Periodic Comet P/2016 BA14 (PANSTARRS)

Discovered recently by the PANSTARRS survey, P/2016 BA14 will set a record for the third closest approaching comet of all time on March 24th. It will brighten from its current magnitude of 18 to about Mag 13. Sadly, it will pass outside Earth's orbit so there shouldn't be any meteor shower activity as the tail (what there is of it - not much as you can see) will be pointing away from us from what I can tell from the orbit diagram.

What I find most fascinating about this object, is that it crosses the plane of the solar system, very near earth, almost at its perihelion. Also of interest is the periodic comet 252P/Linear which has a very similar orbit. The super sleuth astronomer detectives will be onto that, I'm sure. Of course I'm not qualified to comment on such things, but I'm thinking .... Hhhmm ...If two asteroids departed the plane of the solar system from a point "near Earth", did something happen to them if they were both there at the same time. Yes I know, we are talking comets here and comets normally come from the Oort Cloud at any angle, but its really interesting to contemplate. Am I allowed to call "dibs" for a future PHD that I may get around to doing one day ;-)

That's why science is so much fun, you get to ask questions like that and go and work it out.

Tonight's data:
COD Q62
OBS P. B. Lake
NET PPMXL
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.43620 05 51 24.42 -34 16 10.7 18.4 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.43801 05 51 24.54 -34 16 08.7 18.3 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.43976 05 51 24.62 -34 16 06.7 18.5 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.44150 05 51 24.72 -34 16 04.9 18.4 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.44324 05 51 24.83 -34 16 02.8 18.2 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.44498 05 51 24.95 -34 16 01.1 18.3 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.44672 05 51 25.05 -34 15 58.9 18.2 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.44860 05 51 25.15 -34 15 56.9 18.3 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.45035 05 51 25.26 -34 15 55.1 18.3 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.45209 05 51 25.35 -34 15 53.2 18.2 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.45383 05 51 25.47 -34 15 51.0 18.3 N Q62
PK16B14A C2016 03 03.45557 05 51 25.57 -34 15 49.2 18.4 N Q62

Looking forward to a nice telescopic show late in the month whilst we are at NACAA.

Global Star Party - Feb 14th

Variable Star workshop on KIC 8462852 at VSSEC

A big shout out to the Victorian Space Science Education Centre and Telescopes in Schools program who hosted me yesterday running a variable star workshop with students and science teachers. The staff were magnificent and the centre is a real credit to all involved.

The Mars Science Mission experience is second to none and has to be seen to be believed. My workshop involved an introduction to variable star astronomy including a worksheet exercise of basic Visual Observation Photometry, culminating with the class comparing their "visual" observation with a highly precise VPhot measurement straight from one of iTelescope.net's Telescopes.

Result: The class determined that KIC 08462852 was at its long term photometric brightness of 11.87 and provided another 32 data points to the AAVSO's long term study of the star. The target is subject of Dr Tabitha Boyajian et al's Paper KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux (WTF) a Planet Hunter target from the Kepler Mission that exhibited some strange and difficult to explain behaviours.

In a week where Australia's STEM Future was front and centre, it was great to be out and about doing something about it.

Carnival of Space 365

WELCOME to Carnival of Space 365. A weekly round-up of Space and Astronomy Blogs that is in its 365 Week. Thats a whole year of weeks! What a week its been, with the Rosetta Probe getting ready for its "Philae Mignon" with Comet 67P. (See what I did there ... huh ...huh) Watching too many cooking shows? Should be doing more science!

OK ... I know its not going to wrap it in bacon.... lets move on.

Astronomy is going off this week, lots of stuff happening!

Dr. Paul Spudis comments on Buzz Aldrin's case for the immediate adoption of a new national goal in space – a human mission to Mars.

The Lunar PLanetary Institute covers a new study in Nature that describes the effects of asteroid bombardment on the early Earth

We take a close look at the surface of Mercury with PlanetMappers as the MESSENGER Spacecraft makes its closest approach to the planet so far.

Also from the team at Cosmoquest - What's the forecast for this year's Perseid Meteor shower, and how can you contribute to citizen science and observations of meteors and fireballs?

