Eclipse of the Moon is widely seen

Hopefully many of you managed to observe the total eclipse of the Moon this morning or last night depending on where in the world you live. Much of the UK was covered with cloud after a run of nights when skies had been crystal clear. Skymania's Paul Sutherland was observing from Broadstairs in South-East England, where Moon was veiled by thin cloud up to a few minutes before totality when thicker cloud completely obscured the view. The photo shown here, as the Moon was about to become completely immersed in the Earth's shadow, was taken at 02.50 UT, using a Canon EOS 300D camera attached at prime focus to a Sky-Watcher 80mm f5 refractor. It was a one-second exposure at ISO 1600. Conditions were clearly much better in other parts of the world and an especially fine webcast of the eclipse was provided by the "Friends of Astronomy" society in Argentina. How was the eclipse for you? Do post a comment to let us know! ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com • Skymania welcomes your comments on our stories! For more space reading, check out the Skymania stores in the USA, the UK, Canada and France. They are powered by Amazon so you can buy with confidence.

Your chance to spot doomed spy in sky

A spy satellite has hit the headlines because it is due to crash back to Earth over the next few weeks. But you may not realise that you can easily spot this "top secret" craft for yourself. USA 193 regularly flies over Europe and the Americas. It will be clearly visible this week from Skymania's part of the world when it flies several times through UK skies - providing it has not been shot down first! On Tuesday night (19th) at 6.45pm, UK time, the satellite will be visible as a slow-moving bright "star" in the southern part of the sky as it passes across northern France. But the next night (20th - the night of the total lunar eclipse) brings the ten-ton satellite over Brighton and Dover at 6.38pm, and Thursday (21st) will see it flying directly over London at 6.31pm. The satellite, which is the size of a small bus and carrying who-knows-what technology, will cross South Wales and the Midlands on Friday night (22nd) at 6.23pm and Manchester at 6.15pm next Saturday (23rd). For a "top-secret" spy, the satellite will be easy to spot, shining down like a bright star. You can distinguish it from an aircraft because it will shine as a single glow as sunlight glints from its hull, 200 miles above the ground. You can get predictions for your own part of the world by checking with the Heavens Above website. UK space experts are predicting that the USA 193 will crash to Earth in late March and that chunks of it could survive the fall through the atmosphere. Pentagon chiefs are said to be considering using a missile in a "star wars" bid to blast it to smithereens first. The spy craft is in a highly-inclined orbit of 58.5 degrees. That means it flies over most of the Earth from the Shetlands in the north to Patagonia in the south. It could therefore crash anywhere and there is a slim but real chance that that could be on the UK or Ireland. USA 193 also carries a full load of hydrazine fuel, which is highly toxic, dangerously unstable and can cause sickness if humans come into contact with it. Normally the fuel would have been used to help keep it in position and to help it come out of orbit safely at the end of its working life. The toxic material beryllium may also be on board. A British amateur stargazer has already taken the first close-up photo of the spy satellite. Communications consultant John Locker recorded the top-secret craft as it passed over his home in the Wirral in Cheshire. He used a £40 webcam attached to a telescope in his back garden. John's photo reveals that the ten-ton satellite failed to deploy its solar panels properly, causing it to fail after it was launched on December 13, 2006. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com • Skymania welcomes your comments on our stories! For more space reading, check out the Skymania stores in the USA, the UK, Canada and France. They are powered by Amazon so you can buy with confidence.

