Tag: APOD

There’s a lunar eclipse going on tonight. This time, the moon will be in mid-eclipse by the time it rises on the east coast of the US, but people will still get to see it in full eclipse for a an hour or so and then get to see it brighten back up again over the next couple of hours.

I’ve always liked lunar eclipses. They’re easier to watch, go on for a lot longer and I like the colour the moon changes to. Incidentally, today’s APOD is a cool movie of the moon transiting the Sun as seen by the STEREO B craft in UV. Neato.

Later on this afternoon with a properly configured telescope configuration, you’ll be able to catch Mercury’s transit across the sun. If you don’t have access to a properly configured telescope, you can catch the action live from SOHO‘s point of view. The transit is supposed to start at 1912UTC, or 1412EST (2:12 PM). Mercury’s only going to do this 14 times this century, and this is the second one so far.

Doesn’t today’s APOD make you think of The Doomsday Machine episode from Star Trek:TOS?

Today’s APOD shows Ivan seen from the ISS. There are some other cool pictures taken by the current ISS crew too.

From the NOAA Environmental Visualization Program (via today’s APOD) is a very cool photograph of Frances taken yesterday morning by the GOES-12 satellite. It shows very impressively just how big the Frances really is.

And on the heels of Frances comes TS Ivan, which so far looks to be taking a more westward track than Frances did. This will be yet another one for people to watch and keep an eye on.