Partial Lunar Eclipse New Years Eve Visible in India

A partial lunar eclipse will occur on December 31st. Mainly the eastern hemisphere of the planet will be able to see the eclipse. For example, India will be able see the eclipse in its entirety.

Taking Indian Standard Time (IST) into account, the eclipse will begin at 2245, and reach the maximum at 0053 hours. The eclipse will start to become visible at around 0023 hours. So if you are in India you will get to ring in the new year not only with a full moon, but also one that is undergoing a partial eclipse.

The eclipse will also be visible in China, Russia, Southeast Asia and most of Europe. The eclipse will not be visible in the United States.

Daylight Meteor

Sightings of daylight meteors a rare events. One meteor recently streaked across the skies near Wisbach in the United Kingdom. Wisbech is located due north of London, near the northeastern coast of England. The space rock came in at around 1:15 PM last Saturday. Reports came in from several locations including, Lincolnshire, Southern Yorkshire, and Norfolk.

There is a pretty good chance that debris from the meteor reached the ground, as it was seen very close to the ground. Also, daylight meteors tend to be a little larger then night-time ones. It is their larger size that would make them brighter as they enter the Earth's atmosphere.

Last February, a daylight meteor was spotted over Texas.

Sometimes these objects are man-made pieces of space junk, like spent rocket boosters, fuel tanks, or non-working satellites. Man-made junk tends to be much larger then most of the space rocks that come in, are are more likely to be seen during the day.

Mayon Volcano May Be Close to Eruption

I have been searching around for a real time web cam for the Mayon Volcano. So far, no dice.

Over the last 24 hours there have been 1300 earthquakes underneath the volcano. This is like an earthquake every minute or so! So yes, there is definitely a major magma displacement occurring underneath the mountain. The question is whether it will just continue to seep to the surface, or is the mountain acting like a corked champagne bottle that is getting ready to blow its top.

Volcanoes are a very strange natural phenomena. They can suddenly wake up and act like they are going to blow their top, and then suddenly quiet down without going through a major erruption.

I have been looking at the different pictures of the this mountain, and it looks like there are several vents on the sides of the mountain that are also spewing ash. The vents, combined with the near conical shape of the mountain, makes the volcano look like and example from a text book!

Keep all of the folks that have been cleared from the volcano's danger area in your prayers! If you know of any real time web cams for this volcano please post it here!

Meteor streaks over Beijing China

A quick news flash from China...

A fireball exploded in the sky over a suburb of Beijing China during the mid evening hours of December 16th, 2009. The meteor came in at around 10:23 PM.

The object was witnessed by a large number of people, and even captured on film by the Beijing Planetarium. Eye witness reports, along with the camera footage indicate that debris from the object fell about 40 km west of central Beijing. There is an ongoing search for any debris that may have reached the ground.

Residents are being encouraged to contribute any fragments that they find to the Beijing Planetarium. It would be a great addition to the planetarium if they would be able to study and display fragments from a meteor that fell locally.

Source: China Daily

New Years Eve Party under a Full Moon!

The first decade of the new Milena will close out with a Long Night Full Moon that falls right on New Years Eve. The Long Night's Full Moon, sometimes called the Mid-Winter Full Moon, got its name from the fact that is full moon that falls on or near the longest night of the year, the December 21st winter solstice.

In addition, there will be a special twist on the final full moon of 2009. This is because this full moon can also be called a Blue Moon. A Blue moon occurs whenever there are more than one full moon in a single month. You end up with 13 full moons in the year. Since there are either 29, 30 or 31 (sometimes 28!) day in each month, and there are about 28 days between each full moon, the Blue Moon occur about once every 2.72 years, or every 2 years with and either 7 or eight months. Since it is both a Blue moon, and that is occurring on New Years Eve, makes the final full moon of 2009 a rare event.

This full moon will be out on the biggest party night of the year, when millions around the world will be ringing in the new year. There will be millions or people out on Broadway and Time Square in New York City set to ring in the the new year bathed in the light of the full moon. Similar outdoor celebrations will occur in the large cities all across the world, especially where it is not so cold. Many police and hospital emergency room doctors and nurses hold firm beliefs to expect to be busy on nights of the full moons. This year's New Years Eve party may get exceptionally wild!

Nebraska Earthquake With a Meteor

In what may just be an instance of cosmic and earthly coincidence, a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, centered near Auburn Nebraska was accompanied by a fireball that was visible from Nebraska to Oklahoma City.

I have heard of lightning, or bright lights that have been reported with earthquakes, but I am not sure if this was the case in the Nebraska quake.

The fireball came in at at around 9pm on the evening of December 16th. The earthquake was measured to have occurred at 8:53 pm, right at about the same moment the meteor streaked across the skies. This fireball also produced several loud sonic booms, and may have exploded in the atmosphere.

The sky was lit as bright as daylight for several seconds over several states, which would be a good indicator that an upper level atmospheric explosion took place. Therefore, there may be a chance that some fragments were able to reach the ground.

If anyone saw the event, feel free to leave a comment on what you saw.

British Military UFO Hotline Closes Shop

After 50 years, and more than 12,000 reported sightings, the British military has decided to shut down its UFO hot line. The Ministry of Defense has deemed that there is no evidence that UFOs pose a threat to the general public. In addition, the shutdown was a cost cutting measure.

There may be some cause for concern, since there will be no avenue for Brits to report suspicious activity in our skies. There is a argument that the lack of a reporting procedure opens the door to terrorist activities. Not sure on that one....

