Both green and red aurora are visible in this photo made from the shuttle Discovery as it orbited the Earth. Credit: NASA/Clayton Anderson

Check out this very cool photo of the aurora borealis photographed just last month by astronaut Clayton Anderson during the space shuttle’s run to the International Space Station (ISS). Look to the far right and you’ll see the bottom half of Orion. The three Belt stars are straight up and down at the edge of the frame while Rigel is to their left. Both aurora colors are caused by excited oxygen atoms — the green at an altitude of about 60 miles, the red at 200 miles. When high speed particles from the sun funnel down Earth’s magnetic field lines, they crash into atoms in the upper atmosphere and pump up the energy of their electrons. As the electrons return to their previous "rest" state, the atoms emit tiny amounts of light of specific colors. The most common color is green from oxygen. To find out why oxygen can be both red and green at once, you’ll find a good explanation HERE.

If you liked the photo, you might also want to watch a video made by astronaut Don Pettit back in the fall of 2008 of the northern lights in action seen from the space station. Don combined many still images into a very effective movie.

Emily Wack and Ehren Inkel, UMD planetarium presenters, pull tape and hold the ladder for Eric Norland of the Arrowhead Astronomical Society while he seals the opening between the two sections of the life-sized Hubble mock-up with aluminized plastic earlier this week. Photos: Bob King

Today I’m at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for our annual Astronomy Day celebration. While we may be flitting with clouds, don’t let that stop you from coming out to see our life-size Hubble Space Telescope mock-up or enjoying a planetarium program and one of the many lectures on topics ranging from UFOs to astrophotography. We’re set up both inside and outside the UMD planetarium which is located off College Street between Kenwood and Woodland Avenues. Signs are posted to help guide you there. The event starts at 10 a.m. and goes until  4. Here’s the complete schedule if you’d like to plan your visit.

I’ll see you there and will be updating this blog with photos and comments throughout the day.

We had a little sun this morning and were able to use the telescope with a filter for viewing.

The crowd enjoys the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission at the UMD planetarium Saturday afternoon.

UMD student Emily Wack finishes up her presentation on black holes with a reference to the Schwartzchild Radius, which refers to how small you’d have to squeeze something before it became a black hole. The sun would need to be crushed into sphere about 1 1/2 miles across before it would collapse into a black hole.

Ryan Tomsche of Cloquet colors in his planets during a kids’ activity at Astronomy Day.

The winds were cruel to our Hubble scope and it was decided to close the exhibit in the afternoon.

Eric Norland still has a bright outlook despite the Hubble’s troubles.

The winds were strong and they were unkind. Despite valiant efforts to patch our Hubble mock-up’s shiny "skin" it was inevitable we weren’t going to win the battle. Then the rain started and more wind, and the scope began lifting from its anchors. It was time to take the exhibit down. 

But the show must always go on, and we had lots of other activities and talks, and the people came. The most popular talks were on UFOs, Star Wars planets and the year 2012. There were shows on Native American constellations, the southern sky, the zodiac and many more. The planetarium staff and Arrowhead Astronomical Society put together some great programs and were a blast to work with. What a crew! If I ever were to ride aboard the space station, I’d want all of them with me.

The lies just a "few fingers" to the left of the red supergiant star Antares in Scorpius the Scorpion tomorrow morning. This map shows the sky looking southeast around 12:30-1 a.m. Created with Stellarium

There are those who know the evening sky best because they’re early to bed, those to whom the dawn and early morning stars are most familiar either by choice or duty, and finally those who are out very late and straddle both starry hemispheres. If you’re belong to the last group, you’ll be able to see the waning gibbous moon near the bright star Antares in the wee hours tomorrow morning in the southeastern sky.

Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley obtained this image of a storm on Saturn from his backyard telescope in Murrumbateman, Australia, on March 22, 2010. He sent it to scientists working with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft the next day. Credit: A. Wesley

Anthony Wesley of Australia has been at it again. He’s the amateur astronomer who first alerted the professionals about the dark impact spot on Jupiter last summer. Last month he photographed a new, white cloud on Saturn and sent his images to the scientists in charge of the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn. Wesley thought Cassini scientists might want to observe the new spot. By good fortune, the probe happened to be examining that general region of the planet. With the heads-up from Wesley, scientists quickly trained Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer at the white spot. The instrument measures gas composition, winds speeds and the like in planetary storms. What they discovered was a monster ammonia snowflake blizzard in Saturn’s atmosphere five times bigger than the "Snowmageddon" blizzard over the southeastern U.S. this past winter.

"A balloonist floating about 100 kilometers down from the bottom of Saturn’s calm stratosphere would experience an ammonia-ice blizzard with the intensity of Snowmageddon," said Brigette Hesman, a composite infrared spectrometer team member who is an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland. "These blizzards appear to be powered by violent storms deeper down – perhaps another 100 to 200 kilometers down – where lightning has been observed and the clouds are made of water and ammonia."

Other amateurs also contributed their photos of the event, which along with the data from Cassini, gave scientists a more complete picture of the storm’s genesis and evolution, proving once again that amateur astronomers can make valuable contributions to science. Good equipment is helpful but most important is a stick-to-it-tiveness and being alert to the unexpected.

NASA’s new Robonaut2 or R2 shows struts its stuff — including its excellent penmanship — in this YouTube video

In September this year the space shuttle Discovery will deliver the first humanoid robot to travel and work in space to the International Space Station (ISS). He, she, it is called Robonaut2 or "R2" for short, and after you watch the video I think you’ll agree its movements are weirdly human, especially the fingers. The robot, which can see, feel and adjust to its environment, will perform scientific and maintenance tasks for the astronauts freeing them up for more important duties.

R2 works out with 20-lb weight. Credit: NASA

"R2 might do delicate tasks like set up science experiments for the crew, or it might just as easily run a vacuum cleaner," according to the NASA press release. Now there’s a photo I hope we get to see. The robot will be controlled by computers from the ground and inside the ISS. Unlike the robots depicted in Star Wars, this one won’t be very chatty. Speech can be added to its electronics but it’s not needed just yet.

R2 might eventually be equipped with legs or wheels and used survey asteroids or a planet for a landing site or work in a habitat dangerous to humans. Once it does get its voice, I’m hoping its creators will program R2 to include some memorable one-liners from famous robots like C-3PO from Star Wars or HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. My top pick would be from HAL, the soft-voiced robot gone bad, who chose to disobey his controllers: "I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that."

The core region of the Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici looks so dynamic it seems to swirl before your eyes. Credit: NASA/ESA

What better analog for a hypnotic spiral than the center of the Whirlpool Galaxy. If we could speed up time and watch it spin before our eyes, we might be induced into a trancelike state and transported 31 million light years to the galaxy itself. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have the help of a hypnotist just to be sure we got there and back safely.

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51 in Charles Messier’s catalog of deep sky objects, is Canes Venatici’s claim to fame. Messier discovered the galaxy on October 13, 1773, but it wasn’t until 1845 when Lord Rosse of Ireland used a 72-inch telescope that it was recognized as a spiral. His drawing, at right, resembles modern photographs. Not only does it show the main galaxy but also the smaller interacting companion galaxy NGC 5195.

At the time, most astronomers thought M51 and other galaxies were nebulas or gas clouds inside our own Milky Way. Lord Rosse thought otherwise. He believed the nebulas were composed of countless faint stars which most telescopes at the time simply could not resolve. Not until the early 1920s did astronomers nail down the distances to the spiral "nebulae" as they were called. Only then did we realize that galaxies like the Whirlpool were very much like our own Milky Way but far, far away.

Without a doubt, M51 is the most famous object within the borders of Canes Venatici the Hunting Dogs, a constellation we got acquainted with in yesterday’s blog. The little companion galaxy actually lies behind the big one, but millions of years ago it passed through M51′s disk disturbing the gas clouds and initiating the formation of those remarkable spiral arms.

