Sunburst

Sunset

Dragonfly

Cats from Work

Here are a few pictures of our 'adopted' cats at work.

Cloudy Moon

Here is the photo of the Moon from tonight.  With the way the picture was taken it almost could pass for the Sun.

Turtles Basking in the Sun

Tree

Moon at Dusk

Spider on a Tree

Moon-Jupiter Conjuction

Here are a few pictures taken of tonight's Moon-Jupiter conjunction .  The bottom picture was taken at a higher ISO to bring out more of the stars and turn the Moon into a bright orb with its on 'moon' (Jupiter).  The other bright star towards the bottom of the photo is Aldebaran.

Moon

Tonight's Moon Picture

I got the Moon, Jupiter and the Pleiades all in the same photo also tonight.

Chalk Ridge Falls Park

Hamilton Pool

Orion's Belt

Orion's belt consists of three stars.

• Mintaka - which is a double star, is 915 light years from Earth and is a double star.  The stars orbit around each other every 5.73 days.  In this photo you can see the double star.  Mintaka comes from an Arabic word meaning "the belt".
• Alnilam  - this star is 1340 light years away from the Earth. Alnilam is a blue-white supergiant and is related to an Arabic word meaning "string of pearls".
• Alnitak  - this star is 736 light years away from the Earth.  This is a triple star although the other stars in the system cannot be seen in this photo.  Alnitak comes from an Arabic word meaning "the girdle".

For a great photo from NASA of Orion's belt and the surrounding area go here.

Moon Jan-17th

Moon and Jupiter

Worked late tonight, so here is a few pictures I took on breaks at work.

Sunset Pictures

These pictures were taken a few evenings ago.

Moon at Sunset

Lizard Log

Flowers at Hamilton Pool

Ganymede

I have decided to do a few posts on some of the major moons of the solar system.  I am not sure how often I will post these, but here is the first one.

Ganymede

Image credit

Here a some facts about Ganymede:

• Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system with a diameter of 3273 miles (5268 km).  In fact, Ganymede is slightly larger than the planet Mercury.
• It is one of the four Galilean Satellites around Jupiter. It was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. 
• It orbits Jupiter at a distance of 665,116 miles (1,070,400 km) making it the 7th in distance from the planet.  It is the 3rd Galilean Satellite in distance from Jupiter.
• It takes a little over 7.1 days to orbit Jupiter.
• Ganymede is composed of silicate rock and water ice.
• Ganymede is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field which causes auroras to form around its poles.
• It is tidally locked meaning that the same side always faces Jupiter just as our Moon does Earth. For more information on Tidal locking you can go here.
• It was named after Ganymede who was a hero in Greek Mythology and cup bearer of the gods.
• Ganymede is also has a subsurface ocean of liquid water.

image credit

Several missions have studied Ganymede and there are also some planned in the future.

• Pioneer 10 (launched March 2, 1972) and Pioneer 11 (launched April 5th 1973)
• Voyager 1 (launched Sept 5, 1977) and Voyager 2 (launched August 20, 1977)
• Galileo (launched October 18, 1989)
• New Horizons (launched January 19, 2006)

• Future Mission JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE) to be launched by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Ganymede is also in orbital resonance with Io and Europa.  Orbital resonance is defined as: orbital resonance occurs when two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually due to their orbital periods being related by a ratio of two small integers. (source)

For every orbit of Jupiter by Ganymede, Io orbits Jupiter twice and Europa four times. (see the graphic below)

image credit

Article Sources and for more detailed information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(mythology)

http://www.solarsystemquick.com/ganymede.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/pioneer-10-11/

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/voyager/

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moon_Explorer

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/mar2012/presentations/Friday/5_JUICE_Summary.pdf

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/05/ganymed.html

http://journalofcosmology.com/Planets103.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance

http://space.about.com/od/glossaries/g/orbitresonance.htm

Giant Leopard Moth Caterpillar

I found this caterpillar outside our front door.  It was there for several days so I took some pictures of it last night.  I looked up information on it online since I had no idea what type of caterpillar it was and found it was a Giant Leopard Moth Caterpillar which will turn into a Giant(Great) Leopard Moth.  The name giant and great are both used to name it.

Here is a short Wikipedia article on it. Giant Leopard Moth

Saturn and Titan

I managed to get this photo of Saturn tonight with my camera. I also managed to get Titan in the photo.  Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and second largest in the Solar System after Ganymede which is in orbit of Jupiter.  When this photo was taken Saturn was 10.069 AU from Earth or around 936 million miles away.

For a size comparison between Earth, the Moon, and Titan click on this link from Wikipedia. Titan is about 50% bigger than Earth's Moon and has a dense atmosphere. Titan was discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.

