Mike's Astro Photos

You’ve probably heard about this in the last week, but a very large NASA satellite is set to crash to Earth in the next day or two and it will could be a spectacular light show for those living near the end of the track. Here’s the official NASA page about the UARS satellite.

You can see the satellite in the sky now at certain times of day, but the time and place is dependent on your location. To figure out when and where to look, go to this site:

http://heavens-above.com/

Follow these instructions:
1) From the main page, under ‘configuration’, press the link: “select from map”
2) Select your location from the map. Try to get as close to your real location as possible by hitting ‘zoom’.
3) Once your location is selected, press submit and get sent to the main page.
4) Now select the link under Satellites that reads “UARS”
5) This will show you all of the times over the next few days when the satellite will pass over. IF there are no clouds in the sky you should 100% CHECK THIS OUT at this time, cause no matter what it will be COOL, and you have the possibility to see it crash — which will be AMAZING!

If you see the satellite or see it crash, please write me and tell me about it. If you have a camera and tripod, set it up before the pass so you can catch it on film.

Good luck and clear skies!

There was a major fireball in the south west today that made national news on CNN, MSNBC and the other networks. The American Meteor Society fireball application logged over 100 witness reports. I wrote a blog article today on the AMS website about the 2011/09/14 fireball. Check it out. Good chance it left meteorites, but it might also be space trash.

One of my neighbors went to Cape Canaveral for the final Space Shuttle launch. I asked her to send me some pictures. I strung them together in this quick animation of the launch. Thanks Caron! You did a great job!

Final Space Shuttle Launch Animation - Photo Credit Caron Wills - July 8th, 2011

Mind = Blown

The U2 360 concert was amazing. SPACE was one of the dominant themes. The show started with David Bowie’s Space Odyssey and ended with Elton John’s Rocket Man. At the beginning of the show they cut in video of an astronaut on the international space station. They cut in video of more astronauts at the end. The stage looked like a UFO. This show was all about space and in that way profound, especially for me.

Bono modestly pointed out that 8 million lives have been saved as a result of 2 programs that he has pioneered and we Americans have supported. That was pretty awesome. He called on everyone in attendance 80,000+ people to give back to the world. It was inspirational.

The concert started like an encore with lots of old time favorites belted out in the first 10 songs, including Pride and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. The music selection seemed to gravitate around the album Actung Baby which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. I think they played nearly every track on that CD. Bono was very proud of their influence on the politics of that time and the end of the Cold War. He said the album was in fact a celebration of the war’s end.

Bono thanked George Bush for assisting with efforts in Africa and did not utter the word Obama or pay any homage to our current leader. I thought this was interesting because in the first U2 concert I ever saw, (Zoo TV) he called the White House at every show until he finally got through to the President (Bush Senior).

The space tie in makes sense. This is our future. This is our evolutionary purpose. Only when we look on the Earth from space do we realize how petty and silly our current conflicts and differences are. Only by challenging ourselves to go beyond our own planet can we be elevated to a higher level of thought and existence.

Here’s a time lapse video of about 1400 pictures we took at the concert.

Here’s a screen cap of today’s shuttle launch. Endeavour’s last mission.  Kinda sad…

Launch of Endeavour Space Shuttle

Update: Here’s a pic of today’s launch taken by Stefanie Gordon on a flight from NY to FL.

Shuttle Take off - Stefanie Gordon - May 16th 2011

Here’s an amazing picture of a shuttle and an F15. (don’t think it was today’s launch). The photographer of this photo is unknown, but I assume another F15 pilot.

F15 watching shuttle take off - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

And here’s an F22 watching another launch

F22 Guarding Shuttle - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

And here’s another one…

F15 watching shuttle launch - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

A friend of mine on facebook posted this. All I can say is wow.  Check this out!!!

http://media.skysurvey.org/openzoom.html

Here’s an online planetarium program a friend sent me. Wow. This is really cool. Check it out:

http://www.solarsystemscope.com/

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first man in space. Leave it to google to remind us with a wicked google doodle.

Click the image above for information and pictures about this remarkable day in space history.

Here’s a great video of the launch and celebration.

My friend Cliff sent me this pretty cool NASA video. Go For Launch! Space Shuttle The Time-Lapse Movie

I had to renew my license so I was driving to the MVA this morning when I saw this:

Retired Space Shuttle - Joppa Road Parkville, MD

Now I know what NASA is doing with those retired space shuttles…

We had a lot of snow here the past week. After things settled down and the roads were cleared, I took a ride around the hood and snapped some pics.

Within the last week two significant fireballs have been reported from Tucson, Arizona.

The first was on: 2011-01-08 @ 00:10:00 MST.

The second was this morning: 2011-01-11 @ 01:20:00 MST.

Here is a video from all sky camera that captured the 1/11/11 fireball:

You can see the fireball at the 7 second mark. This may have been a late Quadrantid?

Be on the lookout for extra fireballs today and tomorrow. On January 11th, 2011 (tomorrow) 5 different NEOs (Near Earth Asteroids) will fly past Earth. There is an increased chance that fragments from these NEOs may hit Earth, creating large bright green fireballs. Have your cameras ready and please let me know if you see one.

So I heard about this story a few weeks ago. A bunch of retired US Air Force guys claim UFOs came to the nuclear missile silos in the US and remotely hacked our missiles and turned them off. These guys (over 100 of them) have recently met at a conference to discuss these events and the cover ups that followed. Here’s a video of the conference. This is pretty compelling stuff, not sure what to make of it. Comments welcome.