Perhaps at this point I can put in a little plug for the brilliant the new App "Fireballs in the Sky" developed by the team at Curtin University. You can measure and report meteors and bolides with your phone as they happen.

Spacewriter talks about "Telescopes to Tanzania", a project of Astronomers Without Borders. There is alot of great work going on in Africa with astronomy right now!

Carolyn Collins Petersen, space/astronomy expert at About.com, takes a look at a few of the many excellent space and astronomy education resources available to educators and outreach professionals.

NASA announced the winners of the high stakes science instrument competition to fly aboard the Mars 2020 rover at a briefing held today, Thursday, July 31, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Scientists analyzing the reams of data from NASA’s Cassini orbiter at Saturn have discovered 101 geysers erupting from the intriguing icy moon Enceladus and that the spewing material of liquid water likely originates from an underground sea located beneath the tiny moons ice shell, according to newly published research.

Success and validation that aligns with what is believed about EmDrive means powerful mainly static thrust. It would be an alternative way to achieve effects that would mimic antigravity. It would enable super efficient planes, better flying cars, and cloud city like applications in a full expression of a mature EmDrive. In the nearer term it would be better satellite propulsion. A US scientist, Guido Fetta, has built his own propellant-less microwave thruster, and managed to persuade Nasa to test it out. The test results were presented on July 30 at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Astonishingly enough, they are positive. Read all about it here including similar experiments in China ......

Next Big Future also reports on producing black light power using Hydrinos.

See what happens when two passions collide. A crafty spacer explores an idea and lives to tell the tale!

I think she nailed it!! - Editor

A look at the density perturbations in the early universe from which galaxies and others structures formed, with a visual explanation of the effect of gravity on these perturbations.

Thanks for joining us this week at the AARTScope Blog where we keep creating the sense of anticipation and discovery that keeps people asking questions. I'll leave you with my image of the Saturn Occultation last night!

So that about wraps it up for this weeks Carnival of Space. For image Credits see the original blogs. The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace @ gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.

Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko - First amateur images 2014

As the European Space Agency's Rosetta Mission ramps up in a busy week of astronomy, Observatory W96 and Observers A. Maury, J.-G Bosch, J.-F. Soulier were the first amateurs to report positions of 69P (this apparition) to the MPC. Amateur images of Comet 67P have also been acquired by the Professional-Amateur Collaboration in Astronomy (PACA) for comet 67P led by Dr Padma Yanamandra-Fisher in partnership with Amateur Astronmers. The PACA group uses social media to connect amateur and professional astronomers to provide observation follow-up, monitoring and collaboration on science missions.

Comet 67P is about to be visited by the Rosetta Probe and ESA released their first photos, 2 weeks ago, of the comet starting to come to life as it heads on in towards the sun. The Rosetta mission is to follow the comet round the sun during the part of its orbit where the ices and dusts begin to discharge and form the tail. In november 2014, Rosetta will deliver a landed named Philae that will touch down on the nucleus of the comet to sample the particles as they become active.

Pictured here at a very faint magnitude 21.2 you can see Comet 67P, and the position of the Rosetta spacecraft is also marked (even though it is way too faint to see). ESA this week began a number of engine burns to slow the spacecraft as it approaches the comet.

The star field is quite crowded, and one of the most interesting parts of the video is the amount of "traffic" in this part of the sky. There were about 6 clearly identifiable asteroids in the full field of view, I have labelled a couple of the closer ones for reference. One asteroid in the field of view caught my eye as it seemed to dip in brightness, so it has been noted for further follow up as it approaches opposition in July.

Capturing the comet at such a faint magnitude required a deep "stacking" of images to account for the movement of the comet. "Stacking" is a process used to add a number of images together to improve the signal to noise ratio of the target. The comet was travelling so slowly relative to our point of view that I was able to resolve it with 12x300 second images. These images were then stacked in three groups of 4 at the movement of the comet - 0.16arc"/min at a position angle of 226 degrees. My images were quickly followed up by Rolando Ligustri, Bacci Paolo Backman. The astrometry (positional information) was included in MPEC 2014-K54

Previously in 2012, amateurs using the the Faulkes Telescopes had photographed 67P at aphelion (its furtherest point from the sun), also a remarkable effort!. In January 2014 the large telescopes in Chile, European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) recovered 67P and have been following it regularly, this was the first occasion that amateurs had obtained images on this apparition.

