Colourised animation processing data from: https://psa.esa.int
ESA Mars Express HRSC
Orbit: 14388
2015-05-05 T16:01:18 > T16:01:35.424Z
IDs: 5 Frames
HE388_0003_SR3 >>>> HE388_0007_SR3
1 frame added to make it smoother
Credits:
Raw Data:
ESA/DLR/G.Neukum-FUBerlin
Processing: AndreaLuck CC BY
In this villa near Florence, Italy, Galileo Galilei spent the last decade or so of his life under house arrest. I was there this weekend on the panel of a science outreach event, here's the video recording in Italian:
English amateur astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington was born #OTD in 1826.
In 1859 his astronomical observations demonstrated the existence of solar flares as well as suggesting their electrical influence upon the Earth & its aurorae; and whose 1863 records of sunspot observations revealed the differential rotation of the Sun. His publications include Results of Astronomical Observations Made at the Observatory of the University, Durham; & Observations of the Spots on the Sun.
The largest camera ever built for astrophysics arrived this week at the Rubin Observatory at Cerro Pachón in Chile.
The LSST camera, built by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, CA, is the final major component of the Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope to arrive at the summit.
Development of the observatory has been funded by the NSF and the DOE.
The Rubin Observatory Simonyi Survey Telescope consists of 3 aspheric mirrors: an 8.4-m primary mirror M1, a 3.5-m convex secondary mirror M2, and a 5.0-m tertiary mirror M3.
The primary and tertiary mirrors are fabricated from a single piece of glass.
The secondary mirror (M2) is the largest convex mirror ever made.
Field of view = 3.5°.
The 3.2-gigapixel camera hangs below the secondary mirror. https://www.lsst.org/about/tel-site/optical_design #Rubin#astronomy
2/n
The Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time LSST Camera is the largest camera ever constructed for astronomy. It is a large-aperture, wide-field optical camera, capable of viewing light from the near ultraviolet to near infrared wavelengths.
Length: 3.73 m
Height: 1.65 m
Weight: 2,800 kg
Pixels: 3.2 billion
Wavelength: 0.32–1.06 μm
Filters: 6 (u-g-r-i-z-y)
Field of view = 3.5° (moon = 0.5°)
Operating temperature: -100°C
Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time by Becky Smethurst, 2020
From the big bang to black holes, this fast-paced illustrated tour of time and space for the astro-curious unlocks the science of the stars to reveal fascinating theories, surprising discoveries, and ongoing mysteries in modern #astronomy and #astrophysics.
This image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows spiral galaxy NGC 4689. Resembling a cosmic fingerprint, this galaxy exhibits spiral arms branching in all directions, classifying it as a foculating spiral. Its position facing us offers astronomers an almost perfect view to study its structure in detail. The disk contains dense regions of gas, dust and..... #astronomy#space#astrophysics#astrophotography
I wondered if these craters are in #Wikidata and have the correct P138 (named after) property set so after writing the following #SPARQL query, I found out that all six craters are already in Wikidata as expected, but only two had their etymology indicated. Naturally, I completed them!
Dutch physician, mathematician, cartographer Gemma Frisius was born #OTD in 1555.
He created important globes, improved the mathematical instruments of his day and applied mathematics in new ways to surveying and navigation. Gemma's rings, an astronomical instrument, are named after him. He observed the total lunar eclipse of 3 Mar 1569 and he also discovered the 1572 supernova in Cassiopeia on 9 Nov, which he observed two days before Tycho Brahe.
"More than 150 people turned out at the Kihei Community Center on Wednesday for a public scoping meeting about a proposed telescope project on the summit of #Haleakala. The testimony was overwhelmingly against the project."
This pause resulted in no small part because of the comments submitted by McDonald Observatory, the Center for Biological Diversity and DarkSky International, among others. But: "Everything we’ve seen from CBP suggests that they’ll continue to build destructive walls and blast harmful lighting into some of the border region’s wildest places as soon as they get the chance."
I taunt astronomers in other EM regimes because unlike us cool radio astro folks, they mostly can't do astronomy during the day (where we can).
Now, folks from our uni (Macquarie Uni) and fellow PhD'er Sarah Caddy, are building telescopes for daytime obs.
THIS IS BETELGEUSE IN THE DAY! 🤯
To get these results, we've built a telescope that has MANY eyes, and named it after the huge spider we have here called 'The Huntsman' (which of course, has many eyes).
Gliese 12 b is an Earth-size planet orbiting in the temperate zone around a nearby, stable red dwarf star. It's a Rosetta Stone world that will tell us a lot about how many superficially earthlike planets actually have the right conditions for life.
If you're the kind of person who likes to go deep, I got you.
The full research paper is freely available online, providing the technical details of how astronomers found the Earth-size planet Gliese 12b, and what we really do (and do not) know about it.