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Venus Invades the Pleiades
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- Created on Tuesday, 03 April 2012 06:46
Watch out Seven Sisters, Venus is coming !!This week the second planet from the sun will pass directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. It's a rare sunset conjunction that's easy to find with the unaided eye, but best seen through binoculars or a small telescope.
The action begins on Monday evening, 2nd April, when Venus enters the outskirts of the little dipper-shaped asterism. Look west at sunset for Venus--it's the brightest thing around--then scan the area using binoculars. The conjunction will be immediately clear. The best evening to look is tonight Tuesday, 3rd April, when the brilliant planet glides just south of the dipper's bowl. Venus exits by the handle on Wednesday, 4th April. Venus passes through the Pleiades in this way about once every 8 years.
The Pleiades, also known as the "Seven Sisters," are a cluster of young stars. They formed barely 100 million years ago during the age of dinosaurs on Earth from a collapsing cloud of interstellar gas. The biggest and brightest members are blue-white and about five times wider than our own sun.
Because of their distance, about 400 light years away, the Pleiades are near the limit of naked-eye visibility. When Venus joins them in conjunction, it will look like a supernova has gone off inside the cluster. Venus's thick clouds reflect so much sunlight, the planet outshines every thing in the night sky except the Moon. Strangely, though, the Pleiades do not look puny in comparison, just delicately beautiful.
Look west just after sunset, and see for yourself.
Is it Snowing Microbes on Enceladus?
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- Created on Monday, 02 April 2012 08:25
These jets, which spew through cracks in the moon's icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone that is uniquely accessible in all the solar system. Photo below shows dramatic plumes, both large and small, spraying water ice from many locations near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. More than 30 individual jets of different sizes can be seen in this image captured during a flyby of NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
Thermal measurements of Enceladus's fissures have revealed temperatures as high as -120 deg Fahrenheit (190 Kelvin). That adds all the heat up to 16 gigawatts of thermal energy that are coming out of those cracks. Now that the orbit's eccentricity has lessened, the heat emanating from the interior is a combination of heat produced today and in the past. But since more heat is coming out presently than is being produced, Enceladus is in a cooling off stage and the liquid water is returning to ice.
London 2012 Olympic & Queen Diamond Jubilee Cards arrive from UX5UO
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- Created on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 12:59
Qsl cards for the UK Special Events are now arriving from UX5UO Print Shop. The cards are for the Queens Diamond Jubilee and also for the Olympic Games, both events running this Summer in the UK.
Please have a look at the links and send me an email if you would like further advice on how to purchase cards from UX5UO service. Cards can be bought in smaller batches than normal and payment is easy via Cash, Paypal, Cheque or Bank Transfer to UK address (No Foreign Transfers or Bank Charges!). For Prices for all types of cards please scroll down this message.
Send your images or designs to either Gennady or myself and we will help as much as possible. Cards are usually 3 to 5 weeks from order and all prices below include delivery to any UK address.
Email me for further info at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Basically the prices are:-a) Two Colours Front 1000pcs £34.00GBP
b) Full colour Front (Matt) and B & W rear 1000pcs £49.00GBP
Smaller batches of ‘’b’’ are also available;
500 at £42.00
250 at £26.00
100 at £22.00
c) Full colour Front (Gloss) and B & W rear 1000pcs £55.00GBP
Smaller batches of ‘’c’’ are also available;
500 at £46.00
250 at £29.00
100 at £25.00
d) Full colour Front (Gloss) and Full colour rear (Matt) 1000pcs £69.00GBP
We have also a new range of cards that are single sided full
colour at £29.00GBP per 1000. I have no samples of these at
this stage.
Space observations of Mercury transits yield precise solar radius
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- Created on Saturday, 24 March 2012 07:07
The measurement was achieved by using the solar telescope aboard a NASA satellite, thereby bypassing the blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere that occurs when observations are made from the ground.
