July 4, 1054 --- Some 722 years to the day before America gained it's independence, there was a quite a sight that appeared in the sky that must have rivaled the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air that occurred seven centuries later during the American Revolution.

 

What astronomical event occurred, you ask? Of course, it was Supernova 1054, as it is now known. It was spotted by Chinese astronomers in the Constellation Taurus. In the nearly 1600 year period from around 530 B.C. to about 1060 A.D. , Chinese star gazers recorded at least 75 supernovae. But there was something quite special about this particular explosion. The magnitude of the 1054 star was unusually large.

 

The exploding star appeared four times brighter than Venus in our sky and was visible in daylight for 23 days . It remained visible in the night sky for 653 days.

 

There were also accounts of this supernova by astronomers in the Arab world and also by Indians in North America. Of course, as many of you know, the remnants of those stellar fireworks that were observed 963 yrs ago gave birth to what we know today as the Crab Nebula!!!

 

 

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The Crab Nebula had long been one of my favorites in a cosmic sea of beautiful images.

The Crab Nebula had long been one of my favorites in a cosmic sea of beautiful images.

 

Mine too. This, however, may be my very favorite. The Pillars of Creation(The Eagle Nebula). Hubble captured this amazing image. The towers of gas are more than five Light years( 30,000,000,000,000 miles) tall.

 

Here's a favorite of mine as well. The Hubble Bubble.

 

This is The Bubble Nebula captured by Hubble. It is some 7 LY across.

 

A smiley face captured by Hubble: Source Energy(God) smiling back at us ???

 

The Helix Nebula, the remains of a sun-like star.

One of the most recognizable --- The Horsehead Nebula

 

[ATTACH]62696[/ATTACH]The Helix Nebula, the remains of a sun-like star.

 

Always loved that one as well.

Beautiful Orion Nebula(Hubble):

 

I hope I'm not boring you guys with my cosmic musings. Just because I find this stuff fascinating, I know some may not. Feel free to add your own thoughts on our cosmos. I love hearing what you have to say about the mysteries of the universe.

The last time I did some sun-viewing through a telescope the sun was pretty inactive. No flares, prominences, or sunspots.

 

Here's a Hydrogen alpha image of the chromosphere similar to what I observed except that in this image you can see some flares around the periphery of the disk and a sunspot near the center of the image.

 

A transit of the planet Venus occurs when Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet like the Earth whose orbit about the sun is outside that of Venus'. These Venus transits are some of the rarest of predictable astronomical events. During a transit, one would observe Venus as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. It's similar to a solar eclipse, when the moon passes directly between the Sun and Earth, but in the case of a Venus transit, Venus appears as just a little black dot because it is so much further away than the moon.

 

I'm a numbers guy, so here are some Venus transit numbers:

 

They occur in a pattern that generally repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.

 

The last two transits took place in 2004 and 2012. If you missed them, you're out of luck. The next pair of transits will occur in December 2117 and December 2125. Just think about this: Prior to the June 2004 Venus transit, no one living on Earth at that time had ever seen this event occur.

 

Historically, Venus transits have been of great importance in astronomy and were used to determine the first realistic estimates of the size of our Solar System. Using parallax and the 1639 Venus transit, scientists were able to vastly improve upon previous estimates of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

 

Here's the 1882 Transit and a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle:

 

 

 

 

 

1882 December 7. San Francisco Chronicle, "Transit of Venus: The Planet's Course Across the Face of the Sun. A Grand Sight From the Observatory, "Many of the residents of San Francisco were noticed yesterday with a piece of smoked glass to their eye, looking curiously at the sun, between the hours of about sunrise and noon, during which time Venus was visible; and even under these disadvantages without the aid of a suitable telescope, it was still a grand and beautiful spectacle. All who missed a view of the transit of Venus are to be commiserated, for should they live to be 100 years old the chance will not come again occur."

Edited July 10, 20179 yr by Science Friction

Some great TRACE images of the June 2004 transit:

 

Only 8 Venus transits since the invention of the telescope... Hope you saw the one in '04 or '12 .