LUNAR FLYBY

Tomorrow morning, NASA’s newly launched LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) spacecraft will fly by the Moon and send pictures back to Earth from only 6000 miles above the lunar surface.

The purpose of the manoeuvre is to put LCROSS in an elongated Earth orbit and position it for it’s mpact trajectory toward the lunar south pole later this year. Live video streaming of the flyby begins at approximately 1pm on Tuesday  (23rd June)

Visit NASA’s LCROSS page for further updates and the video stream.

NEW SUNSPOTS

Since 2007, it has been unusual to see even a single spot on the sun. Today there are two.

A pair of new-cycle sunspots is emerging in the sun’s southern hemisphere.  This is a good opportunity for anyone with solar telescopes to witness sunspot genesis in action.

Solar Observing – useful links

Following on from Peter Meadows’ talk about solar observing, here is the list of weblinks he showed at the end:   (note – the DVD spectrometer is very easy to build and does produce great results)

• British Astronomical Association Solar Section
• ‘The Astronomer’ Magazine
•  The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO)
• Spaceweather.com
• DVD spectrometer
• Atmospheric phenomena (rainbows, ice halos, etc)
• NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
• Peter Meadows

June 09 Public Meeting

This month’s public meeting takes place on Wednesday 17th June.

“Solar Observing” by Peter Meadows

The Sun has a significant impact on our planet, it’s atmosphere and magnetic field. Solar activity can be safely observed using small-to-medium sized telescopes via the use of special filters which either reduce light levels to a safe minimum (allowing observation of surface detail and sunpots) or only transmit particular wavelengths of light (such as use of a Hydrogen-Alpha filter for more dynamic solar features like flares and prominences). A selection of observations made by the speaker over the last solar cycle and from other solar observers will then shown, describing the characteristics of solar cycles, the present solar minimum and the start of the new cycle will be discussed. This will lead to the ultimate question of the moment – “Why has the sun been so inactive recently?”.

Peter Meadows is the editor of The Astronomer magazine’s solar section. He has been solar observing for over 20 years, using a modest 80mm refractor to safely project the sun and produce the disk drawings. His regular solar observations form part of the catalogue of data collated by the solar section of the British Astronomical Association.

The meeting that will be held at the Henry Dixon Hall, Rivenhall End, Witham, CM8 3HD. The doors open at 7:30 pm with the talk getting underway at ~8pm. Entry costs £3. Free tea & coffee will be available.

LUNAR IMPACT ALERT!

Update at 2300 BST: See the bright flash from the impact in the image below:

(Image: Jeremy Bailey/University of New South Wales/Steve Lee/Anglo-Australian Observatory)

Observers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope took this series of 1-second exposures, each taken0.6-seconds apart, around the predicted time of impact. A bright flash can be seen in the second image (centre of frame), and faintly in the third and fourth as well.

———-

Japan’s SELENE-Kaguya spacecraft will crash into the Moon on tonight, around 19:30 BST.

Kaguya is a big object. It weighes in at around 2,900 kg and will hit the Moon at an slightly oblique angle traveling at nearly 4000 mph. Whether it tumbles and bounces along the lunar surface or runs headlong into some towering crater wall, no one can say for sure yet. Clues to the end of Kaguya will come in the form of an explosive flash (or lack thereof) and high-res images of the crash site taken by future lunar orbiters.

The impact is not accidental. The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has long planned to end the mission in this fashion. Kaguya has been in lunar orbit since October of 2007. It has has searched dark craters for evidence of frozen water, and mapped the moon’s gravitational field. It has also carried an HD television camera (partly funded by NHK – Japan’s version of the BBC) and taken some of the all-time greatest pictures of the lunar surface.

However, the timing favours observers in Asia and Australasia, who might be able to see a flash of light or a plume of debris rising from the Moon’s southeastern limb.  Images of the impact, if any are captured, will be posted here.