New Horizons 1 Day From Pluto Flyby, First Surface Details Revealed on Camera (Pictures)

NASA's New Horizons mission is set to fly past Pluto in roughly 24 hours. Now within a million miles of the former 9^th planet, scientists and the public are getting an eye full thanks to New Horizons' cameras, which are now capturing the first clear details of the former planet's surface.

Released yesterday, the latest images show the first clear details of surface features on Pluto and also its largest moon, Charon. As New Horizons approached Pluto and started beaming back images, the first resemblance of a surface began to appear on camera. Initially appearing as nothing more than splotches of color variation, these surface details have now emerged to appear as possible cliffs, valleys, mountains, and impact craters. Though still a million miles distant (close pass will be 30,800 miles) and anything but high-definition, these pictures have allowed scientists to get their first clear look at Pluto's surface and finally begin to narrow down the possibilities for what the distant world really looks like and the forces that shape it. 

Going into the mission, scientists had three competing ideas of what Pluto's surface would look like. The first idea is a dynamic world like Neptune's largest moon, Triton, which features ice geysers and a surface coated with varying shades of whites to grays thanks to the fact that the geysers, once they get high enough, become black thanks to trace amounts of carbon. It is this carbon-contaminated snow/ice that then falls back to the surface, thus giving Triton its anything but snow-white appearance.

The next idea of what Pluto may look like is one of a snow world. Why? Pluto is known to have an atmosphere, which is theorized to form when it gets to be summer and then freeze and fall back to the surface when it cools in fall/winter. The idea is that the frozen atmosphere would coat the mini world's surface, thus smoothing out many of surface features.

The third idea is basically idea two, sans surface-coating frozen atmosphere (this theory assumes that the atmosphere is too thin to amount to anything when it condenses and falls back to the surface). Result: a battered, frozen world bearing all of the impact craters incurred during its 4.5 billion year existence.

So far, theories 1 and 3 seem to be most likely as, thanks to the most recent images that show great color variation on the surface and fine details that would rule out the possibility of thick 'atmospheric snow.'

Needless to say, stay tuned as the hours progress as better and better pictures are sure to come beaming back to Earth, with the best coming Wednesday, the day pictures from close approach finally make it back to Earth.

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.

What is a Planet? Upcoming New Horizons Pluto Flyby Resurrects Hot Debate, Old Passions

In just two days, NASA's New Horizons space probe will fly past Pluto, which was the 9th and final planet in the solar system at the mission's launch. Now, 9 years and over 3 billion miles later, Pluto has long since been demoted to the status of 'dwarf planet.' That aside, scientists and the public are buzzing over the mission, which has, to the surprise of none, re-ignited the debate over Pluto's planetary status.

It was August 24, 2006 when our solar system lost one of its own. It was on this date that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted on a new definition of the word 'planet.' By changing what makes a planet a planet, the IAU instantly stripped the outermost planet of the solar system, Pluto, of its planet status,demoting it to a 'dwarf planet' instead. For Pluto, the road to demotion was a long time coming.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, who had yet to earn a college degree at this point. In the decades since the discovery of Uranus, astronomers noticed that its orbit seemed to exhibit some unexpected eccentricities. This observation led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846 and, following this logic, the implication was that there was an even more distant planet tugging on Neptune after it, too, seemed to exhibit orbital oddities.

So, the search was on for the mysterious 9th planet, which was found by Tombaugh on February 18, 1930.

Initially, astronomers had a very hard time determining the size of Pluto as it was so far away and the tools available at the time of discovery were primitive by today's standards when it came to their planet-measuring capabilities. However, as time progressed, Pluto only seemed to get smaller and smaller, eventually reaching the point where it was estimated to be smaller than many of the moons in the solar system, including our own. By 1978 and the discovery of its first known moon, Charon, Pluto was known to be only about 1/500^th the mass of Earth, far from the 1 Earth mass first suggested shortly after discovery. By virtue of its size alone, some scientists started to question whether Pluto deserved to be called a planet at all.

