Early on Monday 10th September, amateur astronomer Dan Peterson spotted a fireball on Jupiter. Another astronomer, George Hall, checked his videos and found that he’d caught it on camera. The fireball was probably a small comet slamming into the giant planet. Temprano el lunes 10 de septiembre, el astrónomo aficionado Dan Peterson vio una bola de fuego en Júpiter. Otro astrónomo, George Hall, comprobó sus videos y descubrió que había…
Friday 31st is a full moon. It’s also the second full moon in August, which makes it a blue moon. There will be a Star Party on Friday 31st in La Polvacera, Breña Baja. It starts with a talk (in Spanish) from 6-7 pm The astronomical observation runs from 7-11:30 pm in the basketball court. If you’ve got a telescope, please bring it along. If not, come and look through someone…
On Wednesday August 1st there will be free astronomical activities in Puntallana. At 4:30 pm you’ll have the chance to see the sun safely outside the Casa de Cultura. At 6 pm there’s a talk in planets inside the Casa de Cultura. And at 9:30 pm there’s a chance too see stars at the Salto de Enamorado viewpoint (near San Bartomome’s church.) Come and have fun!
This morning, the moon, Jupiter and Venus lay close together in the east. This photo was taken with a compact camera from Llano de La Venta viewpoint, one of the astronomical viewpoints on La Palma.
Thierry Legault is a Frenchman who travelled to Queensland, Australia for the Venus transit. He captured both Venus and the Hubble Space Telescope as they passed in front of the sun. This is a composite photograph – 9 exposures taken in under a second, during which the HST zipped in front of the sun. I’m not going to steal his photo. You can see it at: http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/venus_hst_transit.html I’m jealous.
There’s a great exhibition about the Earth and Mars in Palacio Salazar in Santa Cruz de La Palma until Saturday May 26th. It features scale models of the two planets, lots of great photos of Mars, and explains the similarities and differences in geology, atmosphere and weather, and hydrology. Even better, they have a genuine meteorite from Mars which you can actually touch. The exhibition is open from 9 am…