A group of scientists from Hawaii, Brazil, and California has measured the diameter of the Sun with unprecedented accuracy by using a spacecraft to time the transits of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun in 2003 and 2006.
They measured the Sun’s radius as 432,687 miles (696,342 kilometers) with an uncertainty of only 40 miles (65km). This was achieved by using the solar telescope aboard a NASA satellite, thereby bypassing the blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere that occurs when observations are made from the ground.
Marcelo Emilio (visiting from Ponta Grossa, Brazil), Jeff Kuhn, and Isabelle Scholl from the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy in collaboration with Rock Bush from Stanford University, California, made the measurements of the Sun’s size with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) aboard NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Transits of Mercury occur 12-13 times per century, so observations like this allow us to refine our understanding of the Sun’s inner structure and the connections between the Sun’s output and Earth’s climate.
The team is preparing to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun June 5. They expect these observations will improve the accuracy of their solar size measurement even further.
Olympic Torch Relay - Street by Street
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- Created on Thursday, 22 March 2012 15:08
In less than nine weeks the Olympic Flame arrives and starts its 70-day journey around the UK. We can now reveal where it's going, when and who will be carrying it.
The Olympic Flame will come within 10 miles of 95% of people in the UK, Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. It will enable local communities to shine a light on the best their area has to offer including celebrations of local culture, breathtaking scenes and dynamic urban areas.
IOTA OC-221 - M0OXO IOTA #525
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- Created on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:24
Second new IOTA in the same day, that's rare for me nowadays thats for sure!Thanks to the guys on Kai Island IOTA OC-221 in Moluccas, Indonesia. YB8Y was another one logged with difficulty but after 90 minutes of frustration he was logged on 15M SSB. That's the pressure off now number #525 is in the log so may find him again on another slot in the coming days.
They have several stations on air at the same time so good planning and lets hope the DX continues in the run up to WPX this weekend!
IOTA AS-175 - M0OXO IOTA #524
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- Created on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 10:26
Early morning DX? Well its not been too good for me of late. Either thro lack of enthusiasm, Qsl work or Band conditions I certainly haven't logged too much.This morning I had a trawl and after a quick heads up from Tim M0URX I switched on to hear A35YZ on 17M SSB. He was very strong in fact, he was so strong we didnt think it was genuine. Well it was and with a split of 15 wide I bagged him second call with 200w barefoot (TS480HX), amazing. Thats only the second slot for him but happy for the new band.
Several others eluded me this morning but with a few JA on 15M RTTY it was better than nowt. The best of the bunch was around 1000UTC with AT2DW on Bet Shankhodhar Island aka Bet Dwarka, Gujarat, India. IOTA AS-175 was a new one for me and despite his weak signal on 12m RTTY, I chose my split and worked him after about 10 minutes calling (100w FT1K).
Thanks for the new one M0OXO IOTA #524 ;-)
CDXC Dinner 2012, an enjoyable event...
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- Created on Tuesday, 20 March 2012 13:31
Last weekend, 17th March 2012, saw the annual CDXC (Chiltern DX Club) dinner. This is where members of the CDXC get together at Wyboston Lakes hotel in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a few beers, a meal and a good exchange of 'war stories' lol. This years social event went down very well and the boys from SHDXCG had a good attendance..Rob (MW0RLJ), and Ant (MW0JZE) are travelled up from West Wales, I drove down from from Yorkshire, Tim (M0URX) and Chris (G1VDP) attended from the Midlands, and Tony (G4LDL) along with his wife Glenys drove from their home in Swindon. Tony has to be there of course as he is the current secretary of the CDXC and has organised this prestigious event.
It was a great catch up and despite speaking daily, it's always good to get together and have a good old rag chew with many of the faces that you don't really see too often and may only speak to Island to Island hi.......and didn't our blue shirts cause a stir!
Next event for us is Debbie and my Silver Wedding in April, next stop Pembrokeshire chez MW0RLJ!