For more information about the program check out the Year of Southern Comets article at iTelescop.net. PACA has a Facebook and Flikr group for members and a website under construction, it is open to any amateur astronomers who have their own telescope, are familiar with photometry and astrometry, are members of iTelescope.net, or have access to other telescope facilities and are prepared to work as a team on the science effort.

The Rosetta Spacecraft was named after the Rosetta Stone which assisted historians and archeologists decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, scientists hope that in the same way the data gathered will assist in our understanding of the early solar system.

Carnival of Space 348

Welcome to this week's Carnival of Space #348

Our intrepid astronomy bloggers bring us a round up of news, what is happening, key discoveries, thoughts and ideas for the future. There are some amazing events going on this month, from a total eclipse of the moon, Mars approaching opposition, the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA) and its Global Astronomy Month!

What's On!

If you are hesitant to try this observing feat on your own or would rather participate from the comfort of your home, Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project has an event just for you: an online Messier Marathon.

The Spacewriter details many of April's skygazing sights.

IMAGE CREDIT: Astrocast TV

Space Missions

The sudden and unexpected outage of a crucial tracking radar that is mandatory to insure public safety, has forced the scrub of a pair of launches planned for this week from Cape Canaveral, FL, that are vital to US National Security, United Launch Alliance, SpaceX and NASA.

Human hopes of reaching stars other than the Sun are currently limited by the maturity of advanced propulsion technologies. One of the few candidate propulsion systems for providing interstellar flight capabilities is nuclear fusion. In the past many fusion propulsion concepts have been proposed and some of them even explored in high detail (Project Daedalus), however, as scientific progress in this field has advanced, new fusion concepts have emerged that merit evaluation as potential drivers for interstellar missions. Plasma jet driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF) is one of those concepts. PJMIF involves a salvo of converging plasma jets that form a uniform liner, which compresses a magnetized target to fusion conditions. It is an Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF)-Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF) hybrid approach that has the potential for many benefits over both ICF and MCF, such as lower system mass and significantly lower cost.

Planning on colonizing a star system? According to Portland State University anthropologist Cameron Smith, any 2000 year long Worldship journey would have to carry a minimum of 10,000 people to secure the success of the endeavor. And a starting population of 40,000 would be even better, in case a large percentage of the population died during during the journey.

Next Big Future also reviews Adam Crowl's article detailing “Sail-Beam” or “Macron Beam” propulsion of humans in spaceships to about 4.5% of lightspeed. Other methods of propulsion: Quarter-wave sails made of Carbon Nano-Tubes (CNTs) can achieve high speeds by slingshotting near the sun and then pushed by the solar energy of the Sun. Dropping to 0.019 AU, the final velocity is 5.6% of light – dropping to 0.00465 AU (skimming the photosphere) would allow a speed of over 0.11c (11% of lightspeed), but the material might not be up to the beating. Crewed vehicles would not endure the extreme acceleration – 84,000 gee at peak – so the speeds that might be achieved by solar-sailing star-travelers would be limited to 1,000 year flights to Alpha Centauri, with just 17 gee peak acceleration.

My own blog AARTScope brings you a couple of interesting events from the OSIRIS-REx Target Asteroids Mission. There are a couple of really cool videos of asteroid appulse/occultations (passing in front of back ground stars). Watch as a 16th magintude star emerges from behind the bright Asteroid Polana.

Stars, nebulae, galaxies & solar system

Europa just became the third body in the Solar System that we've seen spraying geysers of water out of the ground, after Enceladus and Earth

The sea of Enceladus: Cassini confirms underground ocean on Saturn’s geyser moon

IMAGE CREDIT: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Learn about the gorgeous Butterfly Nebula and the story of how it came to be.

El Gordo is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any known cluster at its distance or beyond.

IMAGE CREDIT: NASA, ESA, J. Jee (Univ. of California, Davis), J. Hughes (Rutgers Univ.), F. Menanteau (Rutgers Univ. & Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), C. Sifon (Leiden Obs.), R. Mandelbum (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), L. Barrientos (Univ. Catolica de Chile), and K. Ng (Univ. of California, Davis)

A quick look at one of the newest members of the Kuiper belt, discovered a few days ago. That object would be 2012 VP113, a very cool place to be.