The next blow for Pluto came with the advent of digital imaging technology. For astronomers, digital CCD chips, which came into mass use in the 1990s, were far more sensitive than film and could reveal much greater details. With the advances in imaging technology, many objects at Pluto's distance from the Sun were found. Now, with the fact known that Pluto was not unique at all, scientists were faced with a dilemma: start adding more planets to the solar system (and thus overwhelm the mind of schoolchildren the world over) or reconsider the definition of a planet.

As history shows, the astronomers took the latter option.

The final blow to Pluto's status as a planet came on July 29, 2005, when the existence of Eris, a body 3 times more distant but nearly 30% more massive than Pluto was confirmed. Eris was discovered by astronomer Mike Brown, who, in a TV interview, recalled calling his wife immediately after the discovery to announce that he had discovered the 10^th planet. Unfortunately for Brown, he would not enter the Pantheon of astronomers occupied by the other planet finders: Tombaugh, Gallee, and Herschel. Instead, Brown's 'planet' was merely the largest in a series of Trans-Neptunian objects discovered since the advent of digital imaging, which is far more adept at low-light photography than film. As a result, being larger than Pluto but now known as nothing unique, Brown's planet, temporarily named Xena (but since named Eris), would never gain planetary status and, despite being larger than Pluto, would retain its status as a newly-dubbed 'dwarf planet' while Pluto would continue to be defined as the 9^th planet.


It was because of this problem, how could the larger of two distant bodies be considered not a planet while the smaller one was a planet, that the scientific community began to reassess the definition of the word 'planet.'


Result: on August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Anion (IAU) came up with the following definition of the word 'planet,' which reads: “a body that circles the sun without being some other object's satellite, is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity (but not so big that it begins to undergo nuclear fusion, like a star) and has "cleared its neighborhood of other orbiting bodies.” Obviously, Pluto met the first 2 conditions (it orbits the Sun and nothing else, it is round), but not the third, as it has failed to clear its neighborhood thanks to the fact that its moon, Charon, is not a true moon in that Charon does not orbit Pluto, but both bodies orbit a point in space between them where their gravitational fields meet, making for more of a double planet system than a planet-moon one.

For many people, both scientists and especially members of the public, the demotion of Pluto was a tough pill to swallow as most everyone alive (save the people 77+ years of age) grew up on the notion of 9, not 8, planets. In fact, there was even a massive 'save Pluto' petition being circulated online, but to no avail as the IAU refused to budge on this question of what defines a planet.


So, regardless of what you call it, Pluto is due for a visitor in two days, so stay tuned!

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.

New Horizons Enters Pluto's Gravitational Field, NASA Releases New Pictures

Yesterday, it was announced that NASA's New Horizons space probe had entered Pluto's neighborhood, which could be better defined in layman's terms as Pluto's gravitational field. Incidentally, it is the failure to 'clear' its neighborhood that led Pluto to lose its planet status in 2006, only a few months after New Horizons was launched to what was, at the time, the final planet in the solar system.

Now, come July 11, New Horizons is roughly 3 days from its meet-up with Pluto, and the pictures are generating quite the buzz here on Earth, roughly 3 billion miles distant.

Images of Pluto taken during the past two days.

At close pass of about 8,000 miles, New Horizon's cameras will be revealing details down to about 100 yards per pixel. As of yesterday, with the probe still about 3 million miles from its target, the images are only resolved down to about 15 miles per pixel. 

Hubble's best effort.

While anything but crystal-clear, these pictures are still, far and away, the most detailed images of the distant world yet seen by human eyes. Before New Horizons, we had to rely on fuzzy pictures from the Hubble telescope to have even the faintest idea of what Pluto looked like. Bottom line: the images only gave scientists fodder for theory and no hard facts whatsoever. Now, in just 3 days, Earth will have its first up-close look at what was, at the time of mission launch, the final planet from the Sun.

Needless to say, these are exciting times for us interested in space exploration!

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.

1 Week Until Close-Ups of Pluto, 26 Years Since Voyager 2's Meeting With Neptune

One week from today, we here on Earth will get our first up-close look at Pluto, should all things go according to plan for NASA's New Horizons mission, which is set to fly by the former 9^th planet in 6 days (data will take hours to reach Earth, hence the 7 days until the first images).

