APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

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APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by APOD Robot » Thu Nov 15, 2012 5:14 am

Image Solar Eclipse over Queensland

Explanation: This month's New Moon brought a total solar eclipse to parts of planet Earth on November 13 (UT). Most of the total eclipse track fell across the southern Pacific, but the Moon's dark umbral shadow began its journey in northern Australia on Wednesday morning, local time. From along the track, this telescopic snapshot captures the Moon's silhouette in skies over Queensland along the Mulligan highway west of Port Douglas. Almost completely covered, the Sun's disk is seen still surrounded by a hint of the faint solar corona. Planet-sized prominences stretch above the active Sun's edge. Sunlight streaming through gaps in the rugged profile of the lunar limb creates the brilliant but fleeting Baily's Beads.

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Boomer12k » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:02 am

Nice one....


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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by agulesin » Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:56 pm

Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Last edited by geckzilla on Fri Jul 19, 2013 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by neufer » Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:48 pm

APOD Robot wrote:
From along the track, this telescopic snapshot captures the Moon's silhouette
in skies over Queensland along the Mulligan highway west of Port Douglas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulligan_stew_%28food%29 wrote:
<<"Mulligan" is a stand-in for any Irishman, and mulligan stew is simply an Irish stew that includes meat, potatoes, vegetables, and whatever else can be begged, scavenged, found or stolen. A description of mulligan stew appeared in a 1900 newspaper:
Another traveler present described the operation of making a "mulligan." Five or six hobos join in this. One builds a fire and rustles a can. Another has to procure meat; another potatoes; one fellow pledges himself to obtain bread, and still another has to furnish onions, salt and pepper. If a chicken can be stolen, so much the better. The whole outfit is placed in the can and boiled until it is done. If one of the men is successful in procuring "Java," an oyster can is used for a coffee tank, and this is also put on the fire to boil. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that California hobos always put a "snipe" in their coffee, to give it that delicate amber color and to add to the aroma. "Snipe" is hobo for the butt end of a cigar that smokers throw down in the streets. All hobos have large quantities of snipes in their pockets, for both chewing and smoking purposes. A "beggar stew" is a "mulligan," without any meat.
Afterwards they would enjoy themselves with story-telling and, sometimes, the drinking of alcohol.

The verse to the song The Lady is a Tramp by Rogers and Hart begins:
"I've wined and dined on Mulligan Stew, and never wished for Turkey.">>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by neufer » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:02 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Phobos, transits the sun in this approximately true-speed
movie simulation using images from the panoramic camera.
agulesin wrote:
SubhanAllah...

Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Almost also true for the only other planet's solid surface
from which one can observe a moon transiting the sun. :arrow:
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Beyond » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:41 pm

Gee, neufer, 'that' was "almost" exciteing. :roll:
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by BMAONE23 » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:45 pm

agulesin wrote:SubhanAllah...

Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Yes it is interesting when a body is both 400 times smaller and 400 times closer that they share a similar angular size in the sky. Nah it's just math and chance

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:51 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:
agulesin wrote:SubhanAllah...

Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Yes it is interesting when a body is both 400 times smaller and 400 times closer that they share a similar angular size in the sky. Nah it's just math and chance
It's the "chance" bit that makes it amazing, though. Not a likely coincidence, and a transient one, at that. We're lucky to be here during the brief period of Earth's history when the two bodies share this relationship.
Chris

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:55 pm

neufer wrote:
agulesin wrote:Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Almost also true for the only other planet's solid surface
from which one can observe a moon transiting the sun.
"Almost" is important in horseshoes and hand grenades. When it comes to eclipses, though, if you're not dead-on, it doesn't matter. A transit of Phobos is stunningly uninteresting, and if we lived on Mars and were learning about the Universe, of remarkably little scientific value.
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by BMAONE23 » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:58 pm

I think that it is because of this relationship that we are really here as we are. If the moon was significantly closer or larger the tides would be too high and variable to allow us to build coastal cities near ocean food supplies. And if the moon were significantly farther away or smaller the axial tilt would begin to differ causing dramatic changes seasons and temperatures.
The Moon, as large as it is and as close as it is, is just right for our seasons and tides to support our life.

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:07 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:I think that it is because of this relationship that we are really here as we are. If the moon was significantly closer or larger the tides would be too high and variable to allow us to build coastal cities near ocean food supplies. And if the moon were significantly farther away or smaller the axial tilt would begin to differ causing dramatic changes seasons and temperatures.
The Moon, as large as it is and as close as it is, is just right for our seasons and tides to support our life.
There are many good arguments for a large moon being important in order for a planet to develop or sustain complex life. Keep in mind that when life developed on Earth, the Moon was much closer and coastal tidal effects were greater, which may have been important in driving rapid evolution and diversification of life.
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by John Omaha » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:33 pm

What are the red prominences on either side of the Bailey's Bead?

