Astronomy Picture of the Day 10-24-03

Explanation: This year's record close approach of Mars inspired many to enjoy telescopic views of the red planet. But while Mars was so bright it was hard to miss, spotting Mars' two diminutive moons was still a good test for observers with modest sized instruments. Mars' moons were discovered in August of 1877 by Asaph Hall at the US Naval Observatory using the large 26-inch Alvan Clark refractor. Recorded on this August 22nd, innermost moon Phobos and outermost moon Deimos are seen here against the planet's glare in a digital composite image. The picture consists of of a long exposure capturing the faint, city-sized moons and overexposing the planetary disk, combined with a well exposed image of the red planet, revealing dark markings on the surface and the white south polar cap. The images were taken by astronomer Johannes Schedler using an 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at his observatory in southeastern Austria.

On the APOD site this is yet another mouseover annotated image. It doesn't need captioning, though; the orangey dot Mars' glare at about the 10 o'clock position is moon Phobos, while the fainter yellowish dot in the 4 o'clock position near the right edge of the image is moon Deimos.

So much for all the tinfoil websites out there claiming that Mars' moons had disappeared and that NASA and the Goobermint were *GASP* COVERING IT UP!

Oh, yeah, I forgot: no one but the Goobermint and NASA owns a telescope or a camera. There aren't thousands of skywatchers out on any given night, some with pretty impressive setups, looking at and imaging everything they can. Nah. Can't be that easy. Must be my imagination that amateurs find comets, asteroids, novae; they couldn't possibly see Mars' moons which were first seen by Asaph Hall in 1877.

</SARCASTIC RANT>

From Solar Terrestrial Dispatch:

Latest Geomagnetic and Auroral Activity Conditions

Updated: 04:00 UTC 24 October (12:00 am [midnight] EDT, 24 October):

Within the next 12 hours, a major geomagnetic and auroral storm is predicted to commence. Auroral activity could become visible into the middle latitude regions. Storm activity is expected to continue for the next 3 days due to persisting coronal mass ejections from intense solar activity.

Much more significant activity will be possible over the coming 10 days if the existing intense active regions continue to produce energetic solar activity.

Solar Activity Update

INTENSE solar activity is continuing in-progress. Another major solar flare (class M7.6 event) occurred at 02:53 UTC on 24 October (10:53 pm EDT on 23 October) from Region 486. Additional major flare activity is expected.

M5 flare below:

Here, see lots of solar movies both MPEG and GIF format. Too bad that tonight's immense flare is not yet shown. Still these are DRAMATIC views of our very active home star.

LASCO/EIT REAL TIME MOVIES

The very latest still images are available HERE AT SOHO.

Like this one, caught as the Sun spewed out another flare at 12:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time:

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.