Astro Gabe

Photo by me. #starparty 14" #Meade #LX200 #SCT #Hunttx #stablewoodsprings #worldmark

The perseverance of human curiosity has prevailed! The star parties at flood-torn Hunt, Texas, have returned at #Worldmark #Stablewood Springs Resort. Here is my weekly setup with my tablets and 14" #Meade #SCT
Stay curious and keep looking up! 🧪🔭

While you are all enjoying the partial phase of the #lunareclipse <shakes fists at clouds here> a fun fact: you can use a lunar eclipse to calculate the radius of the moon, relative to the radius of the Earth. 🤓 🧪🔭

Wishful thinking on my part. Forecast predicts partly cloudy for me. We'll see!

Photo taken by me. My photo of the 97% partial lunar eclipse on Nov 18, 2021, from my property in the central Texas Hill Country with a 10" Meade lx200 SCT telescope and NikonD810. I'm excited to repeat this with my 14" Meade lx200 SCT and NikonD850 for the total lunareclipse on Thu Mar 14, 2025! Stay tuned!

My photo of the 97% partial #lunar #eclipse on Nov 18, 2021, from the central Texas Hill Country with a 10" #Meade #lx200 #SCT #telescope and #NikonD810. I'm excited to repeat this with my 14" Meade lx200 SCT and #NikonD850 for the total #lunareclipse on Thu Mar 14, 2025! Stay tuned! 🧪🔭

Beautiful day to walk down historic Main Street #Fredericksburg, #Texas

#Bumblebee! #Transformers

Photo series taken by me. My series of the 97% partial lunar eclipse on Nov 18, 2021, from my property in the central Texas Hill Country with a 10" Meade lx200 SCT telescope and Nikon D810. Excited to repeat this with my 14" Meade lx200 SCT and Nikon D850 for the total lunar eclipse on Thu Mar 14, 2025! Stay tuned!

My series of the 97% partial #lunar #eclipse on Nov 18, 2021, from my property in the central Texas Hill Country with a 10" #Meade #lx200 #SCT #telescope and #NikonD810. Excited to repeat this with my 14" Meade lx200 SCT and #NikonD850 for the total #lunareclipse on Thu Mar 14, 2025! Stay tuned! 🧪🔭

SpaceX Starship Flight 8 Launch Representational Image (Photo Credits: X/@ElonMusk)

#SpaceX scrubs #Starship test flight 8 over unspecified ship issue. I was waiting with anticipation when they paused at T-40 seconds.

👇The Mars #EuropaClipper gravity assist is happening right now! Locate Mars to wave at Clipper as it flys by on its 5yr journey to Jupiter & the frozen ice moon of Europa.
At the moment Mars is an easy-to-spot triangle with the bright Gemini stars of Castor and Pollux! 🔭🧪🛰️
ℹ️ stellarium-web.org

Photo taken by me at the Thomsen Observatory using the 2,268mm apo refactor in the main dome.

I miss #Saturn already. It sets before sunset now not to return to the evening sky until late summer. Here is a photo I took of Saturn at #opposition on July 20, 2020 at the #Thomsen #Observatory 🧪🔭

Torino Impact Hazard Scale The Torino Impact Hazard Scale is a means of assessing the level of public concern warranted by predictions of close encounters of asteroids and short-period comets with Earth. The value, an integer between 0 and 10, that can be assigned to an object is based on the object's probability of collision with Earth and its estimated kinetic energy. The value can change as probability and energy estimates are refined by additional observations and more-accurate orbital calculations. NASA/© 1999, 2004 Richard P. Binzel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#NASA lowers #impact risk of 55 meter 'city-killer' #asteroid 2024 YR4 from a high of 1 in 32 to 1 in 360. This is a downgrade from 3 to 1 on the #Torino danger scale. It will likely be downgraded to 0 when more orbital data points are collected.🧪🔭

www.space.com/asteroid-202...

Me viewing Venus before sunset through a 25" #Obsession #Dobsonian.

