An original point of view
This section includes information about the Earth’s and extraterrestrial sky, its appearance against various optical phenomena.
As an eclipse chaser, I try to conduct as many professional observations as possible from every eclipse. Practically, I miss some of them because of a lack of funds or, at the very least, decent webcams in the areas where they occur. Last, my scientific conundrum isn’t covered by anyone who attends on-site. Therefore, the … Read more
At the beginning of this article, I would like to recall one of the questions, which appears from time to time on the Geography Olympiad. The query sounds like this: “If at 9 pm we have a Full Moon in London, what Moon phase can be observed in Pekin?” or something like this. The question, … Read more
Since this amazing image (at the top) has been published, the articles about the 25 brightest stars in the night sky grew like weeds. Despite a multitude of similar texts presenting a brief description of the brightest stars, which can be seen in the night sky there is no complete information. I do not mean … Read more
This text is somewhat the continuation of the previous one, tailored for the most unique celestial events or group of celestial events, which will occur in the 2021-2030 decade. This time you will read about 10 of the best occurrences in the sky within the next 20 years. Some of the astronomical events described in … Read more
Recently we have entered the new decade 2021-2030. This is a good time to take a look at what major astronomical events will occur throughout this time. I don’t mean typical celestial events, as known from a vast majority of astronomical calendars issued usually on a yearly basis. I would like to take a deep … Read more
The inferior conjunction of Venus with the Sun happens almost every year. Almost, because in about the 8-year cycle of our neighbor planet she passes the Sun-Earth line 5 times (the synodic cycle counts 854 days exactly), making a peculiar pentagram, comprised of 5 petals. Every petal corresponds to the individual character of the inferior … Read more
This is the second part of the article, explaining the great Venus orbit cycle, which repeats on average every 3159-3160 years. Reminding the basic mechanism it’s exactly 395 8-year cycles, where the planet back pretty much to the same place at the same time in the Sky, except the situation, where this moment in its … Read more
The biggest celestial event in April 2020 was definitely the meeting between our closest planet Venus and one of the most renowned open star clusters – the Pleiades. The phenomenon was interesting due to its rarity. Throughout our life it will happen every 8 years, but what’s next? This article brings you not only the … Read more
Recently I have shown the light level changes during the solar eclipse. The illumination level is strongly related to the sky brightness. Both of them change at the same time throughout the eclipse. In this article I would like to focus on these changes, having external data from Wolfgang Strickling. Because his observation venue was … Read more
The light scattering issue in the Earth’s atmosphere has been described recently for typical daylight, evening, and twilight conditions. In this article, I would like to explain a light scattering phenomenon under total solar eclipse conditions, which was observed accidentally during the 2017 Great American Eclipse. Initially, the aim of my observation was a record … Read more
Previously I have described the light scattering mechanism on the smallest particles of the Earth’s atmosphere, where mainly the Rayleigh Scattering plays a role. Now is the time to round off this whole article and say something more about a different group of elements, that also contributes to the light scattering process. There are bigger … Read more
When we ask ourselves why the sky is blue we can think about the most important type of light scattering in the Earth’s atmosphere. This is Rayleigh scattering. I was writing about this type of light scattering on some occasions, like watching the solar eclipse through the webcams or wondering about the Martian sky. Today … Read more
Visiting Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands was one of the best adventures. After several days, when I could scout this picturesque place I spent one night above the unique low-level clouds. It was a fantastic experience because I have not seen that pristine sky before. The day, when I set my observation place … Read more
The Mars Exploration Program has been launching for around 20 years since the first probe Mars Pathfinder done by NASA landed on the Red’s Planet surface. For this time another four rovers touched down on the Martian ground: Spirit & Opportunity (2004), Phoenix (2008), and Curiosity (2012). All of those missions beamed many photos of … Read more
<<< Read the 1st part of The solar eclipse visualization on Google Earth In the 1st part of this article, I showed you how to create the “umbra” in Scribble Maps and use it in Google Earth as a .kml file. Here I would like to demonstrate step by step how to create a pretty … Read more
I would like to show my observation output. The last solar eclipse was visible throughout the southern part of South America in the morning and next in the western part of Africa during the evening. This eclipse was annular, so Moon’s disk was too small to fully cover the Sun. Eventually, the observer could see … Read more