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:44 pm

John Omaha wrote:What are the red prominences on either side of the Bailey's Bead?
Prominences.
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by neufer » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:10 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
BMAONE23 wrote:
I think that it is because of this relationship that we are really here as we are. If the moon was significantly closer or larger the tides would be too high and variable to allow us to build coastal cities near ocean food supplies. And if the moon were significantly farther away or smaller the axial tilt would begin to differ causing dramatic changes seasons and temperatures.
The Moon, as large as it is and as close as it is, is just right for our seasons and tides to support our life.
There are many good arguments for a large moon being important in order for a planet to develop or sustain complex life. Keep in mind that when life developed on Earth, the Moon was much closer and coastal tidal effects were greater, which may have been important in driving rapid evolution and diversification of life.
...............................................
. Julius Caesar Act 4, Scene 3

BRUTUS: There is a *TIDE* in the affairs of men,
. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
. Omitted, all the voyage of their life
. Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
...............................................
. King Richard II Act 2, Scene 2

DUKE OF (New) YORK: God for his mercy! what a *TIDE* of woes
. Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!

. Act 4, Scene 2

KING JOHN. Bear with me cousin, for I was amazed
. Under the *TIDE*: but now I breathe again
. Aloft the flood, and can give audience
. To any tongue, speak it of what it will.
...............................................
. King Henry V Act 4, Scene 1

KING HENRY V. Even as men wrecked upon a sand,
. that look to be washed off the next *TIDE*.
...............................................
. King Richard III Act 4, Scene 4

QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the *TIDE*, as her mother doth.
...............................................
. King Henry VI, Part iii Act 5, Scene 1

KING EDWARD IV. Sail how thou canst, have wind and *TIDE* thy friend.'
...............................................
. The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2, Scene 2

PROTEUS: The *TIDE* is now: nay, not thy *TIDE* of tears;
. That *TIDE* will stay me longer than I should.
...............................................
. Titus Andronicus Act 3, Scene 1

TITUS ANDRONICUS: For now I stand as one upon a rock
. Environed with a wilderness of sea,
. Who marks the waxing *TIDE* grow wave by wave,
. Expecting ever when some envious surge
. Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
...............................................
. The Tempest Act 5, Scene 1

PROSPERO: I do forgive thee,
. Unnatural though thou Art. Their understanding
. Begins to swell, and the approaching *TIDE*
. Will shortly fill the reasonable shore
. That now lies foul and muddy.
...............................................
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by John Omaha » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:13 pm

Solar flares? Notice that at 12 o'clock (thinking of the disk of the moon as a clock dial) there's a prominent red flare. I did not know that solar flares could be seen in a photo from earth.

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:40 pm

John Omaha wrote:Solar flares? Notice that at 12 o'clock (thinking of the disk of the moon as a clock dial) there's a prominent red flare. I did not know that solar flares could be seen in a photo from earth.
As noted these are prominences. They are not flares.

Flares are readily seen from the Earth telescopically. Prominences are seen directly when the surface of the Sun is occluded, as during a total eclipse or with a coronagraph, and are seen telescopically using a narrowband hydrogen-alpha bandpass filter.
Chris

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Sez Ewe » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:53 pm

neufer wrote: mulligan stew is simply an Irish stew that includes meat, potatoes, vegetables, and whatever else can be begged, scavenged, found or stolen.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by neufer » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:54 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
John Omaha wrote:
Solar flares? Notice that at 12 o'clock (thinking of the disk of the moon as a clock dial) there's a prominent red flare.
I did not know that solar flares could be seen in a photo from earth.
As noted these are prominences. They are not flares. Flares are readily seen from the Earth telescopically. Prominences are seen directly when the surface of the Sun is occluded, as during a total eclipse or with a coronagraph, and are seen telescopically using a narrowband hydrogen-alpha bandpass filter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxillary_prominence wrote: <<Continuous with the dorsal end of the mandibular arch, and growing forward from its cephalic border, is a triangular process, the maxillary process (or maxillary prominence), the ventral extremity of which is separated from the mandibular arch by a ">"-shaped notch. The maxillary [prominence] forms the lateral wall and floor of the orbit, and in it are ossified the zygomatic bone and the greater part of the maxilla; it meets with the lateral nasal process, from which, however, it is separated for a time by a groove, the naso-optic furrow, that extends from the furrow encircling the eyeball to the olfactory pit. The maxillary [prominences] ultimately fuse with the lateral nasal and globular processes, and form the lateral parts of the upper lip and the posterior boundaries of the nares.>>
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Nov 15, 2012 5:36 pm

This is a breathtakingly beautiful picture. And the NASA video linked in the caption is quite informative. An encouraging preview for the total solar eclipse that will be visible across the continental United States on August 21, 2017. It's never too early to start researching and planning.
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by ddorn777 » Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:21 pm

The 2017 eclipse will be my first total. Can't wait! Just 5 more years... 8-)

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:21 pm

ddorn777 wrote:The 2017 eclipse will be my first total. Can't wait! Just 5 more years... 8-)
Me too, ditto. But it's only four years, nine months, and five days!
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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by saturno2 » Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:37 pm

Solar Eclipse over Qeensland
A Solar Eclipse " quasi " perfect

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by neufer » Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:54 pm

http://astrobob.areavoices.com/?blog=78068 wrote: Hyades star cluster – your portal into spacetime weirdness
Astrobob, November 15, 2012

<<Clouds,clouds, clouds. Then several nights ago for a precious 20 minutes, the stars sparkled with fierce intensity. Winds and snow had scoured the atmosphere, rendering the sky darker than I’ve seen it in weeks. Straight up east, Jupiter caught my attention, and alongside it, the valiant V of the Hyades star cluster that outlines the face of Taurus the Bull.