The United States government officially abandoned UFO investigation back in 1969 when it terminated its Project Blue Book. Project Blue Book took in close to 13,000 reports, and with the issuance of the Condon report, concluded that UFOs were not an anomaly and posed no threat to national security. Of the 12,616 reports taken, about 6 percent were declared as unknown events with no natural or man-made explanation available.

It is interesting to note that the Canadian military is still accepting UFO reports, along with any other possible threats to Canadian sovereignty.

Source: Associated Press

Geminid Meteor Report

I was skunked by clouds last night. Complete overcast. I go up early this morning to see if conditions had improved, and this morning we have rain coming down. The rain certainly was expected, as the the weatherman got his forecast right. I was hoping he was wrong this time.

There was no chance for me to see any Geminid meteor shower first hand. This morning I went searching around for some online reports, and for those areas that had clear skies, the viewing was good. Observers were reporting seeing up to 50 meteors per hour according to Spaceweather.com's site.

Speaking of SpaceWeather.com, they have a cool meteor radar that you can use to listen for incoming meteorites. I had a listen this morning, and certainly was hearing about 50 or so pings per hour. It works by listening for far away signals from television and radio stations that may be reflected back down to earth from the ionized trail left by meteors. Ham radio operators use this method quite often on the 6M ham (~50-54MHz) band to get more distance out of their contacts.

Skies are expected to clear tonight over West Virginia on Sunday evening, so I may be able to get out and view some Geminids tonight.

Fireball Seen Over Minnesota and Wisconsin

A fireball streaked across the skies of Western Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin at about 1:15 AM in the morning on Friday December 11th.

Night sky observers reported seeing a bright green flash that turned night time darkness into near daylight to the local National Weather Service Office in Grand Forks, ND. Other reports were made to the Duluth, MN office as well.

Interestingly, the Beckers County Sheriffs Department reported a similar occurrence about a month ago. Conditions were foggy, so it was difficult for them to tell where the object was headed.

The Geminid Meteor shower is just about to reach its peak over the next couple of days. The fireball over North Dakota and Minnesota may be related to the Geminid meteor shower, or it could be a sporadic hunk of rock that just happened to enter the Earth's atmosphere.

Source: The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Spiral UFO Seen in the Skies Over Norway

An apparent rocket test in Russia? Or perhaps something else? Experts seem to think that weird spiral seen over the skies in Norway on the night of December 9th 2009 were most likely a misfired rocket from Russia. The object was seen to rise up from the earth, and the stop in mid air. It then began to tumble, apparently spewing something into the atmosphere, possibly rocket fuels as it fell. The falling tumbling action, along with release of the few created a symmetric spiral pattern in the night skies over Norway.

Videos of the spiral seen in Norway has been hitting the YouTube circuit, and I am a bit surprised that it has not made the more larger news organizations. Especially since Barrack Obama is paying Norway a visit to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. I am not sure if it was in fact a misfired rocket, or maybe something else?

Here is a video with some pictures showing some of the more interesting snapshots:

The Best Meteor Showers for 2010

The prospects for a good year of meteor shower viewing for 2010 are somewhat low. Many of the best meteor showers for 2010 appear at a near full moon. Moonlight can hamper the dark sky viewing needed for catching good meteor showers.

Here are my thoughts on the best meteor showers to view for 2010. The criteria for making this list are based on cold vs. warm season, the number of meteors per hour, and the amount of moonlight. This is basically just my opinion, others may have a different opinion

The best meteor shower for 2010 will arguably be the Perseid's. The Perseid's peak on August 13th, smack dab in the middle of summer for the northern hemisphere. These showers also occur just a few nights after a new moon, which falls on August 10th. Usually, around 100 meteors per hour are visible at the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

The next best shower to view will probably be the Leonid meteor shower of November. There will be a near full moon for this years Leonid meteor shower. The reason I picked the Leonid meteor shower in my number two slot is because of the shear numbers of meteors that may show up per hour may reach a 100 or more.

The Leonid meteor showers are also known for their 33 year peak display. Every 33 years 100's or of meteors per hour may occur for a short time during the peak. These are known as meteor storms. Sadly, the next peak is not due until 2033 or 2034.

Next on my list are the October Draconids. Although one can only expect about 10 or so meteors per hour with the Draconids, there will be a new moon this year.

Other than these three meteor showers, the rest seem to occur during nearly a full moon. Thus viewing will be difficult.

Denver Man Gets UFO Initiative on the Ballot

Jeff Peckman has backed of the wall ballot initiatives in Denver before. In 2003 he backed an initiative that would have required Denver to adopt stress-reduction techniques. This would have required the city to spend money on things like, meditation sessions for its city employees. Needless to say, this one was soundly defeated by Colorado voters.

Now he is proposing that voters approve the creation of a panel pf experts to look into extra-terrestrial activity on Earth and figure out the best way to welcome the aliens to our planet. He would also have the panel seek out people of have been reportedly abducted by aliens be interview. I guess to learn about alien cultures and habits.

He got enough signatures on his petition to get it on the ballot in August 2010. After all, he was only required to get about 4000 signatures in a city of several million people. Having such a low requirement of petition signatures sure opens the door for wacky ballot measures.

A lot of people believe that UFOS exist. I am not committal. I have seen things in the sky, that had me guessing for a second or two, but once I realized what I was seeing, I came to my senses. But there are things that happen in the sky at night that are not readily identifiable. To jump to the conclusion that all UFOs are extra-terrestrial in origin is a bad assumption to make. Spending tax-payer money in UFO panels, in these hard economic times does not make much sense either.