The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,900 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 31 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 110 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 89mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was June 17th with 270 views. The most popular post that day was A Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, cloudynights.com, astoldbylauren.wordpress.com, digg.com, and WordPress Dashboard.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ring nebula, nebula, hubble, hubble images, and pictures of lunar landing sites.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

A Late Night with Conan O’Brien June 2010
1 comment and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition, Soundtrack Review September 2010
1 comment

The Good Ole South July 2010
5 comments

Breaking News: Mars will not be as big as the Moon in August July 2010

Photo Stacking-Easter Sunday: April 4, 2010 April 2010
4 comments

Put on your slippers and throw on your snuggies because the cold winter nights of North America are about to be heated by pure excitement as thousands wake up at in the middle of the night to view a total lunar eclipse which by pure chance is occurring on the winter solstice for the first time in over 370 years.

Tonight, beginning around 1:00am the Earth will slowly but surely move between the Sun and Moon.  As the Earth moves across the light path of the Sun, the Moon will start to go dark as our planets massive shadow begins to stretch over it.  The shadow will begin in the corner and slowly make its way across the moons surface until the whole of the Moon is covered by the Earth’s shadow around 3:20am.  It’s important to note that the Moon will still be partially visible once it is completely covered, but it will have a strange red glow which comes from light traveling through Earth’s atmosphere still hitting the lunar surface.

The nicest thing about viewing lunar eclipses is that the best way to observe them is by simply going out and looking up.  Telescopes will actually dampen the effect because of the amount of light they pick up partially washing out the shadow.  Binoculars might be useful but I would suggest just going out around 1:30am, 2:00am, 3:00am and 3:20am and follow the progress with your own eyes as the Moon becomes covered by the shadow of us on Earth.

Update: 1:40am
Clouds were pretty heavy but I did get a few breaks where about a quarter of the left side of the moon looked as though it had been bitten off.  Pretty awesome getting to see my first lunar eclipse!  Now its time to go off to bed for work tomorrow.

The media and internet have been set abuzz as NASA announced today its plans to reveal information regarding an “Astrobiology Discovery” tomorrow at 2 p.m.  The vagueness of the press release has some speculating that it could be the first discovery of life outside of Earth, possibly on Saturn’s Moon, Titan.  Come back to Late Night Astronomy tomorrow for full coverage of the news conference.

NASA PRESS RELEASE:

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-167

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2

WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Participants are:
–     Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
–     Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
–     Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
–     Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
–     James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe

Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or call 202-358-0918 by noon Dec. 2.

For NASA TV streaming video and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

UPDATE-December 2, 2010
False Alarm!!!  No Aliens, at least not of the Extra terrestrial type.
Turns out the big announcement was a new bacteria found in an arsenic California lake.  This new finding is the first time scientist have discovered a life form that can live in a way different to all other types on Earth.  This drastic change in how we view life, means that there is now evidence that many different types of life can exist in many different forms throughout the universe.  As always, stay tuned to Late Night Astronomy, your number 1 source for all astrobioligcal news on the internets.

Thanks to the October edition of Sky and Telescope and the good people over at Cloudy Nights, Comet 103P/Hartley 2 had been on my radar screen for sometime.  Weather permitting, a view of it on October 9th looked to provide a rare conjunction of itself and the famous double cluster in Perseus. Thankfully, that is exactly what happened and the views did not disappoint.

By themselves, the double cluster in Perseus are two of the most magnificent objects to view in the night sky.  Without a telescope, they appear as nothing more than small faint cloud regions to a well dark adapted eye.  Put a telescope to them and they resolve into fine points of various colored stars that appear as though they have been sprinkled onto the background of the night.  Comet Hartley 2 is a periodic comet whose orbit brings it through the solar system once every 6 and a half years.  My first viewing of Hartley 2 occurred a couple nights earlier on the 7th and proved to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. I just could not get myself oriented and had a hard time finding the constellation Perseus.  Tonight, proved to be much simpler, with Hartley 2 so close to the double cluster that finding them meant finding the comet.  While I had hoped to make out a distinct tail on Hartley 2 my expectations were too high as it appeared very similar to comet Lulin from February of 2009, showing up as a grayish “blurball” that could easily be mistaken for a globular cluster or nebula if one did not know what they were looking for.  None the less, viewing a comet is a rare treat, especially one as bright as Hartley 2, even if I was hoping for a more distinctive coma.

Viewing the comet and double cluster at 48X magnification made me wish for a lower power eyepiece in my arsenal.  While I was able to get good views of the comet and double cluster separately, I was only able to get the nearest of the two clusters in the same field of view as the comet.  Being able to view deep sky objects, particularly nebulae and open star clusters with a wider field of view and lower magnification would also give me that “lost in space” feeling.  The problem is, lower power eyepieces tend to be more expensive.  After tonight’s viewing, I’m fairly convinced that a low power eyepiece will be a purchase worth making sometime in the near future.

The title for this post comes from one of the best episodes of the Simpsons “Marge vs. the Monorail”.  Why is this a favorite episode, you may ask?  Well, it was written by Conan O’brien, has a song performed by Phil Hartman and the above mentioned quote comes from none other than a very famous passenger on the monorail, Mr. Leonard Nimoy!  Aside from all that “awesomeness,” it also is a great way to describe the celestial occurrence witnessed just a few nights ago.  The transit of Jupiter and one of her moons!

On September 20th of this year, Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth in decades.  The following night, I decided to take the scope out after a long days work to take a peak.  While it was hard to discern any change in size from its closeness, the views of Jupiter rarely disappoint and when they do it is because of the turbulent atmosphere distorting the image, similar to a haze of heat rising from a roof on a hot summer day.  Putting in the 25mm eyepiece revealed the great Galilean moons of Jupiter with one in-particular being very close, nearly on top of the gaseous giant planet.

