The SPECULOOS Southern Observatory saw first light in December 2017. Located at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, SPECULOOS is designed to hunt for exoplanets around small, cool stars.
This image of NGC 6902, a galaxy about 120 million light-years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius, was taken to test one of the four 1-meter telescopes that comprise SPECULOOS.
Visit the ESO site to download high-res versions of this image.
Messier 75 is a lot less dazzling through the telescope. Although I can nearly always detect a brightening at the core, it takes more than a 10-inch scope to resolve individual stars (I’m not sure I’ve ever resolved any). Still, M75 is a fun target. It’s a noticeably non-stellar patch of circular fuzz.
Click through the image to download a screen-size .jpg or publication quality .tiffs.
Big Aurora. Image copyright Goran Strand.
Earlier this week, the Universe Today blog featured aurora photographs taken by Frank Olsen and Göran Strand. Both photos were beautiful, but I’m in love with luminous sky in the image Strand posted on his blog last week. I’m also in love with his description of the scene: he claims that photo looks as “if a green blanket was put on top of the sky (om en grön filt lagts över vår himmel)”. This aurora is much friendlier than the goblinesque northern lights that frightened me as a child.
Milky Way at Dawn in Yosemite Valley. Image courtesy Gregg L. Cooper
I wrapped up my California research trip with a weekend in Yosemite. In my mind, Lick Observatory and Yosemite Valley are linked landscapes; it seemed appropriate to go from archives to the park. We did some quality star gazing out behind our cabin, but as frequently happens on vacation, I was ready for bed well before the darkest observing hours. Luckily, photographers like Gregg Cooper are out there doing the hard work while the rest of us are resting up. Enjoy this particularly successful photo taken at Valley View; it’s a lovely combination of moving water, the Milky Way, and the growing glow of sunrise.
Click on the image to go to Mr. Cooper’s flickr page, where you can see this and other beautiful Yosemite photos.
Lick Observatory. Image credit: Rick (瑞克)
If all goes as scheduled, by the time this post reaches its intended audience, I will be in the air, flying toward the American west coast. I’ll be spending the balance of the month in central California, working in the Lick Observatory Archives at UC-Santa Cruz. This trip marks the beginning of an entirely new research project for me—new topic, new time period, new theoretical concerns. I’m more excited about this than I have been about anything I’ve worked on to date; I hope that means I’m headed in a good direction. Regardless, I get to spend some time reading original correspondence and papers related to the construction of the observatory in the 1880s. How cool is that?
The above panorama of the observatory building was produced by Rick (Ruei ke). Right click to save to your hard drive, or visit Rick’s flickr page to download other sizes and look at his other intriguing images.
Lick Observatory, stereographic projection. Image credit: Rick (瑞克)
Astronomy Wallpaper
This post is for my wife (this is my way of initiating a tutorial on updating the wallpaper on her new smart phone).
Drive Wheels, Byrd Telescope (Pinhole Photograph), July 7, 2009. Photograph by Scott Speck
Today’s selection features the pinhole photography of Scott Speck. In July 2009, Speck had the opportunity to photograph the NRAO’s Byrd Telescope. The results are beautiful, the type of photos that move architectural historians to tears.
Click on the image to see a larger version of “Drive Wheels,” or follow the link the in previous paragraph to see more of the NRAO on Speck’s flickr site. His work is available for purchase at imagekind.
Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) under construction with the Launch Control Center (LCC) and LC-39 Service Towers as seen from across the Turning Basin, January 5, 1965. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
Not enough hours in the day. Here’s some nice VAB construction photos to distract you from the fact that I haven’t written anything of substance here for a while.
VAB under construction, September 1963. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, October 22, 1963. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, January 14, 1964. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, August 14, 1964. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, November 1964. Image credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, c. 1965. Image credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, c. 1965. Image credit: NASA/KSC (via Stayne Hoff)
VAB under construction, June 9, 1965. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
VAB under construction, August 1965. Photo credit: NASA/KSC
Snow on Mount Helmos. Photo credit: Helmos Observatory/National Observatory of Athens
This astonishing image of Helmos Observatory (look closely) introduces the news item posted by the Royal Astronomical Society. Panos Boumis of the National Observatory Athens and John Meaburn of the University of Manchester have published the results of their research based on observations made with Aristarchos, the 2.3 m telescope at Helmos Observatory. Aristarchos only saw first light in 2005, so that Boumis and Meaburn are revealing their conclusions so soon is pretty exciting. In order to measure the distance and age of three lobes of the nebula KjPn8 (in other words, three parts of the gaseous shell that was ejected by a star as it collapsed into a white dwarf), they attached a narrowband camera to the telescope. By comparing the imaging results over the course of several months (years?), they were able to track the velocity and expansion of the lobes; from there, they calculated the distance and age of the nebula.
It’s interesting enough to learn that KjPn8 is some 8000 light years away from Earth. Even more interesting, however, is the conclusion that the lobes were created at different times: 3200, 7200 and *50,000* years ago. That’s…what…the Paleolithic? Homo neandrathalensis has another 10-20,000 years to go extinct and Homo sapiens has just arrived in Europe. That’s seriously cool stuff.
Click on the image to go to the original, posted by the Helmos Observatory.
IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory
The IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory is seeking candidates for its “Winterover” positions. If you’ve got wicked UNIX skillz, don’t mind living in isolation, and aren’t particularly attached to sunrise, take a look at the advertisement. If you’d rather just fantasize about working at the South Pole, click on the image above to download various sizes of wallpaper for your computer.
Sky and Telescope News