Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼 @citizen_astro@mastodon.lol
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- https://linktr.ee/citizen_astro
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Amateur astronomer at 37.8 N. I make scientific observations of asteroids, exoplanets, & comets with my 114mm f/4 reflector 🔭 & 2 fluffy cats 🐈
Joined Apr 2022
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👋 everyone! I wanted to take a moment and re-introduce myself.
I'm a queer space nerd (he/him) 🧑🏻🚀 searching for exoplanets 🌎 asteroids 🪨 & maybe even aliens 👽 with my backyard telescope 🔭
I'm also working towards a certificate in Astroimaging and Observatory Operation and post regularly about all things astronomy and space -- and about my 2 cats, Oliver and Ellie.
Happy to be here!
#introduction #introductions #astronomy #space #exoplanets #asteroids #comets #science #citizenscience #cats
M92
Magnitude 6.4 globular cluster located 26,700 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. M92 is approaching us at 112 km/sec and was a "Polarissima Borealis", or "North Cluster", about 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC), and it will again in about 14,000 years (16,000 AD).
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #m92 #cluster #hercules #messier #messiermarathon
That. was. AWESOME!!
Here's a gif I created of the final few minutes to impact 🪨
What an incredible thing to have witnessed together in real time! Congrats @NASA @JHUAPL @ASI_spazio @LICIACube
#DART #DARTMission @AsteroidDay #planetarydefense
T-MINUS 10 minutes to impact!!
It's #DART impact day! Less than 4 hours till impact (7:14pm EST)!
I'll be tuning in LIVE on both the official broadcast dart.jhuapl.edu
while also listening to some of my favorite scientists narrate in real-time on the @SETIInstitute channel
NGC 6207
Magnitude 11.7 spiral galaxy located 30 million light-years away in the constellation Hercules, near the globular cluster M13.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #ngc6207 #galaxy #hercules
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
Did you know there will be a LIVE STREAM from the DRACO camera onboard DART as it comes in to impact the binary asteroid Dimorphos??
Get the links at https://dart.jhuapl.edu and follow along as humanity tests our ability to redirect asteroids🚀
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
Didymos and Dimorphos are binary asteroids orbiting each other as they together orbit the sun.
We're impacting the smaller of the two, Dimorphos, to *slightly* change its orbit around Didymos.
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
A binary asteroid pair was chosen for this technology demonstration because it's a lot faster to measure the new orbital period of the smaller asteroid around the bigger one (it takes about half a day to orbit) than it would be to measure the change in orbit of a single asteroid around the sun (which takes years sometimes!)
Scientists have been studying this system for YEARS to make sure we know the current orbit really well!
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
So follow along and tune in later tonight as humanity tries to redirect an asteroid for the very first time!
Impact is at 7:14 PM EDT, with the onboard camera live stream starting at 5:30 PM EDT and the main event live stream starting at 6:00 PM EDT
We should get images up to a few *seconds* before impact! For this mission, a loss of signal is a GOOD thing 😉
M13
Located 25,000 light-years from Earth, M13 is by far the most famous sight in this part of the sky. It competes with M5 as the brightest globular cluster north of the celestial equator. The cluster contains some 500,000 stars with an age of 13 billion years, not much younger than the universe itself.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #m13 #cluster #hercules #messier #messiermarathon
Kappa Herculis (Marsic)
This is a lovely, easy-to-split yellow-and-garnet-red double star. Despite their appearance, the two stars are not physically associated. The brighter 5th magnitude component of this optical double is 390 light years away, while the fainter 6th magnitude star is 470 light years distant.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #doublestar #hercules
Alpha Her - Rasalgethi
Alpha (α) Herculis is one of the best-known binary stars in Hercules. Also known as Rasalgethi (Arabic for “The Head of the Kneeler”), these stars take nearly 3,600 years to revolve around each other. The brighter star of alpha Herculis is an enormous red giant that’s 400 times the diameter of the Sun and some 800 times as bright. The pair have magnitudes of 3.5 and 5.4 roughly, and are some 380 light-years away.
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
#Ingenuity did it again!
The #MarsHelicopter flew its 33rd flight late in the afternoon on Sol 567, on a planned 111m path to the west, to reposition itself closer to the rover and the action 😀
5 processed HELI_NAV images played at 5fps
RMC: 33_1 (corrected), Sol: 567
LMST: 16:18:49
UTC: 2022-09-24T11:16:23
Credit: #NASA/JPL-Caltech
95 Herculis
95 Herculis is a lesser known binary star in the Hercules constellation. At a distance of 470 light years, the pair is separated by 6 arc-seconds and shines at magnitude 4.8 and 5.2. While separately, the stars should appear white and yellow, their proximity tricks the eye into seeing more vivid color. Admiral Smythe, a prolific 19th century amateur astronomer, described the pair as “apple-green and cherry red”. What colors do you see?
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
DART asteroid-smashing mission on track for an impact Monday
NASA slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid 11 million km from Earth.
The agency's DART mission will impact with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Monday (Sept. 26).
The DART mission is now hurtling through deep space toward the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos.
The mission is humanity's first attempt to determine if we could alter the course of an asteroid.
src: https://www.space.com/dart-asteroid-mission-on-track-for-impact
#space #nasa
Ethan Teng 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇹🇼
boosted
#IranProtests: Signal is blocked in Iran. You can help people in #Iran reconnect to #Signal by hosting a proxy server.
Dolidze 9
Dolidze 9 is an open cluster appearing in the constellation Cygnus. It is 3467 light years from our solar system. Its apparent size is approximately 5.0 arcminutes, corresponding to a physical diameter of 5 light-years.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #cluster #cygnus
NGC 1973 Running Man Nebula
Bright nebula located in the constellation Orion.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #ngc1973 #nebula #orion
NGC 488
Magnitude 10.4 face-on spiral galaxy located 98.3 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces.
#astrophotography #astronomy #space #unistellar #citizenscience #ngc488 #galaxy #pisces
- Linktree
- https://linktr.ee/citizen_astro
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
Amateur astronomer at 37.8 N. I make scientific observations of asteroids, exoplanets, & comets with my 114mm f/4 reflector 🔭 & 2 fluffy cats 🐈
Joined Apr 2022
