Moon, Venus and the Lights Across the Lake 4/26/2020

   In yesterday's post I mentioned that the atmospheric conditions that make the city lights from Sheboygan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin visible from the east shore of Lake Michigan occur a couple of times per year.  That was based on the number of  times that I happen to view them while I drove to work over the past few years. But now that I live on the lake shore and have a relatively dark sky, it seems that the phenomena occurs much more frequently as I saw it two nights in a row.

    As we saw yesterday, the shape-shifting of the sun as it set made it apparent that some atmospheric shenanigans were at hand.  The two lingering bright stripes in the photo below were as bright as the sun had been as it was setting, but this photo was taken 3 minutes after the sun went down.

  The lead group of 40 Starlink launch 7 satellites made a dimmer passage at a lower elevation than they did on Friday.  

Starlink Satellites

Orion to the left, Taurus to the right, flanking the Moon and Venus

Orion and the Moon

The head of Taurus the Bull represented by the 'V', and the Pleiades

Moon and Venus just before they set.

Lights of Wisconsin, As Seen From Michigan 4/25/2020

Sheyboygan is lovely this time of year

    A few times per year from the shores of Lake Michigan atmospheric conditions refract light in such a way as to make the city lights in Wisconsin visible from the Michigan side, 60+  miles away.
  The photo below is toward Manitowoc and they could be radio towers.....

.....or they could be the taillights of a bunch of cars crashed into a bunch of houses

I googled Manitowoc at night and this image resulted

   Should have known some atmospheric funny business was in store when the setting sun couldn't decide if it wanted to set or rise.

  I had taken video of the sunset but when I went to rename all the files in the folder, poof...they all disappeared.  Checked all the folders on the computer but couldn’t find them. Then I  searched the recycle bin but they weren’t there either.  So the remaining photos come from the previous night when similar atmospheric conditions occurred but lack of transparency prevented the city lights from being seen. 

Starlink Light Train 4/24/2020

  Since the middle of last year, Elon Musk's company SpaceX has been launching satellites in groups of 60 with the intention of creating a system which will bring high-speed internet to any location on Earth.  With the satellites all being launched together, they initially form a tight grouping that slowly separates over time as they reach their operational orbits.

   In the first few days the cluster forms what has been referred to as a 'Light Train' as they cross the sky together in a line.  On Wednesday the 7th launch took place and last night they passed over my region.

40 Starlinks rising from the west.

Gaining elevation above the northern horizon.

Heading east.

Disappearing into Earth's shadow.

   Three minutes later the next 20 appeared in the west.  These were dimmer because they were further along in their journey to their higher final operational positions.

   As neat as it was to see the light train, astronomers have serious concerns about how this will effect research and astrophotography when the entire system has been deployed.  Those of you doing the math at home realize that 7 launches of 60 satellites equals 420.  The project calls for 12,000 satellites needed for complete coverage and so far the satellites have been brighter than initially predicted.  After the first launch a black coating was tested to reduce reflectivity and the result was negligible.  Remember the Moon is the color of asphalt and it casts a shadow at night.

Freighter Floating on Air? 4/6/2020

    Early yesterday morning the lake freighter Roger Blough appeared to be floating above Lake Michigan as it passed by yard. I don't think it was a Fata Morgana, an optical illusion that usually results in a severely distorted image because it is an inverted image of an inverted image. I think my photo just depicts the ship surrounded in a haze that makes the water the same color of the background sky.

   Another nerdy thing seen from the yard the other day was the International Space Station having a favorable pass over west Michigan last Friday.  I was able to get a few photos with my 500mm lens plus a 1.4x teleconverter.