Your periodic reminder that Stellarium is an amazing planetarium tool. Free, #OpenSource and very easy to use. There are desktop apps, mobile apps and a web version.
@astro_jcm I wonder how much digital astronomy is reproducible nowadays? Bioinformatics benefits by implementing pipelines on #HPC with #Guix. #Stellarium and #INDI are available as reproducible Guix packages.
The first images from #Perseverance after the Mars solar occultation reached Earth today, Nov 27, 2023 at 07:37:23 UTC. The communication hiatus caused by the occultation lasted 13 days, 16 hours, and 11 minutes. Current separation between Earth and Sun, as seen from the surface of Mars, is approximately 1° 35'.
Worth mentioning:
I've been reporting apparent separation of Earth and Sun as it would appear to someone/something on the surface of Mars. #NASA mentions a 2° separation for the start/end of the imposed "communications moratorium", where separation refers to Mars and Sun as seen from the surface of Earth. That separation is now almost 2° 30'.
Simulated view of Terra rising together with the Pleiades over Jezero, tosol, with the help of #Stellarium .
Earth's angular separation from the Sun is now 1° 48'. It is possible that images have started flowing in from the Mars orbiters, but... it's Thanksgiving weekend in the US, so ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄
We may know by Monday whether they did indeed come in and when by looking at the 'date_taken_utc' and "date_received" properties in #NASA's JSON feed for the images.
According to #Stellarium, Earth came out of occultation (for those on Mars it's Earth's solar occultation) around midnight tosol, Sol 977, and now is moving away from the Sun by the minute.
Here is the current situation, as it would appear to someone (or something) staring at the Sun setting behind the crater's western rim in Jezero, Mars, if there was no atmosphere, and the Sun wasn't so bright, of course:
Tosol, Sol 978 of the #Mars2020 mission, Earth is an apparent 18' of a degree away from the edge of the Sun, as seen from Jezero, Mars. It'll be interesting to observe when the first images relayed by the Mars orbiters will make it through the Sun induced noise to Earth. That should come a lot earlier than the 2° angular distance #NASA has set as a prerequisite before sending again commands to the rovers.
Tosol's view from Mars with the help of #Stellarium :
The last image relayed by the Mars orbiters was received on Nov 13, when the Earth was about 48.5' of a degree from the edge of the Sun, before the occultation.
Tosol's (Sol 980) view of Terra from Mars with the help of #Stellarium. Separation is now 37.5' . The last image relayed by the Mars orbiters before the occultation was at about 48.5' of separation, so maybe one more sol and we make it through the noise?
During the coming solar conjunction of Mars, and the moratorium in communications, #Ingenuity will use its color camera to study the movement of sand, which poses an ever-present challenge to Mars missions.
In case you didn't notice, #Perseverance has now driven through most of Gnaraloo Bay and close to the foot of a 6m tall mound where it appears to be the lowest point of the Bay.
Looking ENE (70°) from RMC 46.5542
Sol 959, LMST: 14:52:47
@PaulHammond51
The solar conjunction is on November 18, and +- 2° is from Nov 7 to Nov 28. And it happens with many other planets around the scene (see image description), as if they were all celebrating at a cosmic festivity, the meaning of which eludes us.
Looks like both rover and heli want to spend their sols of solitude lying low. I mean at a lower elevation than the surrounding ground.
On holiday last month, on the first night we found we had really dark skies. So I went indoors and downloaded an app to help me navigate - I had in mind trying to see the Galilean moons (with binoculars)
And Lo! No sooner had I fired up the app and swivelled around but I noticed there was an ISS pass underway. So we went outside again, and managed to catch it!
Stellarium is a open source desktop planetarium available for Linux, Windows, macOS, and a web version. It displays a three-dimensional map of the stars with an immense range of features.
I'm using and enjoying the Linux distro-agnostic AppImage packaged release. Exoplanets oh my! https://stellarium.org/
If you are somewhere in Jezero, Mars, and got nothing to do about an hour before the sunrise nextsol, you may turn to the east and watch the Earth and Venus rise together. And, shortly after that, Phobos will arrive there in a hurry, to set. Yep, Phobos sets slightly to the right of the summit of Jezero Mons, while Venus and Earth rise on the left of that mountain. 🤓
Here is a screenshot from #Stellarium to place the image above into context.
[Edit] I also added an annotated version by overlaying a Stellarium screenshot.
The MCZ_RIGHT camera was looking at Az: 255.743°, Alt: 12.577° at the time of this capture, at UTC: 2023-05-05T18:48:56.
#Stellarium has Phobos at Az: 255.6825°, Alt: 16.4951°, at that time, so it's Phobos, 4° higher in the sky than where the camera was centered at. The star trail on the left is Betelgeuse.
@andrealuck@Landru79
Yes, both Deimos and Phobos were visible at that time (UTC: 2023-04-26T04:27:34) in that orientation. What we see is probably the larger of the two, Phobos, which was also higher up in the sky. The camera was looking at 30° elevation, 90° azimuth, and that's close to where Phobos was.
Open source software is free and enables people to do great things with it. This is the #opensource software/data I've been using to create maps, process images, make animations etc. related to #NASA's #Mars2020 mission: