New Sun Spots and New National Geographic Channel Premier, "Living On The Moon"

Finally our sun seems to be coming back to life. The sun goes through an 11 year cycle where it waxes and wanes with solar activity. The sun has been stuck in the waning phase for an extended period and up until a month or so ago solar physicists didn't really know why.

Seems a slower then usual moving solar jet stream associated with sunspot production thousands of miles below the sun's surface has finally reached a critical 22 degree latitude of the sun and with it new cycle sunspots.


Got a call from Spaceweather PHONE last Sunday, July 5 informing me of a huge Sunspot taking place and got lucky with a break in the clouds to capture some of the solar action.





The image above is active region 1024 starting to disappear by July 6. They expect upwards of 90 sunspots to occur daily at solar maximum sometime in 2013.







National Geographic Channel is celebrating the 40 th. anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing with a new premier,
"Living On The Moon". The show will be aired Sunday July 19, 9 pm EDT, a day before the actual anniversary of July 20.


See inside NASA's Constellation program which will take 4 astronauts to the Moon's south pole as early as 2020, only this time round our long term goal is to stay and set up base.

Using 3D animations you'll watch as the initial lonely outpost expands to a lunar city by 2050 and a tourist resort by the middle of the twenty first century.

To be able to survive and flourish on the moon we'll have to harness the lunar resources from turning moon rock into water to eventually exporting lunar produced solar energy to our earth, very interesting concepts and one of NGC's best premiers.

This will be my last post before I leave for China next Wednesday. I will post if I am able, if not see you when I get back July 28. I'll leave you now with a video of the Constellation program from launch to splashdown.

UFO In China

A funny thing happened to me on the way to my daughter's wedding, well the morning there of to be more precise. I was out at 3:00 am June 20 to try and capture a Lunar, Venus and Mars conjunction, of course as usual clouds got in the way, but I got the coolest looking lens flare I'd ever seen, looked like a UFO. Think of the possibilities!!


Voila..... using photoshop's blending feature and a few keystrokes you have a distant alien planet with a UFO appearing out of the glare of one of it's Suns, at least that's what I see. I've been keeping myself amused doing different combos with some of my existing images and my new favorite UFO pic, doesn't take much for me to be amused.

Brings me to my next point, you know I'll be leaving for China a week from this coming Wednesday and you can bet there will be some cool combos to be had, how bout a UFO over the Great Wall, or a UFO in Tiananmen Square, where will it show up?

Email me where you believe it will show up and if you are right or the closest to the first combo I publish, you will get one of the Galileoscopes I will be giving away, ( I won't look at the emails till after I publish my combo). If you enter this email contest and don't win, no worries, your name will still be put in the draw for one of the other two I will be giving away.

Eleven days and twenty one hours as of this writing to my leaving on a jet plane to China to view the Total Solar Eclipse of July 22 2009. It is getting more official, I just got my tour package in the mail, and....and...... I got a cool name tag, always wanted one of them.

I will probably post one more time before I leave and then while I am there I will try to post as often as possible just to prove I'm actually there, believe it or not I'm still getting the odd naysayer that asks me if I'm really going or if I have chickened out yet.

I have been doing a lot of research on the weather conditions over in China right now and came across the above Satellite image through NASA's Earth Observatory, if you are concerned with global climate change you should check it out. It's mission, "To share with the public the images, stories and discoveries about climate and the environment that emerge from NASA's research, including it's satellite missions, in the field research and climate models". The image above shows a major tropical storm that occurred last week off mainland China producing 8 casualties and 11 people missing. Other then that it has been mostly sunny and hot in Shanghai, where I will be viewing the eclipse from, here's hoping it stays that way.

I'll leave you now with one of my UFO combos animated, hey I got a million of them, even got a cool combo with a UFO over my cat's head.

Arrival

Just got my latest edition of Meteorite Magazine and there were some interesting facts in it about the Buzzard Coulee Meteorite, so I thought I would add some of my interesting Microscopic meteorite pics to the fold to better illustrate what I'd like say in this post.

You may know that back on November 20 of last year a 10 tonne meteoroid collided with our Earth's atmosphere over Saskatchewan creating temperatures as hot as the Sun, exploding with the force of 300 tonnes of TNT and witnessed by 1000's from British Columbia to Manitoba, what we have come to know as the Buzzard Coulee Meteorite. What you may not know is that 12 other fireballs were spotted across the globe that same night from Florida to Scotland.........coincidence?........perhaps, but how do you explain the above suspicious looking alien monitoring device thingy with an arrow, probably pointing to a landing site?


On the opposite side of the suspect bug,(image above), was another suspicious looking item, kinda like a telecommunication Fiber Optic strand, image below.


Or how bout the microscopic image below of Martian Meteorite NWA 4925, hey look at where it joins the meteorite, such fine alien craftsmanship.


Or how bout the image below , a 2 parter of another suspect fiber from Martian Meteorite DAG 476. People..... look at it, it's in the shape of an ear, those crazy Martians, they're messing with us, leaving all kinds of clues thinking no one is going to be wacky enough to figure them out.




When I first opened up the package of my Buzzard Coulee meteorite I commented on a post it smelt like space....the more I think of it , it may have smelt like burnt electronics....interesting.


