In 2014, comet C/2013 A1, known as sliding spring, came within 140,000 Km of the planet Mars. This is a bit more than a third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Comets are small, so gravitationally this interaction was insignificant, but from an electromagnetic point of view, things were shaken up big time! Comets are small, relatively speaking. A typical comet is a few kilometers across, about the size of a big city. But with sunlight melting ices and liberating gases and dust from the comet’s interior, the part of the comet we see in the sky,...
Everyone in Canada looks forward to the Perseid meteor shower each August. The weather is warm, the skies are clear, and they have a high zenithal hourly rate (ZHR). But once they are done, it’s not long before the weather starts to cool down, Canada moves into Autumn and eventually the deep freeze of winter sends our fine nation into hibernation. But if you do feel like coming out of your fort this weekend, in an unseasonably warm December, you will be treated to what has often been the best meteor shower of the year: The Geminids. Under ideal conditions,...
I love living in Canada. We have skies that can be free of light pollution with only a short trip outside the cities, and vast areas of land where you can really get away and enjoy the majesty of the cosmos. I occasionally peruse the Canadian made Skynews magazine, and one of my favourite parts is the section where they showcase the work of Canadian astrophotographers. It gives me hope as an amateur astrophotographer myself to eventually get to that level. One of the local Astronomy clubs I visited recently is the North York Astronomical Association, a group of amateur astronomers...
I made a big purchase this year, one that I have wanted to make for a long time. I bought a digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) – A Canon Rebel T3i. The only reason I did this was for astrophotography. I like photography in general – the idea of getting the perfect shot, cleaning up an image, enhancing details that were not there before. But after a trip to Europe where I felt I took too many photos, I decided that I didn’t want to experience my life through the lens of a camera, especially in an age where...
It’s true, Mars just had what we call a Meteor Storm. This is an event that, on Earth, only happens once every few hundred years, and the one that Mars just had was more intense than anything Earth has experienced in recorded history. This event happened because of a close Martian fly-by of comet C/2013 A1 Sliding Spring. On October 19th around 2:30pm EDT the comet came within 140,000 Km of Mars. This is incredibly close in Astronomical terms, being less than half the distance to the Moon and comparable to the total distance I’ve driven my car in the...
