Sky events...
D.W.Q.M.: Duke Juliano: "There's this man in Florence claims that by arranging ground glasses in a certain order, it's possible to see the moon and stars as large as your hand."
Marco: "Is that a good thing?" (from the Fourth Doctor story, the Masque of Mandragora.)
No September night sky post yet. Ro seems to have misplaced her copy of Sky and Telescope
Okay, enough of me talking in the third person. ;)
Hopefully I'll have a September night sky post soon, so, until then...
Tuesday night, after discgolfing with Adam and Jerm at Sims Park, we decided to check out the sunset along the shores of Lake Erie, 'cause it looked cool. *heehee* I have to watch my language here-don't want the guys to sound feminine. ;) They weren't, believe me, they weren't. Although Adam did decide to joke around and with a high pitch voice, said, 'oooh! the sunset, how pur-ty!' and skipped along the ground-but that was only after I said, 'ooh! Let's watch the sunset!' Apparently guys don't like to watch sunsets, just check them out when they look pretty cool. LOL Either that, or they were just humoring me, since I wanted to go down to the lakeshore and look. :) (There was also a guy there taking some time-lapsed pictures of the sunset-it was really cool)
Planets in the horizon...
Ok, to the point-really... ;) So as I'm sitting on the rocks, watching the thin crescent moon, I saw Venus twinkle into view. Totally cool. :) Driving back, we also spotted Jupiter. Low in the western horizon, the shores of Lake Erie was the perfect place to be at twilight. Although Venus and Jupiter continue to get farther apart since their conjunction on September 1st, they still shine low in the western horizon, Venus being the brighter of the two planets. :)
Solar flare activity!!
Holy sunspots, Batman!
Sunspot Region 808 (nicknamed for Region 10808, renamed from Region 10798 as it came into view around the eastern limb of the sun for a second time-which was responsible for all the flare activity last month) belted out and X-class solar flare approx. 1:40 EDT yesterday afternoon. X-17.1!!!! Complete with a coronal mass ejection (CME). Unfortunately the ejection happened well to the southeast of the Earth, so we won't be seeing the effects from this particular flare. However, if the region continues to be as active as it has been, there is the potential for some auroal activity over the next two weeks as the region makes it's way to the western limb of the sun.
There are several reasons why this is so amazing. For one, very few solar flares get an X-Class rating, and even fewer go above X-10. (remember all the hype 2 years ago? Those were some powerful solar flares!) This flare was powerful enough to saturate one of the x-ray sensors on the GOES spacecraft-it very nearly saturated both of them. The other remarkable thing about this sunspot is it's longevity. This region was renamed as it came into view for a second time. Few sunspots groups ever last this long-and it is still very active!
What does this mean for the causal viewer? Over the next two weeks there may be great potential for auroral activity. :)
Marco: "Is that a good thing?" (from the Fourth Doctor story, the Masque of Mandragora.)
No September night sky post yet. Ro seems to have misplaced her copy of Sky and Telescope
Okay, enough of me talking in the third person. ;)
Hopefully I'll have a September night sky post soon, so, until then...
Tuesday night, after discgolfing with Adam and Jerm at Sims Park, we decided to check out the sunset along the shores of Lake Erie, 'cause it looked cool. *heehee* I have to watch my language here-don't want the guys to sound feminine. ;) They weren't, believe me, they weren't. Although Adam did decide to joke around and with a high pitch voice, said, 'oooh! the sunset, how pur-ty!' and skipped along the ground-but that was only after I said, 'ooh! Let's watch the sunset!' Apparently guys don't like to watch sunsets, just check them out when they look pretty cool. LOL Either that, or they were just humoring me, since I wanted to go down to the lakeshore and look. :) (There was also a guy there taking some time-lapsed pictures of the sunset-it was really cool)
Planets in the horizon...
Ok, to the point-really... ;) So as I'm sitting on the rocks, watching the thin crescent moon, I saw Venus twinkle into view. Totally cool. :) Driving back, we also spotted Jupiter. Low in the western horizon, the shores of Lake Erie was the perfect place to be at twilight. Although Venus and Jupiter continue to get farther apart since their conjunction on September 1st, they still shine low in the western horizon, Venus being the brighter of the two planets. :)
Solar flare activity!!
Holy sunspots, Batman!
Sunspot Region 808 (nicknamed for Region 10808, renamed from Region 10798 as it came into view around the eastern limb of the sun for a second time-which was responsible for all the flare activity last month) belted out and X-class solar flare approx. 1:40 EDT yesterday afternoon. X-17.1!!!! Complete with a coronal mass ejection (CME). Unfortunately the ejection happened well to the southeast of the Earth, so we won't be seeing the effects from this particular flare. However, if the region continues to be as active as it has been, there is the potential for some auroal activity over the next two weeks as the region makes it's way to the western limb of the sun.
There are several reasons why this is so amazing. For one, very few solar flares get an X-Class rating, and even fewer go above X-10. (remember all the hype 2 years ago? Those were some powerful solar flares!) This flare was powerful enough to saturate one of the x-ray sensors on the GOES spacecraft-it very nearly saturated both of them. The other remarkable thing about this sunspot is it's longevity. This region was renamed as it came into view for a second time. Few sunspots groups ever last this long-and it is still very active!
What does this mean for the causal viewer? Over the next two weeks there may be great potential for auroral activity. :)
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