As of now, thanks to a computer glitch this past weekend that probably triggered many panic attacks in mission control, the most recent images of Pluto date to last Friday, July 3. Here's one of those pictures.

For a historical perspective, 1989, 26 years ago, was the last time a space probe visited a planet for the first time (Pluto was still a planet when New Horizons launched and many still consider Pluto a planet regardless of the IAU's definition of 'planet') when Voyager 2 flew by Neptune. For some fun, here's a look back at that year, the most recent time a planet was visited for the first time . . .

1989 was a monumental year in human geopolitical history for one reason: the Berlin Wall came down and Eastern Europe shook off the yoke imposed by the Soviet Union. For this reason alone, 1989 will be remembered by historians centuries in the future. Starting in Poland, a wave of revolutions in Eastern Europe saw these countries, formerly behind the 'Iron Curtain' and under the oppressive rule of communist Russia, break free from their Soviet overlords and transform into modern, free democracies. By the end of the year, these Eastern Bloc nations would truly be independent nations once again and Soviet Russia, its communist system under considerable strain, would find itself standing alone against the irreversible tide of freedom. Within two years, communism in Russia would be dead.

That aside, here's more from the news in 1989:

Politics:
George HW Bush succeeds Ronald Reagan as the 41^st president
Tienanmen Square Massacre

Russia pulls last troops out of Afghanistan

Denmark becomes the first nation to legalize same-sex civil unions
The last 2 holdout WWII Japanese soldiers surrender
The United States invades Panama

Nature:
Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska

Hurricane Hugo, the costliest hurricane to date

7.1 magnitude Loma Prieta Earthquake in California

Science/Technology:

Bob Ballard finds the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck
Robert Morris becomes the first person prosecuted for a cyber crime

1^st commercial dial-up Internet service in the United States

NASA launches Galileo to Jupiter, Magellan to Venus

First mention of 'cold fusion'

First text message
Hepatitis C visus first identified

Sports:
Pete Rose banned from baseball

Ryder Cup ends in a tie
Riverside International Raceway closes

Pop Culture:
Sega Genesis released in the United States
Official Soviet news agency reports landing of UFO
The Simpsons airs its first episode
Disney releases the Little Mermaid

Doctor Who ends its original TV run of 26 years

Births:
Taylor Swift

Daniel Radcliffe
Joe Jonas
Michelle Wie

Deaths:
Lucille Ball
Salvador Dali
Emperor Hirohito
Bette Davis

Sugar Ray Robinson
Laurence Olivier

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.

dSLR vs. Point and Shoot for Photographing Fireworks (With Pictures)

Do I need a dSLR to photograph fireworks? Can I use a pocket point and shoot camera (or even a phone) to photograph July 4^th fireworks? Those are common questions that come up in early July every year in the United States as, for as many holidays as this country celebrates, Independence Day is the only one where fireworks are to be expected.

As for the answer to the above question, dSLR or pocket cam for fireworks, the idea that one needs a dSLR to get quality pictures of fireworks is a myth. Beyond that, things get more complicated.

First off, though, the point and shoot experience.

The pocket cam I used for shooting fireworks was the Olympus Stylus 550WP (review here). On paper, there is a lot going against the Stylus when one considers photographic common sense, some of these disadvantages include: a ½ second at minimum shutter speed, no manual focus, slow AF, no image stabilization, a slow lens (f3.5 on the wide end), and a tiny sensor (and hence crappy high ISO performance). Needless to say, things don't look good for the Stylus on paper but I was still determined to try and shoot the fireworks.

To my surprise, things went very, very well (all things considered, of course!).

Yes, the photos I took are, compared to properly shot firework photos, not overly spectacular. On the other hand, I was quite impressed. For only exposing for 1/2 second, the bursts were surprisingly full as recorded. To get optimal aesthetics, snap your picture just as the burst starts to go off. Depending on your minimum shutter speed, you may have to wait a little into the burst itself (like I had to do with my 1/2 second-capable camera). Second, the AF accuracy was not bad for focusing on the fly and in next to no light, though I suspect that the lights out in the field helped AF accuracy a lot. As for having no stabilization (or tripod for that matter!), I used my knee instead, which was still good enough to negate using the useless (for fireworks) self timer. Slow lens problem? The only way to cure it is with high ISO, which in itself produces noise. The good news: when shrinking the images for the web (or email), the shrinkage eliminates the visibility of any noise. For that matter, should you decide to print your pictures, the same thing will take place to an even greater effect.