M51 and its companion NGC 5195. Hot pink hydrogen gas clouds swaddle newborn stars and star clusters and outline the galaxy’s spiral arms. Lord Rosse called the pair of galaxies the "Question Mark". Credit: NASA/ESA

Amateur astronomers love to get wrapped up in those arms which are some of the easiest to see in a telescope. Suggestions of the whorls are visible in a 4-inch scope, and certainly with a 6-inch you can discern several short arcs under a dark sky. On spring nights, when the galaxy is high above the glow of light pollution and haze, the arms are one of the most beautiful sights in the sky through a large amateur scope (12-16 inches). Unlike many spiral galaxies, the arms begin to resemble their appearance in photographs but in a misty way like coils of fog. NGC 5195, dwarf galaxy, appear as a small, bright glow at the end of one of M51′s spiral arms.

With the moon’s departure from the evening sky and the return of darkness, we’ll soon have the opportunity to find this famous double galaxy with binoculars. It’s not hard to spot because you start at an easy place, the end of the handle of the Big Dipper. Use yesterday’s chart to help you find the Big Dipper, and then point your binoculars at Alkaid, the end star in the handle. A short distance above and to the left you’ll spot a fainter but obvious star and directly above it a small puff of light. That’s the galaxy! Find it and you’ll be looking across more than 30 million light years of space.

Starting with the Dipper’s handle you’ll find the Whirlpool Galaxy
about one binocular field of view (white circle) above and left of
the handle’s end star. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software

The Whirlpool’s true size is something like 100,000 light years in diameter very similar to our own Milky Way. And like the Milky Way, the galaxy harbors a black hole in its deepest of cores. M51′s black hole has a mass of one million stars like the sun and hides behind an "X" of interstellar dust.

"X" marks the spot of the M51′s hidden black hole. The hole resides behind the intersection of two dark lanes of light-absorbing dust seen in silhouette against the galaxy’s starry core. Credit: NASA/ESA

One last item. If you haven’t already seen the movie of the massive solar eruption on April 19 recorded as a video by the new Solar Dynamics Explorer telescope, please click HERE and watch for yourself. Be patient — it’s a big download but worth playing over and over and over.

Savor a walk under tonight’s full moon. Photo: Bob King

Pink. Sprouting grass. Egg. Fish. Take your pick of a traditional name for April’s full moon which happens today. Pink is for the color of wild phlox, an early spring flower, sprouting grass is what’s happening in our town right now, eggs are a symbol of rebirth and fish refers to fish swimming upstream in spring.

Since the time of full phase was actually earlier this morning, last night’s moon was as full as tonight’s will be. In my community education astronomy class yesterday evening we saw the slightest rind of shading along the moon’s far eastern edge through the telescope, an indication that it wasn’t 100 percent full. Tonight that rind will lie along its western edge, but again, you’ll need a good pair of binoculars or telescope to see it. By Thursday night the moon’s waning phase will be easily detectable with the naked eye as the shadow of lunar night moves ever on.

NASA’s Aqua satellite took this photo of the oil slick on April 25 as it approached sensitive wildlife refuges along and near the Mississippi Delta. For more photos, including a closeup of the spill, please click HERE. Credit: NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team.

I ran across some photos taken by Earth-orbiting satellites this week and one in particular caught my attention. It featured the growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico from last week’s offshore drilling rig explosion. From a space-based perspective can we truly see the extent of this growing hazard. Satellite imagery is an important tool in following the progress of large-scale events on our planet whether natural or manmade.

Look high in the north between 9:30 and 10 o’clock in late April to find the Big Dipper. Once the moon departs the evening sky later this week, suburban and rural observers can take the "Ursa Major challenge". See if you can trace the full outline of the Great Bear (shown in blue). Our featured constellation Canes Venatici is one "fist" above the Dipper’s handle. Maps created with Stellarium

Even the full moon isn’t powerful enough to wash out the bright stars of the Big Dipper. It’s still easily visible high in the northern sky in late April. Not far above the Dipper’s handle is a very simple constellation with a large name: Canes Venatici (KAY-neez ven-AT-iss-see). This 2-star pattern pushes the limits of our imagination by representing not one dog but two dogs. You might recall that Canis Minor, now in the western sky at dusk, is another 2-star group but at least those two belong to a single canine. The two main stars of Canes Venatici, along with a few faint ones we needn’t worry about, represent two hunting dogs held on a leash by nearby Bootes. They appear to be chasing and snapping at the Great Bear of Ursa Major.

