way: MESSENGER will perform its 3rd close fly-by on Sep. 29 (about when a morning apparition begins) for a final gravity assist that will enable it to enter orbit about Mercury in 2011. With more than 90 percent of the planet’s surface imaged during the previous two fly-bys, the team will turn its instruments on specific features and uncover more information about the planet closest to the Sun.

Spectacular mutual event movies from Jupiter, complicated Perseids, a tough penumbral eclipse and more

2009-08-19T23:51:00.016+02:00

Hard to define the highlight of astronomical events observed in the past two weeks - but a hi-res video of a mutual event of two Jovian satellites on Aug. 16 from the Philippines may well be it; it's also discussed here, here, here and here while someone else measured a nice lightcurve. A few hours earlier another mutual event movie with resolved satellites was shot in Germany while this this video from France of Aug. 4 led to a fine lightcurve, too. • Io covering its own shadow near opposition. • About the occultation of 45 Cap a long report with some analysis and an article with few insights but pretty pictures.

• While at Jupiter, here is a detection of its moon Thebe by an amateur with a scope < 1 m - probably two firsts for this moon discovered by Voyager 1! • About the fading impact spot we have brief updates from Aug. 18 and Aug. 16, a longer report and an update of Aug. 13, a polar animation, a drawing of Aug. 18, pictures of Aug. 7 and Aug. 6 (another one, also an animation and a smooth-morphed version, and yet another picture), several current pictures with & without the spot, a video from July, a long summary of events, a podcast in which H. Hammel discusses the HST observations - and yet another podcast.

Saturn's rings at equinox with the Sun exactly from the side have been hard to observe as the planet is very close to the Sun now - but there are pictures of Aug. 10, Aug. 14 and Aug. 15 (a daytime image!) and visual reports of Aug. 14 and Aug. 15. • On Uranus an amateur detection of Miranda (there is still some interest in these moons). • And Venus on Aug. 8.

The penumbral eclipse of the Moon on Aug. 6 was invisible to the eye, regardless of optical equipment (incl. none at all) - but the effect could be brought out photographically: by image subtraction like here, here, here, here (more), here, here or here or by blinking like here, here, here (more) or here. • The Moon vs. the Pleiades on Aug. 14, the thin waning lunar crescent on Aug. 19 very close to new moon, very hi-res Moon pics and the ISS crossing the Sun with many details.

10 years after the big solar eclipse in Europe some look back here, here, here, here or here. • And more pics/vids/reports from the big eclipse of 2009 from Varanasi (contact animation), the Indian flight, Chongqing, Wuhan (plus a picture), Tianhuangping (more, other expedition), Hangzhou, Yangshan, Japan and the Costa Classica (a report and more pics & data). Plus a highly processed corona from Enewetak!

The Perseids - more previews here, here and here - reached three separate maxima! From the night Aug. 12/13 a video (someone else had 1000 meteors on his camera), fine Mintron stills, a report from Europe and a composite image, from the outburst on Aug. 12 one locations's data, a report and notes about the brightness of the meteors, from the night Aug. 11/12 a composite, someone thinking these were the best Perseids in years, a review, another one, a gallery, more pictures, another composite, a nice picture, radio experiments, the alleged success of a hyped Twitter event which made not everyone happy (including amateur astronomers because of the extremely low signal/noise) - and a Perseids satire.

A fireball over central Europe on Aug. 15 at 20:00 UTC has considerable 'impact' such as here, here, here, here (video during a music festival!) and here. • Meet the SALSA meteor camera. • The new comet Garradd might reach 8th mag. in 2011 while a new Boattini isn't promising. • There are a new Nova Oph (Aug. 17 pig, report) and Nova Sgr #3 (report) - while a bizarre video tried to explain Eps Aur. • Finally impressions from Stellafane 2009.

Penumbral eclipse, Perseid peak, Jupiter opposition likely highlights in August

2009-08-06T00:15:00.020+02:00

The first highlight of the month is already history: the occultation of the relatively bright star 45 Cap by Jupiter, well visible from Europe. A few observers in the visible saw the star brighten just when it made contact with the planet's atmosphere, and there is even a video of this (rather typical, it seems) phenomenon. There are also an image sequence, pictures here and here and reports here and here (as well as an earlier hi-res pic of star & moons, a report of these "5 satellites" and more) - but the most important results are expected to come from big(ger) observatories working in the infrared where Jupiter is suppressed a great deal. Early reports indicate, for example, that light from the star - blinking strongly - could still be detected many minutes after ingress in the K band: Expect some exciting papers in the future! Meanwhile the next event of August (see also here and here) is imminent:

July 6, 0:39 UTC: Maximum of a penumbral eclipse of the Moon; also an animation and an article. It should be seen as a moderate darkening of one part of the disk.
Aug. 10: The Sun crosses the ring plane of Saturn, causing exciting shadow effects (which only Cassini can watch well); the Earth then crosses the ring plane on Sep. 4 but this is very close to conjunction.
Aug. 11/12: Peak of the Perseids - their activity profile is already ramping up slowly and could reach 200 briefly this year because of several factors. Unfortunately the show will be bathed in moonlight - and accompanied by a Twitter event and various parties.
Aug. 14: Jupiter in opposition at -2.9 mag. - and still decorated by the now very elongated impact cloud (for which we also have a Wikipedia entry, transit forecasts, pics of Aug. 5 and Aug. 3 [another one], a movie of July 30 [incl. a morphed version], a comparision of different dates and coverage from Aug. 5 and Aug. 3).
Aug. 17: Neptune in opposition at +7.8 mag., still in the vicinity of Jupiter.

In other news the expected darkening of Epsilon Aurigae still had not begun by the end of July; notes from a big workshop on the eclipse can be found in this post and the following few ("Newer Post"). • The discovery of 3 new comets may be noteworthy as is this nice image of comet Garradd from July 26. • Wolfram|Alpha is reiterating its claim that it has a lot to offer for all kinds of things astronomical, we have 7 Great Discoveries by Amateur Astronomers and their role in GRB afterglow hunting and discoveries in old spacecraft images.

A lot more links about the solar eclipse of July 22nd have turned up (or finally been found by yours truly; see also this meta-list). Science-wise we now have a nice flash spectrum and many weather data (both from Wuhan). From India reports, pics & videos from Surat, Varanasi, Sarasam (crappy video with hilarious soundtrack!), Taregna (also a TV story) and Patna. From Bangladesh a report, preparations and an event at the Indian border, also hailed here. From Bhutan a video and another one. From Chengdu a report, from Chongqing a report (with a Tibetan prelude), pictures and a processed one, and from Wuhan a report and another one - and CCTV coverage.

From Wuzhen more pictures, a report (and related news story), another and another one. From Hangzhou a report in parts 1 and 2, another one and pictures, and from Tianhuangping a report. From Jiaxing a TV story, a report and another one, from Jinshan a report, another and another one, and from Shanghai a video and a news story. From Japan the NHK live TV report, with a hi-res corona/chromosphere/prominences video & horizon pans (and another one from a ship), from the Costa Allegra no eclipse, from the Costa Classica the best eclipse (more pictures and a video from the same observer and still more pictures) and from the Paul Gauguin a report.

Three eclipses in the news: Eps Aur, Jup vs. 45 Cap and another TSE round-up

2009-08-01T22:10:00.007+02:00

Eclipses - of three very different kinds - are the top stories right now or should be: in once a mystery object is about to move in front of the star Epsilon Aurigae, in another Jupiter will occult a bright star, and there is a lot more to tell (or rather link) about the longest total eclipse of the Sun of the 21st century. The big story of the past two week, the surprise impact on Jupiter, is being treated in a box in the current Cosmic Mirror, however, while strong noctilucent cloud activity will be covered further down.