Have you seen #Venus lately? Its beautiful crescent shines bright through the month of February as bright as mag. -4.53 on Valentine's Day. It is always in a crescent phase as it orbits closer to the sun than Earth. You should see it through this 25" #Obsession #Dobsonian !🧪🔭

SpaceX’s Starship rocket tumbles out of control a few minutes after liftoff from Texas. Credit: Gene Blevins / LA Daily News

After the successful catch of #superheavy booster and loss of #starship during test launch 7, it appears the possible ship catch planned for test 8 is pushed down. This puts the kibosh for my trip. I plan to see the first booster and ship catch. Message and come with me for this attempt!🚀 ✨️

“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it” -Albert Einstein

So it seems! Initial DESI data results indicate this paradigm shift. This is pretty major, so naturally, we need more observation, research, and ideally alternate ways to collect data points confirming this finding or at least otherwise producing more fields of inquiry.

Here are four of the many photos I captured of the #occultation of #Mars tonight from my property in central Texas. Zoom in to see the dark shield volcano Syrtis Major Planum and light polar ice cap. I used a #NikonD850 DSLR on a 14" f/10 #Meade #LX200 SCT. 1/250 sec, ISO 100.

Here are four of the many photos I captured of the #occultation of #Mars tonight from my property in central Texas. Zoom in to see the dark shield volcano Syrtis Major Planum and light polar ice cap. I used a #NikonD850 DSLR on a 14" f/10 #Meade #LX200 SCT. 1/250 sec, ISO 100.

Here are four of the many photos I captured of the #occultation of #Mars tonight from my property in central Texas. Zoom in to see the dark shield volcano Syrtis Major Planum and light polar ice cap. I used a #NikonD850 DSLR on a 14" f/10 #Meade #LX200 SCT. 1/250 sec, ISO 100.

Here are four of the many photos I captured of the #occultation of #Mars tonight from my property in central Texas. Zoom in to see the dark shield volcano Syrtis Major Planum and light polar ice cap. I used a #NikonD850 DSLR on a 14" f/10 #Meade #LX200 SCT. 1/250 sec, ISO 100.

Here are four of the many photos I captured of the #occultation of #Mars tonight from my property in central Texas. Zoom in to see the dark shield volcano Syrtis Major Planum and light polar ice cap. I used a #NikonD850 DSLR on a 14" f/10 #Meade #LX200 SCT. 1/250 sec, ISO 100.🧪🔭

My kitty, Bugsy, this morning. Scared and in pain, but hopefully, she will be well soon.

Vet Dr. Pilsner, administering pain and antibacterial injections to Bugsy.

My poor Bugsy has feline stomatitis. Scheduled surgery on her mouth for Jan 21. Hope she can eat pain-free soon again. She has gone from 14.6 lbs. down to 7.6 lbs. today.

The Starship stack for Flight 7 during a wet dress rehearsal Jan. 11. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX's Starship Flight 7 Is Delayed until Wednesday, Jan. 15, Potentially Due To Weather Concerns. Watch for booster catch!🚀 ✨️
wccftech.com/spacex-delay...

Very cool. Thank you, Kev! Keep up the wonderful work!

* Rather, Monday, Jan. 13 Central Time, or Tuesday Jan. 14 Universal Time.

This sequence of images shows the Moon occulting Mars on Sept. 6, 2020, from Brazil. Credit: Ricardo José Vaz Tolentino I plan on taking photos of this one coming up!

Watch the #Mars #occultation by the Moon Tue, Jan 13 in Gemini.
It lasts about an hour starting 7:51 PM (CST) at my location in Central Texas. Other Mars ingress/egress times listed in link to International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA).🧪🔭
www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets...

Live updates: Los Angeles wildfires kill at least 5, Palisades and Eaton fires raging on | CNN Massive wind-driven fires in Los Angeles County have killed at least five people and left others with “significant injuries.” Follow for live updates.