So here's some advice for anyone wanting to take a cheap P&S camera (or phone) to a fireworks show. First, use a tripod if you have one. If not, brace against something, like your car's roof or yourself. Second, for focus (if manual focus isn't an option), try and focus on something like a distant light because fireworks themselves aren't a steady light source and will probably push the limited AF in the dark capability of a pocket cam to the limit. Don't expect 100% AF accuracy but remain realistic! Third, set the ISO high as in 800 (yes, noisy pictures, but you can downsize them later) to gather as much light as possible in the short exposure time your camera is capable of doing. Try and set ISO so that the camera is at its minimum shutter speed so as to maximize the amount of a burst's duration it will capture (example: if your camera maxes out at ½ second and setting at ISO 400 and 800 will result in this speed, go with the 800 to capture more light).

At the same time, I brought my Nikon D700 dSLR for a side-by-side comparison. I programmed the D700 to snap a 1 second exposure with a 2 second gap between shots for the duration of the show, manually set the lens to infinity, mounted it on a tripod, turned it on and forgot about it. Result: hundreds of pictures for the dSLR vs. a few dozen for the pocket cam. Shot for shot, the dSLR was better for one reason only: the always in focus pictures thanks to the infinity focus setting (in comparison, the pocket cam struggled to get focus in next to no light). However, when looking at the pictures, one thing became apparent: when the pocket cam nailed the focus, it became hard to tell what camera took what picture. This became just about impossible after downsizing the pictures to an identical resolution, thus negating the dSLR's immense noise advantage.

For some fun, try and guess which camera took the following pictures.

In the end, cheap pocket camera firework photography is possible even though the circumstances seem to go against all photographic common sense. The only reason I know is that I was crazy enough to try it. Yes, don't go expecting a perfect shot frame after frame with the pocket cam (if you can't set the focus manually) but, in the end, photography is all about capturing memories, which is something that a tiny pocket cam can do much more conveniently than a giant dSLR.

My advice: if you have both kinds of camera, take whichever one is more convenient for you, especially if your fireworks location requires a lot of walking through large crowds.

Oh yes, last but not least, the Stylus took all the right images and the D700 took all the ones on the left, showing that, at the pocket cam's best, it's hard to tell apart from a dSLR (especially when downsized).

So, whatever camera (or phone) you have and decide to use for your firework photography, Happy 4^th of July!

Like What You Read?

Why not check out other great stuff about photography, astronomy, associated gear, and how to use it.

Think someone else would find this informative (or at least entertaining)? Use the buttons below to share!

Daylight Savings Time No More: President Obama Issues Executive Order Eliminating Time Change

Daylight Savings Time will be a thing of the past come this fall as President Obama has issued an executive order abolishing the twice a year time change. The announcement came on the heels of petition drives in several states to eliminate the time switch as states are not required by federal law to follow the switch.

“The American people have spoken,” President Obama declared in a press release, further stating that “in addition to the twice yearly headaches of switching the clocks, numerous scientific studies have indicated that the change of sleep patterns are correlated with increased risk of heart attacks, decreased productivity at work, and both road and workplace accidents.” The president also went on to call the elimination of the time change as “long over-due.”

Come this fall, the clocks will be set back 30 minutes in all 50 states to split the difference between Daylight Savings and Standard times, never to be moved in either direction again.

For many people across the nation, eliminating the need to switch the clocks back and forth twice a year brings relief.

