Exciting Night Skies
Tonight should prove to be an exciting night. In case you haven't heard, there will be a lunar eclipse as well as some military fireworks!First off, between 8:43PM EST and 12:09AM EST there will be the last lunar eclipse of this decade. The space geek in me loves watching and photographing these occurrances (the photo to the right is one that I took during the October 2004 eclipse). The weather here in Cleveland should be fairly clear so I will hopefully be able to take some decent photos. The moon should be totally in the earth's shadow and a dull orange color around 10:30PM EST tonight, so be sure to check it out. For more information you can visit the NASA website for the February 2008 eclipse.
The other event occurring tonight is the destruction of an out of control U.S. satellite. The military plans to launch up to three missiles tonight at 11:00PM EST to try and blow up the toxic hunk of metal before it slams into the earth. I can imagine that this won't look all that spectacular with the naked eye (you would probably only see the light reflecting off of it disappear) but it's something I would like to see. Unfortunately it is not planned to fly over Cleveland at any point tonight, but for those of you in Milford (and possibly elsewhere) you should be able to catch a glimpse of it before it gets obliterated. Here is where it'll be viewable tonight from Milford by the naked eye:
|
Date |
Starts |
Max. altitude |
Ends | |||||||
|
Time |
Alt. |
Time |
Alt. |
|
Time |
Alt. |
| |||
|
2.8 |
18:06:19 |
10 |
WSW |
18:08:25 |
35 |
NW |
18:10:31 |
10 |
NNE | |
I copied that table from Heavens-Above, my favorite nighttime object tracking site around. Be sure to check it out for information about when the doomed satellite (as well as others) is visible in your area and for a how-to on how to spot satellites and other objects in the night sky. Although I won't be able to see the satellite before it gets exploded, I'm sure there will be some spectacular photos appearing online in the coming days.
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