In the old Hubble North 10+ day exposure (with updated exposures) of a very very tiny & “empty” spot in Ursa Major, millions of celestial objects have appeared. Now somewhat belatedly, astronomers have found a Blackhole in a starburst galaxy in the Hubble field, that appears to be “only” 750 million years old AFTER the Big Bang development of the Universe. Designated GNz7q, this galaxy is now a prime target for the James Webb telescope to study in depth. The Hubble image was taken of “empty” space “at random”. So the hope is, that GNz7q is NOT rare & many other similar celestial objects (& younger, further back in time?) will be found to be studied by James Webb. At the least, it is a sweet headstart for the James Webb, which itself is a sweet, much gambled “top of the game” headstart telescope. At the most, GNz7q is a spear point to “exactly” one of the main missions the James Webb was designed to find & study. Yeap…..headstarts on top of headstarts. That’s what you like to see in science!
Artemis rocket, this US initial unmanned effort to go back to the Moon with people, is in an unplanned hold(40 minutes from launch), trying to get one of the engines back into “cryogenic balance”. Said to be a complex & delicate procedure, it must be right or launch may not occur. As they say……….stand by. Minutes later, the hold continues. Time here in Washington state is 5:24 AM, PDT. Time is now 5:36 AM, PDT. The intended launch has been scrubbed. The third engine was not at the proper pre-launch temperature. September 2, 2022 may be the next available launch date. Signing off……
James Webb telescope is pumping out lots of new & mind bending images & data of all kinds of scientific interest (despite the sticky wheel on one of the instruments affecting the MIRI observations). There is an image of the NGC galaxy 628 (Messier 74) that is considered to be the best by James Webb telescope, chosen by readers of the website Universe Today. For mild extra interest to someone that followed my Pentax camera lens observations of Zeta Piscium(October 6, 2020) is that NGC 628 as viewed on star charts, is LESS than 10arcdegrees away from Zeta Piscium in a north-northeast direction. That is interesting, since prominent double stars such as Zeta Piscium, are often found against a background of dark molecular clouds & galaxies are very often in open, non-dusty regions of the sky. In my amateur astronomy heyday, when I could handle the big telescopes & set them up, I saw NGC 628 many decades ago.
A few belated remarks as the Orion spacecraft is nearing the Moon, days after being launched by the Artemis rocket from Earth. First, the Artemis nighttime launch was truly spectacular. People viewing from 3+ miles away, were illuminated as if in bright daylight. As occurred with the Saturn 5 launch to the moon, the Artemis rose truly majestically into the sky. The tail plume from the rocket began extending, longer than any rocket launch I’ve seen. More wieners could have been roasted with quite a bit of smokey flavor than during any other rocket launch. Maybe the Saturn 5 plume could have been as impressive, but I don’t remember any of the Saturn 5 launches were at nighttime. Second, the unmanned Orion spacecraft is leisurely traveling to save resources, taking days longer than any manned mission to the Moon. Maybe, future manned missions will take a quicker trip to the Moon. Anyhow, the Orion spacecraft journey is to be innovative & interesting. Already Orion is placed in a position “ahead” of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth. It will have a burn to slow itself & Orion will move around the back side of the Moon in a retro-grade direction, being opposite of the Moon’s direction around the Earth. It will whip around the Moon once(?) & then be propelled into an large “slow” elliptical orbit, that will take Orion about 30,000 miles from the Moon & also further from the Earth. Orion will then return to the Moon, & whip around the moon (once?). Orion will then power away from the Moon, but in a near “beeline” for the Earth. I haven’t heard, but Orion may return to the Earth much quicker than it proceeded away from the Earth, after Earth launch. Also not sure, but all this razzle-dazzle may be to test the Orion rocket’s reliability & its ability to accomplish numerous & long enduring burns that will be necessary on future extended journeys to the Moon & back to Earth. Third, this is minor, but I considered it interesting. I thought the solar panels on the Orion were fairly small. That might be because the panels will stay deployed, even when Orion engine is powering the spacecraft in its maneuvers. Anyhow, those relatively small solar panels will generate a total of 13kiloWatts of power to supply all the electronics. That’s a lot of power for such small panels. But of course, the panels are really really efficient & there isn’t any atmosphere to attenuate the sun’s radiation. Still, 13 kilowatts is cool. PS 12:11PM, PST, 11-20-22……….Orion is presently 232,900 miles from Earth AND his been about the same distance for some hours, & as stated in “front” of the Moon. Orion has a speed of 351MPH relative to Earth. The Moon in its orbit & Orion are approaching each other at a closing rate of 1.24 miles every second, or 4460MPH.
