At 23:30 on 11 September 2006, I saw a bright cloud. My first thought was it’s a noctilucent cloud but it’s not in blue tone but red. Fortunately, I took the photos this time rather than just watching the event until to the end.
As you see from the photo on the left, it was so bright which was totally different than the other clouds. I just can’t close my mouth and keep shouting. Just in case you don’t know, you can click on the image on the left to enlarge it.
However, just after 7 minutes, miracle showed up. Take a look on the close-up above. The cloud didn’t brighten up itself. It’s the Moon!
My friend March05 has contributed very much this time. He has done the lunar eclipse sequence photo. Credits to him! The photo above was taken by his lovely Casio EX-Z750.
What about mine? I still have to adjust some of their brightness and crop them out. It’s quite time consuming.
Atlantis lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center beautifully. Experienced Aug. 27 and 29 and Sept. 3 and 8 weather and technical problems, Atlantis finally flies into the space. Docking to the International Space Station is slated to take place at 6:46 p.m. Monday.
Just in case you have forgotten, they are going to install the P3/P4 integrated truss and a second set of solar arrays on the space station, doubling the station’s current ability to generate power from sunlight. However, this adds 17.5 tons to its mass.
This is one of the most challenging space mission ever since the mission of component adding to the ISS 4 years ago.
Yeah~ CFHT captured a photo that the lunar dust was ejected by the impact of the SMART-1 on the Moon. Could you see the expansion of the dust cloud? It’s followed by the image of the impact of SMART-1.
As the force of impact was so great that the reflecting force was as great as it, the acceleration was fast too according to the formula F=ma. Thus, the cloud expanded at such a high speed.
Cool, this is really cool! I didn’t wake up on time. At 3:31, the greatest partial lunar eclipse has already gone. I am 40 minutes late. The image below wais taken at 3:35. I have not cropped the photo yet. I am going to tweak these photos in brightness and contrast this evening.
My plan is to connect the photos from the penumbral to umbral into an animation. Luckily, my friend March05 has the earlier photos. If everything goes well, I will have the animation posted tonight.
What does this mean? Usually, after a rain, the sky will be clear. If it’s going to happen, we will have a clear sky for lunar eclipse. Stay tune!
Edited on 22:24: Looks like the raindrops are not totally fell onto the ground. The sky is not clear but the Moon is visible.
I haven’t experienced a lunar eclipse before. Tomorrow will be my first observation of a partial lunar eclipse. I will start my observation from 02:15:00 to 03:15:00. Of course, I will take a photo every 5 minutes and then combined them to an animation.
The exact information is as follow,
Penumbral Contact: 16:42:23 UT
Umbral Contact: 18:05:03 UT
Greatest Eclipse: 18:51:21.1 UT
Umbral Exit: 19:37:41 UT
End of Eclipse: 21:00:21 UT
For your information, the lunar eclipse starts from 00:42:23 to 5:00:21 on 8 September. We are going to have the best partial eclipse at 02:51:21. Don’t miss this!
By the way, the full Moon, the biggest Moon in 2006, has just past since 02:42:00 on 7 September.
Oh yeah! I just received my copy of Sky & Telescope magazine directly shipped from US this morning! This is my first magazine subscribed from US as well as my first Astronomy magazine. Not to mention that the contents are really good; however, the advertisements are just too many that I can see them most of the time. Nevertheless, they are quite informative as I know more about the astronomical instruments after reading them. Credits to all the editors!
Don’t you feel that this photo is nice? I used my home garden as the background in this photo. I like it so much!
This articles is supposed to be posted yesterday night but when I online today, I just found that this is still in the drafts. There must be something happened to my internet connection. Anyway, it’s here now.
SMART-1 has crashed onto the lunar surface at around 13h 42m 21.759s GMT+8. The impact coordinates is 34.4S, 46.2W on the edge of Lacus Excellentiae.
Left: The bright point in the picture is the impact of SMART-1 on the Moon. Credit to CFHT as known as Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
What’s wrong with it and forced it to crash? It was running low on fuel. It ran on a low-thrust engine powered xenon ions. Its main job was to test an European made ions engine. It is so successful that it just used 60 liters xenon ions to travel over 100 Millions km from Earth to Moon in a spiral way. It’s then captured by the lunar gravity at a distance of 60 000km.
It took over thousands of high resolution pictures and made mineral maps of the lunar terrains. One of its most important discoveries was a “Peak of Eternal Light,” a mountaintop near the Moon’s north pole in constant, year-round sunlight. Peaks of Eternal Light are prime real estate for solar-powered Moon bases. Quoted from SpaceWeather.com
The impact site of SMART-1 is Lacus Excellentiae, the lake of Excellence, an ancient, 100-mile wide crater in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. Below is the coordinates of impact site.
Continue reading ‘SMART-1 Crashed The Moon’
After weathering tropical depression Ernesto at the launch pad, the shuttle Atlantis is set for launch from the Kennedy Space Center at 12:29 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 6
Commander Brent Jett and his five crewmates will travel to the International Space Station to install a new 17-ton segment of the station’s truss backbone, adding a new set of giant solar panels and batteries to the complex. Three spacewalks are planned.
At 23:30 on 11 September 2006, I saw a bright cloud. My first thought was it’s a noctilucent cloud but it’s not in blue tone but red. Fortunately, I took the photos this time rather than just watching the event until to the end.
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