I am sorry that I have not been blogging for many weeks. I have been very busy with my work, so I was forced to reduce blogging time. I hope I can keep posting more frequently as soon as the stargazing season begins.

One of my readers asked me a question in the comments of another blog post. The question was “how can I locate constellation Lyra as well as star Vega when located in Belgium“? I promised to answer by writing an article so that other amateur astronomers in Belgium can use this same information. In this post I try to provide an easy-to-understand and useful method for finding constellation Lyra and star Vega when observer is located in Belgium. Please ask more in comments if something is unclear or your would like to discuss more about this topic.

First of all I decided to run a simulation of the sky above Belgium tonight. I assumed that an observer is located in Brussels. Vega, the alpha star of constellation Lyra, belongs to so called Summer Triangle. In this same article I also tell you how to find the summer triangle when located in Brussels, Belgium.

Go out at 1:30 am and watch directly to south

Lyra and Vega are located pretty high in southern summer sky when observed from central Europe. In order to observe constellation Lyra and it’s brightest star Vega, go out at 1:30 am and watch directly south. Then raise your head up until you see a bright star high above horizon. That star is Vega, as shown in the first picture above (click to see a bigger picture). Right next to Vega you should see the other stars of constellation Lyra.

I have no “bullet proof” method for finding Lyra and Vega, but I believe you should be able to locate them both with this picture captured directly from a simulation of the upcoming night sky above Belgium. If it helps, you can use two other bright stars, Altair and Arcturus (also circulated), to help finding Vega.

Notice also so called Summer Triangle

Because Vega is part of so called Summer Triangle star formation, we really have to say few words about the Summer Triangle as well. Being one of the most popular formations, Summer Triangle consists of three stars, namely Vera (constellation Lyra), Deneb (constellation Cygnus) and Altair (constellation Aquila). See the second picture above. There you can see those three bright stars circulated. By using this picture you should be able to locate the stars of the Summer Triangle above Brussels in Belgium. This picture shows the night sky above Brussels on July 20th 2008 at 1:30 am (tonight). So, if you are going to observe Vega tonight, take a look at the Summer Triangle as well.

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As we wrote in April, ESA is looking for new European candidates to their astronaut training program. ESA asked all member countries to send applications for the upcoming training program. From Finland they will receive over 300 applications. This is the first time Finns have a change to become an astronaut and fly to the space.

ESA received 8.400 applications in total, and out of those thousands of applications only few will be picked up and given astronaut training. Most of the applications ESA received from Germany and France. I am really looking for to see someone from my home country entering the space. I did not apply

My dream might come true. ESA has announced that after their initial selection few Finns are still in the game. The process continues with a series of psychological tests, and those who pass the tests will continue with medical tests. Finally only four people out of 8.400 applicants will become ESA astronauts.

This is the first ESA candidate search since 1992. Those four new astronauts will fly to the International Space Station (ISS), but might also go to Moon one day.

Heh.. now my four years old son wants to become an astronaut..

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This picture is from Aram Chaos crater in Mars. It was taken last month by HiRISE camera of MRO-probe. The crater was named Aram Chaos because of the broken formations of the surface.

Scientists believe the crater was formed when the material under the surface dissappeared. Lowest parts of the crater contain dark sand which is coloured blue in the picture. On can also see the dunes formed by the sand right next to steep walls.

“Sulfates have been detected in the cliff walls in some areas within Aram Chaos, as well as hematite. It has been suggested that these materials were deposited within a lake setting“, was said in HiRISE project website.

See a high-resolution image here.

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Check out the press release of ESA (European Space Agency). They are looking for European students to join their new programme called “Fly Your Thesis! – An Astronaut Experience”. If you are a European student (like me), this is your change to experience a zero gravity flight. My old colleague from Ericsson was lucky and joined this kind of zero gravity flight some years ago. I saw his pictures and I must say I was a bit jealous..

ESA’s airplane flies a parable route and during 20 second periods students can feel almost zero gravity. Yes, they really hover in the air and bounce from walls. Well, may be there is not that much bouncing, but they really feel the zero gravity, just like astronauts in the International Space Station (ISS). This is currently best way to experience how astronomers feel in space.

Unfortunately one cannot join the programme just like that. The idea is that students perform a scientific experiment during the flight. It must be related to master’s of doctoral thesis of the student or it can be part of some other science project.

