Category Archives: Space

February 2, 2022 · 23:28

Groundhog Day Launch

Well, sorta.

It is Groundhog Day. And yes, as always, we watched the movie. It’s one of my all-time favorites. Sooooooooooooooo much to love on so many levels.

SpaceX did launch out of Vandenberg, 116 miles as the crow flies to our northwest. And the booster came back and landed at the launch site, which was spectacular. Watch the video!

For most Vandenberg launches they take a southerly route off the California coast, and particularly for evening or night launches the booster comes into sight, climbing up over the hill to our west about a minute after launch, and then being visible through first stage shutdown and separation, second stage ignition, and first stage boostback burn, with the second stage sometimes (at night) being visible all the way to the southern horizon where it’s all the way down past Cabo San Lucas.

So today, I decided to go out, climb up on the roof so that I could get a better view, and see if I could do a Facebook Live video to show the world the glory of a Vandenberg launch as seen from the west San Fernando Valley!

That might not have worked out so well.

Yeah. So windy. I had no idea that most of the time the wind noise was drowning out every word I said.

And given that it was a day launch it was hard to see much. Given the Return To Launch Site (RTLS) nature of the launch (as opposed to landing on a drone barge at sea off the Mexican coast) I suspect this wasn’t a southernly launch. (Given the security and secrecy around this launch of an intelligence agency satellite, they won’t be confirming.)

And what you probably can’t hear (I couldn’t when I watched) is that at some point there was a loud crash behind me as the wind blew over the ladder that I had used to get up onto the roof. Oops!

Fortunately, the Long-Suffering Wife was at home and able to lift the ladder back up. All was well.

Except for the fact that we didn’t see the rocket.

Later in the year will be more Vandenberg launches. Maybe I’ll get up to see one in person this year, or maybe I’ll climb up on the roof in the wind and the dark for EXTRA excitement.

Stand by!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Space, Video

January 30, 2022 · 23:23

My Weekend – January 30th

I hope you all had a pleasant and relaxing weekend. For me – mixed results.

I got a lot of work done on a project for the CAF SoCal Wing, and while it’s “work,” and a fair amount of it, that whole gig is wrapping up so the sooner I get it done the sooner I can reclaim a bunch of my time, so that’s a net good thing.

I checked my car periodically to see if it will work, i.e., let me shift out of “park.” In six or seven checks over the last two days, it locked up three times, the rest of the time was fine. Anyone want to bet that once I get it to the repair shop this week it won’t do it AT ALL for the repair guys to diagnose?

The Kings are on the road and playing well! It’s a pleasant surprise. Perhaps they have a legit chance to get into the playoffs for the first time in about four years. They lost in an overtime shootout yesterday in Philadelphia but won today in Pittsburg.

We did not go to space today, for the fourth day in a row. SpaceX is trying to launch a satellite but after three days of lousy weather today was perfect. Right up until the point where a cruise ship sailed into the restricted area where debris could fall if there was a failure on the rocket, so the launch got scrubbed at T-0:33. They’ll make a fifth try tomorrow.

Then, of course, after a roller coaster ride of a season, where at one point we were 3-4 and folks doubted we would make the playoffs, let alone win our Division, let alone make it to the AFC Championship game, but we had turned it around to the point where we were favorites to go to our third Super Bowl in a row, getting to here with that mind blowing last second comeback and overtime win last week – after all of that, we choked after building an early 21-3 lead and lost in overtime this week.

Yeah, that sort of sucks. A lot. I’ll live, I’m an adult, I understand that 31 of the 32 teams all finish the season with a loss, I remember that there were years and years when an 8-8 season was a triumph and we never even fantasized about making the playoffs at all, and now we’ve been in the AFC Championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl four years in a row, we’ve cashed that ticket two of those four years, and we won the Super Bowl in one of the two appearances. (*deep breath*) Nonetheless, this stings.

After a bit of “destruction therapy” (crushing soda cans for recycling, they make a very satisfying “crunch” as they collapse into little hockey puck sized bits of jagged aluminum) it was time to go out with the old:

…and in with the new.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in sixteen days! (Assuming they can settle the lockout/strike issues by then.)

Let’s hope that the week ahead will be productive and non-stressful for all. (HAH!) It’s time for the stress levels from politics, COVID, and “life” to back away from that red line on the meter.

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Paul, Photography, Space

January 19, 2022 · 23:04

ALWAYS Make Time To Watch The ISS Fly Overhead

Life’s too damn short. It’s bad enough that we can’t watch rockets take off and land any time we want, not to mention all of that COVID and politics and other nonsense. But when you know that the ISS is flying overhead and it’s nice and clear, stop what you’re doing and go watch!

Of course, you only get to see about half of the pass when you’re out there just starting to record and the pizza guy pulls up and hands you dinner.

Priorities can be emergent and fluid. Just sayin’.

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December 26, 2021 · 22:05

Comet Leonard

Happy to say that I’m ending 2021 on at least one high note!

