Ukiah Latitude Observatory

Day One 2021 - Made it!

Watch history unfold as NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the ISS on Wednesday, May 27. This mission marks the first time s...ince the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 that humans will fly to the space station from U.S. soil. Set a reminder to tune for joint NASA/SpaceX coverage starting at 12:15 p.m. EDT, with liftoff currently targeted for 4:33 p.m. EDT.

Mendocino County Historical Society is doing a great job taking local history on the road. Come see!

Thanks for posting these great photos from Bounce to the Stars. Last night! ~mb

"Will your sidewalk astronomers be there for the eclipse Sunday evening?" It was considered, but the weather forecast went from partly cloudy to cloudy to rain. I can chance partly cloudy skies, playing hide and seek with the moon, but I doubt if we'll be even that lucky. My goto site is timeanddate (dot) com. It has all the details (and so-o-o much more, check out their homepage!).

Winter - December 2018

Hi All - In case you’re still looking for something to do on New Years Eve, our NASA Ambassador, Elizabeth Garcia, (even though on Gov’t furlough and can’t be official,) reminds us of this upcoming event. Live streaming at 9:30 our time. Here’s a link to a media release. What? Haven’t heard of Ultima Thule? Don’t worry, a lot of people haven’t, but they will soon.

I’m always captured by a photo of the analemma. A what? Good description in the post by Fredi Jon, and in Wikipedia. I would like to capture one at the Observatory. I would especially like to do a monthly full moon double exposure (actually 12x) at midnight with the Observatory in the foreground. The tilt of the analemma would be our latitude; 39 degrees. (Need to fact check that though.) Still with me? Check out the photos in Wikipedia. In astronomy, an analemma is a diagram showing the position of the Sun in the sky, as seen from a fixed location on Earth at the same mean solar time, as that position varies over the course of a year. The diagram will resemble the figure 8. Globes of Earth often display an analemma. Questions?

Winter Solstice today. And full moon photo taken at after sunset tonight at the Observatory. Sun at its lowest point all year at noon in the southern sky. Long shadows, short days. Sunrise at 7:23 am and set at 4:53 pm! Shadow of peace pole just after high noon taken two years ago on the solstice. The full moon will be as high in the sky at midnight as the sun will be at noon on the summer solstice. The moon shadow at the park’s peace pole tonight: maybe 18 long. While sun’s cast that 7’ + shadow at noon. Any questions?

The meteor-cams, a Mendocino College-City of Ukiah collaboration have been down as they are being repositioned. Bummer! Missed it. We’re part of the SETI network mentioned in the Lick Observatory post below.

I found a recent article (December 2016) from the BBC that gives the most current explanation of why the earth wobbles on it's axis, citing work dating back to 1899 by the by the International Latitude Observatory's (including the one of five here in Ukiah.) http://www.bbc.com//20161205-the-earth-does-not-just-spin-