This art [astronomy] which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathematics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service.
— Nicolaus Copernicus, Introduction to De Revoluntionibus, 1543.
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Contact us
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Astronomical Gallery |
For all your astronomical requirements visit :
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Astronomical.co.za
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Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, will officially launch the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and
the country's National Space Strategy as well as open a new Space Weather Centre on Friday, at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory (HMO) near Cape Town.
Read more on DefenceWeb
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01 November 2010
Sun halo as seen from Johannesburg area 01-11-2010 Visit our Halo page
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20 September 2010
Jupiter is at it's shortest distance from the Earth. It will not be this close again until 2022
GRS can be seen in the lower right area of the disc. Image was captured, using an 8" TAL-200K telescope, x2 Barlow lens and Canon DSLR.
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18 September 2010
While it was still light, I acquired few hi-res images of the Moon and caught an object, flying across. By now, in my collection I have various images of spececrafts, airplanes, birds, bats, balloons, plastic bags and unidentified flying objects or UFO. This is the latest one. Do you have any idea, what this could be? Let us know! Check out this short clip with object's zoomed-in view (500kb)
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18 September 2010
Moon tonight - as participants of International Observe the Moon Night see it. Did you know, that during last 12 months Moon featured on www.astronomical.co.za more than 25 times? My first photograph of the Moon was produces in August 1984 during my two months visit to Western Siberia, using ZENIT SLR.
Image by O.Toumilovitch
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11 September 2010
Down here in Western Cape we had excellent conditions so we were able to follow the whole event quite nicely. I was a bit side-tracked at times and decided not to try and photograph the disappearance. It was quite amazing to see through binoculars Venus being "swallowed" by the Moon - like being eaten by a dragon! It took surprisingly long to be "consumed". It was quite cute to see just the two "horns" left in the end as they gradually shrunk to nothing.
As for the re-appearance, at the last minute I decided to set up a 12-inch telescope to try some pics. As I pointed to the Moon, I saw the re-appearance in the finder. Grabbing the camera, switching it on and aiming through the eyepiece was all ons movement. The first picture was blurred but luckily the 2nd one was better, with Venus still quite close to the Moon. It was cute to see the two nested crescents in the exactly the same orientation.
Image by Willie Koorts
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11 September 2010
Daytime occultation of Venus by Moon could be observed from some parts of South Africa today. Johannesburg had it's first cloudy day in weeks and though the sky cleared-up for the time of occultation, the moisture in the air, reflecting bright sunlight, gave no chance to see it though the telescope. Only after 5 pm I managed to take several images of the two crescents. Wens Coetzer. was in more favorable area in Limpopo province and had observed re-appearance of Venus, which was an "amazing sight" through an 11" Celestron telescope.
Image by O.Toumilovitch
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24 August 2010
The smallest and the largest Moon of 2010. On January 30th full Moon was partially overcast during it's rise above Sandton, but it still showed it's full apparent size. The image of the full Moon, taken on August 24th is inserted in to the original image.
Images by O.Toumilovitch
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14 August 2010
Star dust or a handful of sand grains - this is my souvenir from the Waterberg Planetary Festival 2010, an astronomical event, which has became a "have to be there" weekend for many astronomy enthusiasts and those passionate about starry skies. Hope to see you all there next year again.
Images from the festival will be published on the wpf2010 page shortly.
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Waterberg Planetary Festival 2010
13-14 August 2010
More info
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2010-08-02
The Sunspot 1092 is moving into the central part of the disc. By popular demand, here is the image, taken during the sunset on the 2 August .
View and save large image (Wallpaper 1280x800pix)
Image by O.Toumilovitch
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2010-07-27
The International Space Station passed close to Venus tonight at 19:06:40 SAST, just as predicted by the CalSky ( www.calsky.com ) . The image on the left is a combination of two images, taken few seconds apart. The exposure times differ for two images and were chosen to suit both objects the best. Equipment used: TAL-200K telescope at f/10, Canon EOS350D DSLR, AstroCam for manual guiding.
View large image
View animation of the pass
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2010-07-26
North America to Butterfly by Dieter Willasch: This wide-angle mosaic image from the constellation of Cygnus or the Swan covers one of the most dramatic parts in the sky. It spans from the North America Nebula (NGC 7000) on the left to the Butterfly Nebula (IC 1318) on the lower right. Numerous emission and dark nebula can be observed. Many of the stringlike features are presenting shock or ionisation fronts, where the light of very luminous young stars brings the interstellar matter to glow. The whole area is one of the hugest stargenerating regions known.
View large image and full description
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2010-07-01
Johannesburg Observatory skyline has been altered recently - a massive radar system was installed on top of the hill, next to the old library building. This is a temporary measure, associated with the FIFA 2010 . The observatory could be one of the most popular tourist sites in town, offering a number of unique science-related exhibits and museums, as well as 360° view of Johannesburg's suburbs, downtown Johannesburg and number of landmarks, but instead it became a temporary base for few heavy vehicles and hardware
Large Image 1 Image 2
Note: My personal "Johannesburg Observatory" page is coming soon.
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2010-06-26
I took this image of the full Moon just seconds after we've finally noticed it. The lower part of the disc is still almost invisible.
Large Image
Image by O.Toumilovitch
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2010-06-20
A group of prominent deep sky wonders in Sagittarius rises early in the evenings. Kos Coronaios captures colorful nebulae ( Trifid, Hour Glass and Lagoon) from Northern Kruger Park.