Comet Leonard was discovered last January, diving toward the Sun. Its closest approach to the Sun is coming up on January 3rd, following its closest approach to Earth, which happened on December 12th. Don’t worry, it never got closer than 34.6M kilometers (21.5M miles).

Comets are notoriously lousy at allowing predictions of how bright they’ll get, and a first there wasn’t a lot of hope for Comet Leonard. However, it started unexpectedly brightening in November, and by early December it was visible in binoculars and small telescopes. It’s just in the last couple of weeks moved to where it can be seen in the evening sky in North America.

I’ve been trying to spot it for about ten days, weather permitting. A couple of times with a really good pair of binoculars I’ve thought that I might have seen it, sorta, maybe, kinda, -ish? But it’s very low in the twilight sky in the west, even when we haven’t had outright clouds, we’ve had haze and “gunk” in the sky, and I live in one of the biggest and brightest and light polluting-ist metropolitan areas on the planet.

But I haven’t given up. And neither should you.

If you want to try to find it, there are a couple of ways to know where to look. First of all, there’s a great site at The Sky Live. Change the location in at the top (unless you too are in Woodland Hills, CA) and scroll down to the map. Tonight, just before 18:00 local, mine looked like this:

(Image from The Sky Live – click to enlarge)

Note that there are three bright planets in this view and they can be your guideposts to look. Jupiter is at the top center (really bright), Venus at the bottom right having juuuuuust set in this view (really stinkin’ bright), and Saturn between them (bright). So in rough terms, right now Comet Leonard is a little to the left of a line dropped straight down to the horizon from Jupiter, and a little bit higher than Venus, maybe a third of the way up higher than Saturn is compared to Venus.

Tonight I started looking in that area with binoculars since it was crystal clear after yesterday’s rain and before tomorrow’s rain. Still low in the sky, still a ton of light pollution, and the best view in that direction that I had from my yard was a spot where I was standing directly under that stupid freakin’ streetlight. And yet, after a few minutes, there it was!!

I looked for a bit, looked away and looked back to find it again and verify that I was actually seeing it. It did NOT look like the pictures folks are taking from the Southern Hemisphere with big telescopes. But where all of the stars I could see were pinpoints, this was a tiny, fuzzy fuzzball with a slight greenish tint and the tiniest bit of tail, pointing off to about the 10:00 position. (Ignore the orientation of the tail on the Sky Live map, it’s just an icon. The real tail will point straight away from the Sun, so to the upper left.)

COOL!!!

Before it set and before the next storm could move in tonight – could I catch an image of it? While I can’t see it through the telephoto lens, using the binoculars I can see that it’s just above the tree that’s behind the neighbor’s house’s chimney which is right above their Christmas lights. Can I shoot several sets of pictures at various magnifications and exposures and eyeballing the pointing, while using bright, bright Jupiter as an object to manually focus the lens that’s notoriously difficult to focus? We wouldn’t know until I tried, right?

(CLICK ON IT!)

Using this “carpet bombing” approach and using lots of cheap memory instead of film, there are a few captures. The comet isn’t centered since I was shooting blind. but over on that right hand side, slightly below center, you’ll see a greenish fuzzy spot, which is Comet Leonard. (The bright yellow line at the top is a power line, illuminated by that freakin’ streetlight just over my head.)

This is a 2 second exposure at 135mm on the zoom lens. What about a 4 second exposure?

Where are we looking? Compare the stars you can see to the area highlighted in this zoomed in version of the Sky Live map:

What if I zoom in? Still getting lucky?

4 seconds at 300mm zoom. Comet Leonard over on the far right center.

2.5 seconds at 300mm zoom. Comet Leonard in the upper right corner. How close are we getting to the horizon? Even zoomed in this far, at the bottom you can see the top of that tree behind the neighbor’s chimney… In five minutes, it will be gone and the air near the horizon is getting thick and soupy, fast.

This might well have been the last real chance I’ll have to see Comet Leonard given our weather forecast, but I’ll be keeping my eyes open, just in case. Over the next week or two Comet Leonard will be moving a bit each night to the left and up a bit, but it will also be getting more dim as it pulls away from the Earth.

Good comet hunting as we come up on the New Year!

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December 24, 2021 · 23:46

Christmas Eve Rainbow

We’ve had a couple of days of decent, much-needed rain here, a bit over 3″. Given that our total for last year was only 5.38″ with annual averages of only 16.41″, that’s a good chunk of our seasonal allocation.

Today was calmer with scattered showers around, and tomorrow we’re expected to get the next big round. But scattered showers sometime mean scattered sun, and when they mix:

I’ll take helpful signs and colorful reminders that there’s good to be found in the world. I’ll take all we can get.

Merry Christmas Eve, y’all. Let’s hope that Christmas Day gives us a successful launch of JWST (in about four hours) on an ESA Ariane-5 rocket (yes, I’ll be trying to get up to watch). Let’s hope that the last week of 2021 and all of 2022 are better than 2021 and 2020 were.

