Author - Charles M0OXO

Tomorrow (20th May) the Moon’s shadow will race across planet Earth. Observers within the 240-300 kilometer wide shadow track will be able to witness an annular solar eclipse as the Moon’s apparent size is presently too small to completely cover the Sun.

Heading east over a period of 3.5 hours, the shadow path will begin in southern China, cross the northern Pacific, and reach well into North America, crossing the US west coast in southern Oregon and northern California. Along the route, Tokyo residents will be just 10 kilometers north of the path’s center line. Of course a partial eclipse will be visible from a much larger area within North America, the Pacific, and eastern Asia.

This safely filtered telescopic picture was taken during the annular eclipse of January 15, 2010 from the city of Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India.

After 5 months of planning, Cordell Expeditions is pleased to announce a DXpedition to Heard Island, Territory of Australia, in early 2014.

Initial team members, collaborating organizations, and other resources will be announced in the near future. They will be active on all bands and all modes, implement a variety of innovative real-time communications technologies, and field a variety of scientific projects that are designed to observe and document some of the unique resources on this extraordinary island. 

The website for the 2014 DXpedition is www.cordell.org/HD.

A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy really is just next door as large galaxies go.

So close, and spanning some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite’s telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. While its spiral arms stand out in visible light images of Andromeda, the arms look more like rings in the GALEX ultraviolet view, dominated by hot, young, massive stars.

As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy more than 200 million years ago. The large Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way are the dominant members of the local galaxy group.

Don’t forget that this weekend is the EPC PSK DX Contest for those that are interested.

It should make an interesting event and lets hope the band conditions improve a little so we can see some ‘DX’ and not just the run of the mill stuff.

Listen out for ‘MQ0OXO’, he may make an appearance!

GB2HI will be QRV again later this week from Hilbre Island IOTA EU-120.

The team consisting of Kev M0TNX and Martin M3POG aim to be active from Thursday 17th May until Sunday 20th May, times dependant upon Tides at the location.

They will be using Vertical and Wire Dipole antennas, an Icom IC-7400 and a KL500ZC Amplifier. The Rig Interface they will be using has kindly been donated by M0AQC.

Please listen for the guys and give them your support, lets hope the good old British Weather stays OK for them too!

On 15th June, 2012, a unique celestial event will take place, never to be repeated in our lifetimes.

The planet Venus will align itself perfectly between the Earth and the Sun. This rare alignment will allow Venus to be visible as it passes directly across the face of the Sun in an event that astronomers call a transit.

The 2012 Transit of Venus will last nearly 7 hours, and it will provide an extraordinary viewing event for observers around the world. Venus is 47 degrees from the Sun at its greatest elongation and is much easier to see than Mercury. Its closer to Earth and reflects more Sunlight as it is covered in Cloud and has a radius of 6050Kms.

Its often referred to as the Morning Star or Evening Star. Look to the Western Skies right after Sunset for the best views.

Well its just over a week since the NOV’s began allowing UK Amateurs to use the ‘Q’ in their Callsigns to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth. Both John GQ4RCG (G4RCG) and myself MQ0OXO (M0OXO) have been qrv when time allowed and despite very poor band conditions we seem to be very popular which is always good news!

Conditions are definately a lot poorer than they were early last week so all we can do is call and hope for a response. 20M on Friday was different with short skip allowing inter-G to be worked. personally I spoke to Stations in Ireland, Norfolk, Scotland, Exeter and Devon & Cornwall. All the stations (including those using low power) we very strong. the biggest signal was from Finland and he was 60db over with me.

So far GQ4RCG and MQ0OXO have logged just under 2300 callsigns. Please call us whenever you wish, multiple bands and all modes are available should you need ‘MQ0’ or ‘GQ4’ on other band slots. For Qsl information click here.

JY9ET cards are designed and gone to the Printer.

Sadly the Printer is away on holiday until the 22nd of this month so there will be a slightly longer delay before they are printed and dispatched.

I apologise for any inconvenience, cards will be dispatched with 24 hours of receipt. If you have any questions the please click here and send me an email. Again, my apologies,

Charles

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.

The planet, called 55 Cancri e, falls into a class of planets termed super Earths, which are more massive than our home world but lighter than giant planets like Neptune. The planet is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. It orbits a bright star, called 55 Cancri, in a mere 18 hours.

The 55 Cancri system is relatively close to Earth, at 41 light-years away. It has five planets, with 55 Cancri e the closest to the star and tidally locked, so one side always faces the star. Spitzer discovered the sun-facing side is extremely hot, indicating the planet probably does not have a substantial atmosphere to carry the sun’s heat to the unlit side.

Mottled landscape showing the impact crater Tycho is among the most violent-looking places on our moon. Astronomers didn’t aim NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study Tycho, however. The image was taken in preparation to observe the transit of Venus across the sun’s face on June 5-6.

Hubble cannot look at the sun directly, so astronomers are planning to point the telescope at the Earth’s moon, using it as a mirror to capture reflected sunlight and isolate the small fraction of the light that passes through Venus’s atmosphere. Imprinted on that small amount of light are the fingerprints of the planet’s atmospheric makeup.

This image, taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveals lunar features as small as roughly 560 feet (170 m) across. The large “bulls-eye” near the top of the picture is the impact crater, caused by an asteroid strike about 100 million years ago. The bright trails radiating from the crater were formed by material ejected from the impact area during the asteroid collision. Tycho is about 50 miles (80 km) wide and is circled by a rim of material rising almost 3 miles (5 km) above the crater floor. The image measures 430 miles (700 km) across, which is slightly larger than New Mexico.