The eclipse of Epsilon Aurigae - already discussed a year ago and introduced also here and here has actually begun - kind of. A spectroscopic precursor was first seen on 20 July when a new absorption feature appeared, belonging to the mystery occulting object. The brightness of the star in the visible seems to hold at 3.0 mag., though, but could begin its 0.75 mag. decline any day now. • Meanwhile the Moon occulted Antares on 31 July and the Plejades on 18 July. And the mutual events of the Jovian satellites continue, as videos here and here show (plus Jupiter on 5 July with spots and Saturn w/o rings, almost, on 16 July).

The eclipse of 45 Capricorni by Jupiter (technically an occultation) takes place in the night of 3/4 August for Europe, and the IOTA-ES has put a lot of information here; more accounts can be found here and here. Many experienced observers are already preparing for the difficult observation (best done with a large scope and a methane filter to suppress Jupiter's glare). Here are a paper and another one on two previous stellar occultations by Jupiter and what could be learned from them - and this paper shows how much science occultation lightcurves can contain, in the case of Pluto.

The eclipse of the century has led to many more web pages than mentioned 5 days ago, some new, some only found now. From Space we have images from Chandrayaan of the shadow on Earth as seen from lunar orbit (also discussed here) and the view from Terra and MTSAT. We also have the final prediction - made July 19 - of the corona shape. Observing reports and pictures: From Emei Shan clouds. From Chengdu clouds. From Chongqing pictures, more and more pictures (series). From Wuhan a slide show and corona composite, a report, pictures (more from that trip and some processing attempts, another report, also here) and more pictures 1, 2 and 3. From Anji a report.

From Wuzhen the picture report by yours truly is now complete with chemical pictures (and there is a trip timeline with more picture pages linked) while here a nice corona from the same location is seen. From the western water town come this, this and this report. From Jinshan a report and another one, from Hangzhou a report, from Ningbo pictures and from Shanghai a report and another one. From the Costa Classica (which had the clearest skies of all) pictures here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, from the Gauguin a report and also some partial impressions, general thoughts (more and mehr), a TV report and a cartoon, very true ... :-)

In other news the night of 14/15 July seems to have been a major one for noctilucent clouds around the globe as reports here, here (by yours truly - from a plane over Russia), here, here, here, here, here and here, the picture pages here, here and here and stories here and here indicate. Almost every night something happens, however: Here are also reports of NLCs in the night 13/14 July (more), 12/13 July (the view from Hersel) and June (more from 18 June). Plus we have occasional volcanic effects.

• Currently there is a meteorite hunt in the U.S. locations underway, with the "Mason-Dixon fireball over Maryland - early reports, video, more, more - the newer case, also involving a strange photo through a telescope. Another fresh meteorite discovery in April apparently led to some controversy as reports here, here and here indicate - meteorites can be big business ... • Finally a story on a Japanese SN hunter, advice on a clever sun viewer (if there only was something to view on it!), a cool ISS in front of the Sun picture, an ISS/Progress sighting and more Galaxy Zoo successes.

Longest total eclipse of the century - seen by some, missed by many

2009-07-27T19:28:00.022+02:00

As had been widely expected, due to the southernness of the totality track and Asia's monsoon, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions living in the zone (or of the tens of thousands who came to visit) actually saw the total solar eclipse on 22 July 2009, though all got to experience often over five minutes of darkness. The deluge of pre-event stories can be found here - here is a first round-up of links five days after the event that won't be topped in length until 2132. As will be seen, clear views were abundant especially around Varanasi in India and between Chongqing and Wuhan in China, though isolated spots in Eastern China also had good views - with the notable exception of the mega-city of Shanghai where it rained during totality. Out in the Pacific there were also successes. Particularly recommended links in the following collection are in italics!

Picture collections in different styles were prepared e.g. by the Boston Globe and the Sacramento Bee (both extra large!), SpaceWeather, Flickr (more), Nat'l Geographic, the BBC, Novosti, the New York Times, the Economic Times (India), the Telegraph, German.china.org, MSN, IMAM, MSNBC and Discovery (Flash slide-show) - and there were some thoughts on eclipse photographs as such plus a sampling of Flickr goodies (more). Much more material, though, can be found in individual reports & pictures:

From Varanasi (where the clouds cleared just in time) we have a stunning multi sequence, the corona, a picture sequence, another and another one as well as an AFP pic (another and another one), a news story and early and later and detailled reports. From other Indian places come reports from Surat and from Bihar (also a long article and a picture). Also a news story from an eclipse flight (another, another, another, a report, a blog report and a press release) and another scientific two. And more coverage of the eclipse in India in general here, here, here, here.

From Nepal we have a a blog report, from Bhutan another a blog report and a totality pic and from Tibet some pictures & links. From Chongquing or nearby come a report w/pics, the diamond ring at 2nd contact, a wide-angle view during totality and a Xinhua pic. From or near Yichang we have a long story w/pics in Spanish, a report in English and a quoted tweet, while from Changsha a Reuters pic came.

From Wuhan we have a striking wide-angle view (another and another one), corona composite (another one) and more pics, a picture series, a Flickr Stream, another picture series (100 km SW of Wuhan) and more pictures of Baily's Beads at 2nd contact, a hazy and a pretty clear corona, a wide-angle and a fish-eye view during totality and the inner corona & prominences close to 3rd contact. Plus a 9-min video and CCTV on public reax. From Huangzhou come a blog report, from Anqing a picture series w/prominence detail and a report and from Huangshan a blog report and a corona.

From Tianhuangping - site of a major scientific expedition from the U.S. - we have a Williams College Press Release, a NYT blog (note the earlier posts linked there; also this and this one) and fine corona pictures. From Anji come a corona pic, more pics and a wire report on successful Indian experiments there, and from Hangzhou we have a nice contact picture and another picture plus a German radio report.

From Wuzhen - where yours truly was located - we have my pictures and reports and more from the same site by B. Brinkmann and K. Schulze-Frerichs as well as a video clip of 2nd contact. There are also some impressions from Water town west with a video clip, an i-report and a TwitPic. From Jiaxing come an Austrian media story, from Suzhou pictures and a German blog entry and from Sheshan a U.S. magazine's report (by a Shanghai blogger).

From rainy Shanghai little of substance was found other than a wide-angle view of the dreadful sky, a German newspaper's account and a confused blogger's (another one). From cloudy Yangshan a report. From large unsuccessful Jinshan on the coast we have a long, a short, another short and a German blog report, some some pictures without and some with the corona and a long slide show. From over the Hangzhou bridge come a report, from Ningbo a Univ. of Nottingham Press Release, a blog report and another one with a video and from Putuoshan island a picture series.

From Japan we have a blog report from Tanegashima and a picture collection. From the ill-fated Costa Allegra ship comes a blog report (and there's a comment on that cruise). From the Marshall Islands we have a report w/pics from Enewetak and a Radio NZ story, from the Northern Cook Islands a great picture of the low Sun (also see the others in the stream) and from Kiribati a report w/pics and another one.

From space come to us a dramatic shadow movie from MTSAT-1R at slow pace as well as pretty hectic, plus two still images of the shadow (also here, here, hier und hier). We also have a deep partial eclipse by Hinode in X-rays (more) and effects of the eclipse on the Koronas-Foton and Fermi satellites. From outside totality on Earth there are a video from Badaling on the Great Wall and reports from Shenzhen, Beijing (more), Xinjiang, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hawaii, Kagoshima and Tokyo. And from outside even partiality online impressions from Germany (earlier).

Further news coverage can be found in a China Daily package as well as here (more), here, here (with links to many other stories like this or this one), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier and hier (mehr, mehr und mehr). Specific articles deal with zoo animals in China (more, also from India; more and more), tidal effects, improvised filters, a magnet storm, the eclipse in a movie, the usual speculations from a certain magazine and an old eclipse inscription claim. And then there were a commentary and a satire ...

