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Skywatching in Countryside and in Cities - What Should You Take Into Account 2008-01-26 02:00:12 I live close to Helsinki in Finland, in a small city called Kerava. This is a typical suburban city from where people drive to work at Helsinki city center. Our house is located near fields and a small forest and the amount of artificial light here is smaller than in the center of our city. Even though we have less artificial lights, I consider myself living in a city. Based on this I am observing the sky from a city. I was born in Lapland in northern Finland. I grew up there and lived around 20 years there before I moved to Helsinki to study my degree in software engineering. Living in Lapland is completely different from living in Helsinki, and when it comes to astronomy, it is a whole different playground up there. By having much less artificial lights, Lapland offers a great place to observe the sky. If you drive few dozens of kilometers from the town to the forests, it is totally black out there. It is a great place to observe the sky. Based on this, I consider people living in th ...

Skywatching Tip - 15 Brightest Stars on Night Sky and Their Co-ordinations 2008-01-25 04:43:01 Finding stars on night sky can be difficult sometimes. Not just because there are gazillion stars on the sky, but also because some stars are brighter than others. This morning I came up with an idea of defining 15 brightest stars on night sky with their magnitudes, co-ordinates as well as the constellation they belong to. I hope this helps you to find the stars you are interested in. Notice that some of the stars and constellations are described more detailed behind the links. Articles contain also tips for finding those stars and constellations. Let’s assume that you are interested in finding Procyon. In this case, just click the link on Procyon and you can read more about finding the star. As said above, stars on sky differ mostly from their brightness. Hipparkhos who lived in ancient Greece, categorized stars based on their brightness. Hipparkhos defined magnitudes, the six levels of brightness. Magnitude one represents the brightest stars and magnitude six represents the dim ...

ESO Is Aiming High With Its Massive Telescope Plans - Will E-ELT Ever Be Built? 2008-01-23 15:45:35 European Southern Observatory has big plans. Their new observatory will be one of the most awesome instruments built on Earth. European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) is going to see the first light on 2017. E-ELT is one of the biggest telescopes to be built with its diameter of 42 meters. ESO started planning a gigantic OWL-telescope (Overwhelmingly Large Telescope) which was 100 meters in diameter, but realized that the project would not initiate during the next ten years. Now ESO is looking forward to building an instrument that will clearly become the biggest mirror telescope on Earth. Read more about mirror telescopes in here. The agency behind the E-ELT is the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which has 11 member countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK) and is based in Garching, near Munich, in Germany. Planning of E-ELT project was started in December 2006 when ESO dedicated 57 million euros t ...

New Information On Black Holes - Black Holes May Flash 2008-01-21 15:44:21 When a black hole erupts, part of the light may have to orbit the black hole once, twice or even thousands of times until it can be released from the massive gravitational force of the black hole. Because of this a number of small “ghost” eruptions can be seen after the eruption. According to scientists, observations of these ghost eruptions could provide a new way to measure the masses and rotation speeds of black holes. This method could only work with fast spinning black holes because the speed increases the possibility that a single foton stays orbiting the black hole for a while. As an example, a fast spinning black hole with a mass ten times bigger than the mass of the Sun, could provide even 1400 ghost eruptions in a second. Anyhow, ghost eruptions are very difficult or even impossible to see because their intensity is just a fraction of the main eruption. Additionally the eruptions are born in the disc of matter, which probably would suck all the atoms circulating. ...

Lazy Sunday Video - Planet Earth DVD Trailer 2008-01-20 01:00:23 It is Sunday again. I just mentioned in my HomeboySki.Com blog that I am feeling lazy and I am not interested in cleaning our house. I rather drink coffee and watch ski movies. Yes, that’s right, but I did not mention that I am also reading Finnish astronomy magazine and watching astronomy movies in the Internet. This is a great way to spend Sunday mornings while others are still sleeping. We have three kids who really can easily create a tornado inside the house when they play together. That’s why I really enjoy these silent moments. When it is silent like right now, I really enjoy two things. Listening to classical music, mainly piano and violins, or watching amazing documents or videos. Some of the best nature documents come from BBC. Some of them are really stunning, like this one here. Planet Earth is a series of documents on DVD and it is one of the best documents I have ever seen. Simply said, it is really amazing. I love watching this kind of DVD’s. I just can ... Dvd

