Edward Gomez's blog

Astronomy for a better world!

Last week I visited the South Africa Astronomical Observatory, Cape Town which is home to the IAU's Office for Astronomy Development (OAD). This office has recently been established to deal with issues of science education and awareness in the developing world and how to get people from all nations involved in this effort. Using astronomy as a hook to inspire and excite people about science in general, no matter what their background or circumstances.

Solar eclipse during Cape Town rush hour

At an early hour on Friday November 25, 2011 there was a solar eclipse only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. If you had been at the South Pole, you would have seen about 80% of the Sun was covered by the Moon. From Cape Town, South Africa, the event lasted only for about an hour and the maximum coverage was only 10% of the Sun's diameter. Despite the small size, duration and the early hours of the eclipse, it was used as an important occasion to create awareness among the general population in Cape Town.

New look for our website

You may have noticed that our website has been pretty quiet over October and early November. This is because we have been preparing for a relaunch. The previous incarnation of the site had stood us in good stead for the past ~5 years but it was time for a change. We had to upgrade the Content Management System to the latest version because our previous version was so old it was no longer supported. We saw the port to Drupal 7 to be a good opportunity to have a spring clean, tidying up some parts of the site which were not working and bring other parts of the site more up to date.

Siding Spring Observatories open up to the public

The observatories opened up - but unfortunately the weather closed in. Such was the introduction to ‘Open Day’ at Siding Spring Observatory on Saturday October 15th 2011. Fog and misty showers fortunately cleared as the morning rolled on to be replaced by a sunny afternoon, anyone would have thought that we were in “four seasons in one day Melbourne” but no, we were at Siding Spring Observatory 25 kilometres west of Coonabarabran, in north-west New South Wales.

Investigate transiting exoplanets with Agent Exoplanet

Our first totally online, citizen science project was launched today. It is called Agent Exoplanet and is about investigating transiting exoplanets. The 'Agent' part of the name is gives the project a secret agent theme. It might seem a little strange for an astronomy project but the key similarity is that astronomers are like detectives. Very often in science you have a small amount of information to go on to try to unlock the secrets of the Universe.

The changing face of supernova SN2011dh

In early June a new Supernova was discovered. A supernova is the end point of a massive star where the thermal fire at the core of the star runs out of fuel, ending its life in an extremely bright explosion (see our SpaceBook page on high-mass stars for more information). The supernova is outside of our galaxy in the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51. The galaxy is face on allowing observers to clearly see its beautiful spiral arms.

Sinistro camera has astronomical first light

Our first 'homemade' camera, the Sinistro achieved first light on our 1m telescope in Santa Barbara last night. It was entirely designed by our optical and imaging engineers and was constructed in the LCOGT image lab. It has been 6 years in the making, so was a big relief for everyone on Team Sinistro, when the camera was mounted and took its first astronomical image (click on the inset image for a larger view).

Stunning results with new NEO target program

You know that saying about waiting for a bus, and then two come along at once...well, with a new research project being carried out by amateur astronomers in the UK and Italy, in this case it was 7...new asteroids

Nick Howes, equipment consultant for UK Magazine Astronomy Now, has been using the twin 2m Faulkes Telescope North and Faulkes Telescope South for a few years, on comet observation and measurement work, but in the past few months,

Near-miss asteroid snapped by amateurs

Recently an asteroid the size of a bus passed by the Earth with a speed of 12,000 miles per hour. At its closest approach it was only a few thousand miles from the surface of Earth, which is much closer than many of the satellites which orbit the Earth. Amateur astronomer and Astronomy Now's equipment consultant Nick Howes coordinated the team which observed this interesting and fast moving object, with LCOGT network.

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