ESA will pick 20 European student groups who must present their thesis plans. Out of those 20 ESA will then select 3-4 groups who will join the 2009 flight. Groups of 2-4 students must be 18-28 years old, come from ESA member country and must be either MSc or PhD students. Damn! I’m already too old.. Deadline for the applications is the end of August 2008.

Here you can see the pictures and videos of Finnish students joining the flight in 2000. These are from Mikko Suominen, one of the writers of the great Avaruus.Fi astronomy blog.

Source [Avaruus.Fi via ESA]

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Greeeeetings from the beautiful Crete! I just came back from one week vacation with my family. We spent one week in Chania in Crete island. Oh boy, Crete is a wonderful place to take it relaxed. For sure I recommend Crete to anybody. And I didn’t even mention the Greek food.. Delicious!

So, what my vacation in Crete has to do with astronomy? Last Friday night I was having a dinner with my family in the village of Platanias in Crete. I noticed that the Moon was almost 100% covered by the shadow of itself (not like during a full lunar eclipse when it’s covered by the shadow of the Earth). I told my five-year old son and he was amazed with the beauty of the waxing crescent Moon. On our way back home I recognized that there is actually something more interesting next to the Moon. Castor and Pollux were lined with the Moon.

The Moon happened to be located next to constellation Gemini, and Gemini’s bright stars Pollux (beta Gemini) and Castor (alpha Gemini) were set in line with the Moon. The straight line of those three celestial elements did really look wonderful in the eyes of an amateur astronomer. Next night I noticed that the Moon was much higher in the sky in relation to constellation Gemini. I was lucky to see this phenomenon.

Unfortunately I had no camera on that night, so I decided to run a simulation back home and add screen captures to this article. I ran the simulation on Stellarium software which is absolutely the best simulation program I have ever used. Check out the three pictures included in this article. The sky above Crete on last Friday did look exactly like in those pictures. The second picture is a close-up of the Moon, Pollux and Castor. Third picture is a close-up of the Moon. I wanted you to see how pretty the waxing crescent Moon did look.

As you can see I haven’t written much lately in this blog. The reason is that the sun doesn’t set anymore here in Finland and therefore I haven’t been stargazing lately. Nights in Crete are dark and I found myself lying on beach on night time and watching the awesome and beautiful universe above me. Aren’t we small? Isn’t this universe amazing? Man, I must say it really keeps on amazing me.

Notice that also in EarthSky’s article the waxing crescent Moon, Pollux and Castor are almost lined up.

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There has been a really unusual problem in the International Space Station (ISS). The one and only toilet of ISS has been broken. Imagine how difficult the situation can be when astronomers cannot go to toilet and Nasa is not able to send a service man up there..

Ok, it is not that tragic anymore. The toilet is ISS got broken last week and the crew was first forced to use the toilet facilities of Soyuz but can now use the main toilet as it has been repaired by replacing a micro-processor valve. Although the toilet can be used now, it is still broken. There are several backup solutions available, so no worry guys.

Discovery will fly to ISS next week and currently it seems that Discovery will carry some extra toilet parts. Meanwhile ground specialists will continue troubleshooting the problem and station crew continue preparing for the arrival of STS-124. Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman have been practicing photography techniques they will use when filming the Rendezvouz Pitch Manouver of STS-124. If you wonder what the “Rendezvouz Pitch Manouver” means, it is a “back-flip” performed before docking with the station. The reason for photographing Discovery is to analyze if heat shields have broken during lift-off.

Oh boy, next week we will be able to watch directly the lift-off of STS-124. I guess I will have some troubles to do my work because every now and then I need to watch Nasa TV. I have watched several lift-offs directly after Nasa launched their TV in the Internet. Nasa TV is one of those great things Internet can offer. 10 years ago I could have not imagined that in few years I will be able to watch STS flights directly on my computer. Man, these things develop so fast..

If you are one of my daily readers, you probably have noticed that I have not been blogging actively lately. I have been too busy with my job and family. There have been so many things ongoing that my blogging has suffered very much. Another reason for my blogging hiatus is that here on northern hemisphere we suffer from the lack of dark nights. For example in Finland the Sun does not set at all on midsummer. Because of this amateur astronomers of northern countries don’t go stargazing that much on summer time. This applies with me as well. I hope I will be able to stick to my blogging pace in the future and avoid these breaks.

