Friday, December 7, 2012

APOD 2.6

This photograph captures a snowy road, Puerto de Navacerrada, near Madrid, where falling ice crystals caused up to four lunar halos to appear around the moon.  These are caused by the moonlight refracting through the ice crystals which populate high thin clouds in the air. Hexagonal, column, and distant ice crystals caused 22 degree, circumscribed, and 46 degree halos to form, respectively. A quadruple halo is very rare, especially for the moon. 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Stargaze

If I am able to attend the stargaze on Sunday December 9th, I would like to view through the telescope:

  1. Jupiter
  2. Asteroids Vesta and Ceres
  3. Albireo
  4. M81
  5. Helix Nebula 7293
  6. M42 Great Orion Nebula
  7. Vega
  8. M31 Andromeda Galaxy
  9. M1 Crab Nebula
  10. Gamma Andromeda