Remembering Gagarin

In honour of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's successful first orbital flight here's another picture of the moon (taken this time with small tripod).

The Aurora

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

For an explanation as to why this is the limit of my blogging at the moment, check out the most recent Dilbert.

Moon photo for Super Moon Day

Today is not just any full moon, its a super full moon!

Well to be precise it's a full moon when it is also at its perigee i.e. nearest point to the Earth, and hence is just slightly bigger than normal. It is not actually the nearest so don't fear Hollywood style destruction, as it will be closer still in 2016.

The above photo was taken yesterday when the moon was nearly but not quite exactly full. It's also not quite as sharp as I'd like and I'm wondering why. I tried getting the exposure time down to reduce motion blur, but that didn't help so I'm wondering if its a sign of weakness in the lens.

Its a rather cheap and cheerful 70 - 300 mm Canon lens, the bottom of their range, and with a new 18 megapixel camera that is likely to be the weakest point. So I have been checking out options on http://www.eflens.com/ and as always the best lenses are the most expensive and heavy, which is not helpful.

One question I'm not sure on is whether it would be better to go for a higher quality lens at 200 mm or a not quite so good lens at 300 mm - any suggestions? I really do not want anything too big or heavy - or silly expensive.

North heading West

Oh no! Another navigation post - surely its time to move on!

Well that's exactly what the North Magnetic Pole is doing. According to this article from the Independent it is heading towards Russia and speeding up as it does. It's now racing at about 60 km/year.

Hold on to your hat and do adjust your sets.

Rather appropriately currently watching right now in HD the latest Brian Cox TV series, the Wonders of the Universe, where have seen a brilliant description of entropy through use of a sand pile and castle (you'll just have to watch it) and hence explain why there is an arrow of time.

Of course there must be an arrow of time: how else could we - or rather he - say "Things can only get better"?

The truth is out there - Part 2

Ok more from JP's X Files.

The Natural Navigator spotted this object near Venus - full background here - and he's looking for help identifying it.

I'm going with a satellite, but it wasn't a point like object.

Anyway - what do you think?

The truth is out there

A couple of days ago I posted Buff Spaceman's report on the "Spontaneous Crystalline DHMO Alien Sculpture Phenomena" or SCDASP in which he went on to suggest a link between SCDASP with the North Star, saying it was "the focus on an ongoing investigation."

Imagine my surprise when I read on the interwebby thing that NASA, as part of the SETI project, transmitted a message towards Polaris!

Spooky or what.

More on the search for ET in a great BBC4 documentary about the Drake Equation to be found on iPlayer here.

I was going to post a link to the Natural Navigator's puzzle about the picture above (basically asking what's wrong with it) but was too busy so the answer has already been supplied, by, err, me.

Anyhow, head over there so you can say "I could have told you that!"

Then you will see how these two stories are connected.

Another Moon

Another clear night so another Moon photo. But this is no quick and easy post as there were many trials before took this one.

The moon is rising very far to the North at the moment - an explanation at the Natural Navigator site here, though to be honest I can't quite get my head around it so will email Tristan for more.

Shooting the Moon

In a post at the start of this year I showed my failed attempt at photographing the Moon. Using the default settings the exposure was ludicrously long, leaving the heavenly sphere little more than a white circle.

However knowing that this evening the Moon would be both visible and the skies clear I did a bit of Googling and came up with this great article on top tips, first of course to manually set the exposure.

And after a couple of cycles of go-out-get-cold-come-in-check-pic I ended up with the above, which is a lot better!

For those wanting technical details it was my venerable and soon to be replaced Canon 350D together with Sigma 70 - 300 mm lens, 400 ASA, 1/1250 sec exposure F/5.6.

Stunning Space

I could try and think up some connection between this pic and sailing (navigation maybe or that they come from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich?) but to be honest I'm posting it as its one of a series of just amazing photos of the night's sky.

They are the result of the 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year, and you can see a slide show of them together with audio description if you click here.

Silent Skies

London's skies are for once completely clear of aircraft. There's an almost eerie lack of sound as we miss the relentless roar of jets from above as the volcanic dust continues to spread

In the pic above there seems to be a smog like reddy band along the horizon where the sun has just set, which I guess is the culprit.

You can also see the sliver which is the new moon and the evening star, Venus.

iPad and the Planets

It's a good time for the tech-head, with the Apple iPad out in the US and oh so anticipated here in blightly land.

So it's probably not a coincidence that today there was a whole host of new releases of iPhone apps, including the Navionics charts. Must admit am really looking forward to seeing what they look like on the iPad - proper size charts for a reasonable price.

Alas my iPhone is completely full - it's the 16 GB 3G version and just out of contract but think it might be worth waiting till June/July to get the next version. The buzz on the tech blogs is "HD" - better screen and camera, but for me I'm hoping there'll be a 64 GB version.

So at the moment spending my time deleting apps, which makes reviewing the V4 Navionics impossible. But one that stayed in was the Planets app, which shows the location of the planets in the sky wrt the main constellations, as in the screen-shot above.

And it's been very useful in weeks passed to spot Mars and last night Venus & Mercury (see above for their positions at 8pm BST in London), so big thumbs up here.

No doubt there are others in the increasingly hard to navigate Apple Store, and again these are the sorts of app that would be wonderful on the iPad.

Update: Yes! "Planets" is an iPad app so no doubt it will look just great on that big screen.

Venus & Mercury in the evening sky

For those into astronomy it's a good time to be out looking at planets, with Mars and Saturn up there in the night sky, and Jupiter towards morning.

Also look out in the evening, as you can see both Venus and Mercury in the western sky - pretty sure that's what's in the photo above (plus of course a plane). Worth getting a bit chilly standing outside with camera and binoculars, though have just rewarded self with the astronomer's friend, namely a nice cup of hot chocolate.

More about what to see in the sky during April can be found here.

Also a neat solar system simulator over at JPL here.