An hour and thirteen minutes after Aseans and China welcomes the New Year 2010, we will be treated with a rare New Year’s Day Blue Moon. No, Earth’s Moon will not turn color Blue, it has nothing to do with color (if it turns color Blue, then it is because of Earth’s atmosphere at that time). What “Blue Moon” means is that it is the second Full Moon in a single month.

This January 2010 Blue Moon is rare because it falls on New Year’s Day (or New Year’s Eve depending on where you are). This type of Blue Moons only occurs every 19 years, the last was in 1990/1991 and the next will be on 2028/2029.

Every year, we only get 12 Full Moons. But since the Gregorian Calendar (a Solar calendar; ie based on the sun) and the Lunar Calendar (based on the Moon) are of different lengths, every 2.7154 years we get a 13th Full Moon. This extra Full Moon is called a “Blue Moon”, now you know where the idiom “once in a blue moon” came from ;)

For us in the Asean region, our Blue Moon will be on January 1, 2010 at exactly 1:13am UTC+0800. This is equivalent to December 31, 2009 5:13pm UTC/GMT, which is probably the one you’ve read in many news portals.

Here is how the sky will look like in Manila, Philippines by then:

Click to enlarge (will open in a new window/tab).

So to my fellow Aseans (meaning Filipinos, Singaporeans, Malaysians, VietNamese, Laotians, Khmerians, Burmese, Indonesians, Bruneians, Thailanders), it looks like 2010 will be a great year for us. At least that’s how I want to interpret this January 1st Blue Moon ;)

Bonus, this is how sky will look like when New Year’s Day strikes.

Happy New Year to everyone!!

Last night between 9:30 and 10:00 in the evening, we were staring at the starry skies in front of SM Mall of Asia while reminiscing the things that happened this year 2009 and the 2000 decade. During our conversation, I noticed a big and bright red star at first I thought that it was some red light from a communication tower or antennæ.

Inspecting closer (my eyes have zooming capabilities :p ) I noticed that it wasn’t what I thought it was and it wasn’t twinkling either. I got excited because I knew then that I was looking at humanity’s dream - Planet Mars!

And it is my personal dream as well to see Planet Mars this big and bright, in my lifetime of course. If you still remember your Astronomy lessons, Planet Earth and Planet Mars have an oblong or elliptical orbit. Secondly, Mars orbit is more elongated than our own planet.

Third, each planet’s orbit rotate through space over thousands of years, it makes the distance between the two planets to never exactly repeat again. This makes it rare for the two planets to see each other as close as possible.

The closest ever that Earth and Mars met was back in August of 2003 which hasn’t occurred for nearly 60,000 years! Unfortunately, it wasn’t as beautiful like yesterday, and will be tonight.

Aodhan has this to say, “This is the best ever I’ve seen of it. It’s a ruby!” This was after I micro-blogged about Mars last night, he added, “Seen it maybe over 5 of its showings, this one is downright awesome.” (read: Plurk Thread)

I agree, Planet Mars is a beautiful ruby gem in the night sky today and you shouldn’t missed it at all! So without further ado here are the details you need to know.

According to Stellarium, Mars tonight will reach -0.53 magnitude. To give you an idea how bright it is, the brightest star in Earth’s night sky - Sirius (part of the constellation Canis Major) will be at magnitude -1.45 tonight. So yes, Mars will be that bright you really can not miss it!

How to spot Planet Mars:

• Go out tonight at around 9:30 or 10:30 in the evening and look for the almost Full Moon
• Once you found Moon, look Eastward until you see a bright red "star"
• If instead you saw a bright blue star, that is Sirius, continue searching until you see a bright red "star". Here's a tip: Planets do not twinkle ;)

That is Planet Mars, the Planet that has fascinated humanity for æons and filled our dreams with establishing a human civilization on the red planet (or nightmares of an unfriendly Martian race). Planet Mars that many ancients attributed as an omen of an upcoming war, whose name itself came from the god of war “Mars”.

Here are some screenshots I took from the Astronomy Free/Libre Open-Source Software Stellarium. Note: These screenshots assume that you are facing South which puts East to your left (where you will find Mars).

Click to enlarge (will open in a new window/tab).

The next one is Sirius “the Dog Star”, the brightest star in the night sky.

Happy New Year 2010 to everyone!!

You know the Planet Saturn right? That gas giant in the outer section of our solar system with beautiful rings? Yes, the planet after Jupiter and before Uranus? Good, now you remember. Have you ever wondered what it will be like to live on a planet with rings as beautiful as Saturn’s? Have you ever pictured in your mind how the rings will look like from the perspective of someone standing on that planet?

I did and I still do to this day.

But how about putting those Saturn rings right here on our own Planet Earth? What would the sky be like in our own very familiar world with huge rings above us? How about during the night? Will it be awesome or scary? Earth with rings, hmm…

Imagine waking up every day, when you go out of your home to go to school or your office, there will always be a huge ring above you. Then at night, our only satellite the Moon won’t be lonely anymore, Earth’s rings will guide us through the night, ever shining, keeping monsters away.

Watch this video showing us exactly that - huge and beautiful rings like Saturn’s encircling Planet Earth.

And as danthemango said: … the only thing this is missing are the shots from the Earth, under the ring’s shadows, or the shots at the rings in Earth’s shadow.

The July 22, 2009 Total Solar Eclipse was an experience to treasure - yes, even though from where I am it was only partial, about 49.5% here in Megapolitan Manila.

This is technically the first Solar Eclipse I was able to observe, the previous solar eclipses that occured here in the Philippines were, sadly, covered by clouds (and even raining). One of it was the Total Solar Eclipse that was visible in Cebu (Manila got up to 96% at that time if I remember correctly).

Here are my select photos of today’s record-breaking eclipse - longest Total Solar Eclipse at its maximum - 6 minutes and 39 seconds. Oh, you’re in for a treat, 5 video coverage of the Total Solar Eclipse in India, China, and Japan, you’ll even see the firey fires of the sun ;)

• Camera: Canon PowerShot A460 (5 Megapixels)

• Setting: Manual; ISO400; Custom White Balance (directed at the sky); Vivid; 640x480

• Tripod: None

• Filter: 4 layers of used X-Ray film

• Vantage Point: Makati City, Philippines

• Latitude: N 14° 37’ 12.00"

• Longitude: E 120° 58’ 12.00"

Coverage of my Friends

• Azrael

• Ronald Guanzon

  • Photo #1
  • Photo #2
  • Photo #3
  • Photo #4
  • Photo #5

Video Coverage from India and China