The biggest dog bone I’ve ever seen.
On November 4th the Deep Impact spacecraft passed inside of 500 miles from the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2. The image below is the first of 5 images released by NASA after the close pass. There are more images to come including some high resolution images. Thanks to Arecibo radio telescope radar images last week we knew this comet had a nucleus with an odd shape. That wasn’t the half of it.
Comet Hartley 2 Medium resolution image. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society Blog has some more images and some thoughts on the origin of this celestial “dog bone” Here, here and here.
11/05/10 -Ephemeris – GTAS Meeting
Ephemeris for Friday, November 5th.* The sun will rise at 8:25. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 0 minutes, setting at 6:26. The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 9:09 tomorrow morning.
A star Bowl quiz will be held this evening between the NMC astronomy club and the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at this evening’s meeting of the society at 8 p.m. at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory. This will be an attempt to avenge the loss suffered by the GTAS to the college kids in June. The form of the quiz last time was like the Jeopardy game show. The quiz master was NMC astronomy professor Jerry Dobek, who soon found that the number of questions were too few and the quiz went very fast. I expect that this time there will be more questions, or is that answers. Just a heads up: This is the weekend of the time change. Before you go to bed Saturday night set your clock back one hour.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/04/10 – Ephemeris – Comet Hartley Intercept
Thursday, November 4th.* The sun will rise at 8:24. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 6:27. The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 7:52 tomorrow morning.
The Deep Impact spacecraft, which witnessed the impact of its Impactor into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 has been redirected to Comet Hartley 2. At 10:01 this morning it will pass its closest to that comet at 434 miles. This is the EPOXI mission, the retargeting of the spacecraft to a new comet. The Arecibo radio telescope on Puerto Rico has already reached out and touched the Nucleus of Comet Hartley 2 and has released its images, showing the nucleus to be a skinny bowling pin shape a bit less than a mile and a half long and tumbling slowly at a rate of 13 to 18 hours. The spacecraft will be positioned to protect itself from the escaping particles of the comet and to photograph the comet, so will not have its antenna pointed to the earth until after the encounter.
Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/03/10 – Ephemeris – the bright planets and Comet Hartley 2 his wee
Wednesday, November 3rd.* The sun will rise at 8:22. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 5 minutes, setting at 6:28. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 6:34 tomorrow morning.
Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Mars is very low and lost in the evening twilight. The planet Jupiter is up at sunset appearing in the southeastern sky in the early evening. It will move due south at 10:29 p.m.. It is the brightest starlight object in the sky. It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 4:16 a.m. Venus is in the morning sky but rises too close to be seen now. It will appear quite suddenly a couple of weeks from now to the amazement of may folks who will report it as being a UFO. Comet Hartley 2 has moved out ahead of the earth being in the morning sky. may be just visible in binoculars right of the star Procyon. Saturn will rise at 5:43 a.m. in the east southeast. It’s in Virgo this year.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
Astronomy Cruise – Day 2
I slept well last night and got up about 6 a.m. It was cold and dark. Another passenger was up and we looked at the constellations along with Jupiter sinking into the clouds to the west. The moon was high overhead like it was the first morning, only a bit thinner, being a day after last quarter.
Since posting the first day’s report I’ve received an email from Jim Newton one of our numbers from Colorado. He posted images on the Internet and generously allowed us to use them. I will use some of them because, frankly, it turned out to be a rough day on the bay., and I spent a lot of time eyes locked on the horizon trying, and successfully so, keeping my breakfast down.
Morning rainbow at Old Mission
As the sun rose we did have another rainbow in the sky. While there were showers all around, I didn’t feel any rain until we got back on land that afternoon, and that was just spritzing. In the morning briefing Captain Dave said that the forecast was for small craft warnings.
The Zodiac cruising around
As you can see he was dressed for rough and wet weather. It soon came time to weigh anchor.
Raising the Anchor. Photo by Jim Newton.
Electric winch? Nope. The anchor is raised by this hand winch that’s powered like an old railroad hand car. One complete up-down cycle raised the anchor a whole 3 inches, near as I could tell. I think I recognize my back side on the left with Cheyenne, Ann is on the right with another passenger, whose name escapes me. If you recognize yourself add a comment so I can identify you. Keeping tension on the chain is Matt, while Neil arranges the chain in the box. That’s quite a workout for me, even though I was taking the first turn, and just taking up the slack. The range of the up and down motion of the handle was a bit much after a short time. Quite a few of us took turns with it.
Cheyenne goes over the rail to guide the anchor up. Photo by Jim Newton.
Getting the anchor up, keeping it from scraping the hull, and lashing it to the rail was quite an undertaking. Soon we were heading out of the harbor and into East Bay into the brunt of the wind and waves.
Heeling to port in the wind. Photo by Jim Newton
It was a very rough time. With a north wind, what took an hour to pass the Old Mission Light and sail into Old Mission Harbor, took half the day to get back around the light, tacking against the wind. Captain Dave said that the boat could only head 60 degrees into the wind. On top of that the wind seemed to be pushing us back. We’d start to tack toward the light with it to the port side of the bow, and before long the light had drifted to the starboard side.
Captain Dave at the helm with Cheyenne at his side
While it seemed we were bouncing all over the bay Lulu and Brent were below preparing lunch.
