Telescopes

More telescopes…

Pete Baker on June 12, 2010, 3:23 pm

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As the BBC notes, for the first time astronomers have directly observed the orbit of an exo-planet – Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant about nine times the mass of Jupiter, some 60 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Pictar. The team used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. [Image credit: ESO] Only 12 million years old, or less than three-thousandths of the age of the Sun, Beta Pictoris is 75% more massive than our parent …

Fireball on Jupiter!

Pete Baker on June 4, 2010, 12:39 pm

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Via Space Weather. Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley was the first to observe the Great Black Spot [of Jupiter]. Now he’s gone one better and recorded an actual impact on the gas giant. The resulting fireball was independently confirmed by Christopher Go in the Philipines – his video can be viewed here. Here’s the full processed image of the impact, visible in bottom right. Image credit: Anthony Wesley, Broken Hill Australia. And here’s the raw video observation. The impact occurs in the top left in …

Atlantis and ISS in solar transit

Pete Baker on May 23, 2010, 4:45 pm

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Via Space Weather. “Yesterday (May 22nd) in Switzerland, Thierry Legault photographed the International Space Station (ISS) and space shuttle Atlantis passing directly in front of the sun.” He’s making a habit of this. The small image here doesn’t do justice to the astounding images he’s taken during the 0.49 second solar transit. You have to go to his website to see those in full. Equally astounding are the images of a transit 50 minutes before Atlantis docked with the ISS. …

Herschel’s anniversary and Dawn’s destinations

Pete Baker on May 7, 2010, 10:19 pm

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As I mentioned when noting a previous wondrous image, ESA’s cool infrared Herschel observatory sent its first images back in October last year, just after its launch companion, the even cooler Planck observatory achieved first light. Both are twittering away – Planck and Herschel. And ESA have released another stunning image as Herschel nears its first anniversary in orbit. There’s also an ESA video to mark the anniversary The BBC’s Spaceman, Jonathan Amos, has been contemplating Herschel’s images. He recommends the …

Raise a glass to Hubble!

Pete Baker on April 24, 2010, 2:35 pm

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On the 24th April 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the Kennedy Space Center and to mark the orbiting observatory’s 20th anniversary they’ve released this suitably stunning image – there’s a Hubblecast video outlining the telescope’s history here. And the BBC have put together a wondrous Hubble 20th anniversary audio-slideshow with Professor Alec Boksenberg. Hubblecast gets in on the act with a tribute to the telescope’s discoveries in those 20 years. And here’s an approximated 3-D view into a giant …