Best sunspot in years opens month with record-long solar eclipse

2009-07-07T21:49:00.013+02:00

Just weeks after a detailled model predicted the return of sunspots the best one since about two years actually appeared and evolved for a few days before starting to decay: Here are pictures of AR 11024 from July 7 (more), July 6 (more), July 5 (more, more and many more) and July 4 (more, more, more and more); already in early June some activity was seen. Fittingly the Sun "idiots" book has recently become available online for free (also here). The pick-up in solar activity is a good start for a month that also featured the smallest full Moon today that came combined with a very partial lunar eclipse which probably went largely unobserved - but will be followed by the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century. Previews of July 2009's sky events can be found here, hier and here, with the most notable being

July 10: Jupiter and Neptune only 1/2 degree apart (with Jupiter 12,000 times brighter), an event that will be watched as Galilei once saw the same!
July 18: Another Pleiades occultation by the Moon, visible from Europe.
July 22: Total eclipse of the Sun, visible from India, China and the Pacific - this page has all the links you could possibly want about it! On the occasion of this extra-long eclipse we also have the winners of a logo contest, a big and a shorter review of science at eclipses, a portrait of an eclipse scientist and her adventures and the IAU eclipse dictionary.
July 28: The Southern Delta-Aquarid meteors peak, should reach 10...20 meteors/hour. Alpha-Capricornids and early Perseids can also be seen.
July 31: The Moon occults Antares in parts of the world.

Still well visible in July are Noctilucent Clouds of which great displays were seen in recent days, esp. on the morning of July 2 (more and more reports & pics), July 25 (close-up!) and July 23. • In addition, sometimes impressive sky color effects were seen in recent days, caused by a volcano in Russia which erupted June 12: Reports came in e.g. from July 4, July 3 and July 1 and 4. • Meanwhile in Finland an impressive halo was recorded - about the only 'astronomy' possible there in summer.

In other news the first meteorites from the Arizona fireball have been found! There are also updates about the bolide itself - what it looked and sounded like, plus video & pics - from June 29, 27 and 25 and another newspaper story. • New analysis has become available about the Steinheimer Becken impact crater in Germany, which was apparently an iron body and unrelated to the Ries impactor (another story) and the Vitim impact from 2002. • Nice comet pictures show C/2005 L3 (McNaught) very close to a galaxy (the scene 2 days earlier), 22P/Kopff with a long tail, C/2008 Q3 (Garradd) and C/2006 W3 (Christensen).

• Planet-wise the NEB action on Jupiter (this blog quoted!) as an animation, another "ad" for the mutual events of Jupiter's moons and the darkening of Saturn's rings documented while the Sun moves into the ring plane. • Three personal stories involving Alan Hale and a young SN discoverer and a weird "solargraph" picture. • Finally many have imaged the LCROSS spacecraft as results here, here, here and here show - the old Apollo missions, by the way, were also observed by telescopes on Earth.

A lot of noctilucent cloud activity over Europe in recent days

2009-06-24T21:34:00.007+02:00

The top story for the past three weeks is not entirely cosmic but nearly so: it's noctilucent clouds (NLCs) at over 80 km altitude, just where space is about to begin. This phenomenon (also good for a headline :-) has made news and even today's APOD and is filling up numerous picture galleries. Here are some selected reports and pictures from the evening of June 23 in Germany (also see the following pages; more), June 20 onwards, the morning of June 18 in the UK (more), the evening of June 17 in the UK (more and more), the evening of June 16 in Germany (more, more and more), Austria and the UK (more) and the morning of June 16 in the UK (more).

In planetary news there is a possible new red spot on Jupiter (seen also on June 23), we have a hi-res pic of Ganymede in front of it and further mutual event observations of June 10 (video and lightcurve) and June 2. Meanwhile the rings of Saturn have faded quite dramatically. • Constellation-wise here are on June 21 the Moon on June 21 from the U.S., the Moon and Mercury from Oz and the Moon and Pleiades from NZ, on June 20 up to three planets and the Moon from the U.S., from Germany (more), India (more and more) and Oz and June 19 the view from Canada (great pic!) and Oz. Also a Moon/Antares conjunction and an occultation - though in 2005.

Meteor-, small-body- and impact-wise news came about a fireball in Arizona on June 23, one in New Mexico on June 19 (more) and probably another one over the UK on June 15 (though initial reports were rather confusing). Also a fine fireball picture - and a vague prediction of a meteor superstorm in 2022, caused by comet SW3 which is to be found on this site. • The UK will get a telescope to hunt for NEOs while early-warning satellite data of bolides are no longer available to astronomers (who not all say it's a major blow, by the way).

• Some real meteorite stories regarding Camp Verde and Barringer - and then there was an obvious hoax story about a German boy being hit by a meteorite which then caused a crater in a road: The newspaper responsible for breaking (pun intended) the story has since quietly deleted it from its website but it lives on here (as does a sidebar), but by then it was big international news. Some individual stories here (from a German tabloid), here, here, here and here and online discussion here, here, here, here and here. Staying on the fringe, here, here, here and here we have a discussion of the likelyhood that a meteorite hits a plane in mid-air.

• A new comet named P/2009 L2 (Yang-Gao) is another Chinese amateur discovery: Here are a great pic of June 17 with a DSO and pics of June 21 and June 23. Just as in Feb. 2008 (see here and the preceding posts) the Chinese made the discovery public even before the comet was official - and the response from around the world was swift: Within hours picture after picture after picture after picture after picture after picture came in. • Other interesting current comets: Borrelly on June 12, Garradd on June 22 and June 16 and with a DSO and Christensen on June 21, June 20 (also an animation), June 18, June 15, June 14 and June 13.

In other news it has come out that Spica is an eclipsing binary, the Epsilon Aurigae campaign is making news here, here, here and here, the proper motion of Barnard's Star has been imaged over just 3 years, and we have amateur photometry of exoplanets TrES-3b (more) and CoRoT-2b. • There are now two spots on the Sun (also a prominence on June 13 and more June Sun pics), here are 30 great aurora pics, the aurora from space, an amazing picture of a sprite and a nice green flash. • The AMA has (see p. 52-3) accepted light pollution as a medical problem! • And finally a record-size lunar mosaic, an interview with D. Malin the astrophoto genius, 5 great telescopes for amateurs, an amateur's journey of 5 years, observing with a 30" telescope - and how astronomy is like sailing ...

Venus/Mars conjunction main attraction in June - and yet another lunar orbiter bites the dust

2009-06-05T23:54:00.012+02:00

There are not many "planned" sky highlights in June which sees Saturn retract from the evening skies and Jupiter slowly entering them: see these, these, these, these, these, these and these previews. Throughout the month be on the look-out for noctilucent clouds which have already been sighted in several places since late May. One may further highlight

June 5: Venus in greatest Western elongation, 46° from the Sun.
June 10, 18:26 UTC: Impact of Kaguya on the Moon, a prelude to the impact of LCROSS in early October.
June 10, late UTC: Five moons of Saturn line up on the East of the planet.
June 13: Mercury in greatest Western elongation, 23½° from the Sun. Will stay invisible for Northerners, others should have the best view around June 20. And on June 21 the near-by lunar crescent may help finding it.
June 19: Venus 2° from Mars which slowly begins ins apparition; Moon nearby.
June 23: Dwarf planet Pluto in opposition, at 13.9 mag. in Sgr.

Recent sky pictures show Venus & Jupiter on May 31 (and in hi-res on June 1), Jupiter & Neptune on May 25, the crescent Moon on May 26 from the U.S. and Netherlands, on May 25 from the U.S. (again), Germany (a better pic), Austria, Romania and Turkey (more pics here and here); also hi-res pics of Mercury from April. • There has been more advertising for mutual events of Jovian moons, with new successes in Germany and Australia, with another resolved video.

In other news a substantial Potentially Hazardous Asteroid has been discovered by amateur astronomers: The uncertain initial orbit based on few data gave 2009 KD5 a size of about 1 km, as of today the PHA list has it at 18.2 absolute mag. which suggests a size of roughly 600 meters. • Asteroid-wise there are also a performance simulation of future sky surveys for NEO detection, a wire story with little merit about perfectly ordinary main-belt discoveries - and a strange company "selling" asteroid names which are of no merit whatsoever. • A meteorite that fell in India is now being investigated, other meteorites hit the auction block or yield new insights, namely the Tagish Lake specimens. • Two German TV stories on the Lolland fall are now also on YouTube, while a camera in Yuba, CA, is seeing many bolides.

