Tag: Skywatching
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A lunar wonder … or a washout? Your guide to the super blue blood moon eclipse
A total lunar eclipse gives the full moon a reddish tinge in 2015. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Geographically speaking, the Pacific Northwest is one of the best places in America to see tonight’s super-hyped total lunar eclipse. Meteorologically speaking? Not so much. Seattleites might have to go as far east as Ellensburg to get…
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Rocket Lab unveils ‘Humanity Star’ – a shiny satellite you can see in space
Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck shows off the Humanity Star satellite before launch. (Rocket Lab Photo) In addition to launching three Earth-watching satellites, Rocket Lab has sent up a satellite you can watch from Earth: a bright and shiny object christened Humanity Star. Rocket Lab says Humanity Star, a geodesic sphere made of carbon fiber…
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Aliens in L.A.? Santa? Even Elon Musk has some fun with SpaceX rocket’s sky show
The contrail left behind by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch looked like a giant fish in the skies over Southern California. (Elon Musk via Twitter) The bloom of exhaust that blossomed in Southern California’s skies during Friday evening’s liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket sparked jokes and jitters — with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk joining in. Was…
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It’s prime time for the Geminid meteor shower, with partly cloudy skies in forecast
A streaking Geminid meteor makes an impression in an all-sky photo captured in 2011. (Credit: NASA) This year’s Geminid meteor shower is reaching its peak, and Seattle’s weather just might cooperate. Tonight’s forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and a low chance of precipitation, which is unusual for a Seattle holiday season. That adds to…
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‘Tis the season … for a holiday supermoon
An image of the moon taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is shown in two halves to illustrate the difference between the apparent size of a supermoon (left) and a “micromoon” (right). Supermoon Sunday is at hand, and although some may scoff, the supermoon concept provides a good excuse to take a close look at…
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Super Bowl? Bah! Study rates total solar eclipse as America’s most watched event
Eclipse watchers turned Aug. 21’s event into a party at Kerry Park in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) More than 215 million American adults, representing almost 88 percent of the U.S. population over 18, watched August’s solar eclipse in person and on screens, according to a newly published survey. That’s nearly…
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Eclipse Journal: Too good to be true? Mystery of the plane and the corona solved
The sun’s corona silhouettes an airplane during the total solar eclipse. (Dustin Huntington Photo via SpaceWeather.com) GeekWire reporters and correspondents are documenting the 2017 solar eclipse from the Pacific Northwest, including our home base in Seattle and locations in the “Path of Totality” in Oregon. Follow our eclipse adventures in this running live blog, and…
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Five ways to look back at this week’s total solar eclipse in a totally different light
This week’s solar eclipse progresses through totality in a composite image from Madras, Ore. (NASA Photo / Aubrey Gemignani) This week’s total solar eclipse ranked among history’s most widely documented celestial events, thanks to streaming video and social media. NASA and its media partners announced today that 12.1 million unique viewers watched the spectacle via…
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Total eclipse dims the sun over the U.S., bringing delicious darkness
The eclipse as viewed from Bald Mountain, Idaho, photographed by Kevin Lisota. The purple coloring on the underside is an eclipse phenomenon known as Baily’s Beads, in which the craters on the moon’s surface allow partial sunlight to shine through. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) MADRAS, Ore. – The spectacle that skywatchers made years’ worth…
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Did you miss totality? Relive the solar eclipse’s climax in this 3-minute video
The “diamond ring” effect sparkles just before the total phase of the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, as captured from Madras, Ore. (John E. Hoots via YouTube) MADRAS, Ore. – Some skywatchers spend thousands of dollars on telescopes, cameras and other hardware to document a solar eclipse. John E. Hoots did it with a Sony Handycam video…