The new object was discovered through two years of research at the ESO's amazing La Silla observatory - our thoughts are with our Chilean friends after a challenging week with another large earthquake in the region.

IMAGE Credit: Diana Juncher/ESO

So that about wraps it up for this weeks Carnival of Space.

The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace @ gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.

Black Eye in the Sky!

Today's image in my Southern Summer/ Northern Winter image series highlighting some of the seasonal delights for astronomers is M64, commonly known as the "Black Eye" Galaxy.

Its a deep sky object, as its quite small in size but quite bright none the less. The so called "Black Eye" is caused by thick dust lanes of the spiral galaxy blocking some of the central star light. The darker thick dust lanes being on the closer side from our perspective.

It often reminds me of looking over a thick eye-wall of a hurricane.

The M64 is its number in the Messier Catalogue, a list of "fuzzy objects" compiled by Charles Messier in the 1700's that were known to be not comets.

So over the course of January, I'll be posting daily images some of these highlights of the night sky. Today's image was taken last night from New Mexico H06 on 0.5m Planewave, a 300 sec exposure with the Luminance filter.

Enjoy!

Rosette Rising

I promised myself I would try and produce a little more content this year. It was a long time between posts towards the back end of 2013 as I was very busy. So I thought I might run a little short series of some of the Northern Winter/Southern Summer highlights.

The Rosette Nebula otherwise known as NGC 2244 is "in season" again. A nice little low res jpg preview file. I really must get around to running an image series on it. Its quite spectacular with the open cluster and only about 1/4 of the Nebula actually fits in the field of view at this focal length. So it would be a great one for me to finally learn how to do a mosaic compilation.

Taken from T11 at iTelescope.net this is the one-shot jpg that new members can access from their free getting started trial account.

T11 has a focal length of 2280 mm and a deep sky field of view 36x54 arc mins, with the 0.66 focal reducer it produces f/4.5.

Enjoy!

Comet Siding Spring C/2013 A1 Update

Image Credit: P.Lake Q62 T31 0.5m Planewave + CCD F/4.4 120 Secs Luminance 6th Jan 2014

Happy New Year - to all the readers of the AARTScope Blog!

Lets hope its going to be a great new year. Its all ready off to a great start astronomicly speaking, with a small 1-3 meter asteroid that obtained the very first preliminary designation of 2014 AA breaking up in the atmosphere before Astronomers had even finalised the calculation that it was going to hit us. Fortunately on this occasion it was a very small size causing a bright fireball just off the coast of West Africa which, so far, no-one has reported seeing. It was however picked up on some of the powerful infrasound detectors used to watch out for Nuclear Test Ban Treaty violations.

Given the very small size of this asteroid, something that small hits us every 1-6 months, so its not an unusual event, but very unusual to photograph an inbound bolide like that before it hits. 2008 TC3 was the only other asteroid to be photographed before it hit the earth, in October 2008.

Given its designation of 2014 AA, I thought I check up on that other "A Grade" designation for C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, which was the first comet discovered in 2013. It is being watched carefully due to its close approach to Mars in October 2014. My previous effort back in Nov 2013 is here.

Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is now sporting a nice 105 arcsec tail with hints of a nice jet developing, it is currently around Mag 14-15.

Image Credit: P.Lake Q62 T31 0.5m Planewave + CCD F/4.4 120 Secs Luminance 6th Jan 2014

The passage of Comet Siding Spring will be watched with great interest and will undoubtably be one of the highlights of 2014 as it passes close to Mars just after the arrival of the NASA's MAVEN Probe, and of course India's first orbital mission MOM will be close by as well.

Clear skies & and happy new year once again!

Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)

Comet Lovejoy is determined not to be outdone by Comet ISON. However, reports circulating through social media this morning that Comet ISON has now reached magnitude 4, will make sure it has more work to do - as if comets had opinions anyway.

