Surprise SQA Triumvirate

Wow - in a surprise turn, NZ (with Australia and South Africa) have all been awarded the bid to host the Square Kilometer Array of radio telescopes. South Africa had been tipped to take it out, but it was revealed overnight that all three countries will play host.

Awesome!

In addition to cool space science "Sergei Gulyaev, head of AUT University's Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research, has said one of the tantalising prospects of the radio telescope would be its ability to give a "bird's-eye view" of the tectonic plates deep under New Zealand."

Source : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808616

YES! Finally!!! Go Go Go!

Mystery company backed by James Cameron and Google executives may be an asteroid mining project | The Verge:

'via Blog this'

gfkBill adds :More here on Ars. Sounds like it's pretty doable, tow a smallish asteroid into orbit, do science and stuff.
Cool!

It's Hard to miss ....

xkcd: Orion Nebula:

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's ridiculous

I got  pissed off last night.  I was sitting in my house, only a single lens to my name, and that a 2-inch beast, no mount and no DSLR.  So I decided to get back to where we once belonged.  1 hour, 2 razor cuts and some swearing later i had re-created the pill mount, and was getting ready for some observing with Bill's awesome 15mm lens on loan.  Batteries were charged, everything was clean and scope was ready to roll.

In short, I ended up staying awake until 5am, shooting from the beach.  The Dob was beautifully easy to transport, ping the springs off, lift it out into the car, and off we went.  The main attraction last night was of course, the moon.  So just to make myself feel better ... I did these.

1 Star, 2 Star, Red Star, Blue Star

Both of us here at 1200mm have kids.  Mine are in their mid to late teens now, while Bill's come in a little younger than that.  As parents, it's natural and normal to want to pass your passions, knowledge and wisdom on to your children.  Unfortunately they stop listening to you at age 11.

Enter Findlay Books with the solution .. beginner astronomy eBooks for the newest astronomers .. the strategy being "get em interested early and your work is halved!"

Joy Findlay has written and self-published a series of 6 eBooks, all dealing with the things that little astronomers need to learn, shapes, colours, numbers and letters and things of that ilk.  The "Rocket Boy, my First Reader" series are wonderfully presented books, utilising some of the most awesome astro-stock images to teach these beginning concepts to the smallest star gazers of them all.  The colours are bright and cheerful, the pictures are fascinating and eye catching, if you're looking for something to get your daughters and sons into space, this is an awesome start!

The series doesn't attempt to make the people reading the books feel stupid either, after looking through 1200's promotional copies I had to go look up 2 of the nebulae used for myself!  I personally really enjoyed this series, and it would be something I would heartily recommend to anyone with young kids.

Available on Kindle Colour and anything that supports it, and at 0.99c/1.99c a download, well worth it :)

You can grab the download links here:
http://findlaybooks.com/myfirstreader/index.html

Last Year, all in one place!

Since losing the DSLR a couple of weeks ago, and missing some awesomely clear nights to boot, I have been slightly at a loss for photographic stimulus :(  Once the moon crescents up a bit, I will be playing some afocal games with the IXUS however :)

In the mean time, I gathered my favorite astro shots from 2011 into a Flickr set, they have mostly been on here before, as it's a set about the blog shots, but if you wanted to go have a peek at how my shots were looking last year, feel free!

Now I just have to get Bill to do the same, although his Flickr was a barren, featureless wasteland with tumbleweeds rolling across it until recently, it now has some VERY nice stuff up there, go look!

It's Yuri's Night!!

At least here in NZ, the rest of you are a bit slow :)
Yuri's Night:

M42, and how the lights work :)

My favorite nebula :)
NASA - Chaos in Orion:

Borealis? Is that you?