My heart goes out to the people in Los Angeles. I have beautiful memories of the Palisades. I have a cousin who says she is safe in Hawthorne, but the air is still heavy with smoke. Updated zoomable evacuation map in link. 💔
www.cnn.com/weather/live...

Wow!

Certainly! Thank you. I made an account on the old place 16 years ago that I never used, so this really is new to me. All posts include credits now. This really is a wonderful feed. Thank you for your work in putting it together and keeping it relevant.

(Image credit: SpaceX) SpaceX's upper-stage Starship spacecraft inside a hangar at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas. SpaceX posted this photo on X on Jan. 8, 2025.

Originally thought to launch Jan. 11, then possibly Jan. 10, Spacex has announced that it is now targeting Mon., Jan 13, for test launch 7 of Starship. Ship will attempt to deploy 10 mock Starlink satellites.🧪🔭
www.space.com/space-explor...

Screenshot on my phone using the Light pollution map app where I conducted a star party in a Bortle 9 sky. Light pollution map is a mapping application that displays VIIRS/World Atlas/Clouds/Aurora overlays and IAU observatories/SQM/SQC user measurements features over Microsoft Bing base layers (road and hybrid Bing maps). The primary use is to show VIIRS data in a friendly manner, but over time it also included some other interesting layers that concern light pollution like SQM/SQC, World Atlas 2015 zenith brigtness, clouds, aurora and IAU observatories Data credits: VIIRS: Earth Observation Group, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. Aurora 30min forecast: NOAA. Clouds: EUMETSAT, NOAA, MOSDAC/SAC/ISRO and CIRA. Observatories: Wikipedia (updated: 16.01.2021). World Atlas 2015: Falchi, Fabio; Cinzano, Pierantonio; Duriscoe, Dan; Kyba, Christopher C. M.; Elvidge, Christopher D.; Baugh, Kimberly; Portnov, Boris; Rybnikova, Nataliya A.; Furgoni, Riccardo (2016): Supplement to: The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness. GFZ Data Services. http://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.4.2016.001 Falchi F, Cinzano P, Duriscoe D, Kyba CC, Elvidge CD, Baugh K, Portnov BA, Rybnikova NA, Furgoni R. The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Science Advances. 2016 Jun 1;2(6):e1600377. 

I am asked to do star parties rain or shine. Yes, you read that right. I've even done a star party in a Bortle 9 light pollution sky in the park across the street from the Texas Capitol building in Austin. I saw 4 stars, three of which were the summer triangle, and one was the Sun before sunset.🧪🔭

I can agree with you that taxpayers' money should be focused on GHG elimination before Mars exploration.

Earth should always be the primary place to live. If you aren't aware, nuking Mars is making reference to one of the ways that has been proposed to melt some of the frozen liquid to create a temporary atmosphere. I am positing that this method is not a viable permanent solution.

I think you misunderstood. However difficult it is to terraform Mars, fixing Earth is easier. Nuking Mars only creates a temporary atmosphere that will get stripped by the sun, but by learning to live on Mars, we will almost certainly uncover valuable tools for better stewardship of our own Earth.

Photo of me and by me in a Z-2 prototype suit. NASA is developing the next generation of spacesuit that will enable deep space exploration with improvements such as carbon dioxide removal systems and water evaporation systems for more efficient breathing and temperature regulation. Mobility and fit of the pressurized suit is important in maximum productivity for activities such as exploring, collecting samples, and maneuvering in and out of habitats and rovers. This is the Z-2 prototype suit of 2014. It is made of advanced materials to achieve a light-weight, high-durability suit that can withstand long duration missions in the harsh environment found on Mars. Engineering design continues on exploration suits.

“We need to protect Earth” and “We need to go to #Mars” are not mutually exclusive, rather, are highly complementary endeavors. "It might at first seem counterintuitive, but the means to make things right here on Earth are perhaps largely found away from it."🧪🔭🎈
www.marssociety.org/red-planet-b...