A Darker View

Full Moon

Full Moon will occur today at 05:47HST.

This full Moon will be a perigee full Moon, with the Moon appearing a bit larger and brighter. Today lunar perigee occurs about 17 hours of full, producing a full moon that is about 12% larger and 30% brighter than if full occurs while the Moon is at apogee.

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Laser Gallery

Snow on Mauna Kea?

The forecast looks promising. Not for observing, we lost most of the night last night to fog and clouds, the rest of the week looks worse. It does look like we may get some snow this week. Checking the cameras there are already a few flakes coming down, just a degree or so too warm to stick.

Winter is here… Snow for Christmas?

First Snowflakes of Winter — A few snowflakes in the camera… Snow for the holidays?

Update! Sticking now…

First Snow of Winter — The first snowfall of the 2017-2018 winter season atop Mauna Kea.

Mercury at Maximum Elongation

Today Mercury will be at maximum eastern elongation, as high in the evening sky as it will appear for this current apparition. After today the planet will slide back into the sunset, passing through inferior conjunction on December 12th to reappear in the morning sky around the end of the year.

Mercury Transit 9May2016 — Mercury transiting the Sun on May 9, 2016. Celestron C8 and Canon 6D at f/10.

Mercury typically completes three morning and three evening apparitions in each year. While the innermost planet never gets very far from the Sun, maximum elongation represents the best time to observe Mercury as high in the sky as possible.

There are no transits of Mercury in 2017, the next will be Nov 11, 2019.

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Behind the Mirror

The rear of the Keck 2 primary mirror, processed in Prisma

New Moon

Young Moon — A very young moon over Waikoloa

New Moon will occur today at 01:42HST.

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Alaska Gallery

Alaska Air Combi — Alaska Air flight 61 unloads cargo and passengers in Juneau

The town of Tenakee Springs, Alaska, 1 July 2004

Salmon Run — A heavy salmon run jams at the mouth of Sheep Creek south of Juneau, Alaska

Icebergs in the entrance to Tracy Arm, Alaska

Looking up Tracy Arm, a classic fjord in southeast Alaska

Artic Terns — A group of Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) resting on a small iceberg in Glacier Bay, Alaska

The towering face of Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, 28 June 2004

Wreck — The wreck of a tugboat in Neva Strait north of Sitka, Alaska

Roedda — A fishing boat offloads fish at the packing plant in Petersburg, Alaska

Lakeshore Garden — Rocks on the shore of an unnamed lake above Kalinin Bay, Alaska

Fred Cooper — Fredrick Cooper kayaking in Warm Springs Bay, Baranof Island, Alaska

Icy Strait Sunset — Looking north to Taylor Bay from Mite Cove on a late Alaskan evening

Bubble Net — Humpback Whales closing the bubble net at the entrance of Peril Straight, Alaska, 25 July 2006

Humpback Trio — A trio of Humpback Whales pass by off of point Adolphus, Alaska, 30 June 2004

Bubble Net Feeding — A humpback whale feeding along Chatham Strait

Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) off Brothers Islands in Frederick Sound

Breach! — A humpback whale breaches in Chatham Strait

Black Bear Fishing — A black bear (Ursus americanus) fishing at the Anan Wildlife Observatory

Deb at Pack Creek — Deb photographing bears at Pack Creek

Grizzly — A female grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) at Pack Creek

Halibut Fishing — Poles in the water while fishing for halibut in Holkham Bay beneath Sumdum Glacier, Alaska

A Fish — A 100lb halibut is not a small fish

Andrew Cooper fishing for Salmon in Icy Strait, photo by Deborah Cooper

A Silver Salmon — Deb happy to display her catch, first of our season, a very nice fish indeed

Petersburg Fireworks — Fireworks over the Petersburg docks on the 4th of July

Tenakee Docks at Night — Fishing boats under sodium lamps haunt the Tenakee docks

Fishing boats on the wharf at Tenakee Harbor

Petersburg Wharf — A large wharf in Petersburg harbor on a calm summer night

Wharf — A wharf looms in the fog at Craig

The 1924 yacht Westward cruises down Chatham Strait

Craig Docks — The north Shelter Cove docks in Criag

Ochoco Divide

Nudi Gallery

Astronomers Discover A Star That Would Not Die

W. M. Keck Observatory press release…

An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) has made a bizarre discovery; a star that refuses to stop shining.

Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death of a star.

But in a study published today in the journal Nature, the team discovered a remarkable exception; a star that exploded multiple times over a period of more than fifty years. Their observations, which include data from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii, are challenging existing theories on these cosmic catastrophes.

“The spectra we obtained at Keck Observatory showed that this supernova looked like nothing we had ever seen before. This, after discovering nearly 5,000 supernovae in the last two decades,” said Peter Nugent, Senior Scientist and Division Deputy for Science Engagement in the Computational Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who co-authored the study. “While the spectra bear a resemblance to normal hydrogen-rich core-collapse supernova explosions, they grew brighter and dimmer at least five times more slowly, stretching an event which normally lasts 100 days to over two years.”

Researchers used the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) on the Keck I telescope to obtain spectrum of the star’s host galaxy, and the Deep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) on Keck II to obtain high-resolution spectra of the unusual star itself.

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