• On the Sun the AR 1019 displayed a moderately complex sunspot group - which was gone on June 4th already. • Sun-related also some space storm physics and aurora prediction ideas, the benefits of the STEREO mission, ongoing daily solar drawing work on Mt. Wilson, a news collection on the upcoming July 22 TSE and a commentary on the solar minimum. • Finally some articles on amateur astronomers and CCDs vs. DSLRs, a nice photo demonstration of precession over 1/4 century, the constancy of Shedir, a veeery deep image of M 51 and another sighting of Herschel in deep space. And early impressions from the international lunar parallax project; this is what was needed.

A solar cycle forecast, outer planet satellite mutual events and many meteorite stories

2009-05-24T23:05:00.007+02:00

have amassed in the past three weeks. Firstly, after two years of confusion the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel earlier this month has "reached a consensus decision on the prediction of the next solar cycle (Cycle 24). First, the panel has agreed that solar minimum occurred in December, 2008. This still qualifies as a prediction since the smoothed sunspot number is only valid through September, 2008. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the predicted date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May, 2013. Note, this is a consensus opinion, not a unanimous decision. A supermajority of the panel did agree to this prediction." More coverage (and occasional dissenting views, w/o actual arguments, though) here, here, here, here and here. Also why there won't be an ice age coming despite the low activity now, a flare causing some interest, if short-lived, and some media confusion about the situation documented. Plus no spots on May 11 (as also seen here) but faculae on May 10 and a prominence on May 3, a "stealth storm" from the Sun, a very detailled review of solar forcing of the terrestrial atmosphere, a well-prepared didactical video on the same topic - and details about the total solar eclipse of 2012 in Queensland, Australia.

Mutual events between the Jovian satellites have now begun, and observations have been many already - though mostly from Australia it seems: an Io/Europa event on May 17 (dito), Callisto/Io on May 16 (dito) and Europa/Ganymede on May 8 as a high resolution video (also discussed here) and lightcurves here and here. Less demanding are observation of satellite transits or the Neptune/Jupiter conjunction on May 27. Of Jupiter itself hi-res pictures of May 13, May 12 (with Ganymede resolved!), May 9, May 7 and earlier. • There are also pics of Saturn with a Rhea shadow transit (and the rings dimmed as the Sun hits them from the side - see also this comparision 2006 vs. 2009 or a May 23 pic), earlier pics, satellite mutual event on May 6. Finally a resolved Mars on May 17. • Scenic-wise here are Jupiter and Venus on the morning of May 24, the lunar crescent on May 23 (another hi-res view), the Moon/Jupiter/Venus chain on May 22 and the Moon/Venus/Jupiter triangle on May 21 (another one).

Meteor(ite)-wise there is now a prediction of a meteor storm in 2045, a "storm of slow fireballs" from the June Bootids this Russian astronomer - successful in the past - is forecasting. • A map of meteor stream radiants from a Japanese video network. • After the Canadian fireball last November hundreds of meteorites have now been collected but the biggest ones are still missing. A large chunck a farmer found has been donated to science. • More meteorite stories from Oman, Australia, the U.S. and Austria, also an expensive specimen and attempted fraud in Viet Nam. • Also more on the retrograde Apollo and three new NEO grants. • Comet-wise something has happened to 19P/Borrelly (earlier; see also here and earlier). • Plus C/2008 Q3 (Garrad) with a globular cluster, 107P recovered, a Lulin lightcurve, 33P/Daniel with a supernova, C/2006 W3 and comet origins questions.

In other news June 17 is now the launch date for LRO and LCROSS - which will impact the Moon on Oct. 8 if current plans hold. Amateur pictures of the lunar south pole are of interest in this context. • Ground-based observers tracking the satellites Herschel & Planck after their launch soon spotted several "UFOs" next to the Ariane's upper stage - by now it seems clear that there are only two unexplained bodies - and they are fading and changing orbits, both hinting at evaporating ice blocks. • An ISS flare in hi-res, an ISS trail with a flare, another one and another hi-res ISS of May 7. • Now amateur astronomers are actually hunting exoplanets with the transit method, not just following up professional discoveries. • An interview with A. Oksanen, a famous Finnish amateur, and hail to citizen astronomers (and other "citizen science"). • Hail also to Astrometry.net for everyone! • Finally a truly giant Milky Way Center mosaic (also hailed here), a lunar picture with 500 m/pxl resolution and a 5-hour timelapse movie recorded at the Winter Star Party.

Various Jupiter conjunctions, bright Venus main events in May

2009-05-03T20:20:00.008+02:00

In the sky, that is - for space astronomy it promises to be a particularly exciting month with the launch of Atlantis to the HST on May 11 and the joint Ariane 5 launch of Herschel & Planck on May 14. Recent days brought a lot of action in the evening sky: Here are Mercury & the Pleiades, a lunar mosaic and another one from May 1, Mercury & the Pleiades (detail) and the Moon on April 28 and the Moon, the Pleiades and Mercury on April 26 in a stunning timelapse movie and still pictures (detail, detail, again, more, more, more, more and more) from the U.S. and the U.K., with simple tech. More pics of the constellation are also here and here. Mercury is now gone from the evening sky where now Saturn rules (great pictures galore from the Philippines and Saturn with Tethys and its shadow) while Venus - a stunning hi-res video of the lunar occultation on April 22, another report and another video - is now bright in the morning sky and Jupiter gets more interesting.

May 2: Venus at greatest brilliance, shining at -4.5 mag.
May 5: Peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, nothing for Northerners
May 17: Moon near Jupiter
May 19: Jupiter only 5 arc minutes from Mu Cap
May 21: The crescent Moon, Venus, and Mars make a little triangle in the east-southeast
May 24/25: Chance to see a very slender crescent Moon in the evening in the Northern hemisphere
May 27: Jupiter only 0.39 degrees from Neptune (which is only 1/12,000 as bright)

In other news we have pictures of the comets 29P on April 29 and Lulin on April 30 (in fact tons more comet picture are being taken all the time, but they just don't look that interesting :-). • The first retrograde Apollo asteroid may have been discovered, while yet another amateur astronomer has resolved the disk of dwarf planet Ceres (here are details of the earlier success). • Here are a paper on micrometeorite ablation in the atmosphere - studied directly for the 1st time - and a nice Lyrid picture (the ZHR plot now shows a peak around 18). • A small sunspot group was sighted on April 29 and made some headlines before it went on the Sun's far side - where one STEREO can still see it. Also H-Alpha pics of May 3 and May 2 and a new study showing that cosmic rays don't influence our climate markedly. • Finally, B. Schaefer is predicting once more that U Sco will erupt soon, nice startrails from India, NASA links for citizen science projects, and an impressive ISS flare video.

Mercury, Moon & Pleiades line up after Moon occulted Venus

2009-04-26T22:59:00.004+02:00

A lot was (and is, as I type!) going on in the skies conjunction-wise. At this very moment the Pleiades, the Moon and Mercury have lined up in the dusk as pictures taken in the past hours from Europe like quite a number here and also this one and this one document (when dusk reaches the Americas, the Moon will already be above the Pleiades). Also earlier pictures of Mercury with the Pleiades on the 25th from the U.S. and on the 22nd, 21st and 19th as well as with resolved detail on the surface on the 18th. Before the Moon came round the Sun it occulted Venus for the Americas, be it grazing or fully as in fine picture series here and here or in this video. More pictures here and here and in collections here and here and here. Also the Moon in hi-res on the 23rd, with Venus on the 22nd from Germany and with Jupiter, Venus & Mars on the 20th from Oz. Plus Jupiter in hi-res on the 23rd and 16th + 17th, old Jupiters from Namibia - and the question why Uranus' rings are to hard to image with amateur gear.