According to a 2013 Gallup Poll, 63% of people surveyed called the yearly ritual of changing the clocks as “somewhat” or “very” bothersome and 87% admitted to having been late or early for work at least once in their career because of forgetting to switch the clocks. 71% of people surveyed liked the additional daylight in the evening though only 23% said that they were able to take full advantage of it without sacrificing sleep due to work/school/daycare schedules. On the other end of the day, 54% of respondents said that they “definitely” or “probably” wouldn't mind sunrise taking place an hour later in summer with 88% of these people citing work/school/daycare schedules as the reason. Lastly, 91% of people surveyed did not even know why the time change started at all.

The idea of springing the clocks ahead an hour came about during World War I as a way to save on coal, which was the primary method of firing power plants at the time. After the War, most nations that adopted the time change eliminated it until the advent or World War II, after which many of the same nations decided to keep the time switch even though there was no worldwide standardization for stop/start dates as well as the length of the change itself.

For its part to ensure uniformity, the United States enacted the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized the stop/start dates across the nation as well as calling for a uniform 1-hour switch. However, the Act did not mandate states to observe the time switch at all. Currently, Arizona and Hawaii do not switch the clocks.

“Times and technology are changing . . . between an often 24-hour workplace in many industries, increasingly busy lifestyles, and ever more fuel efficient means of both generating and using power, it has been demonstrated that there is not enough energy savings to necessitate pushing the clocks forward for 8 months of the year at the price of creating both headaches and hazards for the American people,” Obama said in a press release.

So, for people who enjoy an extra hour of daylight in the evening, enjoy it as, come next year, it will be a thing of the past.

For more info:
Petitions Demand End to Time Change
White House Press Release

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.

Nikon Announces D810A for Astrophotography

Nikon has just announced the first full frame camera optimized for astronomical photography: the Nikon D810A ('A' for astronomy). Like Canon's such models, the legendary EOS20Da current 60Da, the D810A is a largely standard D810 except for its enhanced sensitivity to the hydrogen alpha wavelengths, which make it, hands-down, better (Nikon claims 4 times better) than any standard dSLR for capturing the brilliant reds common to deep sky objects.

In addition to increased sensitivity to reds, Nikon has added a few other features onto the D810A to make it more astro-friendly. First up: a new long exposure mode, wherein users can select shutter speeds ranging from 4 seconds to 15 minutes before having to result to bulb mode. Another big addition not seen on the D810: image preview in long exposure and bulb mode, which allows the camera to collect photons so that an image can be previewed before it is actually taken, much the same way Olympus uses such a feature so that users can preview their images with various special effect filters. Two more, smaller benefits include a red virtual horizon and the ability to dim the OLED display in the viewfinder, both of which are night vision-friendly touches. Lastly, Nikon claims to have tweaked the sensor for even better low-noise performance than on the standard D810.

Want one yet?

Well, there's good and bad news. The good: the D810A will start shipping in late May. The bad: price is TBA (persona;lly, I expect a 10-20% premium over the standard D810). More bad: a lot of astrophotographers are drooling over this as you read right this very second, which means that you should preorder yours ASAP and worry about the price later before the line gets too long!

Key specs:
Body: metal
Sensor: 36MP FX
Aspect ratios: 3:2, 5:4
Formats: RAW, JPEG
ISO: 100-51,200
AF Points: 51
AF assist lamp: Yes
Viewfinder: 100% coverage
LCD: 3.2” 1,229k dot live view
Built-in flash: yes
Shutter Speed: 1/8000sec-15 minutes, bulb
Continuous drive: 5 fps
Exposure Compensation: +/- 5 stops
AE Bracketing: +/- 5
WB settings: 12 (plus 6 custom)
WB Bracketing: yes, 1-9 exposures at 1-3 increments
Video: 1080p full HD
Movie Formats: MPEG-4, H.264
Microphone: stereo
Speaker: mono
HDMI: Yes
Wireless: optional
GPS: optional
Storage: SD, CF (1 slot each)
Weight: 1.94lbs (with battery)
Size: 5.7” x 4.8” x 3.2”
Price: TBA
Availability: Late May

Humble Requests:

If you found this informative (or at least entertaining), help me pay my bills and check out my Examiner pages for space news, cleveland photography, national photography, and astronomy for more great stuff.

If you think this was cool, why not tell a friend?

For something even better, follow this blog.