Get vaccinated. Mask up. Stay socially distanced.

Let’s be smart and stay alive, folks. We’ve got a lot of great things to live for and wonderful rainbows to see in the future, both the near future and the far distant future.

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December 20, 2021 · 22:02

I Caught A SpaceX Launch

I’m sure there are tens or hundreds of thousands (or more!) folks in Florida who have hundreds of these, almost as common as catching video of the mail carrier drive by.

I’m not in Florida. This is cool. (And it’s my website, so ppbbbbbbtttt!!)

On Saturday morning, December 18th, SpaceX was going to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with more Starlink satellites out of Vandenberg. We know this can be neat! At first, they were going to launch at about 01:30 or so and I was going to stay up to watch since the skies were clear. Then they switched to a 04:41 launch and I’m an old phart who needs my beauty sleep, so I did not get up.

The launch was successful, the first Falcon 9 to get launched and recovered eleven times. And I got to wondering…

We have a security camera looking at the front porch. It wouldn’t be as good as one of the good mini video cameras or even the iPhone 13 for video quality and it’s not tracking and the roof would cut off the view in just a few seconds. But, still.

Look in the upper left, right near where that arch is on the roof pillar. The neighbor’s house with a bunch of trees is off in the dark and you can really clearly see the Falcon 9 rising in the west.

The zoomed in view.

Takeaways – life is short, I can see the rocket from my front yard, it’s über cool, so make more effort to get your ass out of bed at 04:35 to watch!

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December 6, 2021 · 23:40

No Context For You – December 06th

A simple photo, a couple of slapdash visual effects (isn’t “slapdash” a wonderful word?), and 23:30 desperation searching for inspiration turns into…whatever.

NASA introduced the 2021 astronaut class, otherwise known as “Astronaut Candidates” or ASCANs. Ten fine, wonderful, and über overqualified individuals, some or all of whom will in the next five to ten to twenty years walk on the Moon or even Mars. I watched them with bittersweet joy as they were introduced, excited to see them and truly looking forward to following their progress as they pioneer the road forward off-planet, along with all of the other current astronaut corps which I’ve followed for decades.

Bittersweet because that was the course I had dreamed of since I was about five years old. I’m starting to think that maybe I won’t get my shot at it. I’m not giving up hope, but there comes a point when you realize that you’re down by 10,000 points and there’s only a couple minutes on the clock and it’s 4th and about four miles. The odds are thin and getting thinner. But, as Commander Peter Quincy Taggart was known to say:

OFFICE HOURS: Ask DC Universe Your Questions Every (UPDATED) TUESDAY Night! - #2883 by DeSade-acolyte - Q&As - DC Community

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Space

November 24, 2021 · 23:34

Moments Of Zen

It was windy. A pretty steady 20+ knots with gusts to 30+. The wind chimes were working overtime.

And dry. The hummingbird feeders were empty and Little Bastard was pissed. Every time I went out into the back yard he was buzzing me, reminding me that the feeders were empty. I finally took them down, cleaned them, and put more nectar in them.

After dark the clouds and fog of the past several evenings were gone (of course!) and our three current planetary visitors were still lined up nicely.

For those of you needing an assist to ID them:

Keep breathing, folks.

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Filed under Astronomy, Birds, Critters, Photography, Space, Video, Weather

November 23, 2021 · 23:25

DART Launch From Vandenberg

It’s launch night out of Vandenberg again, but we had a fair amount of clouds and fog forming to our west. We’re about 130 miles from Vandenberg, and if the weather cooperates, we can see the launches very clearly. Tonight wasn’t going to be that night. But I took the setup on a tripod out to the front yard anyway, just in case.

Good move.

It wasn’t as great as when the weather’s “clear and a million,” but it was more than I expected to see!

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November 19, 2021 · 23:56

Last Night’s 97% Lunar Eclipse

Did you see it?

Here in LA I thought that I might not see it at all, given the clouds that were moving in earlier in the evening, but they were scattered around 23:00 when the umbral eclipse started

But, you deal with what you have been dealt, right? So here’s the first 30 minutes or so of the eclipse from the good camera, shooting thorough the cloud layer about every 6-7 minutes, focusing as best I could (which, frankly, is marginal):

Focus getting worse? Well, yes, because in addition to the high clouds, the fog was starting to roll in off of the coast and out of Ventura County to the west. So it was getting really damp, dew was forming on the lens, and no matter how much I tried to keep it dry and clear, I was getting to this:

Now, I was also running two other cameras including a good video camera, and that stayed clear of dew and condensation another hour or so until the fog completely wiped out the view right around maximum totality at 01:02. I may be able to pull some decent still images off of that. Later. Maybe.

As for the other camera, it was just an old iPhone that I put into time-lapse mode, and that actually turned out sort of cool!

So I gave the photography and video my best shot, but it was what it was. Aside from that, it was (as always!) really neat and interesting to watch the Moon disappear and see a demonstration of celestial mechanics right there in my own front yard!

Did you get to see it?

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