Comet Lovejoy continues to brighten and its ion and dust tails continue to grow. It's coma is a massive 3.7 arcmins now in a 180sec image, which is probably closer to 2 arcmins in reality as the movement probably overstates it a little. It is very hard to make a magnitude estimate now from CCD images. Magnitude estimates are now best made by binocular observations and comparing the brightness with the known brightness of nearby stars. Comet ISON is now a naked eye object. Lovejoy, I suspect is not far away either.

The encroaching moonlight was not very kind to last night's attempt to capture a nice shot. Early this week Rolando Lingusti took a brilliant shot of Comet Lovejoy that was featured in Tony Flander's article in Sky and Telescope.

Comet Lovejoy was discovered by Australia's talented and "best practice" comet hunter Terry Lovejoy, who was a speaker at this year's Advanced Astro Imaging Conference on the Gold Coast. As a keynote speaker he outlined his search methods, which were, I have to say very comprehensive and methodical. Catching two brilliant Christmas Comets in three years is not a fluke, its through sheer hardwork and relentless persuit of what the Oort Cloud throws up each year.

Image Credit: P.Lake 3 x 180sec R,G,B T11 iTelescope.net

I found it a bit easier to observe the details in the tail in the individual subframes Luminance channel, which I didn't use in the R,G,B image as I ws getting too much light to manage with the intruding moonlight.

Image Credit: P.Lake 180 sec Luminance T11 iTelescope.net

I refered to Comet Lovejoy as the "one wood" comet (golf club) earlier this week in reference to its slightly out of shape coma. This can be mainly attributable to the fast speed of the Comet travelling at 9 arcsecs per minute in a direction of about 35 degrees across the line of its tail. Its pretty hard to pull up that speed at 0.81 arsces per pixel

Asteroid 2013 TV135 (PHA)

UPDATE 2: 19/10/2013.

Last night I got another 6 images of asteroid 2013 TV135. I have stacked them here at 1.4 arcsecs/m at Position Angle 210.3 allowing for the movement of the asteroid. This is a technique astronomers use to build the signal to noise ratio and derive a more precise position.

Image Credit: P.Lake 6x120sec images stacked. T11 H06.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 images from H06 at iTelescope.net. I managed to grab 6 images and stack them. I was hoping for a few more but the roof closed due to weather .

Discovered by G. Borisov & T. Kryachko of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Observatory, Nauchny, (095) on October 8th. Initially it is listed as a "Virtual Impactor" on Sentry JPL with a Rating of 1 on the Torino Scale. This is NOT that unusual for a new PHA, as at the time these measurements were taken there was only 8 days of arc available. It is expected that further observations will move this off the Torino Scale back to Rating 0 as the precision of the orbit improves over the next few days.

Asteroid 2013 TV135 will make a close approach to earth in the Year 2032 and is 410meters in diameter and is currently attracting a bit of media interest.

Its important to remember that new asteroids (this one has only 9 days of arc) usually don't stay on the Torino Scale (the risk register) for long, as further data updates increase the precision of the orbit, and usually quickly remove them as potential impactors.

UPDATED: October 19 Leonid Elenin makes the point on his blog (in Russian) that the current zone of uncertainty is about 1/5th of its orbit, so its way to early to be talking virtual impactors. Leonid's best estimate at this stage is an approach of about around 0.0077 AU which is close to about 1 Lunar Distance.

The most interesting aspect of the orbit, in the discussions I have seen, is the inclination to the ecliptic of 6.8 degrees and that it tracks close to Earth for a couple of hours. Removing the uncertainty around this time period will be the task facing observatories over the next few days/months.

Footnote: The 6 images here shown in the video had quite low signal to noise ratio which I improved a bit by stacking them in three pairs to improve the Signal to Noise ratio enough to get a good measure on them. This is partly due to the current full moon.

The little telescope that could!

Image Credit: (c) P.Lake R,G,B (12mins Sii, 12 mins Ha, 15 mins Oiii)

Well there's nothing better than kicking back for the saturday night blockbuster footy match, with a laptop to keep track of the the Tour de France, and the progress of two women's dreams of winning Wimbledon - a 50-50 chance of a fairytale for one of them.

July is a great month of live sport, with Wimbledon, Tour de France and the Ashes about to get underway!

