Galactic Kiwi

countdown to the the moon!

A lunar eclipse is set to occur later this week, beginning on Tuesday, March 3, at approximately 9:45pm NZDT. As the Moon moves into Earth's shadow, it will take on a deep red hue, often referred to as a 'Blood Moon', by around 11pm, with totality occurring early Wednesday morning, shortly after midnight. This event will be the last lunar eclipse visible from New Zealand until 2028, the same year a solar eclipse will be observable.

A great excuse to stay up late on Tuesday night and WFH!

Nice light show over Wellington NZ . Rare event for these latitudes, wonderful to see

The the lunar eclipse begins..

The musterers hut.

Love this little old musterers hut. I took this photo some time ago but never got about to stitching it together. The weather and sky conditions weren't great, a lot of skyglow, but still hard to resist.

one of the best nights in a long while to be running the observatory and playing with the DSLR. nice to be chilling under the stars and admiring the planets.

The Night Sky for February 2018 - from RASNZ

Venus can be briefly seen from places with a low western skyline setting just 20 minutes after the Sun at the beginning of the month and 30 minutes after sunset.

Sirius, 'The Dog Star', marks the head of Canis Major the big dog; a group of stars above and right of it make the dog's hindquarters and tail. Procyon, in the northeast below Sirius, marks the smaller of the two dogs that follow Orion the hunter across the sky.

The stars of Orion's belt make the bottom of 'the pot'. Orion's sword - a faint line of stars includes the Orion Nebula M42: a glowing gas cloud many light-years across and 1300 light years away.

Orions belt stars point to Aldebaran, a briight orange star in V-shaped pattern of stars making the upside-down face of Ta**us - the bull. The V-shaped group is called the Hyades cluster. It is 130 light years away.

Low in the northwest is the Pleiades , M45 also known as Matariki, the Seven Sisters and Subaru. Six stars are seen by most eyes, but dozens are visible in binoculars.

Crux, the Southern Cross, is on its side in the southeast and below it are Beta and Alpha Centauri, also called 'The Pointers'.

Alpha Centauri is the closest naked-eye star, 4.3 light years away. Beta Centauri, like most of the stars in Crux, is a blue-giant star hundreds of light years away.

Canopus is also a very luminous distant star; 13 000 times brighter than the sun and 300 light years away.

The Milky Way is brightest in the southeast toward Crux, and the dark veins can be seen to form the shape of an emu as it rises.

The Magellan, Clouds LMC and SMC are high in the south sky, easily seen by eye on a dark moonless night. They are two small galaxies about 160 000 and 200 000 light years away, nearby for galaxies. The Large Cloud is about 5% the mass of the Milky Way galaxy; the Small Cloud about 3%.

Jupiter is the brightest 'star' in the late night sky. It rises around 1 a.m. at the beginning of the month and 11 pm by the end. It is followed by Mars, much fainter and reddish coloured. Saturn follows Mars, rising around 3:30, at the beginning of the month, on a line with Jupiter and Mars.

Mercury is the last up, rising an hour before the Sun at the beginning of the month.

To the Moon and Beyond

For the first time in 45 years, the possibility of putting people on the Moon and even Mars, is now within humanities reach; thanks to the team at Space X, and the Falcon Heavy rocket test flight today.

This marks a significant moment in space exploration, and not only because Elon Musk sent his Tesla roadster, into space! But because for the first time in 45 years we have the technology to reach for the Moon using a rocket that is approaching the power of a Saturn 5.

In a carefully choregraphed show, and to the sound of David Bowie ““Space Oddity - Major Tom” the team at Space X demonstrated that they could bolt 3 Falcon rockets together, synchronize 27 rocket engines, and propel a Tesla Roadster into an orbit that will take its pilot around The Sun, past Mars and towards the asteroid belt, eventually ending up in an orbit that could last for up to 1 billion years!

Not only that, but 2 of the 3 Falcon rocket boosters touched down, upright on their target touchdown pad. Legendary!

So whats next?

I think Space X and NASA should consider teaming up to launch The Orion capsule and a manned mission to the moon, followed by a missions to Mars orbit, eventually manned.

There’s also the space companies, like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, who are working on technologies to mine water and minierals from asteroids; who might also want to discuss whether the Falcon Heavy is capable of sending their spacecraft into the asteroid belt. For now we’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, a huge congratulations to all the team at Space X for producing the BEST rocket launches of our time!

On 31 January, we will be treated to a rare celestial event, a lunar Eclipse. In this instance, a "Blue Blood Moon Eclipse’

It's also the first time since 31 March 1866, that three celestial events occur simultaneously in one night.

The first of these events is the so called supermoon,a popular term for when a full moon coincides with the moons closest point in its orbit, and appears appears about 10% larger than a normal.

The second event to is a ‘blue moon.’ This term used when two full moons occur in a single calendar month.

The third of these events is the lunar eclipse, when the moon travels into the earths shadow.

The lunar eclipse will start around 11:50 NZDT, 31 January 2018 and finish around 5am 1 February. For more information on timing, see:

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/@2186861

Happy 2018!

The Galactic Kiwi Observatory clocked up 300hrs of remote imaging time in 2017 and much to our surprise managed to wear out some track components.

So, over the New Zealand Christmas Holiday period, we 've done a lot of much needed maintenance, and are good to go for 2018!

Some upgrades we will be doing in the coming months are:

Install additional dome rotation motor
Upgrade to latest The Sky X TCS
Upgrade the main computer
Declutter cabling and upgrade to USB3
Install new remote power controller to back of Paramount mount
Increase onsite data storage

Big thanks to everyone involved in this adventure, and remember we're just a phone call away if you wish to visit, arrange a school trip, or solar viewing session. - its all free!