In other news avid cometographers managed to capture 23 comets in one night (of April 22) or 16 in another (of April 25)! Lulin is still around, e.g. on April 22, an old McNaught showed an interesting tail on April 19, and we have Borrelly on the 22nd, Chury on the 15th and Cardinal at M 36 on the 17th. • The Lyrids reached a maximum ZHR of around 15 - about typical - at the predicted time, though there's an other, later ZHR=30 peak in the automatic plot right now. There are now 11 new meteor showers in the Working List, most also confirmed by the IMO video network. Also of interest are fireballs on April 22 (not a Lyrid) and April 17 and a "mystery rock" which may or may not be a meteorite.

• There is increasing talk about the meaning of the ongoing deep minimum of solar activity (and the non-role of the Sun in Global Warming), also here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here (a video interview). • We have a better lightcurve of IY Uma, an eclipsing central star of a planetary nebula, the SN in NGC 4088 (and a nice picture of M 88). • Finally some light pollution calculations - and an overview of cameras in orbit looking at the Earth and delivering live image feeds.

Supernova with 13 to 14 mag. in a galaxy in Ursa Major!

2009-04-17T22:25:00.006+02:00

It's rare to have a supernova brighter than 15th or 16th magnitude, so SN 2009dd in NGC 4088 in UMa which has about 13.5 mag. is something special. Here are one of the discovery images (the SN was found independently by two Italian teams), a picture taken soon thereafter by a German amateur (before the SN even had a number) and a nice picture of the galaxy itself. SN 2009dd has the typical spectrum of a young type II supernova, a few days after its explosion - which took place some time between April 2 and 4 as Japanese images (found later) show. • In other variable star news, an outburst of IY UMa is underway and a variable in a planetary nebula and a transit of exoplanet XO-1b have been observed.

• In the current deep solar minimum even coronal mass ejections are slower than typical (while their 3D structure is clearer now thanks to STEREO). Also a prominence video, an asteroid named after the last total solar eclipse or rather a prime viewing spot in China, and why there will be no tsunami following the next TSE. • An unusually deep wide-field sky image with 40 hours of exposure time is causing attention.

• A fine Jupiter from down-under, a nice Saturn with Rhea's shadow on the disk and a table of Titan transits - of which not a single one will be visible in Europe. • Did Venus' atmosphere show a closed ring during inferior conjunction or at least arcs all around as this picture may indicate? The Japanese archive has nothing similar, though nearly closed rings were detected 2 days before the last transit of Venus (the exact time and a somewhat later image). Meanwhile here is Venus on April 11.

• More bolides, in Austria on April 9 and in California on April 7. • The Field Museum has received a lot of meteorites while the largest one in Texas has been found and the videographer honored who taped the bolide, a call for searchers in Canada is out w.r.t. last year's meteorite rain - and sometimes dogs make good hunters for meteorites! • There is another comet discovery with the STEREO spacecraft by an amateur, though the comet is less interesting per se than Yi-SWAN (more stories here and here and pics of April 12 and April 9 and more). • Also Cardinal at M 38 (more), the recovery of an old LINEAR and 19P on April 12.

• The Lyrid meteors will peak on the morning of April 22 when - for some places - even more will happen when the Moon occults Venus. • Predictions of star occultations by the Moon can be greatly improved thanks to Kaguya and its laser altimeter. • A plane in front of the rising Moon (from this report), the ISS in front of the Sun (more) and the Moon in daylight, good pics from March and recent ones - and another claim of an astronaut 'detection' during an EVA. • Finally a pro-am session during a big conference in the U.K. (PDF pages 321-4), the LookUP! tool, good Aussie astrophotographers - and some stories (more, more and here) on the Birkat Hachamah non-astronomical but rare event. Of which now only a T-shirt is left ...

Rare joint comet discovery by a spacecraft - and an amateur astronomer

2009-04-07T21:27:00.015+02:00

The same says it all: C/2009 F6 (Yi-SWAN), pretty bright around 8th mag., was found simultaneously by a Korean amateur astronomer and the SWAN instrument on the SOHO spacecraft (which reported it first, but Yi's message came in before the first orbit was published, thus the double name). "On Apr. 4, R. D. Matson informed the Central Bureau that he had found a possible comet on ultraviolet SWAN images posted at the SOHO website," the story began on April 6 in IAUC #9034: " Numerous CCD astrometrists and one visual observer have reported confirmation of the object as a comet". And in #9035 we learn today that H. Yamaoka, Kyushu University, informs the Central Bureau that he received an e-mailed report on March 28 of the discovery by Dae-am Yi (Yeongwol-kun, Gangwon-do, Korea) of a possible comet with a noticeable greenish coma of diameter about 1' [...] on two 60-s CCD exposures taken about 80 seconds apart with a Canon 5D camera and a 90-mm f/2.8 camera lens. Orbital calculations suggest that this object is identical with C/2009 F6." Visual estimates put Yi-SWAN at 8.5 mag. right now, and the orbit suggests that this is about as bright as this comet will get; an ion tail has been detected. Another detection on March 25 was only made after the discovery announcement, thus it doesn't count.

In other small bodies news we have scientific papers about Spitzer observations of 67P (a current picture and more) and ground-based data on 17P/Holmes' outburst (also a current view), interesting developments of 19P, the recovery of P/2001 MD7, an old - but nice - picture of Kushida in the Hyades (a current picture and more) and Lulin on March 28 and March 24 (another picture) as well as its changes. Plus 4 comets on March 25. • In the Kuiper Belt, the moon of Orcus has been named Vanth; more interesting than the name is the fact that over 1000 suggestions had come in after the discoverer asked for suggestions. • There was another big bolide in Northern Ireland (more, more and more coverage) and one in Virginia which caused a lot of confusion at first (more, more, more, more, more [earlier], more, more [earlier], more and more). • The recovery of the (only one!) meteorite from the baltic bolide is recounted by the discoverer himself who also explained at a German meteor meeting how he found the shattered specimen in the grass and what it was like. At the same meeting a microbarometric signal from the exploding bolide was also shown, recorded with a machine like this - which is enormously sensitive! Yet another "dimension" of amateur astronomy has thus opened up.

In other news The solar activity remains low, making the current minimum rather deep, with no end in sight. • By the way, some STEREO images from the time of the last total solar eclipse. • Here is the slender crescent of Venus on April 5, April 2, March 28 and March 26 - and the inferior conjunction was also used by radio hams to get echoes from the surface with a big dish in Bochum (as a demonstration experiment for a possible future use of the latter in controlling an amateur mars spacecraft, no kidding). • Here are Saturn & six moons and the small storm on March 21. • And here is Jupiter with Io's shadow.

• A Pleiades occultation by the Moon was observed well in India as these, these, these and these pictures show. • Plus the very slender crescent on March 27. • There may be atmospheric effects from the eruption of Mt. Redoubt which has been quite productive and impressive to watch. • Here is the ISS in front of the Moon and well resolved; more nice pictures here, here and here - but a space-walking astronaut was not caught. • A funny software determining "your star" at any given time. • And a paper, summary and story about an ingenious student experiment to get the distance to the Moon from old Apollo recordings! • It's now DST also in Europe - and the controversy continues. • Finally some April highlights in the sky (more, more, more, more and more stories):

April 8: Birkat Ha-Hammah or "Blessing of the Sun", a rare 'phenomenon' in some branches of Judaism where the alleged return of the Sun to its celestial position at creation time is marked only every 28 years.
About April 9 til May 2: Best evening apparition of Mercury, now almost fully illuminated, with the half phase and greatest elongation on April 22 and 26, resp.
April 15: Very close conjunction of Mars and Uranus, low over the Eastern horizon.
April 21/22: In the morning peak of the Lyrid meteors.
April 22: The Moon occults Venus for most of North America.
April 24: "The position of the Sun and the shape of the Earth" - a worldwide didactical experiment employing elementary techniques. Join the party!
April 26: Line-up of the lunar crescent, the Pleiades and Mercury in the evening.