Large Image
Image by Kos Coronaios
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2010-06-07
Moon and Jupiter, separated by over 14 degrees could be seen in the early morning sky. My 3.5 seconds long exposure also shows Uranus approx. 27' below Jupiter. Large Image
O.Toumilovitch
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2010-06-06
In the evening July 06, Mars and Regulus were less than 1 degree apart, making it a good target for observing and imaging though short focal length optics. I used 4" f/10 refractor and DSLR for this image. Large Image
O.Toumilovitch
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2010-05-24
Jupiter lost one of it's bands. This can be easily observed through small telescopes and photographed.
O.Toumilovitch
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2010-05-24
The International Space Station and undocked Space Shuttle Atlantis were visible from South Africa just before the sunrise. This is a combination of two images, taken approximately 15 seconds apart. The distance between two spaceships is not to scale. Large image
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2010-05-16
-3.95 mag. Venus and 8.38% lit Moon, was seen on Sunday low in theWest, 2°33' apart. DSLR with 400mm telephoto lens, mounted on a tripod, 1 second exposure @ ISO-400
O.Toumilovitch
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2010-05-05
During May three bright planets can be seen in the evening sky: Venus, Mars and Saturn. It is still not very easy to image Saturns rings system through a small size telescope but with the help of Registax a stack of couple of hundreds of frames from a video clip will clearly show the shadow from the rings on the planet..
O.Toumilovitch
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2010-04-20
A double rainbow stretched all the way from Sandton city to Johannesburg CBD, as was seen from Delta park. Cosmos flowers aren't very impressive this year, but are still covering the parts of the park.
O.Toumilovitch
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Friday 2010-04-16
Julius Ramsay, Bryanston: On the 16th of April 2010, on my birthday, my fiancée and I were sitting out on our porch next to our pool. I was facing about East East South when I heard an unfamiliar noise and looked up and witnessed a sight I will never forget. A ball of fire, about the size of a trucks wheel appeared with a noise I can only describe as a hot fizzling noise. The fireball had a trailing flame, about 3-5 metres long. It came in at about a 40 degree angle from a southerly direction heading straight above Rivonia, towards the Sunninghill Clinic. The fireball probably entered my line of sight at about the height a low flying helicopter would fly at. As it came in, like a bubbling fizz ball of fire, it burnt out directly behind a big tree in our garden. Two minutes later my sister in law Wendy called to say she had sighted a UFO. I recon the noise I heard was intensified as the fizzling rock was burning itself out. I am surprised not many people saw what I did and thank God no one got hurt. Something few people will ever witness. A great birthday present.
Wendy: I was just heading off Ontdekkers Road in a Northerly direction when I saw a bright ball of light ahead up to my right moving extremely fast, but it seemed too big for a shooting star.
21:51 Mitchell writes: I saw the fireball around 6:15 or thereabouts from Pretoria. Just caught a glimpse of it as it passed overhead, green in co lour and breaking up into pieces. Was a nice one but over in a flash.
18:21 South African time, O.Toumilovitch: While waiting for green light at the intersection in Randburg, I witnessed a very bright fireball, moving fast in the Northern direction. The sky was still quite light, so it is difficult to estimate the object's brightness, though the path details can be measured very accurately. It was observed for approx. 2.5 seconds, starting at +/- 75 degrees above the horizon, moving in the direction of Pretoria (true 22 to 27 degrees. It was increasing in brightness and exploded, braking into at least three fragments 15 degrees above the horizon. The object's trail had distinct blue color, no sound was heard. Witnesses of the event are invited to send their observations to news@astronomical.co.za
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2010-04-12
This is a special day in the history of space exploration. Astronomical team congratulates all those of you, who are pationate about Cosmos ! Happy Cosmotautics Day!
Visit Russian Federal Space Agency website to see historic images and learn about the preparations for the next year 50th anniversary celebrations: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=86
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Anne Pearce from Paulshoff / Johannesburg writes:
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2010-04-06
"On Sunday evening at around 19h35 I was on my balcony in Paulshoff taking "Orb" photo's when I turned towards the East and saw what I thought was a falling star - except this star was falling slowly and as it got lower it went from white to a green centre and got much bigger (with a white outline). Unfortunately my view was obstructed by the next balcony and the trees as it dipped lower. It really was a nice sighting. Seven minutes later at 19h42 my young son who is a Gamer Ranger/Researcher monitoring some wild dogs in the Tembe Reserve up near the Northern Natal/Mozambique border sent me a SMS saying they had just seen a "UFO" (except their sighting was travelling horizontally) and the light was bluish/white and flicking intermittently - travelling much faster than any commercial airline. There was cloud in both our sightings. (I am sure this was the same UFO).
Send your observations to: news@astronomical.co.za
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Visit previous pages
18 October, 2009
The "UFO" event, observed over Southern Africa by many, photographed by few. A Centaur rocket, followed by US military weather satellite (DMSP F-18) dumped
a load of excess fuel into space, resulting in spectacular views over Southern Africa.
If you would like to receive the latest local and international "Astro News from Oleg" (ANFO) via e-mail, click HERE
For more astro images visit FOTON AstroCam gallery
Back to: www.astronomical.co.za orcurrent Gallery page
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