If you are curious to know how far all the other planets (including Pluto) and the Sun are from Earth right now you can go to Solar System Live.

Jupiter's Moons

I took two different pictures of Jupiter's moons tonight.  One at 8 pm and another one shortly after 11 pm.  You can see the moons changed position's in the two photos.  Note that HIP 20417 is also no longer in the photo.

Foggy Trip Home

These were taken with my IPhone while driving home after work.

Moon and Venus

Here is a picture I took several months ago when the Venus was rising and I managed to get the Moon in the same photo.

Random Photo

Just a quick post tonight. This is the inside of the state capitol building in Colorado.

Jupiter and Moons

I have another picture of Jupiter and its moons tonight.  I also need to make a slight correction regarding the photo of Jupiter last night. The star I identified as HIP 20417A can just be identified as HIP 20417 based on the photo. It is a binary system which has both HIP 20417A and HIP 20417B but they are so close together in the photo they appear as one star.  Tonight's picture has HIP 20417 again towards the top left and off to the middle-top right is HIP 20349 which lies about 167 light years away from us.  The two easily visible moons are Europa above Jupiter and Callisto below Jupiter. Io and Ganymede are really close to Jupiter's disc tonight so you cant differentiate them from Jupiter.  There was a slight indication of Io in the photo so I darkened the area where Io was in the northwestern part of Jupiter's disc.

Photos from the New Camera

I made an incremental upgrade to my camera last night. I was using the Canon PowerShot SX40 HS and now have the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS.  The detail in some of the images I took is much better than with the older camera.  The greatest improvement I noticed was my photo of the Orion Nebula I took tonight.  I superimposed the old image on the new one for comparison.  The image on the left side was the old, and the right side is the new photo taken tonight.

It is still very grainy but it now shows a lot more color and more of the nebula itself than the previous image.

I also took another picture of the Pleiades tonight and could actually label all of the stars that comprise it using the photo I took and then going into Stellarium for comparison.  The labeled photo is below.

The Pleiades nine brightest stars are named for the Seven Sisters in Greek Mythology and their parents, Atlas and Pleione. Sterope/Asterope are actually one sister however the name is spelled both ways. The names are shared by 22 Tauri (labelled Sterope) and 21 Tauri (labelled Asterope).  The Seven Sisters were Nymphs.

This photo is just a random one I decided to add of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion.

The last photo for tonight will be of Jupiter and its moons.  The reddish colored 'moon' northwest of Jupiter is actually a star (HIP 20417A) the three moons visible moving southeast away from Jupiter are: Io, Ganymede and Callisto.

Also HIP 20417A is about 1753 light years away form Earth.

Great Photography Site

If you want to see some great photography, I highly recommend this website.

Stuck In Customs

Cell Phone Astrophotography

If you have a telescope and a cell phone with a camera you can take pictures of what you are seeing in the eyepiece of your telescope. All you really need is some time and patience.  I have only managed to take a few pictures this way so far, but I was only outside trying for about 15 minutes or so.  Once everything comes together however the pictures you can get can turn out pretty well.

Here are two photos that I got while using my phone to take photos through the telescopes eyepiece.  To do this, all you need to do is line up the camera from your phone to the eyepiece of the telescope and take the picture.  This can be a little tricky depending on the phone and even the case you have protecting your phone.  I managed to get a few good pictures of the Moon as shown above using this method. I also tried to get a picture of Jupiter and its moons, but was not entirely successful.  The reason being that once I got Jupiter in view through the eyepiece and could get the camera on the phone lined up properly, Jupiter had already moved out of the frame.  This problem could be solved if your telescope could target an object and then track with it as it moves across the sky.

Another Tilt-Shift Photo

It was cloudy today and I didn't take any pictures so I am posting another tilt-shift photo.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have something a little better to post on here.

Jupiter and Pleiades Cluster

Here is a picture I took this evening with both Jupiter and the Pleiades Cluster in the same shot.  If you look at the full size version of the photo you can make out some of Jupiter's moons as well.

While on a break close to 2 am I went outside for a few minutes to get a picture of the Moon.  It turned out okay I think.  It was a nice clear night tonight with many stars visible.

Sun Through Tree

I played around with the colors of this picture a bit to give it this nice blue tint.  I think it turned out rather well.  I looked at the original version and the black and white versions as well, but this one seemed to me to be the best.

And for something random just thrown in, here is a picture of the Capitol Building in Denver that was taken several years back while on a trip there for work.

The past few nights the clouds have prevented me from taking any good pictures of the Moon, Jupiter, etc.  I hope to have some new ones of those objects fairly soon to post on here.