Inferior conjunction of Venus - superior pictures of its slender crescent

2009-03-24T23:10:00.016+01:00

With is inferior conjunction just three days away, Venus has been at its best in recent weeks: presenting a continuously growing slender crescent while racing towards the Sun as seen from Earth. Excellent - or unusual - photos of March 23, March 22, March 21 (more, more and more), March 20 (more), March 19, March 18 and March 17. The crescent could also be imaged without a telescope using simple compact cameras. Now the challenge is to spot Venus as the morning and evening star on the same day as it passes far north of the Sun. • Meanwhile Jupiter has emerged from the Sun: pictures from Oz from March 23 (more), March 21 and March 19. • On Saturn, Hubble on 24 Feb. observed four moons in front of the disk (also here and here, plus explanation how it was animated and why the pics were taken at all; more coverage here, here, here, here and here). Also another transit of Titan and its shadow on March 12, the planet in general and well images on March 21 (very colorful), March 20 and March 16.

In cometary and other small-body news comet 19P is showing a weird coma/tail as pictures of March 20 and March 21 show. • New comet Itagaki in a March 21 animation and on March 17 (more and more), March 16, March 15 and in picture collections here and here. • Comet Lulin's light curve and observations of March 21 (more, more and more, March 20 (more, March 19, March 17 (more), March 16 (more, more and more) and March 15 plus in a March 3 movie. • Comet 67P with a little tail (earlier), 116P also with a tail - and multi-comet panels from the same night, showing 14 comets on March 17 and 10 comets on March 18 and March 20. Plus a Kreutz crash on March 21. • The disk of dwarf planet Ceres has been resolved by two amateurs, C. Go on March 3-9 and B. Gährken on March 21. • More on the Baltic bolide meteorite recovery here, here and here and in German TV news here (5½ min) and here (8 min). • Non-impacting visitors were 2009 DO111 (more, more and more) and 2009 FH (more, more, more, more and more) while the small size of 2009 DD45 was hardly reported.

In other news the role of amateur variable star observations for professional astronomy was emphasized once more. • We also have an introduction into astronomy with binoculars and an urban observers survival guide in three parts. • Aurorae, meanwhile, can also be "observed" via webcast. • On March 16 a little coronal mass ejection was observed on the otherwise inactive Sun. • Here is an impressive picture of a Capetown fire with Sco overhead (more on that fire). • Einstein@home is entering a new phase, hunting for rare pulsar binaries. • The launch of Discovery to mission STS-119 happened at just the right dusk time for marvellous light effects: For sampling of amateur pictures of the launch and plume in sunlight see the green box in Cosmic Mirror #326 - and the plume also shows up brilliantly on the SRB camera videos (e.g. at 4:33). Just before Discovery docked to the ISS, the pair could be photographed from the NL and near Bonn. Later one amateur may have imaged an astronaut during the March 21 EVA; other hi-res ISS pics after truss S6 installation here and here. In the sky the ISS is now very bright and easy to photograph. • Finally some other satellite trails: more flashes from Iridium 33 wreckage, double Iridium flares - and Kepler passing Saturn.

New Japanese amateur comet just a 10th magnitude fuzzball

2009-03-15T23:04:00.004+01:00

Early visual estimates put it at barely brighter than 10th magnitude, and on pictures C/2009 E1 (Itagaki) is mainly a compact fuzzball: It's orbit will bring it into perihelion in early April, wo it won't get much brighter. • Meanwhile for Lulin an analysis of perspective effects, a collection of pictures by one photographer spanning a long time and recent images of March 15 next to the Eskimo nebula, March 13 with an open star cluster (another picture), March 12 and March 11). From earlier times also a March 2 video, a long exposure from Feb. 25 (discussed here) and a Feb. 21 movie. • Regarding the 2007 mega-outburst of Holmes, there is a new paper (also here in PDF) discussing IR data. • The "curious coma-tail" of C/2007 Q3 (Siding-Spring). • And 29P on March 9. • Several meteorites from the Jan. 17 "Baltic" fireball have been found on the Danish island of Lolland.

In other news Venus is already near inferior conjunction and closing in on the Sun, with the slender crescent good for near-IR imaging of the glowing night side or just for pretty pictures, e.g. on March 13 or March 9, one doesn't need much equipment for that. • Another transit of Titan has been observed on Saturn from Eastern Asia. • Some ideas what to do during a total solar eclipse - and the one from 30 years ago in an live broadcast by ABC or in the news from CBS. • The Top 10 galaxies from the new Galacxy Zoo. • Another GLOBE at Night is on; see all the links in the 1st § of this article for advice. • Observations of Iridium 33 & Kosmos 2251 (the debris has begun reentering the atmosphere). • And an ISS streak over Slooh on Tenerife, the full moon of March 11 and Discovery, and a hi-res picture of a lunar crater.

Saturn in opposition as Venus grows into big, slender crescent

2009-03-08T21:13:00.005+01:00

The main planetary action in the coming days and weeks takes place at dusk and at midnight: While Saturn is now in opposition to the Sun, Venus will almost suddenly disappear from the evening sky later this month, but as a slender crescent almost one arc minute in size. The opposition of Saturn may result in noticeably brighter rings, thanks to the opposition effect. You can find some of the best amateur pictures here, while here Pic du Midi's 1-m scope images (also hailed here) abound, including some unusual IR views. And here's another transit of Titan et al. Regarding Venus's grand finale in the evening, it was possible to catch the Moon and Venus as crescents in the same FOV. Again many great views are in the Japanese archive, including several successful detections of the nightside glowing in the IR like here. None of the results seem to match what was achieved in 2007, though, although many are trying hard (or just for for pretty pictures). The size of a telescope doesn't always matter, by the way, as an analysis of mutual events of Uranus's moons in 2007 shows (40 cm as good as 10 m). Talking of occultations, here's a recent Antares graze; the video gets better towards the end.

News with an impact (or 'almost'): While the launch of the LCROSS mission has slipped to NET May 20, preparings for observations of the impacts continue, with a discussion forum for observers now in place. • Did another meteorite fall in Finland? (Some info and a map.) • Here's a long story on meteorite hunting in Texas. • And at least 16 pieces of asteroid 2008 TC3 have already been recovered. • After its Earth visit on March 2 we've found out that NEA 2009 DD45 belongs to the S class, has thus a high albedo and small diameter of 19±4 meters; still in the closest approaches list the object (here's the last dedicated MPEC) figures prominently (on this one it's missing). There are a picture, movie and more movies - and lots of coverage in the old and new media such as here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here in English and here, here, here and here in German.

In other news the Lulin show went into a brief lunar hiatus, but there are a lot of afterthoughts and even new pictures: a nice multi-day mosaic, the light curve, excellent pictures from Southern France, a recorded webcast from Israel, a best of and thoughts and pictures by Lulin's discoverer. New pictures, videos and reports have come in from March 5/6 (with M44, plus a visual report), March 4/5, March 3/4 (more, more, more, an animation and a disappointment), March 2/3 (more), March 1/2 (more, more and even unguided), Feb. 28/Mar. 1 (more, also mentioned here, more, more, more, more, more and more) and Feb. 27/28. Older but cool pictures come from Feb. 25 from Oz and Italy and Feb. 23 as well as a movie from Feb. 22. • Meanwhile yet another outburst of comet Daniel (earlier), • a "comsat cloud" and • a review of a new camera. • And an Austrian amateur is making ample use of the robotic Slooh telescopes in February as well as March from Chile (earlier, still earlier) and Tenerife.

Best window for Lulin closing - while Saturn rules March

2009-03-01T23:19:00.034+01:00

While never becoming an obvious naked-eye spectacular, comet Lulin was a pretty impressive binocular sight in the last third of February when it was closest to the Earth and the Moon was out of sight: This blogger cannot recall a case when a comet's dusty anti-tail had been visible so easily - and so long, several degrees - with little optical help. Even under bad conditions Lulin could be found. It was mainly astrophotographers, though, who could also catch the geometrically shortened but highly variable plasma tail: While not exactly a "textbook" comet (with the most obvious tail pointing in the 'wrong' direction), Lulin is certainly a unique case to remember. But now the Moon is rapidly creeping closer - and will actually occult the comet in less than a week. Some highlights of March, which will actually begin with a surprise visit!