CME Impact
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- Created on Friday, 16 March 2012 13:47
As expected, the flank of a CME hit Earth's magnetic field yesterday on March 15th at around 1300 UTC. The impact sparked a moderate (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm with perfect timing for sky watchers in New Zealand.
"The CME arrived at 2 o'clock in the morning here in Queenstown," says photographer Minoru Yoneto. In the dark, he drove to his favorite spot on a mountain overlooking the city and recorded the storm:
The storm is subsiding now. Nevertheless, high-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras as the wake of the CME continues to buffet Earth's magnetic field.
Nice propagation for BERU
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- Created on Monday, 12 March 2012 09:45
It was a nice surprise to find the higher bands open again this weekend which was good for several contests on air not least BERU. Beru is the only event where British Commonwealth Countries have to work each other.
This however does not deter all Europe calling and despite the sometimes frantic ''Only UK'' comments by the operators, they never cease their calling. Maybe no-one checks the Contest Rules anymore ;-)
Anyway none the less I had a couple of hours tuning around (mainly 10 metres) hoping for several new Band Slots and I wasn't disappointed!
Nigel (G3TXF) as ZD7XF (continuing his highly successful DXped. in ZD7) was the first in the log at 1308UTC and here are are few others I worked (new slots in blue) and on which Band;
ZD7XF (10m), ZS1BB (10m), 9J2BO (10m), 9H1XT (10m), ZS6KR (10m), VO1HP (10m), C56XA (10m), VP9/G3PJT (10m), ZF2LC (10m), J88DR (10m), J39BZ (10m), 5H3EE (10m), ZS1EL (10m), VO1TA (10m), 6Y0A (10m), ZB2EO (15m), ZF1UM (15m), 6Y0A (15m), VK3TDX (15m).
All contacts running barefoot (200w TS480HX) into 6 Band wire hexbeam by MW0JZE. Russian DX Contest next weekend and WPX following the week after.
Huge Sunspot...
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- Created on Friday, 09 March 2012 15:04
Active sunspot AR1429 continues to grow. It is now more than seven times wider than Earth, which makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. In fact, yesterday, David Tremblay of Alto, New Mexico, saw it using no telescope at all. All he needed was a dust storm:
"The dust blowing from Tularosa Basin was so dense, we could observe the sun with the naked eye--and there was sunspot AR1429. Wow!" says Tremblay.
The behemoth spot has unleashed four strong flares since it emerged on the 2nd March, including the X5-class eruption on the 7th March. More could be in the offing. The active region has a "beta-gamma-delta" class magnetic field that harbors energy for additional X-class eruptions.The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) ''Worlds Largest Telescope''
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- Created on Friday, 09 March 2012 14:51
If there are space invaders out there, it won’t be long before they can no longer stage a sneak attack, thanks to a project to build the most sensitive radio telescope ever -- one that’s the size of a continent.
Known as The Square Kilometer Array (SKA), it will explore the universe, identify any potential alien threats to our planet and hopefully answer some fundamental questions from astronomers. Its thousands of receptors, spaced roughly one kilometer apart, will be linked across an entire continent.
They’ll be arranged in five spiral arms like a galaxy, 3,000 50-foot-wide dishes that extend out from a central core at least 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers).
Amazing aurora light show
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- Created on Friday, 09 March 2012 14:39
Amazing aurora light show above Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland yesterday (8th March).
This was captured by Jónína Óskarsdóttir, who said that, “No words can describe the experience of the northern lights show tonight.”
The exposure time for the photo was 1 second.
Space Storm Could Hit GPS Systems And Flights
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- Created on Thursday, 08 March 2012 07:10
The biggest space weather storm in five years is heading towards Earth and could disrupt power grids, GPS systems, satellites and airline flights, Nasa has warned.
In a statement on its website, the US space agency said the storm was caused by two solar flares that erupted on Sunday. Following the flares, two bursts of solar wind and plasma - known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) - were thrust towards Earth. This eruption hurled a bright CME into space, shown here in a movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
"The first is traveling faster than 1,300 miles per second; the second more than 1,100 miles per second," the statement added.
