An astronomy blog usually (but not always) based in the UK. Pondering questions such as What is the point of astronomy? .

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Copyright: Astronomy Blog

With amazing missions observing Mars, Venus and the Saturn system, itis all too easy to forget that the Earth has some pretty amazing features tosee too. Chris Brooke sent me a link to his blogpost about the 30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of

Earth. The images Chris uses were part of a NASA exhibitiontitled Earth As

Art which showcases amazing landscape, seascape and atmospheric patterns seen by Landsat 7. I

recognise a few of them but as always there are some new ones I...

I seem to spend most of my days sat in front of a computer. Although I tend to be reading a screen in one form or another I don't feel that I actually spend enough time sitting down with a good, eye-strain-free, book.

For many years in the UK we have had various national book weeks - this year running from October 6th to 12th - to encourage kids to read more. In fact, I remember taking part in one myself when I was at school. My class were even lucky enough to receive a personal letter from...

Update (3/7/2008): Welcome to readers of Carnival of Space #61. If you read an interesting space or astronomy themed blog post around the internet this week, send it to Fraser Cain and it might end up in Carnival of Space #62. After that public service announcement, on with the blog...

Via Orbiting Frog I see that President Sarkozy is wanting a more politically driven European Space Agency (ESA). The claim is that without more political control ESA may "fall behind" other space agencies. I...

Via my friend Peter, I see that the BBC News website has a slideshow of astronomical images taken by retired miner and amateur astronomer Trevor Barry from Broken Hill, New South Wales. Trevor has a large Meade telescope and spotted an electrical storm occurring on Saturn. I love that he went around telling everyone in the neighbourhood when he first found it. As he says, he was "stoked". Trevor's images are great and he knows what he's talking about; he did a distance learning course with...

Astronomy is amazing. Over the past few hundred years we've found out that our planet is one of a host of objects orbiting the Sun, which itself is one of around 100 billion stars in our galaxy which is, in turn, one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. We've managed to look backwards through 13.7 billion years of cosmic history to just 300,000 years after the big bang. We've tested the fundamental laws of physics in some of the most extreme environments that exist. For some...

You may recall that the UK funding council that pays for particle physics and astronomy projects - STFC - recently had a funding crisis despite the government claiming that all was well and funding had increased. Back in March a list was released (PDF) giving STFC's view of the relative ranking of every UK funded astronomy, particle and nuclear physics experiment. It should be noted that all of them were considered excellent, but with limited funding available, something had to be cut....

Do you remember the momentous events of summer 2006? You mean you've forgotten already? It was at the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly in Prague. How could you have forgotten that? Despite all the hugely interesting astronomy and astrophysics that was being presented at the General Assembly, the main topic of interest for some surrounded the definition of the term 'planet'. This was discussed at great length on my blog at the time and I'm now totally apathetic.

One...

Back in March I mentioned that the Very Large Telescope's Residencia was being used as a location in the upcoming James Bond Movie - Quantum of Solace. ESO have now released a short video clip in the style of those classic spy movies to show what they have at the Paranal site. The video, titled "Top Secret: The VLT Files", is pretty good with some nice 3D/2D effects.




Check out the Bond At Paranal site for more information about ESO, an interview with the stars of the real movie, photos,...

I forgot about this and was making my dinner but luckily caught a tweet from Will Gater reminding me that the IYA New Media workshop in St Louis is being web cast. If you're interested in the internet and the Year Of Astronomy, check it out. - source

Flicking through the latest edition of Physics World I see that the BBC and HBO are making a film about Arthur Eddington and Albert Einstein with some big star names. The part of British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington will be played by Doctor Who star David Tennant, and Andy Serkis (Gollum in Lord of the Rings) will take the role of Albert Einstein.

Eddington was an accomplished astrophysicist who had been chief assistant to the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich and was made director of the...

As you may be able to guess from the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks, I've been pretty busy with work. Yesterday Mars Phoenix landed and the first images have been blogged by Emily, Rob, Ian, Will, Chris and others around the web. This evening (UK time) the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team have released a great image of Mars Phoenix taken during descent.


Phoenix Makes a Grand Entrance CREDIT: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter TeamIn the image you can see Mars Phoenix with its parachute...

Update (14/5/2008): Be sure to also check out Dave P's and Ian Musgrave's reviews.

This morning I got news that Microsoft had finally released a "Spring Beta" edition of their World Wide Telescope. It is heralded as the Microsoft version of Google Sky and some have even been in tears when describing it. Does it live up to the hype? Here is my quick review after only a little bit of time to play with it.

The download and install was actually very painless with only the need to install Div X as...

