The Night Sky 3/18/11

So I was out the other night with my buddy and we were kind of looking for something to do. I remembered that I had my star charts in my vehicle as they always are and we brought them out and.... looked up. I'm so glad it happened to be a clear night. Very lucky indeed. We saw Orion of course. His belt as distinct as ever. We saw some planes. We saw the moon, waxing crescent, you see. We saw Taurus the Bull and the Hyades and the Pleiades. We saw Monoceros, I think. And Auriga. It was really nice.

APOD 3.8

Hey, I reeeaaalllllyyyy like Boston. I like to think of my dear friend who is living there right now. He was looking at this exact moon rise! And what a moon rise it is! On March 19, the moon was at its perigee. It was 14% larger and 30% brighter than a normal moon. I too happened to see the moon on this night and it was quite impressive. The "Supermoon" as it was affectionately termed was very big. The shot was taken from Prospect Hill in Waltham, Massachusetts, roughly 10 miles from the Boston skyline. Just to the left of the orange lunar disk is the distinctive control tower at Boston's Logan International Airport. Topped by lights, the tall, twin towers of the cable-stayed Zakim Bridge spanning the Charles River are also included in the scene

APOD 3.7

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110328.html

Time-Lapse Auroras Over Norway
So, Norway is very lucky to get to experience all these auroras. I have done many-a post about auroras in the past. They're quite inspiring. Many times the auroras are green, as high energy particles strike the Earth's atmosphere, causing the air to glow as electrons recombine with their oxygen hosts. Other colors are occasionally noticeable as atmospheric nitrogen also becomes affected. In later sequences the Moon and rising stars are also visible. This time lapse was sweeeettt.

APOD 3.6

Yeah! Mercury and Jupiter! How cool! NASA reports that there will probably become good views of Mercury this spring as it approaches the northern hemisphere where the ecliptic plane makes a steep angle with the western horizon. This photo was taken off of Froson, an island in Northern Sweden. I'm enjoying looking up at Venus every morning. Planets are so bright and cool.

APOD 3.5

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100302.html

This image makes me think of a Star Wars paraphenalia tee shirt. That's why I chose it. I like Star Wars. All right, so it's not a tee shirt design. It's actually M78 being reflected by some clouds. The dust absorbs light and also reflects it. M78 is about five lightyears across and belongs to the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The cloud itself is between 1,500 and 1,600 light-years away and is hundreds of light-years across. The nebula is important because of the sheer size as it spreads several degrees from Orion's Belt to his sword. That's the hilt of Orion's sword! Neat-o!