Those dogs want a piece of the bear. Too bad they’ll never get close enough.

The brightest star in the constellation is named Cor Caroli (core car-oh-lee) a rhthmically-pleasing name that sounds to my ear like bird song. The name means Charles Heart in honor of King Charles I of England and was minted by King Charles II’s physician Sir Charles Scarborough. Cor Caroli shines at third magnitude or one level fainter than the Dipper stars and is of the spring sky’s prettiest double stars for small telescopes. Consider getting acquainted with this inconspicuous constellation because it contains one of the sky’s most magnificent galaxies — visible in binoculars — which we’ll visit in tomorrow’s blog.

Club members brace each section of the mock Hubble Space Telescope before joining the sections together. All photos: Bob King

We’re creating a monster. If you’ve been near the planetarium on the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus, you may have seen what look like huge wooden wheels or spools. They’re actually parts to a full-sized model of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) the UMD astronomy club and Arrowhead Astronomical Society are building for this Saturday’s annual Astronomy Day, a yearly celebration of the science and hobby.

Ehren Inkel drills another brace into place on the Hubble scope.

The real Hubble is 42 feet long and 14 feet in diameter — about the size of a school bus. The idea of building a life-size though much simplified replica was inspired by Eric Norland and crystallized into reality with the help of Ehren Inkel and the clubs. The forms are complete and soon the "laying over" of the shiny space blankets will begin. These will mimic the multi-layer insulation the real Hubble uses to reflect sunlight away which would otherwise overheat the telescope and its instruments.

Once complete, visitors will be able to stand inside our earthly Hubble, examine its 94-inch diameter ersatz mirror and hopefully watch a slide show of some of the real Hubble’s very best photographs. You can see the finished masterpiece for yourself by stopping by this Saturday May 1 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. In addition to the scope, we’ll have free planetarium shows, lectures on UFOs, black holes, the planets of Star Wars, astrophotography and Saturn’s rings. If the weather’s good, the club will have telescopes set up for solar and Venus viewing. If not, there will be plenty of other activities and refreshments to boot. Heck, we even plan to do our own servicing missions to the HST just like the real astronauts do. It’s all good family fun. For a complete schedule, click HERE.

Solar panels provide electricity to Hubble as it orbits Earth 354 miles overhead. The telescope is named after 20th century American astronomer Edwin Hubble who made key discoveries about the nature of galaxies and the expanding universe. As of last fall, the HST had taken 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects. Hi-res image HERE. Credit: NASA

The real Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 20th year in orbit this month. The biggest trouble it experienced in the beginning was its flawed primary mirror that gave blurry images of deep sky targets. Astronauts corrected the error three years later with a package of five pairs of corrective mirrors that now provide the crispest views ever of stars, galaxies and planets. Four additional servicing missions have extended the telescope’s range into the infrared part of the spectrum, added new instruments to study the evolution of the universe, upgraded solar arrays and replaced bad batteries and ailing gyroscopes. Hey, it sounds like my old Suburu! Only steady care from my mechanic Larry kept it humming as long as it did.

Hubble image of a billowy cloud of gas and dust inside the larger Carina Nebula 7,500 light years from Earth. Hot young stars are eroding the dust into fantastic forms. Some of the denser knots contain newly-forming stars that have yet to break out into the open. Credit: NASA/ESA

Being above Earth’s atmosphere allows Hubble to examine any target not just in visible light but also in near-infrared through deep ultraviolet light. The telescope has taken some of the most spectacular and historic photographs ever of the cosmos. I’ve included a small selection below but be sure to stop by the Hubble Heritage website for the complete visual feast.