One of the nice things about my job is working in international collaborations. Most of the time we work by email, Skype and the internet but with people spread across about 130 degrees of longitude that can be awkward. Sometimes you just need to meet up and work face-to-face. So on Tuesday - a day that felt like the start of summer - I travelled to Paris for a three day meeting.

As is becoming a tradition on my blog, I wanted to get an astronomical shot with a famous landmark whilst I had...

It is nice when somewhere you know gets referenced in popular fiction. I broke into a smile when Jodrell Bank was mentioned by the Colonel from UNIT in this week's episode of Doctor Who - The Poison Sky. Apparently Jodrell Bank had detected a signal 5000 miles above the Earth. I have to say that I am slightly disappointed that UNIT don't use SI units.

In real life Jodrell Bank is a radio quiet zone - it listens rather than transmits - but it does occasionally get referenced in British sci-fi...

In my email this morning was a message of support for UK astronomy from a concerned citizen. Perhaps they had heard an interview on the Today Programme with Professor Brian Cox or seen the news coverage on the BBC, in the Times, in the Guardian and elsewhere. What made this particular Wednesday special is that the Parliamentary Select Committee of MPs that were investigating the STFC funding crisis have just released their report. I haven't had chance to read it myself yet but I hear that it...

One of the most popular UK astronomy monthly magazines is the BBC's Sky At Night Magazine (the other is Astronomy Now). The magazine has now launched a new podcast. The first episode includes interviews that Will made in Belfast during the UK National Astronomy Meeting. The free podcast can be found on iTunes, on the Astronomy Media Player and as an RSS feed for those that use other podcatching software. - source

Some of the Galaxy Zookeepers (notably Chris Lintott) are at Kitt Peak Observatory taking observations of some interesting galaxies. You can keep up with their observations on the Galaxy Zoo blog and Chris is also maintaining a twitter feed for live updates. Of course, as I write this, they've gone to bed. It is now morning in Arizona and all good optical astronomers should be sound asleep. Here is the stunning view they get.


View from Kitt Peak CREDIT: Galaxy Zoo Blog - source

Two years ago I wrote about companies that let you name stars. It is one of the more popular posts on my blog with many finding it after searching for star naming online. Many of the comments I have received on that post are from people who have bought or have been bought 'star names'. They are generally of the view that 'it is only a bit of fun' and think I need to 'chill out'.

My comments on that post were really written from the frustration of having to deal with the fall-out of the star...

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA) is approaching. Many people all over the planet are working on projects that will take place throughout the year and leave a legacy well into the future.

In an attempt to stay positive for 2009 I've decided to put my Save Astronomy banner to one side especially given that nothing is going to change with the UK Government/STFC until the Wakeham Review (now underway) reports back (and even then it may not change anything). Whatever happens to...

At work this morning there was a little discussion about the possibility that dark matter had been detected by an experiment in Italy. Cosmic Variance (and now Phil) has the news of a paper (not yet peer reviewed) from the DAMA experiment which is looking for the collision of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS).

It would appear that the DAMA folks have a very good detection of an annual modulation to the low energy signal they have been observing. What does that mean? Basically,...

Amongst the amateur and professional astronomical community things are starting to hot up in preparation for a fantastic year of astronomy starting in January. As Rob points out, there is now a stunning trailer available in a variety of formats all the way from YouTube quality up to HD (about 86 MB). There are some great visuals and it includes extracts of an excellent animation zooming out from the VLT to the HST that Lars Lindberg Christensen showed at a public talk at NAM the other week.



...

When the STFC announced that funding for MERLIN/e-MERLIN might be axed, and Jodrell Bank Observatory said that that could lead to closure of the observatory, I don't think anyone quite expected the public outcry. Local media in Cheshire and Manchester took it upon themselves to campaign to save the Observatory using the 76-m Lovell Telescope as the focal point. The Manchester Evening News started a campaign as did local radio station Silk FM. Silk FM have now released a campaign video to...

When people visit working astronomical observatories one of the questions they often ask is "where is it looking?". There is something quite exciting about knowing that the telescope you are stood next to is staring at a planetary nebula or perhaps measuring the lensed light of some of the most distant objects we can see in the universe. You are seeing awesome scientific research in action.

One of my aims is to make it easy to answer this question. As of a year ago, there were already a...

Will Gater is hosting the 49th Carnival of Space this week. As usual everything from Mars, to supernovae, to Dyson Spheres are covered. Go check it out for some of the best astronomy on the web this week. - source

Last week in Belfast the Chief Executive of STFC - Keith Mason - showed a slide with e-MERLIN now apparently no longer in line to be cut. When questioned as to the apparent about-turn from the Programmatic Review, Keith said that the astronomy community were "deliberately mis-understanding" him. If you have a spare hour or two you can listen to the whole thing for yourself. You can also read Andys take on it too.

Basically, STFC can't afford everything that they were already paying for last...