Sunday, 26 December 2021

Bon Voyage James

 

The James Webb Telescope on it's way! - image Credit NASA Bill Ingalls

Bon Voyage to the James Webb Telescope on its way from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021. - Kurt Thrust and the Jodrell Plank Observatory Team.

"With revolutionary technology, Webb will observe a part of space and time never seen before, providing a wealth of amazing views into an era when the very first stars and galaxies formed––over 13.5 billion years ago.

It can explore our own solar system’s residents with exquisite new detail and study the atmospheres of distant worlds. From new forming stars to devouring black holes, Webb will reveal all this and more! It’s the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.

Webb is an international collaboration between NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Thousands of engineers and hundreds of scientists worked to make Webb a reality, along with over 300 universities, organizations, and companies from 29 U.S. states and 14 countries! "

Ready to #UnfoldTheUniverse? The greatest origin story of all unfurls soon. Learn more at https://nasa.gov/jwst

Credit: NASA

" We should not forget some of NASA's older explorers like the Curiosity Mars Rover which has spent more than 3000 sols on the surface of Mars doing great Science" - Joel Cairo CEO at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its black-and-white navigation cameras to capture panoramas of this scene at two times of day. This was the view at 8:30 a.m. local Mars time on Nov. 16, 2021 (the 3,299th Martian day, or sol, of the mission) and again at 4:10 p.m. local Mars time. The two times of day provided contrasting lighting conditions that brought out a variety of landscape details.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


Thursday, 23 December 2021

A Merry Stargazing Christmas 2021

 


A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our world wide blog readers and stargazers.

Friday, 3 December 2021

Storm Arwen keeping the Jodrell Plank Team indoors

 

The Constellation Orion the Hunter commanding our southern horizon in the winter sky over the Jodrell Plank Observatory


" The Observatory came through Storm Arwen without damage but the weather in Lowestoft continues to prevent any serious imaging. Having time on his hands, Pip Stakkert decided to use the newly acquired software to reprocess data captured in January 2020. The above image is a composite made from data acquired using our Canon 600 DSLR at both f=18mm and f= 400mm. The Orion Great Molecular Cloud is clearly visible with the Running Man Nebular just above. Blog readers with exceptional eyesight might just be able to make out the dark Horsehead Nebula underneath Alnitak the left hand star in Orion's Belt. Let us hope the weather improves over Christmas". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.