Brighton Astronomy Group Blog » Astrophography

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse 12/21/2010

Wes Walkey — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:14:08 +0000

Solstice Lunar Eclipse 12-21-10

This is the first time since nearly 400 years ago during the time of Galileo a lunar eclipse has taken place on the winter solstice, this was a rear event to been seen. The next visible total lunar eclipse in the United States will not happen until April 15, 2014

Denver Museum of Nature and Science: Hubble Space Telescope (HST) COSTAR package On Exhibit

Wes Walkey — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:08:42 +0000

I made it to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) COSTAR package Saturday. The COSTAR is located near the T-rex Café. The package is protected by a Plexiglas covering It is about the size of a grand piano. COSTAR stands for Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement. This is the instrument that resolved the issue with flawed mirror problem that prevented Hubble from a clear focus. It needed eyeglasses and COSTAR was it. It was built by Ball Aerospace Corp. and installed in 1993. Since then other service missions have replace the old packages with their own corrective optics. COSTAR was removed from HST in 2009 during the fifth servicing mission and replaced by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

Check out the photos in our gallery under telescopes at our website.

While I was there I also got to see the new upgraded IMAX. It is now digital and in 3-D. This was the first 3-D movie I seen in years. Wow how the technology has changed. I watched the HUBBLE 3-D movie wow between the sound system and the 3-D views it was amazing, I would recommend seeing it if you haven’t yet, it is definitely worth it.

Approaching Green Comet…………

Wes Walkey — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 07:48:10 +0000

Source – Space Weather News for Oct. 1, 2010: http://spaceweather.com

APPROACHING COMET: Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th. At that time, the comet will be only 11 million miles (0.12 AU) from our planet and should be dimly visible to the naked eye from dark sky sites. It already looks great through backyard telescopes, as shown by images featured on today’s edition of http://spaceweather.com. NASA’s Deep Impact/EPOXI spacecraft is en route to this comet for close-up studies and a daring flyby on Nov. 4th.

Caroline Moore: Teen Astronomer found rare supernova

Wes Walkey — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:05:44 +0000

BIG NEW SUNSPOT:#1045

Wes Walkey — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:09:44 +0000

Image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

Astrophography and Equipment

Wes Walkey — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:39:27 +0000

This is the place where we will discus things to do with astrophography and the equipment that goes along with it.