Astronomical events

Another Starlink train

Another launch by Elon and another group of Starlink satellites headed for the ~500km orbital plane above the earth. This time with a Canon DSLR on a tripod. Complete with cicada soundtrack! You can see them dim one by one as the train moves into earth’s shadow.

Aurora in NC!

I should have stayed up past midnight! A very large solar flare on Saturday triggered a geomagnetic storm in the Earth’s upper atmosphere giving rise to aurora much further south than normal. There is a geeky NASA website that tracks the intensity of solar storms and when the “K index” gets into the red zone, …

Aurora in NC! Read More »

Meteor shower tonight

Assuming we get a break from the long pattern of clouds and rain, tonight will be a good time to see some meteors. There are three different showers with normally modest rates along with a new moon. More info here .