After going in and coming back out a half hour or so later, I pushed the magnification up to 120X and took another look at Jupiter.  The view was very sharp, with brief seconds of near perfect viewing here and there.  Something was different about Jupiter this time, however.  At first, I thought I was viewing a very dark cloud on its surface until it hit me: the moon that was previously near the very edge of Jupiter had moved in front of her and was now casting a very small nearly pen dot black circle on the surface of the planet.  The moon, which I later found out was Europa, looked as though someone had cut a very small hole on Jupiter’s surface.  I came out about a half hour after the inital sighting and the small hole had moved to a new location, showing how fast Jupiter and her moons orbit each other creating the incredible transits.

Star Log: September 21, 2010

On a near freezing February night at college, I decided to hunt down my first comet using only my handy dandy duct taped Meade 114mm reflector and some good ole fashion star charts.  Going out, I quickly realized that this would have to be a fast find due to the cold weather.  Not having any winter gloves, I decided that wearing socks on my hands would be the best way to keep warm.  Yes that’s right, socks!  Imagine what the students walking by must have thought seeing a man wearing long socks on his hands looking through a telescope trying to find a comet (seems kind of strange doesn’t it).

At first, I was unable to finding Lulin and had to go back in to double check the star charts (you’d think I would have thought to print them off, but you can’t expect to much from someone wearing socks for gloves).  After 15 to 20 minutes of searching, I finally came upon it, the dim smudge in space that was Comet Lulin.  The funny thing about astronomy for me, is that no matter how faint and unspectacular an object is, finding something by only using star charts makes the discovery seem so much more amazing.  I called Lauren who came out and said something to the effect of “wow nice blur, see you inside”.

Using star charts for the first time to find an object really made me more appreciative of what I had found, even it was just a gray blur in space.  This was the first comet I had viewed since Hale Bop back in 1997, when I was 10.  I vaguely remember observing it with some some neighbors who came by to view it through my 70mm refractor telescope.  Even though the weather was cold and my hands were numb, taking the time to hunt down Lulin made for an exciting evening that helped to get me back into Astronomy, which I am enjoying immensely now!

Star Log: February 25, 2009

Perseid Meteor Shower
One of the best light shows of the year will be going on tonight, August 12.  Go out around 11:00 p.m. and face the North East.  This will reveal the Perseus Constellation which is where the meteors will appear to be coming from.  As with all astronomy nights, but particularly meteor showers, the darker the skies the better the views, so try to get away from city and even neighborhood lights.

What is a Meteor Shower?
Meteor showers occur when the Earth’s orbit passes through the remnants of a comet that has long since traveled through our part of the solar system.  The small ice and dirt particles left by its tail hit the Earth’s atmosphere and get super heated as they streak across the sky creating “shooting stars”.

How big are “shooting stars”?
Most shooting stars are the size of a particle of sand or dust.  They are moving so fast when they hit the atmosphere that they appear very bright even though they are so small.  Some shooting stars can be the size of your hand or even a basketball, with these typically being the ones that appear to break apart as they shoot overhead.  Occasionally, but very rarely meteors will be the size of a small car, these have the best chance of making it to the ground (Fear not though, no one has ever been confirmed to have died from a meteorite strike to the head, although that would be quite a way to go, don’t you think?)

What’s the difference between a Meteor, Meteoroid and Meteorite?
When the objects that make up a shooting star are in space
they are known as meteors.
Once they hit the atmosphere they become meteoroids.
If they are large enough to hit the ground (which rarely happens)
they become meteorites.

(Image from Astronomy.com)

(Update)
We Just got in from observing the meteor shower.  It was a really nice show, Lauren and I watched from 12:30 to 1:30 at Sailor’s Creek State Park, an old Civil War Battle Field away from city lights giving us a great view of the Milky Way and dim shooting stars.  We saw between 50 to 60 meteors, putting the shower for that time at a little less than 1 per minute.

At 3:40am, a noticeable blob peaked its way into view moving across Jupiter’s surface.  Located where the missing southern cloud belt should have been, it became apparent very quickly that this was something I had wanted to view since childhood.  The location and size left no doubt that this was the Great Red Spot (GRS) of Jupiter.

Earlier views of Jupiter around 3:00am had shown the basic cloud belts, but its fast 10 hour rotation (Jupiter day) brought about new features quickly.  With a size between two and three times that of Earth, it is the largest storm in the solar system.  Over the past couple hundred years the GRS has varied in size and faded in and out but has constantly remained one of the most interesting features to view in the solar system.  To help with observing, I found putting half of a polarizing filter on my eyepiece cut down on the glare (I’ve also found that a full polarizing filter works as well and can be adjusted to best effect).  This reduction in brightness, brought much needed contrast that allowed another smaller blob to pop into view just to the lower left of the more massive GRS.  I’m not sure if this was Red Junior (GRS’ little son) or just a random cloud system near by.  Another first, came from noticing the inconsistencies of the cloud belts.  What had appeared as straight lines in the past revealed themselves to be imperfect clouds with wrinkles and folds.  Finely tuned optics, enough cool down time and waiting for pristine moments of atmospheric conditions will help to reveal details such as these .  Excited at seeing this type of detail at 120x magnification, I went inside and brought out a notepad to sketch the features I could make out.

Not every night do I get to view something that I have wanted to see since childhood.  Reading books and seeing videos of the Great Red Spot when I was a kid always made me want to view it.  Even if it does appear smaller with less detail and color, nothing can replace the feeling of excitement in knowing that you have viewed the largest storm in the solar system with your own eyes.

Star Log: July 15, 2010

Here is a visual of the size of the Great Red Spot compared to Earth and a  representation of what I saw through my telescope.