The brunt of the storm is expected to last until Friday.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station could also be affected by the radiation storm, which may cause them to seek shelter in better protected parts of the orbiting lab as they have in the past."Flight surgeons in Houston's mission control centre have been monitoring the solar activity and will continue to do so," Nasa spokesman Mike Curie said.
"They have determined that there presently is no concern for the six crew members aboard the International Space Station."
Space storms are not new. The first major solar flare was recorded by British astronomer Richard Carrington in 1859.
Other solar geomagnetic storms have been observed in recent decades. One huge solar flare in 1972 cut off long-distance telephone communication in the US state of Illinois.
Queens Jubilee Qsl orders begin....
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- Created on Monday, 05 March 2012 10:30
Well with the NOV's now available from OFCOM, it looks like the Queens Jubilee and the Olympic Games special event stations will be choking the HF Bands (lets hope!).
Several Qsl card orders have now been made from Gennady UX5UO (via me) and the special low costs and batch sizes are proving popular. As well as the normal 1000 card price he now offers the cards in batches of 500, 250 and 100pc's for most of the styles he produces.
If you want advice or information please contact M0OXO or UX5UO.
Flying through a Geomagnetic Storm
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- Created on Saturday, 03 March 2012 05:44
Glowing green and red, shimmering hypnotically across the night sky, the aurora borealis is a wonder to behold. Longtime sky watchers say it is the greatest show on Earth.It might be the greatest show in Earth orbit, too. High above our planet, astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been enjoying an up-close view of auroras outside their windows as the ISS flys through geomagnetic storms.
Lately, the International Space Station has been flying through geomagnetic storms, giving astronauts an close-up view of the aurora borealis just outside their windows.
Auroras are caused by solar activity. Gusts of solar wind and coronal mass ejections strike Earth’s magnetic field, rattling our planet’s protective shell of magnetism. This causes charged particles to rain down over the poles, lighting up the atmosphere where they hit. The physics is akin to what happens in the picture tube of a color TV.
Incoming particles are guided by Earth’s magnetic field to a pair of doughnut-shaped regions called “auroral ovals.” There’s one around the North Pole and one around the South Pole. Sometimes, when solar activity is high, the ovals expand, and the space station orbits right through them.
That’s exactly what happened in late January 2012, when a sequence of M-class and X-class solar flares sparked a light show that Pettit says he won’t soon forget. “The auroras could be seen as brightly as city lights on the Earth below--and even in the day-night terminator of the rising and setting sun. It was simply amazing.”
The videos capture the full range of aurora colors—red, green, and many shades of purple. These hues correspond to different quantum transitions in excited atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. The precise color at any altitude depends on the temperature and density of the local atmosphere.
World’s tallest self-supporting communications tower
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- Created on Thursday, 01 March 2012 06:54
Construction of the Tokyo Sky Tree, the world’s tallest self-supporting communications tower, is set to finish Wednesday, two months late because of the quake and tsunami that struck Japan last March.
Tourist bosses in the country hope the tower will be a big draw for foreign visitors, whose numbers have plummeted in the aftermath of the disaster and the nuclear crisis it sparked.
Construction of the 634-metre (2080-foot) tower near the already popular Asakusa traditional district on Tokyo’s eastern side, began in July 2008. The Tokyo Sky Tree tops the 600-metre Canton Tower in China’s Guangzhou and the 553-metre CN Tower in downtown Toronto.
Some 580,000 construction workers were engaged in the construction, which cost 65 billion yen ($806 million) for the tower alone, the spokeswoman said.
The Tokyo Sky Tree is expected to overshadow landmarks in the capital’s upscale western parts, including the 333-metre Tokyo Tower, which was built in 1958 and became a byword in Japan for the country’s rapid post-war growth.
First Boeing 747-8 now delivered.....