While most of us know the Hubble best by the pretty pictures it beams down to Earth, many of those images form a legacy of discovery made by the telescope. Here’s a sampling of some of Hubble’s most important achievements:

• Determination of an accurate value for universe’s age (13.7 billion years) and rate of expansion.
• Proved that quasars, brilliant star-like objects that emit copious amounts of light and other forms of radiation, are located in the cores of galaxies. Their light comes from material heated to incandescence as it disappears forever down a supermassive black hole.
• First-ever measurement of the composition of an extrasolar planet’s atmosphere.
• Found that the little cocoons of dust called protoplanetary disks in which new stars form are common.
• With long time-exposure images, discovered that galaxies from the early history of the universe have different forms and colors than the ones we commonly see now.
• Through its study of distant supernovas, Hubble has played a crucial role in the discovery of "dark energy", a still unknown force that’s increasing the rate of expansion of the universe.

The galaxy M82 in Ursa Major has a bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. Throughout the galaxy’s center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy. They generate a fierce galactic superwind of glowing red gas. Credit: NASA/ESA

The planetary nebula NGC 6543 in Draco shows 11 or more concentric rings like layers of an onion. Each ring is actually the edge of a spherical shell of gas and dust ejected by the evolving white dwarf star at the nebula’s center. Each dust shell contains as much mass as all the planets of the solar system combined. Credit: NASA/ESA

The comet K5 McNaught is the blue-green cloud with the bright central nucleus below center. NGC 6946 (at left) is 10 million light years in the background while the star cluster NGC 6939 is in our galaxy the Milky Way and 5,800 light years away. Credit: Michael Jaeger

Since comets are some of my favorite solar sytem residents to study and observe, I subscribe to several different online lists populated by similar-minded people. This weekend Michael Jaeger of Austria photographed the current brightest comet in the sky, C/2009 K5 (McNaught) in the constellation Cepheus the King. It’s around 8th magnitude and just visible in a big pair of binoculars from a dark sky site. Yesterday the comet passed near the spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and star cluster NGC 6939. For a time, all three sky objects occupied the same small circle of view forming a trio of cosmic diversity.

Comets never linger. Already K5 McNaught has crept further north en route to its next rendevous. Happily, Jaeger was there with scope and camera to capture a striking image of a brief but beautiful encounter. If you’re interested in comets and want to keep up with news and the latest photos, here’s the link to subscribe to the comet images and comets-ml groups.

I got up this morning around 4 and peeked out the window for a moment before going back to bed. Whoa! What was that bright star? In a second I saw it move and realized it was the International Space Station (ISS) filled with sleeping astronauts. We have another full week of ISS passes coming up, so if you haven’t see the space station or just enjoy tracking it, here’s when to look for the Duluth region. For times for your town, click HERE and fill in your zip code. What’s interesting about the current round of passes is that the ISS transitions from morning to evening passes with no gap in between.

* Tuesday morning April 27 starting at 4:29 a.m. Bright pass across the southern sky.
*Weds. April 28 at 4:56 a.m. A brief, low pass across the south. Again at 9:21 p.m. crossing the southern sky.
* Thurs. April 29 at 9:46 p.m. Brilliant pass high in the south!
* Friday April 30 at 8:36 p.m. from southwest to east. Again at 10:11 p.m., a brilliant pass high in the north.
* Sat. May 1 at 9:01 p.m. Brilliant pass high across the south. Second pass at 10:37 p.m. across the northern sky.

The sky should be clear for the region tonight with the moon approaching full. Look to its left to see Virgo’s brightest star Spica. Created with Stellarium

The moon’s near Spica, a Latin name from "spicum" which signifies an ear of wheat held in the hand of Virgo the Virgin. Although Spica might have to compete with the moon for your attention it’s a formidable star. Lying 260 light years away, Spica is a blue giant seven times the diameter of the sun and over 12,000 times brighter. Although no telescope can see it, Spica has a very close blue companion star 3 1/2 times the size of the sun that completes an orbit in just four days. At 11.2 million miles from Spica, it’s less than one-third Mercury’s average distance from the sun. That’s tight! Scientists can "see" stars around other stars even when they’re too close to separate with a telescope by using a spectrograph, an instrument that detects the light contributed by each object as they orbit about one another.