So whilst kicking back after a busy week its great to just get your headspace somewhere else. Add to this mix of live action the Universe is also out there doing what it does - just getting older, re-cycling gases, with new photons of live action that no-one has every seen before arriving at our little blue green lights. Well some of them look the same as they did yesterday, but you never know, on average just over one star explodes every night, or the light of its long distant supernova/nova reaches us. So you never know what you might see.

There is one little scope that has been around for a while, it has been moved from shed to shed and sat in a garage for 8 of the last 12 months. Whilst "little" is a bit unfair as many people would love to own a 12 inch SCT, compared to its big brothers it now shares a shed with, it the oldest and smallest of the "non-refracters" or SCT/CDK designs.

After a refurb and a new camera it back in action at last, and I have to say, it can still Bring it!

So last night, with one browser tab watching Chris Froome making his statement chasing down the young Chilean mountain climbing sensation, and the TV flicking between Wimbledon and Cats vs Hawks, I thought I'd take the little telescope that could for a test drive.

The results speak for themselves!

Carnival of Space 281/282

My final honored task for 2012 is to host the Carnival of Space. What a year it has been! From the Transit of Venus, the successful Curiosity landing, the SKA being jointly awarded to Australia and Europe, the Higgs Boson the emergence of +Virtual Star Parties in Google Plus Hangouts, its really hard to know where to start.

Its been an amazing year. Astronomy has in someway led the charge in the Social Media/Science Catagory through strong leadership, mentoring and driving new horizons literally!!!!

To all readers and contributors I hope and trust that 2013 will bring you, and those close to you, a happy, prosperous new year that expands your understanding of the Universe around you, and all the players in its magnificent symphony.

On with the show!!!!!

Cheap Astronomy launches the e-book Astronomy Without a Telescope - which is surprisingly cheap (podcast). eBooks are great and with recent upgrades to smart devices and tablet software you can usually download them really easily into your reading device of preference.

How was born the Moon? Doc Madhattan replies to this quest starting from the Earth-Moon Theory and the works of George Darwin. I also translate some quotations from the short stories by the italian writer Italo Calvino.

The Chandra Blog gives us our first new year's resolution :- Never Give Up And Trust Your Intuition. In fact they push the boundries even further with From Super To Ultra: Just How Big Can Black Holes Get?

The Meridian Journal reports on the Cassini probes discovery of an alien version of the ‘Nile River’ on Titan.

Next Big Future brings us a report on how Orbitec has flown a radical new engine technology that promises to cut the size, weight and therefore the cost of putting a rocket – and payload – into space. Regular rocket engines get incredibly hot, reaching temperatures upwards of 3,000C (5,400F) or more, hot enough to melt the metal chamber in which the rocket fuel mixes with oxygen and burns. At these extremes, even rockets with sidewalls made of heat-resistant superalloys would fail catastrophically. Orbitec’s alternative approach keeps the hot burning gases away from the chamber surfaces altogether. The company’s patented designs create a cyclonic swirl, or vortex, of fuel and oxygen that holds the searing gases and fumes in the very centre of the cylindrical combustion chamber, away from the vulnerable sidewalls.

The meticulous chronicler of all things relating to Space Missions - Amy Shira Teitel discusses the story of how being on the Moon inspired Apollo 17's Jack Schmitt to write some holiday poetry. I'm sure its better than Vogon poetry!

From the Links through Space Blog you can follow Astronomy Club Toutatis on it's trip to Morocco. A series of posts and photos on Moroccan astronomy and personnel experiences through out Marrakesh and the Sahara desert night sky. Read about the observatory of Marrakesh, Asteroid Toutatis, see the Geminid meteor shower from the desert, Step in the Sahara sky hotel in the middle of nowhere in the Sahara desert for deep sky object photographing.

We occasionally see the magnificent photographer Thierry Legault sneak into Australia for magnificent outback shots. Today he sent Universe Today some images from an aurora-hunting trip to Finland and Norway. As you can guess, the images are awesome!

Finally my own AARTScope contribution of the top five highlights of my Astronomical year, a list which runs to many more than five, but the top five are biggies!

It s been my priviledge to continue the mission of the AARTScope Blog to Create the sense of anticipation and discovery that keeps scientists asking questions once again in 2012, and also host the Carnival of Space a number of times. Thanks for joing us again.

The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival, bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace @ gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.