Ewan's Corner

Posts Tagged ‘astronomy’

A stunning view from Gough Island (40º20’57.7S 9º52’49.2W – Google Earth or Maps) during the partial solar eclipse this morning, from a live webcam.

We only saw 56% coverage in Durban (65% in Capetown) – thankfully the clouds were patchy so we had plenty of time for some great views.

Today also marked South Africa’s first formal day of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. I doesn’t matter how many eclipses I see, they are still awe-inspiring and somehow mystical events. I’ve seen two full eclipses before (one in Tshipise in Musina and the other from Lusaka, Zambia) and I plan to follow any others I can get to :-)

A sense of scale, and relative importance.

Something to kick-start the budding astronomer in the new year:

“Are you looking for all the best of what’s up in the night sky for the year 2007? Then be my guest and download my free e.book — ’365 Days of SkyWatching’! (Brought to you courtesy of The Universe Today.) Each day is specifically geared to give you the best of what can be seen with the unaided eye, binoculars, and small telescopes and even has challenge objects for seasoned observers. It’s beautifully illustrated and contains many special features, such as anotated lunar maps. Please feel free to pass it along to anyone in the astronomy community and enjoy!”

—Tammy Plotner, president of Warren Rupp Observatory
And go get yourself a copy of Stellarium – free, open source planetarium software (windows/mac/linux) to help explore the skies.
Also awesome – The Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006

I managed to break my ring finger recently (falling off a mechanical bull at the Derivco fun day – I only lasted 3 seconds but in my defence the longest time anyone managed to stay up was 9 seconds, and you should see his injuries). My finger has to be splinted for several weeks (really slows down typing and nappy changing) but on the plus side my x-ray came in handy during last Friday’s solar eclipse (partial from SA). I didn’t take any photos, but happily others did – nice to see some South African photographers too.
ps – I do realise that an x-ray is not an ideal (read: safe) solar filter, but it works in a pinch as long as you don’t look at the sun for more than a few seconds, and are careful.

Today is the Winter Solstice or shortest day of the year, at least for the southern hemisphere (in the northern hemisphere today is the Summer solstice / longest day of the year). Technically the sun stands still – just before it changes direction – at 14h26 South African time (12h26 UTC) today and Earth’s southern hemisphere is most inclined away from the sun. This is why getting up to deal with a crying child in the small hours of the morning currently sucks so much.
Most people (including a sadly large number of geeks, some of which I work with ;-) seem to believe seasons are caused by the changing distance between the Sun and the Earth as the Earth orbits, but this isn’t true – seasons are caused by our planet’s tilted axis and the amount of sunlight a hemisphere gets throughout the year.
If you think our planet’s seasons and the weather they generate are extreme, think again – we actually have a very stable climate.
Wikipedia Solstice Article
NASA’s APOD
NASA New Science article