At 07:44 UTC, May 22, 2012, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered into space, carrying the Dragon capsule into orbit.

So first, holy wow, and yay! That’s fantastic news! This was the second attempt, after a glitchy valve caused a launch abort a few days ago.

This morning’s launch went very smoothly. After achieving orbit, the uncrewed Dragon craft decoupled from the rocket and successfully deployed its solar panels, a key milestone in the mission. When that happened, the cheering from the SpaceX team could be heard in the webcast background, which was delightful. A lot of people on Twitter commented on how NASA’s narration of the event was very stoic and calm, but the SpaceX webcast was very emotional and involved^*. I think both of those are as they should be!

Here’s a short video of the launch:

The entire SpaceX webcast is also online. The key moments are the launch at 44:30 into the video, main engine cutoff and start of the second stage at 47:30, the rocket achieving orbit and Dragon capsule separation at 54:00, and then the solar arrays deploying at 56:20.

Seriously, watch that video at the 56:20 mark. When the arrays deploy, you can hear a huge cheer from the SpaceX employees watching. That was awesome. The SpaceX announcer at deployment made me smile. You can really hear the wonder and excitement in her voice.

So why was this launch important? SpaceX is the first entirely private company to attempt to dock a capsule with the International Space Station. If this mission is a success, it’s a big step toward private companies being able to do resupply missions to ISS, including bringing astronauts to and from orbit (which SpaceX plans to be able to do by 2015). And perhaps most importantly, in the long run it means lowering the cost of putting materials in orbit, and that is absolutely critical in creating a permanent human presence in space.

This launch today is just the start of the mission. On Friday, May 25, the Dragon will undergo a series of maneuvers near and around ISS to show that it can be controlled well enough to dock. If that shakes out, then it will approach the station and an astronaut on board ISS will grab it with the robotic arm, bringing it in to mate. There are supplies on the capsule, including a dozen or so student science experiments to be performed. Finally, after over a week in space, it will undock and return to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific ocean off the coast of California.

We’ve all been waiting a long, long time for this, so my honest and hearty congratulations to the crew at SpaceX and at NASA!

We live in the future, folks.

Image credit: SpaceX

^* I also couldn’t help but notice they use the metric system! Hey NASA, ahem.

[First: CONGRATS to SpaceX for the successful launch of the Falcon 9 and deployment of the Dragon capsule! Everything looked great and things are apparently going smoothly. You can watch the whole thing here, and I'll have more about all this in a little while. Until then, back to your regularly scheduled blog post.]

Over the past couple of days, a lot of people are passing this image around, saying it’s from the eclipse Sunday, taken by an astronaut from the International Space Station:

Here’s the thing: it’s not. It’s actually a lovely piece of artwork done in 2009 by a Japanese artist who goes by the name A4size-ska on DeviantArt.

There are plenty of clues to show it’s not real, if you know where to look. For one, the real eclipse was annular, meaning a lot of the Sun was still seen around the silhouetted Moon. That’s not apparent here. Plus, the bright Earth (and Sun!) would wash out the background stars in a picture like this, so you’d not see them, and certainly not the Milky Way (the fuzzy band under the eclipse in the artwork).

The picture is certainly realistic otherwise! The artist notes he used images from the European Southern Observatory; the Earth and Milky Way are both clearly real shots.

If you’re curious about what the view really looked like from the ISS, then here you go:

Isn’t that awesome? In an earlier post I put that up an image from that video as well as a pile of other eclipse shots (including two more from space). Universe Today has a bunch more, too.

(more…)

So yesterday was the annular eclipse of the Sun, and I held a live impromptu video chat on Google+ about it. I was joined by Pamela Gay, Fraser Cain, Nicole Gugliucci, and Jason Major, and we had a live video feed using astronomer Scott Lewis’s telescope. It was way too much fun! I’ve embedded the video at the bottom of this post.

We asked for pictures, and my Twitter feed overfloweth with them! I’m collecting them to put into a gallery which I’ll have up soon, but until then, watch this incredible video taken by John Knoll in his front yard in northern California:

Isn’t that amazing? What happened is that all the overlapping leaves made thousands of tiny holes that sunlight could poke through. This acts like a lens, focusing images of the Sun through every hole — it’s how a pinhole camera works. [UPDATE: Timothy in the comments below points out that some people were confused by my wording. I can see why; I had started to explain how a pinhole camera works then decided it was too distracting and instead just linked to Wikipedia. I didn't mean the pinhole is a lens, just that you get a sharp picture if you use one. I should've chosen my words more carefully.] You can read about the details of this on Wikipedia. Here’s a similar video, too.

