Casual Astronomy, Spaceflight News and Lower California Weather

gabriel Your comments are very welcome. Especially on such a fascinating subject as the Maya civilization. They were advanced in astronomy and other ways when Europe was in the dark ages. As you noted some of the Mayan culture survives to this day.

You're welcome for the blog and thanks for contributing. :^)


shore Yes there is a coordinate system for the sky very similar to latitude and longitude on the surface of the Earth. You can imagine all objects in the heavens placed on a sphere surrounding the Earth at a great distance. The term for this concept is the celestial sphere.



The celestial equivalent of latitude is declination or Dec and it is measured in degrees - or +. Polaris (the North Star) is almost directly over the North Pole at Dec +89° 15' 51". The symbols in Dec are: ° degrees, ' minutes (there are 60 minutes of arc in a degree) and " seconds (there are 60 seconds of arc in a minute of arc). Sirius is at Dec -16° 42' 58.017" and passes directly overhead of Earth locations that are at almost 17° S latitude.

The celestial equivalent of longitude is Right Ascension or RA. However instead of 360 degrees of longitude there are 24 hours of Right Ascension. RA is expressed in actual hours, minutes and seconds corresponding to the rate that celestial objects apparently rotate around the poles. Sirius is located at RA 06h 45m 08.9173s or 06:45:08.9173. RA increases to the east on the celestial sphere. Objects with a larger RA rise later and set later.

The entries for "Celestial Sphere", "Declination" and "Right Ascension" in Wikipedia are currently more technical than they need to be. You should be able to find something much simpler in some good introductory astronomy materials.

Well, you were already headed in the right direction and there's your shove. ;^)


Feather Thanks for that video. :^)

Glad you got to hear the launch. I got to hear the Delta II launch too. I was there and it was thrilling!


sp That's a 100% accurate description! LOL


Fsh I am breathing a sigh of relief for those in South Florida too. :^) I wish it could be for those in the Turks & Caicos, Great Inagua, Haiti and Cuba too. :^( Hopefully Ike is the caboose of the eastern Atlantic pain train.


pcbman Thanks for linking to MX's WunderPhoto of the Delta II launch. That one is my favorite of his entire series. It looked just like that in binoculars. I added it to some other WunderPhotos of the launch in the blog entry.


I'll give a short account of my own experience at the launch soon. I highly recommend the experience to anyone who's never been to one.

At the viewing area for the Delta II launch it was sunny, clear and warm. The actual launch pad varied from completely to mostly obscured by a fog bank hanging close to the ocean. (Check the WunderPhotos in the blog entry.) The launch pad is a mile from the coast and the viewing area is 5 miles farther inland.

As the countdown approached zero there was a small orange flicker veiled by the fog then a large orange ball bloomed upward still heavily filtered by the fog. A second or two later the Delta II emerged above the fog layer. I swung up my binoculars to watch it. The shape and colors of the rocket and the small boosters attached to the lower part were clearly visible. The flame was so bright it was uncomfortable to look at. (See MX's photo in the blog entry.)

All I had heard up to that point were oohs and aahs and excited murmuring. About half a minute after liftoff came the muted but unmistakable crackling roar of a large flame. After several seconds the volume suddenly surged until I could feel the vibration in my chest. As the sound slowly faded I alternately watched with binoculars and naked eyes as the rocket continued to climb and gradually bend toward the south until change was no longer visible.

shore You're welcome. :^)

sp Thank you. :^)

I added a couple of WunderPhotos to the blog entry. One with the the planet Venus, "The Evening Star", which is becoming easier to see every evening in the western sky.

Thanks for that link, Fsh. :^) I had no idea how high the risk was on flights to the International Space Station.

Yep, the Hubble servicing and upgrade flight is scheduled to leave the ground on October 10. Looks like Miami might have some good flyovers during the mission.

I hope that your packing just turns out to be a readiness drill.

If you want to confirm your answer about the bright something to the left of the Moon (or if you just want the answer, lol) take a look here.

New blog entry is up.