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- Created on Wednesday, 29 February 2012 07:56
The first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental has been delivered to Qatar Amiri Flight today (28th February 2012.The aircraft, tail number A7-HHE, left Paine Field in Everett Washington at midday PST and is probably going to Hamburg to be fitted out.
The Boeing 747-8 is a wide-body jet airliner developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Officially announced in 2005, the 747-8 is the fourth-generation Boeing 747 version, with lengthened fuselage, redesigned wings and improved efficiency. The 747-8 is the largest 747 version, the largest commercial aircraft built in the United States, and the longest passenger aircraft in the world.
Earth Photography: It’s Harder Than It Looks
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- Created on Tuesday, 28 February 2012 14:58
Letters from home by Astronauht Bob Pettit;''From my orbital perspective, I am sitting still and Earth is moving. I sit above the grandest of all globes spinning below my feet, and watch the world speed by at an amazing eight kilometers per second (288 miles per minute, or 17,300 miles per hour). This makes Earth photography complicated.
Even with a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second, eight meters (26 feet) of motion occurs during the exposure. Our 400-millimeter telephoto lens has a resolution of less than three meters on the ground. Simply pointing at a target and squeezing the shutter always yields a less-than-perfect image, and precise manual tracking must be done to capture truly sharp pictures. It usually takes a new space station crewmember a month of on-orbit practice to use the full capability of this telephoto lens.
Another surprisingly difficult aspect of Earth photography is capturing a specific target. If I want to take a picture of Silverton, Oregon, my hometown, I have about 10 to 15 seconds of prime nadir (the point directly below us) viewing time to take the picture. If the image is taken off the nadir, a distorted, squashed projection is obtained. If I float up to the window and see my target, it’s too late to take a picture. If the camera has the wrong lens, the memory card is full, the battery depleted, or the camera is on some non-standard setting enabled by its myriad buttons and knobs, the opportunity will be over by the time the situation is corrected. And some targets like my hometown, sitting in the middle of farmland, are low-contrast and difficult to find. If more than a few seconds are needed to spot the target, again the moment is lost.
All of us have missed the chance to take that “good one.” Fortunately, when in orbit, what goes around comes around, and in a few days there will be another chance. It takes 90 minutes to circle the Earth, with about 60 minutes in daylight and 30 minutes in darkness. The globe is equally divided into day and night by the shadow line, but being 400 kilometers up, we travel a significant distance over the nighttime earth while the station remains in full sunlight. During those times, as viewed from Earth, we are brightly lit against a dark sky. This is a special period that makes it possible for people on the ground to observe space station pass overhead as a large, bright, moving point of light. This condition lasts for only about seven minutes; after that we are still overhead, but are unlit and so cannot be readily observed. Ironically, when earthlings can see us, we cannot see them. The glare from the full sun effectively turns our windows into mirrors that return our own ghostly reflection.
This often plays out when friends want to flash space station from the ground as it travels overhead. They shine green lasers, xenon strobes, and halogen spotlights at us as we sprint across the sky. These well-wishers don’t know that we cannot see a thing during this time. The best time to try this is during a dark pass when orbital calculations show that we are passing overhead. This becomes complicated when highly collimated light from lasers are used, since the beam diameter at our orbital distance is about one kilometer, and this spot has to be tracking us while in the dark. And of course we have to be looking. As often happens, technical details complicate what seems like a simple observation. So far, all attempts at flashing the space station have failed.''
GB0ANT - 2012
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- Created on Monday, 27 February 2012 08:48
Thanks to all who supported us in the Antarctic Activity Week (AAW) 2012.
We had a great time and had some nice DX with good runs into JA and the Far East on 12 and 15m, plus quite a lot in Far East on 10M. This year we tried different modes with PSK modes also very productive. After 7 days casual operating we worked 2479 stations so many thanks indeed.
Qsl Cards are available via M0OXO. Please have a look at our OQRS page and request either Bureau or Direct options (Paypal available). It is NOT necessary to send your card but we are always happy to receive them.