Spica fascinates in another way: being 10.5 times more massive than the sun, it’s heavy enough to possibly explode one day as a supernova. That’ll give the tonight’s bright moon a run for its money.

Portrait of a woman in three different wavelengths of light. From left: ultraviolet, visible and infrared. Source: Wiki

It’s a good thing we’re not like the bees that can sense ultraviolet light otherwise we’d see every tiny flaw in our skin accumulated over a lifetime. Infrared light, radiation from heat, is far more forgiving of wrinkles and imperfections. Faces photographed with infrared film have the texture of porcelain angels.

The electromagnetic spectrum includes all forms of light from radio waves at the long end to short, energetic gamma rays. Each type of light has its own frequency which is a measure of how many waves pass a fixed point over a given interval of time. Diagram adapted from NASA

Each form of light, which is defined by its wavelength, allows us to see the world from a different perspective and reveals new information about a subject otherwise hidden from our perception. Visible light waves range from 400 to 700 billionths of a meter long which is the size of a molecule to that of a protozoan, one of those small creatures swimming in a water droplet. Ultraviolet waves are shorter and more energetic and about the size of a virus while infrared waves range from the width of a pinpoint to coarse sugar crystals. Longer waves have lower energy while short waves pack a wallop. Gamma rays are the size of an atomic nucleus and will punch holes in your cells.

This week the European Southern Observatory (ESO) released brand new images taken with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile of the Cat’s Paw Nebula in the constellation Scorpius. In visible light the Cat’s Paw is a complex of gas clouds 50 light years across and 5,500 light years away resembling a fluffy cat foot in the sky. The beautiful red paw prints are set to glow by newborn stars within the nebula.

The left view of the Cat’s Paw was taken in visible light by the MPG/ESO telescope in Chile; the right in infrared light with VISTA. Through "infrared eyes" the region is absolutely jam-packed with stars. Hi-res image HERE. Credit: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA

While the nebula is spectacular on its own, there’s much more there than meets the eye. Using VISTA, astronomers probed the paws in infrared light and discovered a stellar nursery of  of massive stars. Unlike visible light which gets scattered and absorbed by dusty nebulas, infrared mostly flys right through. With the dust out of the way, VISTA provides crisp views of stars in the first few million years of their lives. We seek to understand stars at young ages just as we might look back on our own childhoods to understand who we are today. All told the nebula may contain up to 30,000 stars many of which are blue giants with ten times the mass of the sun. The Cat’s Paw is one of the most exciting places in the galaxy to watch the evolution of star formation.

VISTA will be busy in the coming years mapping the entire sky at high resolution in infrared light. That should keep astronomers purring for a long time to come.

This map shows the northwestern sky around 9:15 p.m. during mid to late twilight Saturday evening. On Sunday, cluster and planet will still be near one another. Maps created with Stellarium

Tonight and tomorrow night the planet Venus will lie near the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters star cluster, making for a pretty sight in binoculars. Venus is bright and easy to see but because of low altitude and twilight, you’ll probably get the best views of the cluster-planet pairing with binoculars. Just point at Venus and look to the upper right of your field of view to see the Pleiades. The two are separated by about five degrees (10 full moon widths) which is approximately the size of a typical binocular view.

The moon will make finding Saturn a snap this evening.

As twilight gives way to night, look to the south at the waxing gibbous moon. About a fist to its left that bright "star" you see is the planet Saturn. Tomorrow night Saturn will lie about a fist above the moon. Spica, Saturn, Regulus and Mars form a very long, wavy line that slices across the entire southern sky these late April nights.

Enjoy the following video put together by Jeff Kuyken of Australia. It elegantly tells the story of meteorites and why they fascinate.