Lulu is dishing up macaroni and cheese for lunch. Photo by Jim Newton
I don’t know how they did it. Unfortunately my stomach wasn’t up to lunch that day. I did get some movie snippets. You will have to download them to view them.. They are standard AVI files. Here is a panorama (49MB) looking off the port side of the boat. Here is another showing the deck crew switching the staysails on a tack (59MB) to starboard. Check back later. I’ll try to make smaller versions.
Omena ahead. Photo by Jim Newton
Captain Dave put into Omena Harbor as soon as he could in the early afternoon, having pity on us land lubbers. Tacking this time against a much diminished north wind into the harbor. Omena is a small town on M22 (not the globular star cluster, but the Michigan highway.) Sorry, an old astronomer’s joke. We dropped anchor close to the sailboat on the right of the picture. The large gray building houses Leelanau Cellars Wine tasting Room and a restaurant. The other building house an art gallery, post office and a general store. many of us went ashore to wine taste and walk around.
I told you it was a wine tasting place. Photo by Jim Newton.
Time to head back for dinner.
The Manitou at anchor in Omena
Lulu and Brent always fed us well, and breakfasts and dinners were always special. We all were able to squeeze into the galley for those meals.
Lulu sharing a story before the meal with some passengers.
That night was cloudy too so I gathered those interested to finish my one power point on the universe and ran another about the black hole in the center of the galaxy. So far the weather has been exactly as forecast. If it holds, tomorrow night promises to be clear, with a great day of sailing beforehand.
11/02/10 – Ephemeris – The constellation Aquarius
Election Day, Tuesday, November 2nd.* The sun will rise at 8:21. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 8 minutes, setting at 6:30. The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 5:16 tomorrow morning. | One of the constellations of the zodiac is in the southern sky at 9 in the evening. It’s the constellation of Aquarius the water bearer. The image that is supposed to be depicted in the stars is that of a hapless fellow spilling a stone jar of water across the sky. Aquarius is fairly hard to spot because it is made of faint stars. But this year it is just to the right of the bright planet Jupiter. One part of him is easy to spot, the Water Jar, an asterism or informal constellation. It’s a distinctive small nearly equilateral triangle of stars with another star in the center. Stars extending to the right from the water jar are that stream of water. The body of Aquarius is below, a misshapen balloon of stars that is seen above the bright star Fomalhaut, low in the south.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/01/10 – Ephemeris – November Preview
Monday, November 1st.* The sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 6:31. The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:59 tomorrow morning.
Let’s look at the skies for the month of November. The sun is still moving south rapidly. Daylight hours in the Interlochen/Traverse City area and will drop from 10 hours and 11 minutes today to 9 hours 6 minutes on the 30th. The altitude, or angle, of the sun above the southern horizon at local noon will be just under 31 degrees today and will descend to 23 and a half degrees on the 30th. The altitude of the sun in the Straits area will be a degree lower. Local noon, this month, will be about 12:30 p.m. when we go back to standard time this weekend. The moon will interfere with the most prominent meteor shower this month the Leonids at mid month. Beginning next week the planet Venus will begin to appear in the morning sky before sunrise.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
10/29/10 – Ephemeris – Algol the Ghoul Star
Friday, October 29th. The sun will rise at 8:16. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 6:35. The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:12 tomorrow morning. | Not all the ghosts and goblins out Sunday will be children. One will be out every night, because it’s a star. Its name is Algol, from the Arabic for Ghoul Star or Demon Star. The Chinese had a name for it that meant ‘piled up corpses’. It’s the second brightest star in the constellation Perseus the hero, rising in the northeast this evening. The star is located where artists have drawn the severed head of Medusa, whom he had slain. Medusa was so ugly that she turned all who gazed upon her to stone. Algol is her still glittering eye. Astronomers finally found out what was wrong with Algol. It does a slow 6 hour wink every two days 21 hours, because it is two stars that eclipse each other. [Medusa will not be winking Halloween evening.]
Text in brackets were omitted in the program due to time constraints.
10/28/10 – Ephemeris – Venus at inferior conjunction
Thursday, October 28th. The sun will rise at 8:14. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 22 minutes, setting at 6:37. The moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 11:00 this evening. | Later today Venus is in inferior conjunction with the Sun. That is, it will pass between the earth and the sun. This time it won’t do it directly between, which is normal. However a year and a half from now Venus will pass in front of the sun so we can see it. This is the twice in 200 year transit of Venus. Currently the transits occur in pairs 8 years apart after an interval of over 100 years. This time we cannot see Venus as it will pass far south of the sun. In the next week or two it will begin to be visible in the east just before sunrise. It’s sudden appearance will cause it to be reported as a UFO. [I suppose to those reporting it it will be a UFO in the generic definition. It would be unidentified] It’s just Venus spending 9 months in the morning sky.
Text in brackets was omitted from the program due to time constraints.
10/27/10 – Ephemeris – Planets and Comet Hartley 2 this week
Wednesday, October 27th. The sun will rise at 8:13. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 6:38. The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 9:52 this evening. | Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Mars is very low and lost in the evening twilight. Venus will officially enter the morning sky after tomorrow’s passage between the earth and the sun. It will then appear quite suddenly a couple of weeks later to the amazement of many folks who will report it as being a UFO. The planet Jupiter is up at sunset appearing in the southeastern sky in the early evening. It will move due south at 10:54 p.m.. It is the brightest starlight object in the sky. It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 4:46 a.m. Comet Hartley 2 has moved out ahead of the earth being in the morning sky. may be just visible in binoculars as a fuzzy spot at the bottom of the constellation Gemini.
