astronomy

Did you know there’s a California Nebula? I found out myself today thanks to the ever-awesome Astronomy Picture of the Day and its March 7th entry, “Comet over California” showing Comet Holmes gracing the edge of the image:

Today’s entry linked back to a March 2005 APoD entry: “NGC 1499: California Nebula” which shows it off to better effect:

More info on NGC 1499 is available at the Atlas of the Universe and also at SEDS. Wikipedia’s page on the nebula says:

It is almost 2.5° long on the sky and, because of its very low surface brightness, it is extremely difficult to observe visually. It can be observed with a H-Beta filter (isolates the H-Beta line at 486 nm) in a rich-field telescope under dark skies. It lies at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth.*

* Other sources place it at about 1,500 light years.

The Planetary Society Weblog has the amazing story about Pluto making its presence known by occluding a star (sort of like an eclipse) — and for once, it’ll be be visible around here, assuming no light pollution. What does occluding mean? See the quoted section below, but to me the coolest thing is that it’s visible to the naked eye. Pluto occultation coming up March 18:

On March 18, just before 11:00 UTC, tiny Pluto will wander across a background star, an event called an ‘occultation’ by astronomers. The event will be visible and in full darkness from the western half of the United States and from almost all of Mexico. The background star will be blocked from sight for about six minutes. An occultation isn’t just a fun coincidence; there is extremely valuable science that can be performed by watching this….

No word on if this is some sort of Plutonian protest about its demotion. ;)

In related news, the current Celsius1414 poll “What’s your favorite planet?” has Earth just beating out Pluto by a few percentage points. I feel sorry for Mercury, which has no votes — thus putting it behind Planet Hollywood with its one fan. :)

I forgot how cool the BBC News Science/Nature section can be. Four stories in the past day caught my eye, two historical, two astronomical.

Early humans followed the coast - Learning how to live off the sea may have played a key role in the expansion of early humans around the globe.

Aztec ruins unearthed in Mexico - Archaeologists working in Mexico City have discovered an Aztec monolith, the most important ruins of the ancient civilisation to be found in decades.

Mars orbiter looks down on rover - Nasa’s new orbiter at Mars has taken a spectacular picture of the Opportunity rover sitting on a crater’s rim.

Astronomers complete mighty map - Astronomers have produced their biggest 3D map yet of the “local” Universe.

LA Times: “L.A.’s Eye on Cosmos Returns”

After 5 years and nearly $100 million of renovations, the Griffith Observatory is finally opening again. The biggest change is probably how to get there:

The city has temporarily closed the 199-space lot at the observatory and will instead require that visitors make time-certain advance reservations and, in most cases, use shuttle buses based at the Hollywood & Highland Center and Los Angeles Zoo parking lots.[…]

The shuttles will cost $8 per adult and $4 per child ages 5 to 12. Unless city officials can negotiate a last-minute price break, those parking at Hollywood & Highland also will face a parking fee of $2 to $10 per vehicle.

This might surprise donor Griffith J. Griffith, who stipulated in his will nine decades ago that the observatory be free. But City Recreation and Parks officials said they were covering that base by keeping admission free for those who walk or bicycle to the site — up to 1,200 a day. Though they’ll pay nothing, those visitors still will need to make reservations.

So, walk or bike there and save a little money. Can’t wait to check out the new digs!

“Pluto’s newly discovered moons finally get names”

Meet the newest kids in the solar system: Nix and Hydra.

The pair of moons orbiting Pluto were officially christened last week by the International Astronomical Union, which is in charge of approving celestial names.

Until last year, scientists thought Pluto was accompanied by only one moon, Charon. But the Hubble Space Telescope spotted the two satellites - more than twice as far away as Charon and many times fainter.