Late this afternoon and evening (CDT) an annular solar eclipse occurred over Australia.

The images below were captured from the Coca-Cola Space Center website. It was streaming the eclipse live. By the time I captured the first image  at 6:06 PM CDT I missed the time the sun was the most covered. The three images that I did captured show how it changed in a little more than one hour. The inset image of the sky shows what the sky conditions were like compared to what the telescope was showing.

Click on the images below to enlarge.

Click here for more information about the eclipse.

Posted under Astronomy

If the sky is clear where you are later this evening…

Posted under Astronomy

UPDATED at 4:00 PM

Tonight: Increasing clouds. Low: 25-27. Wind: NW 5-10 mph.

Friday: Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance a light wintry mix NE of Waterloo in the morning and a 20% chance of light rain/snow shower in the evening north of Waterloo. High: 37 north to 51 south. Wind: shift from S to N 5-10 mph.

Friday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 20% chance of light rain shower changing to light snow shower. Low: 24-29. Wind: N 5-10 mph.

Saturday: Mostly cloudy. High: low-mid 30s.

Sunday: Mostly cloudy. High: mid 30s.

Monday: Cloudy and windy (SE to NW 15-25 mph) with a 30% chance of rain/snow. High: low-mid 30s.

Tuesday: Partly cloudy. High: low 30s.

Wednesday: Mostly cloudy and windy (SE 15-25 mph) with a 20% chance of rain/snow: upper 30s.

Thursday: Mostly cloudy and windy (E 15-25 mph) with a 20% chance of rain. High: upper 30s.

There are no storm spotter training classes this evening.

Training from surrounding NWS offices:

• NWS La Crosse Spotter Training
• NWS Des Moines Spotter Training
• NWS Quad Cities Spotter Training

There are some high thin clouds northwest and are moving southeast this afternoon. Hopefully the sky will be clear enough in your back yard to see the Comet PanSTARRS again.

Here is a photo sent to me taken from Jones County last night.

Click on the image below for the viewing information this evening.

If you miss it tonight there are chances each evening for the rest of the month when the sky is clear.

It might not feel like spring, but we are just days away from the vernal equinox (first day of spring). It officially arrives Wednesday, March 20 at 6:02 AM. The question now is…when will the weather feel like spring?

We are in a northwest flow aloft and this pattern is favorable for any areas of low pressure to quickly move in and out of the area. It also prevents any large storms from developing.

A front will be drifting south across Iowa Friday with a wide range of temperatures on either side of it. North of the front will be in the 30s and south of the front will be in the 50s. The front will sit somewhere between Waterloo and Cedar Rapids during the afternoon hours. There is a slight chance of a rain/snow mix northeast of Waterloo in the morning. There is a slight chance of a rain shower changing to snow shower during the evening north of Highway 20. A light snow shower is possible Friday night as temperatures drop into the 20s. Here is the WPC forecast map for 1 pm Friday.

The weekend is still forecast be mostly cloudy with some sunshine each day. High temperatures will be 10-15 degrees below normal. The amount of precipitation if any that falls will be light. Here is the liquid equivalent forecast from Thursday evening to Sunday evening.

We are still tracking the next chance of rain/snow for Monday. Tuesday high pressure will provide us with sunshine, but for only one day. The next low we are tracking is forecast to bring a chance of rain/snow Wednesday and rain Thursday. There will be a lot of wind with Wednesday/Thursday storm…15-25 mph from the E/SE both days. Again spring begins Wednesday at 6:02 AM.

Posted under Astronomy, Forecast Discussion

Today is the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion back in 1986.

 The Challenger Shuttle Crew
 This is a visible satellite showing the Challenger explosion

Posted under Astronomy

12% of the Moon’s visible disk is illuminated tonight. Here is a photo of the moon taken by Steve Niewoehner.

Posted under Astronomy, Photo

If you have a clear sky this evening at 9:15 this is the view you will see looking east. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Click image to enlarge it.

Here are to two more images that show you where to look to see Orion’s Belt in the constellation Orion. One is labeled and the other one is not.

Posted under Astronomy

Tonight is the last full moon of 2012. Since it is the full moon closest to the Winter Solstice it is called the Long Night Moon. It is officially full at 4:21 AM CST Friday.

Posted under Astronomy

Have you seen the International Space Station (ISS) passing by? Many times people act surprised when I tell them they don’t need a telescope and in fact they don’t even need to have a really dark sky to see the ISS. When high in the sky it is literally brighter than any other object up there; certainly much brighter than the flashing lights on a jet.