Locating Triangulum - Tips for Finding Constellation Triangulum 2008-01-19 01:00:57 Triangulum is a small and rather dim constellation, which can be seen in northern hemisphere. Triangulum is located close to the famous Andromeda galaxy and it is quite easy to identify due to its clear shape. Ancient people used to call Triangulum as Sicilia, because according to Roman myth Ceres asked Jupiter to locate Sicily Island to the sky. The brightest star in Triangulum constellation is white giant star beta Trianguli, whose magnitude is 3. Its second-brightest star, the yellow-white subgiant star alpha Trianguli has a magnitude of 3.41. Constellation includes also a very important deep sky object, the Triangulum galaxy M33, which is the third biggest galaxy in the local group. Bigger ones are Andromeda and Milky Way. Triangulum galaxy is also known as Pinwheel galaxy and it is about 2.9 million light years away. Its magnitude is 5.8, which means it is bright enough to be seen by the naked eye under the darkest skies. In order to locate constellation Triangulum, start by findi ...

Russians Developed Super Cockroaches in Space 2008-01-18 04:34:27 I just read this news in Finnish online newspaper and wanted to share it. This is not astronomy news, but is related to space and sounds interesting, so you might want to read this. The news is that Russians have developed super cockroaches in space which are bigger, faster and survive better than those living on Earth. As they say, the only spiece surviving from nuclear war is cockroach. If cockroaches are born in space, they seem to be able to stand even heavier events. This was found out when Russian scientists sent cockroaches to space where the cockroaches even multiplied. A cockroach named Nadezha came back to Earth with a number of eggs, from which 33 new cockroaches were born. These cosmic cockroaches have been studied now for two months. “Results are amazing but also unambiguous“, says researcher Dmitri Atjakshin to news agency Ria Novost on last Thursday. “We can now say for sure that “space cockroaches” grow and develop faster, and are stronger ...

First Finnish Man Almost in Space - You Can Go As Well! 2008-01-17 15:50:31 Marcus Toivonen is a Finnish man, but not a regular Finnish man. He is the first Finnish man has been closest to the space. Marcus Toivonen is not an astronaut, so how did he got himself to the edge of the space? Read this amazing story of Marcus Toivonen to know how he became the first Finnish man in the edge of the space. You can do it as well. Marcus Toivonen had a 14-year dream of being the first Finnish person in space, or at least in the edge of the space. Marcus reached his goal by flying to the edge of the space by a Russian MIG fighter. “The project culminated in Russia 20.11.2002, at 12:36 finnish time, when a MIG-25C “Foxbat” fighter raft carrying me reached a flight altitude of 25.000 meters, which is officially called nearspace. Maximum speed during the flight was Mach 2.4 (about 2.860km/h)”, says Marcus in his website. This kind of project has always a price, but suprisingly this was not as expensive as you would first guess. Flying to the Interna ...

Locating Perseus and Algol - Tips for Finding Perseus Constellation and Algol Variable Star 2008-01-16 15:52:30 Right now in January, there is an interesting object to watch in the night sky. In fact, there is an interesting constellation to observe with binoculars and an interesting variable star to observe with a telescope. The constellation is Perseus and the variable star is Algol. Perseus and Algol can be seen in northern hemisphere, above latitude 48, all year long. In meridian they can be seen in early January around 10 pm. Algol is one of the best known stars in Perseus, which is a variable star. This article provides you few tips for finding Perseus and Algol. Perseus is located right between Cassiopeia and Taurus (here is a little bit about Taurus). Andromeda galaxy is located in western side of Perseus. Variable star Algol is located in 93 light years from the Earth and the stars are approximately 3.2 and 3.4 times the diameter of the Sun. They are located so close to each other that it is not possible for amateurs to see them separated. Stars circulate around each other in three days ...

Moon in January 2008 - Tips For Observing the Moon in January 2008 2008-01-15 07:58:26 The Moon has few interesting moments in January here in northern hemisphere. The Moon and planets and constellations get close to each other in January and skywatchers have few great changes to observe these phenomena. This short article lists those interesting moments of the Moon in January 2008 in northern hemisphere. Because today is already January 15th, I only describe the remaining phenomena. Moon phases * January 22nd afternoon (3:30 pm in Finland) there is a full Moon * January 30th early morning (7am in Finland) we can watch the last quarter of the Moon. * January 20th the Moon is in its northest position The Moon and the planets * January 19th/20th the Moon is close to Mars at night * January 24th/25th the Moon is close to Saturn at night The Moon and the Stars * January 18th the Moon is close to Pleiades at night * January 18th/19th the Moon is close to Aldebaran at night * January 21st/22nd the Moon is close to Pollux and Castor at night * January 24th the Moon is close to ...