Though the Hyades (HYE-uh-deez) get help from the bright orange star Aldebaran in completing its distinctive shape, the star has nothing to do with the cluster. It just happens to be in the foreground like someone walking in front of the camera. Aldebaran hails from 65 light years away; the Hyades are more than twice as far at 151 light years.

While I know the cluster is famed for its role as a key rung on the scale astronomers use to measure distances across the universe, yesterday’s total eclipse reminded me of the Hyades’ pivotal role in proving one of Albert Einstein’s greatest predictions of his Theory of Relativity: massive objects make space curve.

If you picture 3-D space in two dimensions as the webbing of a trampoline and the sun as a bowling ball, the weight of the ball creates a dimple in the webbing analogous to the sun bending the “fabric” of space, or more accurately, spacetime. So we’re clear, Einstein showed that space and time weren’t separate entities but woven together into a single fabric. We also need to remember that spacetime is not only warped “below” the sun but also above and around it, so it’s not quite as simple as the two-dimensional surface of our trampoline, but the analogy is still useful.

The larger or more massive the object, the stronger its gravity and deeper the dimple. Our Earth carves out its own little hollow in spacetime. Planets fall toward the sun as they follow the dip of space but don’t crash and burn up because they also possess sideways motion or angular momentum that propels them around the sun just fast enough to avoid falling in. If you could stop a planet in its orbit, it would gladly follow the warp of space headlong into the sun. Ouch!

When light passes near massive objects like stars and planets, it also follows the willy-nilly curves of spacetime instead of traveling in a straight line. Light from a distant star grazing the edge of the sun is deflected slightly, appearing to come from a bit further off the sun’s edge. The more massive the star the greater the deflection. But how to test it?

British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington got a hold of a smuggled copy of Einstein’s new theory during World War I, read it and realized a solar eclipse might be the perfect tool to see if gravity really did warp space. Sir Frank Watson Dyson, Astronomer Royal of Britain at the time, found that the May 29, 1919 total solar eclipse would be ideal. Not only would the sun be covered for an exceptional long 6 minutes but would sit right in front of the Hyades star cluster. In the eclipsed-darkened sky, astronomer could image several of the cluster’s brighter stars nearly up to the sun’s edge.

Star positions could be measured from the photograph and then compared to earlier measurements made when the sun was out of the way. If the displacement matched the theory’s prediction, an important aspect of relativity theory would be confirmed. Scientists relish putting new theories to experimental tests to see how well predictions match reality.

In January and February 1919, British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington measured the stars true positions untainted by solar gravity before his party departed for the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa. Another British group was dispatched to Sobral, Brazil as backup. Although clouds threatened both parties, the sky was clear at the critical time and pictures were taken.

When the stars’ positions were compared, it was found that that the sun’s gravitational field had shifted them by 1.75 arc seconds from their true locations, nearly exactly what Einstein’s theory predicted. That’s the size of a dime seen from 1.3 miles away! Tiny but measurable. When the results were published in the fall of 1919, Einstein’s theory survived its first experimental verification. Overnight, Einstein became a media darling, and to this day we can’t get his crazy hair out of our minds.

Thanks in part to the Hyades, our universe is a much larger and more peculiar place than we’d ever imagined.
Art Neuendorffer

Diana

Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Diana » Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:30 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
BMAONE23 wrote:
agulesin wrote:SubhanAllah...

Isn't it amazing that the moon and sun are (appear) the same size despite their vastly differing sizes and distances from our home planet...
Yes it is interesting when a body is both 400 times smaller and 400 times closer that they share a similar angular size in the sky. Nah it's just math and chance
It's the "chance" bit that makes it amazing, though. Not a likely coincidence, and a transient one, at that. We're lucky to be here during the brief period of Earth's history when the two bodies share this relationship.

--It was just 6 months ago when we had a annular eclipse. At totality, there was still a huge red/orange ring around the moon. It made for some very beautiful pictures. Sol and Luna were the same size they always are, but distance played the key role in the difference.
Diana

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Re: APOD: Solar Eclipse over Queensland (2012 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:45 am

Diana wrote:--It was just 6 months ago when we had a annular eclipse. At totality, there was still a huge red/orange ring around the moon. It made for some very beautiful pictures. Sol and Luna were the same size they always are, but distance played the key role in the difference.
It was very pretty- I drove a long way to make some myself. But it was nothing compared to what a non-annular solar eclipse looks like, and of no scientific value at all (total eclipses were responsible for the discover of helium, for testing General Relativity, and for much of our understanding of solar physics).
Chris

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