The Dutch Observatory

It has almost been three years since I imaged Jupiter, but I wanted to give this a try again with the new ASI120MM camera.  A lot to learn!  My old process does not work anymore, so searching again for the best way to do it.  Not too bad for the first Jupiter  image with this new camera  in this new apparition.

Tonight we had the close conjunction of Venus and the Moon.  I started my imaging way before it got dark, but felt that something was missing, until I saw a very bright contrail coming from the right and heading for the conjunction.  All other planes had turned to Hartsfield Airport way before they came to the conjunction, but this one was passing over Atlanta and was heading right for it.  By the time it got there, it lost a lot of its brightness, but still a cool image.

Three days of the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter conjunction taken from the Jon Wood Field at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center and the last image from Flint Hill elementary School, Oxford GA. 

Today, the Walton Tribune carried my feelings and emotions during the launch of Curiosity to a larger audience by publishing an article and a picture of me in front of the countdown clock.  Click here to read the article. Curiosity is well on its way now.  In fact a fellow Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins in Utah caught it on its way to Mars on the 27th when it was close at the junctior of Monoceros, Hydra and Canis Minor.  Click the image to see it move through the field of view.

Saturday morning I did not hear the alarm clock, but managed to get to the pickup site at the Space Coast Stadium at 5:45 a.m. I got on bus 10 out of 60 and we got to our viewing site at the Banana Creek viewing area next to the Apollo/Saturn building around 6:45. It was still relative dark and rain clouds were abundant. We received two short showers about 2 hours before the launch. The sunrise was very nice through the thick clouds. The count down clock (being about 37 minutes fast) was stopped at -2:00:00 and again at -4 minutes. NASA Administrator Bolden gave a speech and 2 minutes before launch the 3500 viewers at our location sang the National Anthem, which brought the emotions high. As the clock approached 0 you could hear a pin drop, but as the rocket did lift off, a roar released the silence as everyone kept their eyes on the Atlas 5 with Curiosity on top. The roar of the Atlas 5 with 4 solid rocket boosters was not as loud as with the space shuttle, but seeing the fire and smoke this close across the water and marshes made this launch unforgettable.  A perfect launch.  The very high humidity made it a bit murky to make pictures from our site, but I will never forget the emotions in me when Curiosity set of on its voyage to Mars. Click here for some pictures from the time leading up to the launch.

Well we left after the launch and the trip home on the Saturday after Thanks giving took us 10 hours! Almost two hours were spend to cover a 20 mile strip before the Florida Turnpike merges with I-75. But we made it.
The launch was spectacular and it was a real experience to see in person what happened accross the water and marshes 4.5 miles away. My son let me use his 200mm zoom lens for my camera, and leaning the camera on the railing of the bleachers of the viewing area, I just kept the shutter button pressed with the camera set on continuous shooting until the camera stopped. (Out of space or power). Here one of the cropped images.

All of you who have known me for some time know that I eagerly followed NASA’s Mars Phoenix mission.  This led to really wanting to attend the launch of the next Mars mission which has gone through some delays.  However, the date has come and “Curiosity” is scheduled to be launched on November 25th at 10:21 a.m. I am very pleased that my official invitation for this launch has arrived today, so we will not be spending Thanksgiving this year at home, but at the Cape.

Friday evening and Saturday evening I imaged Jupiter after a long pause.  The air has been so unstable for Jupiter  here that sometimes you could not even focus the planet.  Saturday turned out that that was also the case, but Friday was a little better.  The tail of the outbreak can be seen at the preceding limb.  Wish it was a better image, but I am glad I got this.

Tried to image on thursday evening, but the seeing was too bad.  Last night it was a lot better.  Here the best image of the evening.  Maybe the seeing is slowly returning here.  The image shows the GRS as it just passed the CM and the oval BA has moved quite a bit.

No this is not the Moon, we have a two day full harvest moon.  It is the cresent Venus as the ISS made a transit accross Venus from the driveway of a friend of mine.  Frank Garner and I have been waiting a long time for this opportunity and we are very happy with this.  Please note that this is a daytime pass at 4:38 P.M. local time and the sun is still 33 degrees high and 30 degrees from Venus.  Venus was shining at a magnitude of -4.2 and the brightness of the ISS was -1.2, a difficult spread to manage in bright daylight.