March 2 around 13:30 UTC: Newly discovered Near Earth Asteroid 2009 DD45 will pass only some 70,000 km from the center of the Earth, when the body of roughly 20 m diameter should briefly reach 10th magnitude.
March 5: Lulin passes 2° from the open star cluster Messier 44, but the Moon is already a problem.
March 7: Lulin is occulted by the Moon (which is almost full) in parts of the world.
March 8: Saturn in opposition, +0.5 mag. in Leo.
March 15: Lulin passes the Eskimo Nebula.
March 16 to 28: Another GLOBE at Night event.
March 20: Sun-Earth Day, mainly a U.S. event.
March 22: Venus reaches extreme northern latitude, is evening and morning star; inferior conjunction on March 28.
March 28: At 20:30 local time another Earth Hour in selected cities where the lights go out.

Lulin views from February are available galore in pictures galleries like this or this or this or this or this. Some selected observations of Feb. 28/Mar. 1 (sum, more, more, more from here, more), Feb. 27/28 (looks quite like the visual impression; more, more, more, more, more), Feb. 26/27, Feb. 26 (more), Feb. 25/26 (more, movie), Feb. 25, Feb. 24/25 (video, more, more, more, more, drawing, more, more, more, more), Feb. 23/24 (detailled and another drawing, vis obs., report, more, more, earlier, more, more, more, more), Feb. 22/23 (from here; more, more, more, more, more), Feb. 21/22 (excellent video, another, another and a strange one; a great color picture, more, more, more, more and more), Feb. 20/21 (more, an animation, alt. version, picture from here, estimate at 4.9 mag.), Feb. 19/20 (several pics, animation, with Amphitrite, a drawing, picture) and Feb. 18/19 (more). Lulin was also observed in X-rays; there is an analysis and Q&A, and general articles are e.g. here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here - and the comet even made it onto U.S. radio and into German TV.

In other news there was again a nice conjunction of the Moon and Venus: pictures of Feb. 28 from Tenerife and India, Feb. 27 from the U.S. (more, more, more, more), Tenerife, India (more in the stream) and Australia (more pics) and Feb. 26 from Tenerife. • A few days earlier a "massing" in the (Southern) morning sky: pictures of Feb. 24, Feb. 23 (APOD; more) and Feb. 22. • A moonrise with omega effect had considerable media impact - and on the same day this blogger caught an omega sunset from Tenerife, after witnessing an omega sunrise in eclipse in 2006. • The weather prospects for the 2010 ASE, the aurora from Norway and the ISS over Puerto Rico. • And this blog was mentioned in a blog on the recovery of meteorites (also many earlier entries!) from the Texas fireball - soon eight were found by the various searchers. • And a meteorite related to the predicted Sudan bolide has been found!

Texas fireball leads to meteorite finds, other side effects

2009-02-19T20:37:00.016+01:00

Several meteorites - one specimen already identified as a chondrite - have been recovered a few days after a spectacular daylight fireball was seen over Texas on February 15th. (Minutes after the event interesting radar echos had been detected high in the atmosphere, with the physical explanation less clear; there is also a report of a persistent smoke trail.) So this is an astronomy/planetary science story now - but it hadn't always been that way: While astronomically minded folks looking at the video of the fireball (also here from this source as well as here and here and on YouTube numerous times) immediately concluded that it had to be a meteor and not a satellite reentry, seemingly official claims that the sky show that something to do with the satellite collision five days earlier had momentarily confused even those who somehow knew it couldn't be - let alone the mass media often consulting the wrong 'experts'.

Even the New York Times spoke of a "mystery" with the "origin unknown" over a day after everything was clear! And Space.com carried only the wrong story for two days before having an update. The Texas fireball/meteorite dropper was thus also an interesting social study - and for the first hours it seems to have played out mainly on Twitter where it all started with this "news" tweet. Soon the story was all over the place, with a disturbing lack of "normal" news coverage - which followed eventually. News of what it really was had a hard time to percolate through the 'hive mind', though, and a day later "mystery" tales dominated the feeds.

Here's a sampling of the bewildered news stories to which a strange weather advisory and a mysterious NOTAM as well as a short-lived reentry scare in Canada certainly contributed, in roughly chronological order of their first publication (often they were then updated several times): AP, KEYE, WacoTrib, Fox, CNN, Houston Chr., My San Antonio, Dallas News, Star Telegram, Statesman and Bild, an iReport (using a file picture for illustration) and some other blog coverage (also here and here, where a blogger/reporter actually plotted the trajectory of the fireball). • Interestingly the Texas fireball was not the only one making news: Two days earlier there had been cases in Kentucky (more and an article) and Italy (the picture). • The first papers on the fresh Canadian meteorites of last year are out. • And a pioneer of NEO research has died already in January.

In other news the best viewing window for comet Lulin has begun: observations of Feb. 19 (more and also about a coma asymmetry), Feb. 18 (more), Feb. 17 (a spectacular animation from this site; also Slooh pictures first reported here), Feb. 16 (more; the comet was estimated at 5.3 mag. that day) and Feb. 15 (before that day the Moon was too bright and close), various observing reports, pictures on Flickr and many articles (more, more, more, more and more) plus a weird reaction by Lulin's discoverer ... • Comet 33P/Daniel underwent a small outburst and looked like this, but it's over. • Here is an impressive movie of the last penumbral lunar eclipse as seen from lunar orbit when the Earth rose with the Sun just emerging behind it!

• The more south you are the better these days: Today there was a Mercury/Mars/Jupiter trio visible in the morning sky from Oz where the new Jupiter season is beginning and one can see five planets during the night. • Saturn will experience a quadruple satellite transit on Feb. 24. • And Venus is brighter than ever and frequent UFO trigger now. • Did something strange happen to RX Lyrae last year as this picture may show? • CV V630 Cas may be acting up. • The 2nd Galaxy Zoo has been launched, with reports here, here, here, here, here and here. • Astrometry.net on Flickr is making news. • A 150° star trail panorama from India, a Milky Way panorama from Mauna Kea, the zodiacal light from Tenerife, the coolest-looking observatories on Earth - and this blog and the related Twitter feed being hailed in the context of the Texas fireball, als is the Twitter feed here!

Penumbral eclipse was evident - when weather, longitude were right

2009-02-12T22:59:00.011+01:00

You could do it like in Turkey where they arranged lunar watching parties on the evening of Feb. 9th to celebrate the eclipse after it was over - but it surely was more fun much farther East when the penumbral lunar eclipse could actually be seen and was pretty obvious: Here are good pictures from Oz and more, reports from the Philippines (with pictures), Australia and India (another and another report). The eclipse was also used for a StarPeace event on the Indian-Pakistan border; when the full Moon rose in Europe, the eclipse was over, of course. Here is that moonrise with an omega effect, i.e. an inferior mirage. • Yet more great pictures of the annular solar eclipse from Indonesia have become available - and here you can download a perfect view of the 2nd contact (by the same photographer) with a few Baily's Beads! • While here a connection between the Israeli elections and total eclipses is made ...

In other news comet Lulin is hard to observe right now because of the waning Moon nearby, but when it peaks around 5th mag., it'll be in the dark again (and visible in the full 2nd half of the night): pictures of Feb. 11 and Feb. 9 (processed) and visual observations up to Feb. 7; also discussion of Lulin's plasma tail. The NASA talk about an in principle poisonous gas in Lulins coma has led to some unfortunate headlines, also in Germany (where this tabloid headline says "green poison comet races by Earth" ...). The comet's appearance has also been linked to the IYA. • Feb. 3 images of 116P and 29P.

• Here now an amateur detection of Saturn's E ring (some of the ring gaps have new names, by the way) and the moon Calypso, an observation of Dione in eclipse under the rings and a Titan transit on Feb. 8. • One may also wonder why Venus is so bright. • There is a Nova in the LMC. • The debris from the big satellite collision on Feb. 10 (see the Cosmic Mirror #325 for many links) is detectable by radar echos. • What is 1999 RQ36 up to? (Not much for now.) • Also NASA's SkyView, 35 stunnung hi-res public domain astro pics and 101 breathtaking near-IR landscape pics of this planet - where it's happy Darwin Day (nice drawing) today!

Lulin's ion tail excites astrophotographers - and first naked-eye sightings around 6,0 mag.

2009-02-07T22:23:00.019+01:00

Just before the Moon began to spoil the view for the next 10 days or so, the comet Lulin show really got exciting: its faint ion tail, which has reached some 2° in length, is experiencing fast and complex effects in the solar wind confusing inexperienced observers (though perfectly normal, which includes a major disconnection event on Feb. 4) while the comet's coma - now estimated around 6,0 mag. - has been sighted occasionally with the naked eye in recent days, e.g. in Texas and India. The picture collections like this, this and this are growing; here are selected images and reports from Feb. 7 (pic, vis), Feb. 6 (pic w/long tail, pic, vis, vis), Feb. 5 (pic at Alpha Librae, pic from here, pic, pic, pics, widefield pic, vis), Feb. 4 (pics with the with DE, dito and Feb. 4 vs. Jan. 31 pics), Feb. 3 (pics, pic, pic, vis w/naked-eye averted), Feb. 2 (pic w/tail effects, pic, widfield pic at dawn) and Feb. 1 (pic, pic, pic described here) plus more Lulin articles here, here, here, here and here. • More interesting comet pictures show 77P "facing" two galaxies and 144P in the Hyades on Feb. 2 and Jan. 31, described here.

In other news there will be a transit of Titan on Saturn's disk in the night Feb. 8/9 visible e.g. in Oz; here is an animation of an earlier such event, also seen from down under. Meanwhile the rings have opened a bit again as beautiful images from Feb. 4 (another one, explained here) and Feb. 3 (another one; no data) show. And an amateur has used the almost edge-on view to image Calypso, a small satellite of Saturn! • Amateurs were also involved in observations of a stellar occultaton by Titania of Uranus long ago. • And bright evening "star" Venus is causing UFO alerts around the world. • The penumbral lunar eclipse on Feb. 9/10 following the annular spectacular will mainly be an Asian/Oceanian event with nothing to see e.g. in Germany where it's being discussed nonetheless. So how about Clavius at 200 m/pxl?! • Several asteroid sizes have been measured by optical interferometry while a new PHA isn't exactly hazardous: According to the first orbit it has a mere impact probability of < 1 in 100 million in 2046.

• Here is a Call for Monitoring for a planetary transit of HD 80606 which has been much in the news lately: Around Valentine's Day it could experience a long primary eclipse. Meanwhile the lightcurve of Eta Carinae is doing interesting things. • Brilliant aurora images from Tromso have been published; this one is particularly stunning. And a weird distorted moonrise was imaged recently - the animation is particularly stunning. • Here is a portrait of satellite watchers, a species of amateur astronomers also known for hi-res pics of the ISS in front of or next to the Moon or even transiting Venus. Or just passing by, a frequent view. • Finally, the Chambliss Award for Amateur Achievement for 2008 has been awarded to Steve Mandel, a new sensor material could revolutionize CCD chips - and here is a great collection of digital space art, in case the real Universe isn't enough. :-)

More fascinating solar eclipse pics, stories - while February just has a penumbral lunar one

2009-02-01T23:18:00.026+01:00

There has been a lot more coming in from the annular solar eclipse of 26 January or from its partial manifestation away from the narrow antumbral track - although the picture shown in this DLR press release does not show the latter but, as a comparision with this NASA image release reveals, the umbra of the 2006 total eclipse. A Google search for ISS images of the antumbra of 2009 came up empty, so it's not clear whether it was photographed at all. Back on the ground this collection at Bosscha Obs. has some of the best annularity views from Indonesia. There are also an interesting report from Indonesian TV (no annularity, though), some pictures and a video from Anyer, a report from Indonesia (followup) and another one. (These Indonesian stories brought back intense memories to this blogger who experienced his first total solar eclipse in this beautiful country 25½ years ago; reports from other 1983 trips are here, here, here, here and here. Sigh ...)

From partial zone we have yet another Manila sunset and partial phases from Thailand (also with a bird and at sunset, also here, and lots more pics), Sri Lanka and Mauritius. This eclipse was the first somewhat unusual sky event of the International Year of Astronomy and so the connection was made in South Africa (where some eclipse fashion was on display), Sri Lanka (more pictures) and Australia. Finally, here are 19 big and 66 small wire service pics - which showed up, uncredited, in many private websites ... Legally more sound, here are a big (German) review of the event and its new media impact plus a crappy German TV preview. All eyes are already on the next - total - eclipse (which will be a logistical nightmare for Japan), while still new videos of the last TSE turn up (the 2nd one is pretty funny; it happens at 1:04). February, meanwhile, will just serve us the least impressive of all eclipses, a penumbral lunar case. The month - some previews here, here, here, here and hier - will bring:

Feb. 9: Penumbral lunar eclipse, visible mainly in Asia and the Western U.S.
Feb. 16 til March 3 (in particular Feb. 19 til 28): Best viewing window for comet Lulin - brightest and no Moon.
Feb. 17: The Dawn spacecraft flies by Mars, will take some pictures for calibration purposes.
Feb. 17: Mars and Jupiter only 0.8° apart in the morning sky.
Feb. 19 or 20: Venus reaches largest brilliance, -4.6 to -4,8 mag.
Feb. 22 and 23: Moon close to Mars, Jupiter and Mercury.
Feb. 23/24: Lulin (moderately) close to Saturn.
Feb. 24: Mercury, Mars & Jupiter closest together, in a 4° circle at dawn.
Feb. 25: Ceres in opposition, should reach 6.9 mag.
Feb. 27: Closer Venus-Moon conjunction than in January.
Feb. 28: Lulin close to Regulus.

A good - but inconvenient - viewing window for comet Lulin (in the hours before dawn) is now underway, surely the best comet in February: The picture collections are growing and visual brightness estimates - still the best method for overall activity judgement - put it at ~6.5 in late January/Feb. 1st. Here are a visual observation of Feb. 1, a visual report by its discoverer and a mosaic of Jan. 31, a highly processed picture (from here), an animation and another discoverer's observation (his first visual ever) of Jan. 30, a drawing of Jan. 28, a visual obs. of Jan. 27, a picture and another one of Jan. 26, a picture & report of Jan. 24, a drawing and another one of Jan. 23 and a picture of Jan. 21. Meanwhile the science media have woken up, with more or less long articles here, here, here and here. • More comet pictures: 29P on Jan. 29, 28, 26, 25, 23 and 22, 144P on Jan. 26 and 25 (at the Hyades!), 67P on Jan. 29 and 25 and 116P (more), 17P, 19P and C/2006 OF2. • From the famous bolide of Jan. 17 little more has been heard.

Views of the Moon passing Venus have been widely appreciated (and caused some UFO alarm in Germany): the situation on Jan. 31 in Germany (more), on Jan. 30 in the U.S., Germany (more, still more, earlier, still earlier and in full daylight), from India (two more in the stream and another one) and Australia plus more and on Jan. 29 from Hawaii, Canada (more in the stream), the U.S. (more) and Germany (more), Norway and Italy in daylight. • An amateur photometrist has already detected dozens of exoplanets in transit. • R CrB has been below 14 mag. since November. • The Sun's still inactive but that's good in general. • Here are some fine ISS close-ups from the end of January. • A weird halo has been seen in the Czech Republic. • And true atmospheric optics aficionados see similar phenomena in the kitchen, too. :-)