Blog Archives - Ascension Now

HERE COME THE GEMINIDS:

11/12/2013

Earth is entering a stream of debris from rock comet 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on Dec. 13-14 with as many as 120 meteors per hour.

Lunar interference will be a problem, as glare from the nearly-full Moon reduces the number of visible meteors 2- to 5-fold.

You can listen to radar echoes from the Geminids, unaffected by moonlight, on Space Weather Radio.

Also, tune into NASA's live web chat about the Geminids on Friday the 13th beginning at 11 pm EST.

www.spaceweather.com

What is a Boundary?

10/12/2013

http://www.pinterest.com/messengerspirit/spiritual-evolution/

COMET LOVEJOY'S ACTIVE TAIL:

8/12/2013

Amateur astronomers around the northern hemisphere are reporting activity in the tail of naked-eye Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1). In Nagano, Japan, astrophotographer Kouji Ohnishi could see big changes in less than an hour of monitoring:

Michael Jäger saw the same "disconnection event" from his observatory in Masenberg, Austria, on Dec. 5th. The disturbance could be caused by a gust of solar wind or perhaps an episode of vigorous outgassing in the comet's core.

Comet Lovejoy is now about as bright as a 4th magnitude star. It is visible to the unaided eye from the countryside and is an easy target for backyard telescopes even in urban areas. Monitoring is encouraged. Comet Lovejoy rises in the east just before the morning sun. Sky maps: Dec. 8, 9. www.spaceweather.com

GEOMAGNETIC STORMS:

8/12/2013

A high-speed solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field. When the stream arrived during the late hours of Dec. 7th, a G2-class geomagnetic storm broke out around the poles and Northern Lights spilled over the Canadian border into several US states.

Christopher Griffith sends this snapshot from Pillager, Minnesota:

"The auroras were dancing lightly across the sky," says Griffith. "It was quite fantastic and fun to watch despite the temperature being -25 F."

NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of additional geomagnetic storms on Dec. 8th and 9th. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as the solar wind continues to blow. www.spaceweather.com

METEOR OUTBURST IN PROGRESS:

8/12/2013

The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) is detecting an outburst of Andromedid meteors on Dec. 8th. "Meteor rates last night were near 20 per hour (ZHR)," reports Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "The shower could increase in intensity tonight, so we hope observers (especially Europeans) will be alert for meteors."

Andromedid meteoroids come from Comet Biela, which broke apart in the 19th century. The shower's radiant in Andromeda is high in the sky after sunset for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. A similar outburst of Andromedids in 2011 was rich in faint meteors. If the 2013 outburst is the same, dark skies will be required to see it. Stay tuned for updates.
www.spaceweather.com

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER:

4/12/2013

Earth is entering a stream of debris from rock comet 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Our planet is just dipping into the outskirts of the debris zone now, so visual meteor rates are low. Nevertheless, the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) is starting to pick up echoes from Geminid meteoroids. This Dec. 4th radar map shows a concentration of activity in the constellation Gemini:

"The Geminids, still ten days from their maximum, are very clearly visible in the latest CMOR data," reports Prof. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario, which operates the radar.

In the radar map, the Geminid radiant is labeled 'GEM.' A second nearby radiant labeled 'NOO' marks the location of the November omega Orionids, a minor shower that peaks in early December.

The Geminids won't peak until Dec. 13-14 when Earth passes through the core of the debris stream, but Brown thinks observers should start looking now. "Glare from the nearly-full Moon will interfere with the Geminid's maximum in mid-December," he says. "This week, however, the Moon is new. Observers should be starting to see activity from this very strong shower."
Observing tip: The best time to look is during the hours between midnight and dawn when the constellation Gemini is high in the sky. www.spaceweather.com

RARE V-SHAPED SUN HALO:

3/12/2013

At the end of Thanksgiving Day when the sun was setting over Sumterville, Florida, Paula Phillips took a break from her meal, stepped outside and saw something odd--a pair of luminous 'Vs' in the deepening twilight:

"I've never seen anything like this before," says Phillips. "I photographed the phenomenon with a simple small Samsung camera."

They're sun halos, caused by sunlight shining through ice crystals. Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains:

"These two ‘V’ shaped halos, one rare and one common, change shape dramatically as the sun climbs," he says. "Near sunrise or sunset is the only time to catch them like this. The lower ‘V’ is an upper tangent arc from horizontal hexagonal prisms of ice. The upper one is a rare sunvex Parry arc from similar crystals that - strangely – are fixed so that two prism faces are always horizontal. In the full-sized image, we also see just a trace of a 22o halo and stretching upwards from the sun a sun pillar."

"I find it odd that I saw this in Florida!" continues Phillips. Yet Florida has ice crystal, too. The atmosphere 5 to 10 km above the Sunshine State is always cold enough for water to freeze. "Florida and other warm places get plenty of halos--some of them exceedingly rare," says Cowley. "Look for them everywhere, winter and summer." www.spaceweather.com

COMET ISON DIES ... AGAIN:

1/12/2013

Comet ISON is fading fast as it recedes from the sun. Whatever piece of the comet briefly survived its Thanksgiving Day brush with solar fire is now dissipating in a cloud of dust. Click here to view a 4-day movie updated @ 0100 UT on Dec. 1st:

This development makes it unlikely that Comet ISON will put on a good show after it exits the glare of the sun in early December. Experienced astrophotographers might be able to capture the comet's fading "ghost" in the pre-dawn sky, but a naked-eye spectacle is out of the question. On Nov. 29th, pilot Brian Whittaker tried to catch a first glimpse of Comet ISON from Earth, post-perihelion, from a plane flying 36,000 feet over the Arctic Circle in northern Canada. No luck:

"Ideal viewing conditions from the Arctic revealed no Comet ISON," reports Whittaker. "This negative report is to quench the thirst of other fellow dreamers under cloudy skies or further south. Later I could see that SOHO showed the comet dimming further."

Despite Whittaker's negative result, it is too soon to rule out observations from Earth as the twice-dead comet moves away from the glare of the sun. Meanwhile, NASA's fleet of solar observatory will be tracking the remains.
www.spaceweather.com