I’ll have the gallery up soon, so stay tuned!

Finally for now, here’s the live webcast recording. I’ll embed it here, but note it took me a long time to get it set up and running. It really gets started at 17:23, and I suggest you skim around to see the cool stuff.

[UPDATE: The hangout's over. Thanks to all who watched! I'll have the YouTube video up as soon as I can!]

I know this is last minute, but I decided to do a live Hangout on Google+ to talk about the solar eclipse. I’ve embedded the video below if you want to watch. If you want to ask questions, go to the link above or send me something on Twitter. If you leave a comment here I won’t see it!

Today’s the eclipse! I’m excited, though our weather here in Boulder has been fairly touch-and-go the past few weeks. I’m hoping for clear skies so I can see it; I got my eclipse glasses in the mail yesterday, so I’m all set. Locally, CU Boulder is holding a viewing in the football stadium! That’s a pretty nifty idea. As a reminder, the eclipse begins at 20:56 UTC (13:56 Pacific US time) on May 20, and ends at 02:49 UTC May 21 (19:49 on May 20 Pacific time).

I have links in an earlier post on where and when to watch (and yesterday I posted about why the "Supermoon" two weeks ago guarantees today’s eclipse being annular).

Observing the Sun during an eclipse can be tricky, since it’s very bright and can damage your eyes. Wikipedia has an excellent article about this. Something I want to make special note of: during the deepest eclipse, when the Sun is blocked the most, is ironically the most dangerous time to look at it with your unaided eye. Your pupil dilates (opens wide), letting in more light, but the parts of the Sun not blocked by the Moon are still just as intense. That makes it easier to damage your eye, so be very careful.

Of course, you shouldn’t look at the Sun with binoculars or through a telescope! That’ll destroy your eyes — literally — so seriously, it’s not recommended. The only exception is if you have the proper equipment designed specifically to view the Sun. Sky and Telescope’s site has a great rundown of how to observe the eclipse safely, including what equipment you can use.

For more on safe observations, check out Mr. Eclipse’s page, where he has a thorough list of how-tos. The websites io9 and for Astronomy Magazine have some good info, too.

Want an optometrist’s opinion? Here you go. Or you can try some of the tricks listed at The Exploratorium.

If you want to photograph the eclipse, again Mr. Eclipse has great stuff, and this You Tube video demonstrates making a Sun filter for your camera out of a Pop Tart bag! That’s not for your eyes; it’s just for taking pictures (and while some websites say it’s OK for cameras, your mileage may vary — and DO NOT USE THIS for binoculars or telescopes because it does not block enough light to be effective).

The picture here is of the Sun from just this morning, taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. It’s just to give you a reference of what the unblocked Sun looks like. There are some good-sized sunspots today, so they’ll provide a pretty contract and a nice background to the eclipse. To get a current picture, go to the SDO site and you’ll see it there (click the drop-down menu under the picture and select "HMI Intensitygram" to get the visible light view).

You can watch the eclipse online, too. Sky and Telescope has some info on that, and as I understand it NASA will have some live feeds on their Sun-Earth Connection site. The Japanese space mission Hinode will be watching the eclipse, too.

Finally, if you want a number of people to be able to see this event at the same time, the best way is to project the image of the Sun onto a wall or screen. Here’s a video with a very simple and clever method that I may try myself tomorrow. All you need is foil and a makeup (or other flat) mirror:

Cool! It’s essentially a pinhole camera with a bigger hole but a longer focal length, so you achieve the same results.

I hope everyone has clear skies and good, safe viewing of this wonderful event!

Image credit: NASA/SDO

As a change of pace, I was the guest rogue on this week’s episode of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. We covered a lot of ground, from Futurama heads to asteroid mining to Mayans… and I have an abysmal record at the Science or Fiction segment when I’m on the show, so you can hold your breath in anticipation to see if I finally get one right, or once again go down in flames. I’ll note, obviously, that I always get it right when I listen to the show at home.

And nothing says love like Rebecca promising she’d freeze my head. Such a romantic.