The Top Ten Hubble Images of All Time - The Very Best Hubble Images 2008-01-14 07:18:24 As the title says, this article lists the top ten Hubble space satellite images ever taken. Hubble has been in operation since 1990, and now after serving almost for 20 years it is time to list the very best images taken by Hubble. Please notice that this is my personal opinion based on beauty of the images as well as scientific value. Hubble telescope is an optical telescope orbiting the Earth. The telescope was positioned to space in order to get higher quality images of deep space. Telescope on the surface of the planet are not able to reach the same quality due to interferences in atmosphere. Hubble is able to capture images of very dark objects, which cannot be seen by the telescopes on Earth. Anyhow, when observing bright objects, the quality level of Hubble is the same as telescopes on Earth. Hubble circulates the Earth 595 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. It has been repaired four times and it has exceeded its estimated lifetime, but it is not anymore in good conditio ...

How to Find Gemini - Tips for Locating Gemini Constellation And Its Stars Castor And Pollux 2008-01-12 02:00:47 When watching the sky with binoculars, Gemini is one of the most interesting constellations to observe. Gemini is an open cluster being named after twins Kastor and Polydeuk in Greek mythology. Brightest stars of Gemini are Castor (alpha Geminorum) and Pollux (beta Geminorum). There are also an open cluster M35 and cepheid variable stars zeta, Geminorum as well as other interesting targets to observe. This article helps you to locate Gemini constellation and its stars Castor and Pollux. Gemini can be seen well right now here in northern hemisphere. It is located high in the sky and it is in meridian in the middle of February 10 pm EET. In order to locate Gemini, you should be able to find Orion constellation first. If you cannot locate Orion yet, read my article of finding Orion and M42. As soon as you have located Orion in southern sky in northern hemisphere, start looking for Gemini as shown in the figure left. Gemini is located in North-West from Orion and it is the neighbour conste ...

Historic Flyby of Mercury - First Visit to Mercury in 33 Years 2008-01-11 15:57:06 On next Monday Nasa’s spacecraft is going to do a historic flyby of planet Mercury in 200 kilometers above the surface of Mercury. This is a historic moment because we have not studied Mercury this close since 1975 when Mariner 10 took pictures of Mercury. Nasa’s Alan Stern, an associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, is excited about this. He says “this is raw scientific exploration and the suspense is building by the day”. “What will Messenger show us”, says Stern. The main reason for the flyby is to use Mercury’s gravity assist to keep the spacecraft on track for its March 2011 orbit insertion. This slows down the speed of the spacecraft, which is needed to keep the spacecraft staying in the solar system. Messenger was launched in August 2004 and it has flown once by Earth and twice by Venus. Next time the spacecraft will repeat flyby is on next August 2007 and September 2009. In 2011 Messenger will start orbitin ...

Finding Boötes and Arcturus - Tips for Locating Boötes Constellation and Alpha Star Arcturus 2008-01-09 15:50:25 An interesting constellation, called Boötes, can be seen in spring and summer time in northern hemisphere, close to zenith. Boötes, which can also be called Bootis or shortly just Boo, is located in the direction of the tail of Big Dipper. Most probably you cannot see the whole constellation right now, but later in the spring. Anyhow, if weather conditions are optimal now, you might see the constellation and its alpha star very low in horizon. The name of the constellation is believed to come from Scandinavian words bo (to live) and ötes (bear). The name of the alpha star (the brightest) of the constellation is called Arcturus and it means “bear hunter”. Boötes is very easy to find. Start by locating Big Dipper. As soon as you have located the Big Dipper, continue its tail straight towards Horizon and you will see the stars of Boötes (see the figure on left). Arcturus is located in the lowest corner of Boötes and you should easily recognize it because it is the fourth ...

How to Find Canis Minoris and Procyon - Tips For Locating Canis Minoris Constellation and Procyon Star 2008-01-08 15:50:35 Some time ago I posted an article of locating Orion Nebula M42. That article helps also in finding Orion constellation. Very close to Orion is Canis Minoris, an interesting constellation with one bright star, Procyon. I assume you can now find Orion. If you cannot locate it yet, please read my Orion article first. There are only few stars in Canis Minoris. There are few binary and variable stars, but no galaxies or nebulae that would be brighter than 13 magnitudes. The main star of Canis Minoris is Procyon, the eight brightest star in the sky. Bright Procyon makes it easy to find the constellation that is located to east from Orion and to south from Gemini. As said, procyon is the eight brightest star in the sky and it is the other star of a binary star system. Procyon is located in 11.4 light years away from the Sun, which makes Procyon one of the nearest stars of the Sun. Procyons accompanying star circulates Procyon in about 40 years. The accompanying star (10.8 magnitudes) is very ...