Finally the microscopic image above of Martian meteorite LA 002. This has all been in fun, thought I better add that since in real life people don't know if I'm joking or not, I am joking around, just in case you think I'm nuts, well yes I am, but I really don't believe that is a cucumber above.



Apparently I wasn't the only person to smell the meteorite, there were 3 other reported incidences of odd smells, but during the fall, also one reported case of heat. Someone felt heat on the side of their face and then turned in the direction of the heat to catch the fireball.

Lots of reports of sounds of the fireball crashing through our atmosphere, as far away as Avonlea Saskatchewan, 500km away from the crash site. People witnessing the sonic boom and light show actually went out looking for the fall site only to be disappointed to find the fall was hundreds of kilometers away.

Lastly I'd like to leave you with an animation of a place I had lunch at while searching for meteorites. I had a moment, stopping and taking it all in, that I was lucky enough to be searching for rocks from space. As I was looking around I noticed a meteorite, just sitting there a few yards away, right in an area the whole search team had just been a few hours before. I got up and walked further only to find yet another meteorite. It is a place I will remember for the rest of my life.

Next Stop, China

Now that my daughter's wedding is complete, my next major point of focus will be the final preparations for my Total Solar Eclipse tour of China, only 23 days away.


I should mention here that the wedding was a complete success, a good time was had by all and everything went like clockwork, boils down to good organization and the tons of work my wife put into it, even picking out my suit and tie. Even the weather co-operated, if my trip to China goes the same way I'll be a happy camper.

The major contributing factor to a good trip will of course be the weather, if cloudy skies, no see eclipse, having said that even with no Solar Eclipse I will still be in China, what a remarkable place to visit, so rich in history and tons of cool things to do and see.

I have bought lots of books on China since first deciding on doing the tour and have learned a lot about this fascinating place, such as;

-China's climate ranges from sub-arctic in the north to tropical in the south.

-China straddles 5 time zones but has adopted UTC, (Coordinated Universal Time), which is Greenwich Mean Time + 8 hours.

-China has the world's oldest continuous civilization dating back 8,000 years.

-China has the longest continuously used written language system in the world.

-Chinese astronomers were the first to record a meteor shower in 2133 BC. and a Solar Eclipse in 1217 BC.


-Over a million prisoners, peasants and soldiers were used to build the Great Wall of China. It took over 1700 years to build and stretches 1500 miles, and I'll be seeing it live and in person.

-Many religions are practiced in China; Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Heaven worship, Chinese folk religion, Christianity, and several other new religions and sects.

-The Chinese language has over 20,000 characters.

- Chinese invented the first ice cream in the 7th century.

- The Chinese actually invented a lot of cool things, gunpowder, rockets and fireworks, printing, books, papermaking and paper money, the abacus, stirrups, wheelbarrows, seismometers, porcelain, silk, the compass and kites. The kite was used for military purposes, spying or carrying messages.

-China's name came from the Qin Dynasty, (pronounced chin).

Somehow this whole going to China seems so surreal to me still, me...... who is so afraid of flying and an introvert.........is going off to China by myself, what am I thinking? It is kind of liberating to be able to tackle so many of my fears at one time, like I'm taking control of my life and doing what I want and not letting the phobias take control of me.

I'm going to leave you now with a You Tube video of the Terra-Cotta Warriors, one of my stops on my surreal tour.

My Daughter is Getting Married, So Black holes is Giving away Galileoscopes

You may remember back in March I gave away a meteorite to mark my daughter's, (Amanda), birthday, then I thought what will I do to celebrate with you, my other daughter's,(Lindsay, image above), wedding this coming Saturday, June 20..... enter the Galileoscope. Back in March I headed over to the Galileoscope site and saw that for only $15.00 US you can own a scope, wow, at that price I could give away 3.....so I bought 5....1 for moi, cause I like scopes, 1 for the happy couple and 3 to give to you all.


The Galileoscope is another awesome cornerstone project for the International Year of Astronomy 2009, a high quality low price telescope kit. Called the Galileoscope because it has basically the same specs as the telescope Galileo first used to point towards the heavens 400 years ago, see what Galileo saw, and for really cheap.


I am expecting the scopes to reach me by the end of June-beginning of July, when they I arrive I will do a review, then start giving them away. I'm thinking some kind of draw, if you are interested in getting one, comment here or send me an email and I'll throw your name in the hat, or you could head over to the site and order one right now, at $15.00 US you just can't go wrong.

You have 2 options when purchasing, you can get some, price $15.00 US or give some, $12.50 US, give some is when you purchase anonymously and allow the Galileo people to donate to someone or group of their choosing.

You should know, you're on the hook for a tripod, doesn't come with. You can always go pirate, get yourself an observer's eyepatch, walk around saying Arrr Matey holding your scope and wearing the eyepatch, impress friends and family alike. I bought one when I first started using a scope, it impressed the wife, well actually she gave me the, gee what now look, but deep down inside I knew she was thrilled. It's supposed to cover your eye so you don't have to squint, so you are more relaxed, couldn't get into it, I squinted anyways, force of habit.

I'll leave you now with a video of the Galileoscope.