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Microsoft has released their WorldWide Telescope (WWT) software and it is freely downloadable in WorldWideTelescope.Com website. As Microsoft says, “The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.”

WWT is a powerful education tool of science enabling the observations of the sky for anyone, says Bill Gates. WWT seems to very very easy to use and it contains terabytes of pictures of the celestial objects. It looks like WWT will play major role in schools when teaching astronomy, and that is just great! I wish we had such a software when I was in school.

The mission of the WWT is twofold:

- To aggregate scientific data from major telescopes, observatories and institutions and make temporal and multi-spectral studies available through a single cohesive Internet–based portal.

- To re-awaken the interest for science in the younger generations through astronomy and new technologies through the virtual observatory of the WWT. This also provides a wonderful base for teaching astronomy, scientific discovery, and computational science.

WWT searches NASA’s real pictures for its background. One can browse the targets of a certain area of the sky or pick them up from a certain real telescope database. WWT reminds Google’s Sky, but it is much easier and straightforward to use. WWT also contains features to help you explore the Earth, satellites, such as the Moon, and 360 degree panoramas of Yosemite’s Half Dome and other locations.

Computer requirements are pretty high for using WWT. 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 128 MB video card and XP- or Vista operating system are required.

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In April 2008 we asked our readers the question “Do Yuo Believe in..”

- God

- Evolutionary Theory

- Both

- Neither

It is time to see the results. Oh yes, I should have done it already two weeks ago, but life is life. It has been so busy lately that my blogging has suffered very much. I hope I will get my work done and by that release more time for blogging. Just stay tuned, I will write more how-to articles on amateur astronomy.

So, the results of our April poll? The results are pretty much what I expected. 38% of the people who answered this question believe in God, while 17% believe in evolutionary theory. 37% of those who answered believe in both, God and evolutionary theory. Only 8% believe neither of these.

Thank you for giving your opinion in this poll! Check out also our March poll results. In March 2008 we asked if people are afraid of comet strikes.

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As you most probably know, yesterday was the international mother’s day. As I am an amateur photographer, I shot lots of pictures of my wife and our kids during the day. It was a very nice and warm day here in Finland, so we spent a lot of time outside. Although the light was almost too bright, it is great to shoot pictures on a sunny day.

Later in the evening I was looking for information on New York sightseeing. We have been thinking of a holiday trip to NYC, so I wanted to know what to do in the Big Apple. While reading various websites I discovered PhotoAcute Studio review which is a promotional website for leading edge tool for improving digital photographing. As I am interested in astrography as well, I decided to post few lines about this website. You might find it useful as well.

So, PhotoAcute Studio processes sets of photographs taken in continuous mode to produce high-resolution, low-noise pictures. It increases image resolution, removes noise without losing image details, corrects image geometry and chromatic aberrations and expands the dynamic range. Shortly said, it makes your average pictures superb.

PhotoAcute Studio review website claims that they can provide an amazing image quality without changing my gear. Sounds good, because I use an old Canon EOS 5 and I’ve been thinking of purchasing a new camera. What’s best, it works even with mobile phone cameras!

Check out the examples on PhotoAcute website. At least in those pictures is seems to work well. PhotoAcute is available on Windows, Linux and Mac OS platforms. What really makes me happy is the low price of this useful piece of software. For example for mobile phones it costs only $19. PhotoAcute Studio is available for free in trial mode. I just downloaded and will give it a try.

Photo source.

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NASA’s Terra satellite has captured images of the disaster in Burma. Cyclone Nargis terrorized the cities and villages of Burma just few days ago. The images taken by the satellite show how the cyclone caused serious floods in southern Burma.

The first picture was taken one day before the disaster. In the picture one can see flora with green color, land with brown color and clouds with white and light-blue color. In the second picture one can see the increased amounts of water with blue and black colors. For example Rangoon city (four million inhabitants) is almost totally surrounded by water.

NASA’s satellite images show how several cities of 100.000-500.000 inhabitants are covered by water. According to United Nations, the worst area is Irrawaddy’s peninsula where 5000 square meters of land is covered by water.

You can read more about NASA’s satellite images in NASA’s website.

Text and image sources [Avaruus.Fi via NASA]

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