How fast does it “appear” to be moving? Not quite as fast as a 6.5 mile high jet traveling at 550 miles/hour, but almost. That jet flying directly overhead will cross the width of your hand on your outstretched arm in about 13 seconds. The ISS will make the same trek in about 15 seconds.

It may look like the ISS is moving slower than a jet, but it definitely is not! It’s actually screaming along 31 times faster than the plane!! It’s going so fast that you probably would not even see it coming if it passed nearby.

Its velocity is around 17,240 miles/hour or 4.8 miles/second. At that rate it would take the ISS a mere 10.6 seconds to travel the 51 miles from where 380 crosses the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids to where 380 crosses the Cedar in Waterloo! If you are like me, numbers like 10.6 seconds and 4.8 miles/second don’t mean a whole lot so I figured it would be better to make the journey into a sound track with 51 clicks, each click representing a mile traveled at the ISS speed. Click here for the track. Think that’s fast? The same trip would take 1.7 seconds going at the average speed of a meteor, i.e. 30 miles/second. At warp-1 the trip would last around 3/10,000 [0.0003] second.

A distance many of us can relate to better is the quarter mile around a standard cinder track. The ISS would scream around it! Here is 58 laps. It would make 19 laps (heard as clicks) each single second! Not bad. Consider this too, the ISS has a mass of about 419.6 metric tons (925,000 pounds). It must have taken a lot of push to get all that up there.

Any satellite at the altitude of the ISS needs to go super fast just to stay in orbit. The station is actually the lowest continuously orbiting satellite there is. It must be important to keep the eyes of the astronaut observers relatively close to the ground. I imagine it would be easier to reach as well.

It is literally moving through a tenuous atmosphere. This explains why it is losing altitude (1.2 miles per month) and needs to be boosted often. Capsules are flown to the ISS to provide the fuel.

Next time you see a satellite of any kind, imagine how fast it must be going and tell others. They too should be impressed.

Posted under Astronomy

The full moon this evening was near a bright light in the sky. That bright light, to the top left of the moon, was the planet Jupiter. Here are two photos of what it looked like. Click here for more about tonight’s sky.

Taken by Sarah Jirak

Taken by Jaimi Brad

Taken by Kristine Kulish

Taken by Kristine Kulish

Posted under Astronomy, Photo

UPDATED at 4:10 PM

Tonight: Mostly clear. Low: 23-26. Wind: S 5-10 mph.

Thursday: Mostly sunny. High: 43-50. Wind: S/SE 5-10 mph.

Thursday Night: Mostly clear. Low: 28-32. Wind: E 5-10 mph.

Friday: Mostly cloudy with fog possible. High: near 40.

Saturday: Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of showers. High: low 50s.

Sunday: Mostly sunny. High: mid 50s.

Monday: Partly cloudy and windy (S 15-30 mph) with a 20% chance of showers. High: near 60.

Tuesday: Partly cloudy and windy (NW 15-25 mph). High: mid 40s.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny. High: mid 30s.

The sky will be mostly clear tonight and we will get another look at the bright moon. When you look east at 7:30 this evening you will see the moon and just above it the bright light is the planet Jupiter. The image below shows how it will look at 7:30 PM.

Keep in mind the moon was officially full at 8:46 this morning. Tonight it will still look just a full and bright as it did last night. The name of the full moon in November is the Beaver Moon because it was the time of year to set traps to catch the beavers before the water froze.

Thursday will be warmer with lots of sunshine again.

Friday will be a little cooler as a weak area of low pressure moves along a front across southern Iowa. I am still leaning toward a mostly cloudy sky with some fog mixed in there. The fog might have some drizzle with it. The clouds and fog this time of year are hard to erode since the sun is so low in the sky and the day is a lot shorter. Temperatures will be cooler due to the clouds/fog. Here is the HPC forecast map for Friday morning.

The weekend will be warm as high temperatures reach the 50s. There is a slight chance of a few light showers Saturday but other than that the weekend will be dry.

Monday will be windy and warm as highs reach close to 60 on a gusty south wind. We will be south of a warm front and ahead of a cold front most of the day. The cold front will push through the area in the afternoon with a chance of showers. Here is the HPC forecast map for Monday morning.

Tuesday will be windy and colder as the low moves northeast of Iowa. High pressure will move across the middle of the country Wednesday with colder temperatures. Highs will be in the 30s…but at least the wind will be light.

The 8-14 day outlook (Dec 6-12) from the Climate Prediction Center shows near normal temperatures and near to above normal precipitation.

Posted under Astronomy, Forecast Discussion