Time is 4:35AM, PST, & I just saw the Earth dip behind the Moon when Orion was only 1000+ MIles away from the Moon! The Orion signal is now lost because the Moon is in the way. Seems like Orion could have sent the signal to another spacecraft, which could have relayed the signal to Earth. But oh, well. Orion is in a retro-grade orbit, 734 miles from the Moon at 4:38AM, PST. Now Orion is 650 miles above the Moon at 4:42AM,PST. ORION engine is about to ignite to slow Orion, so it will orbit the Moon & whip around it. Now at 4:48AM, PST, Orion is 600 miles from the Moon. Signal will be acquired in 12 minutes. At 5PM,PST signal has been re-acquired & Earth is looking very small in space. Orion got as low as 80 miles from Moon’s surface. At 5:30AM,PST, Orion is sweeping Earthside around the Moon in its retro-grade orbit at a Moon distance of 1000 miles & less than 229,000 miles from Earth. Video coverage is terrible. Elon Musk must find this completely unacceptable!
Haven’t reviewed this thread for a while, including Neowise Comet, my latter life celestial observations with less than stellar astro equipment, & followings of the James Webb Telescope “automatic” space construct, & finally the Artemis & Orion first launches around the Moon. I am deliriously happy that this thread was NOT lost when Wayne had computer problems, that lost a lot of CleanMPG data. I also know that a lot of this thread only meant a lot to only me, & were probably laughable to true amateur astronomers whose Great amateur observations of the Universe are safely Archived in proper Amateur Astronomy websites. But with my decreasing health, I am surprised “my on-again, off-again” antics in Amateur Astronomy, actually did have these final noted chicken scratchings. I know some of my observations were continued because some readers gave me encouragements. I am slowly reading through this thread (& am still finding corrections). I see my written observations weren’t good, not noting things that should have been mentioned, specially about more subtle star colors. Star colors & stellar interferometry are very very important. I often didn’t mention star colors, while talking about other things. Those omissions are my own mis-doings & cannot be forgiven. I am surprised that the often used & over-tightened, thin regular camera screw-mount never broke on my used $10 tripod, probably dropping & breaking the actually too heavy Pentax 1000mm, f/8 camera lens, used as a telescope. For that miracle of equipment failure “avoidance”, I can only thank God, who gave me arthritis, so I couldn’t tighten the screw any tighter. All observations made in this thread, once I started using the Pentax lens, were on a “wing & a prayer”. I know how dangerous to equipment safety was this completely unsafe & inadequate tiny piece of metal screw. The tripod was adequate. However toward the end of observations, I was having difficulties tightening the tripod legs due to their over-use & again, due to my arthritis. All in all tho, the Pentax gave me performance beyond what it was meant to do. Several long term amateur astronomers were either 1) as joyfully surprised by observations that I reported with such limited equipment AND then tried low power observations themselves or 2) flatly did NOT believe me.
Stepped outside in the early evening last night, to see if I could see the supposed planets & our Moon lined up across the sky. I think I got out too late to see Jupiter & Mercury, very low in the west-northwest, but there were clouds anyhow in that direction. The crescent Moon was showing high & hazy because of a thin cloud cast. Venus was some distance to the west northwest. Mars was closer to the Moon & about 5arcdegs to its east. However, the combination of haze, Mars nowhere near opposition & the nearby Moon, made for an uninteresting planet. The 11x80mm binoculars did show the strong red of Mars’ ground. Didn’t know where to look for Uranus. Maybe tomorrow. Supposed to be near the Moon in the haze? Anyhow, I looked to the eastern horizon, & saw 5 lights from incoming aircraft heading for Sea-Tac. Two of the aircraft passed to the south of me, but 2 more aircraft lights appeared on the eastern horizon. So there was a goodly number of airplanes in the sky.
Was watching a video taken from the Perseverance traveling on Mars of the Ingenuity Helicopter taking off on its 49th flight. It was stated that Ingenuity took off……”in a cloud of dust”. Hmmm……The Lone Ranger was quoted, “A Fiery Horse With the Speed of Light, a Cloud of Dust and a Hearty Heigh-Yo Silver”. The American Way…..repeats itself!
Things are changing. Decades ago, I had to rid myself of all my big astronomy telescopes due to decreasing health. Now, an amateur astronomy viewing chum has agreed to store my one medium-sized optic & large binoculars. Just sold 3 binoculars to my long-time car mechanic & hope to sell some more binocs for our week-end community wide garage sale. Don’t want to, but life intrudes badly……..’nough said. PS…..Sold another 2 binoculars, despite being off my feed & off my feet mostly.