Total eclipse of the Moon - Feb 20-21, 2008

A total lunar eclipse this month will be visible from Europe, Africa, western Asia, South America and most of North America. The eclipse occurs when the Full Moon glides through the shadow of the Earth in space. Update: You can view our report and photo of the event here. From Britain, the entire event happens in the early hours of February 21st, meaning you will have to wait up on the night of February 20th. From the USA, it begins during the evening of the 20th. The Moon will travel deep into the Earth's shadow and will turn a deep shade of orange or red - to see how dark or red it actually becomes, we shall have to observe it for ourselves! The Earth's shadow is actually composed of two cones, one darker one within the other. To understand the geometry of this, visit this webpage. The outer, lighter shadow cast is called the penumbra and is where the Earth blocks some of the Sun's light but not all of it. The darker central shadow is the umbra. The diagram above, showing times for the eclipse in GMT, is reproduced courtesy of NASA's "Mr Eclipse", Fred Espenak. (Click on the graphic to view it full-size.) Diagrams for other time zones can be found here. Note that the Moon actually moves into the shadow from the right, although the Moon itself will appear to be crossing the sky in the other direction as the Earth rotates. First contact with the Earth's pale grey outer penumbral shadow occurs at 00:37 UT (37 minutes after midnight GMT), and the Moon is completely enveloped within an hour. Since the penumbra is faint, all that is likely to be noticed during that period is a slight darkening of the Moon's leading (left-hand) edge. At 01:43 UT the Moon makes first contact with the umbra, i.e. it begins to enter the darkest part of the shadow. Totality starts at 03:01 UT, when the Moon is completely immersed in the umbra. Given good conditions, the Moon will be visible with the unaided eye because sunlight is refracted by the Earth's atmosphere onto the Moon, giving it a reddish hue. At some eclipses the Moon appears a bright orange at totality, while at others the Moon assumes a rich brown colour. Totality lasts for 50 minutes, making this the deepest eclipse visible from the UK until June 15th, 2011. At 03:51 UT, the Moon's leading edge emerges from the umbra into the relative brightness of the penumbra, ending totality. During the eclipse the Moon will lie in Leo, close to Regulus and a few degrees away from Saturn. From the UK, the Moon remains fairly high, with an altitude of around 44 degrees at first umbral contact, 33 degrees at mid-totality (03:27 UT) and 18 degrees when it finally leaves the umbra completely (05:09 UT). Steadily-held binoculars are the best instruments with which to enjoy lunar eclipses. Most viewers prefer to gaze at these events without worrying about recording them, but some enjoy noting the definition of the umbra's edge and the colour of the Moon, along with timing the contact between the umbra and certain prominent lunar features. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com • Skymania welcomes your comments on our stories! For more space reading, check out the Skymania stores in the USA, the UK, Canada and France. They are powered by Amazon so you can buy with confidence.

Space station offers new target

Amateur astronomers are taking up a new observing challenge - the International Space Station. Despite its distance of more than 220 miles, some are capturing detailed images of the orbiting outpost. A fine example, taken only this week from the UK using a webcam, shows the space shuttle Atlantis attached and the vast solar panels that provide power to the station, currently home to ten astronauts. It was recorded by process engineer Martin Lewis, from his back garden in St Albans, Hertfordshire. He used a 222mm (8-in) reflecting telescope that he built himself, on a Dobsonian altazimuth mount. The webcam was a DMK21AF04AS mono camera capable of 60 uncompressed frames per second at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. By chance, the current shuttle mission has coincided with a period when the space station flies directly over the UK and Ireland for a few nights in the early evening. It takes around five minutes to cross the whole sky, appearing to the naked eye as a brilliant light in the sky. Martin, who added a 2x barlow lens and Luminance filter, told Skymania: "I set up my telescope in my back garden, got my webcam focused and aligned with the cross-wires of the low power finder and waited for the ISS to appear at the predicted time in the west. "When I saw it rise over the rooftops, I hit the record button and tried my best to keep the finder crosswires centred on the ISS. I managed to push it to follow the space station for most of the track across the sky but because it's moving so fast, I only got a few hundred good frames. "When I later viewed the video, I saw the shot attached which clearly shows the distinctive outline of the shuttle docked on the front of the space station. I was really pleased as I'd wanted to get this shot with the two spacecraft together for ages." The space station is now a brilliant object, easily visible without any optical aid, and it can be captured with an ordinary camera capable of a time exposure. You can find out when it passes over your part of the world at the Heavens Above website. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com • Skymania welcomes your comments on our stories! For more space reading, check out the Skymania stores in the USA, the UK, Canada and France. They are powered by Amazon so you can buy with confidence.