SDO Lunar Transit, October 16, 2020

Just two weeks ago the Full Moon and Mars had a bright conjunction in the night sky. Tomorrow the New Moon will glide between SDO and the Sun for a 47 minute lunar transit. Here's the SDO FOT movie of the transit.

The transit starts at 1906 UTC (3:06 pm ET) and ends at 1953 UTC (3:53 pm ET), so it's at a perfect time for watching in the US. The Moon will cover at most about 44% of the solar disk. More important to SDO, it will cover two of the fine-guidance sensors (the red squares in the movie). This means our view of the Sun may jitter a bit during the transit, but SDO will recover soon after the Moon moves off the disk.
Enjoy the transit, and keep watching the planets Mars, Venus, and Jupiter as they move across the evening sky.

SDO Plans from October 2020 through February 2021

The SDO Quarterly LongSet Predicts have been delivered. We have two lunar transits in the next three months. The highlights are listed below:

• 16 Oct 2020 @ 1906 to 1953z (10/16 @ 1506 to 1553L) – LunTran_2020290_2dc_44pshdw
• 09 Dec 2020 @ 1944z (12/09 @ 1444L) – MM #39
• 13 Jan 2021 @ 0556 to 0625z (01/13 @ 0056 to 0125L) – LunTran_2021013_2dc_37pshdw
• 24 Jan 2021 @ 0452z (01/24 @ 2352L) – Handover Season Starts with first Handover
• 28 Jan 2021 @ 0724z (01/28 @ 0224L) – Eclipse Season Starts
• 10 Feb 2021 @ TBD (02/10 @ TBD) – SK #22 (Tentative)
• 21 Feb 2021 @ 0711z (02/21 @ 0211L) – Eclipse Season Ends
• 15 Mar 2021 @ 0314z (03/15 @ 2314L) – Handover Season Ends as last handover completes
• 21 Apr 2021 @ TBD (04/21 @ TBD) – MM #40

Dates and times in parentheses are GSFC Local time. Timings of maneuvers are tentative and may change.

Calibration Maneuvers Today

SDO will execute the EVE Field of View (FOV) calibration maneuver starting at 1315 UTC (9:15 am ET). That will be followed by the HMI/AIA Flatfield calibration maneuver starting at 1630 UTC (2:30 pm ET). During these maneuvers the SDO science data may be missing or blurry.

Memories of the 21 August 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

Three years ago a total solar eclipse passed over the continental United States, from Oregon to South Carolina. I spent the days before the eclipse at SolarFest in Madras, OR, and saw the eclipse from a site north of Madras. It was a beautiful eclipse. Here is my best photo, using a NIKON D3100 with a 200 mm lens. You can see the three rays and even some polar rays. The three rays were much longer in person and I remember them as blue. The bright dot to the lower left is the star Regulus.

But this is a post about eclipses on other planets.

Here is an illustration of all the moons in the solar system that could cause a significant eclipse that you could see from the surface of the planet. The red arrows point to the yellow image of the Sun at Neptune, Pluto, and Eris. Even though those moons are physically small, the Sun appears to be even smaller and can be eclipsed by Triton, Charon, and Dysnomia.

The shadows of the four Galilean satellites have long been seen on Jupiter. Because the moons appear to be so much bigger than the Sun, these shadows are called occultations. An annular solar eclipse has been observed when Phobos' shadow passed over the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity.

It interesting to think about what an eclipse would be like on Neptune, Pluto, or Eris. The primary moon appears so much larger than the Sun for those planets. The amount of heat from the Sun is already a small fraction of what we receive at the Earth. Would you even notice if such a dim light was occulted?

Call them transits, occultations, or eclipses, astronomers are quite excited when one thing in the universe passes in front of another. The Kepler and TESS satellites use the dimming caused by planetary transits across their home stars to discover those planets and even study the atmosphere of the planet. Occultations of stars by Pluto were used to study the atmosphere of Pluto years before New Horizons was launched. Occultation of the New Horizons radio as it passed behind Pluto was also used to study Pluto's atmosphere. The beauty of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse is just the icing on the cake.

Next chance for people in the US to drive to an eclipse is 8 April 2024. This eclipse will be near solar maximum. That means the corona should look more complex and interesting. I hope a spot as good as Madras can be found for that eclipse.

That was a beautiful eclipse on 21 August 2017!

Station Keeping Maneuver and Cool Video

SDO performed a station keeping maneuver (SK #21), Wednesday at 2210 UT (6:10 pm ET). For about 15 minutes beofre and after the maneuver SDO science data may be blurry or missing.

Looking for a new way to enjoy SDO Data?

Grammy award-winning artist Beck took an ethereal journey to the stars for his 2019 record "Hyperspace." Now, he has taken this cosmic journey a giant leap forward in a collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and artificial intelligence creatives OSK. The result: A visual album experience titled "Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration."

The new visual album, unveiled today (Aug. 12), is an "interstellar journey combining publicly available NASA mission images, curated with assistance from NASA JPL, visualizations, animations and data with revolutionary Artificial Intelligence tech," with Hyperspace's songs as the soundtrack," according to a Beck statement.

NASA's visual archives were scoured by OSK using "unique A.I. utilizing computer vision, machine learning and Generative Adversarial neural Networks (GAN)" and it "began creating its own visions of our universe," Beck representatives wrote in the statement.

Hyperspace: A.I. Experience Tracklist

• Hyperlife | Landsat 8, International Space Station
• Uneventful Days | Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), Apollo 12
• Saw Lightning | Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Curiosity Rover, Viking 1 Orbiter
• Die Waiting | Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)
• Chemical | Cassini-Huygens
• Hyperspace | Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
• Stratosphere | Spitzer Space Telescope
• Dark Places | Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
• Star | Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Swift, Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope
• Everlasting Nothing | Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

The SDO video is here: https://youtu.be/iE7PBovWh-E

It's EVE Cruciform Maneuver Day!

SDO is performing the EVE cruciform calibration manuever today, starting at 1130 UTC (7:30 am ET) and running for about 8 hours. During this maneuver science data may be missing or blurry.

Momentum Management Maneuver #38 Today

SDO will execute momentum management maneuver (MM) #38 today starting at 1930 UTC (3:30 pm ET). The maneuver should take about 30 minutes. During a maneuver SDO science data may be missing or blurred. These maneuvers are needed to keep SDO accurately pointed at the Sun and taking data.