A small meteorite found this week by Robert Ward sits on a table for all to see in the breakfast room at the Quality Inn in Mineral Point, Wisc. In the background are Michael Cottingham and Mike Curran. All photos: Bob King

I’m on my way back to Duluth after a great time meteorite hunting in Wisconsin. I didn’t find any stones myself but one in our party of four did. Michael Cottingham, a long-time meteorite hunter and collector from New Mexico, waved us over to the cow pasture yesterday morning around 10:30 and produced a lovely 60 gram meteorite he’d just picked up (right). The black, silky rock had a lip of shinier crust around its bottom created by melted rock that flowed around the sides of the meteorite as it fell. Once we knew one stone was in our midst, there was an excellent chance of finding others nearby so Michael, Mike Curran, Greg Hupe and I studied the ground with mounting enthusiasm. We felt certain the next one would practically jump out and bite us.

Another group of hunters methodically walk a grid pattern in a bean field not far from us in search of meteorites from the April 14 Wisconsin fireball. Some carried metal detectors or canes tipped with powerful magnets but most just used their eyes. In the background is one of the many wind turbines in the area.

Michael had earlier secured permission from the landowner after agreeing that the owner would receive half of the agree-upon monetary value of the meteorite. Let’s say the price was $5 per gram and I found a 10 gram meteorite. The farmer would receive half or $25. Other farmers charged a flat fee of say $50 a day to hunt their land, while still others let people roam for free. Once the dealing was done, our group had the grounds "locked up" meaning no one else could use that particular cornfield or cow pasture. Good hunter etiquette means respecting agreements and not honing in on each other’s turf. Hunters find meteorites, farmers are happy and the wonder of space rocks is shared with a braoder audience. For the most part, that’s how it’s been for the Wisconsin fireball fall.

Exactly who’s hunting for meteorites here? The human, a.k.a. Michael Cottingham, tries to stay focused on the ground despite the curiosity of cows.

We crossed and crisscrossed that cow pasture stepping around hundreds of cowpies, swinging our feet to part the grass and trying to keep a mental image of a fresh meteorite in our mind’s eye so we’d be alert to the presence of the real thing. There was some good humor, too. The cows, which hadn’t been around people much except for feeding and milking, were mighty curious and took to following us around the pasture. First there would be one cow, then another and pretty soon you’d turn around and there were 15! Not having much experience with cows I grew concerned when the one marked 2874 came right up behind me and started smelling my backside. Was this because I neglected a shower that day? I tried to remain calm and talk to the animal in a gentle but firm way, but 2874 wouldn’t leave me be. When she started licking the back of my shirt it became almost impossible to concentrate on finding meteorites. Seeing my predicament, Michael told me to just stick my arms straight out at the sides and she’d back off. He was right — it worked. 

Despite searching that pasture, the surrounding fields and front lawn of the home for the next five hours we never found another stone. My legs felt wobbly by 3 o’clock so I sat down for a snack of Snickers and bananas. Sadly my hard-boiled egg had gotten away from me earlier, rolling out of my hand into the dung and dirt just as I was getting the salt out.

The warm breeze, the sparrows, killdeer and jays helped make this a sweet day. Feeling refreshed now, I spent another hour searching alone before calling it quits. That’s when I noticed some commotion among the hunters away in the bean field through my binoculars. One fellow threw off his hat, shot his hands in the air and then threw himself on the ground in joy. His buddies began pointing their cameras at a spot in the dirt. I felt like I was watching a silent movie of a man finding a meteorite, perhaps his first. I would happily have rolled in the freshest of cowpies had it been mine to find. Perhaps another day.

Yours truly searching the cornfield of my dreams near sunset.

Though I may be have come home without a space rock, I made some new friends, deepened other friendships and learned a lot about hunting, mapping a meteorite strewn field and cows. I want to personally thank the whole team — Greg, Michael and Mike — for accepting this newcomer. Being part of the hunt and especially having the pleasure of such great company made this a wonderful trip. There are doubtless hundreds more fragments to be found, and I know I’ll return for a second go-round. When one of the farmers stopped by to chat with our group, Michael advised that he keep a look-out for those special black rocks: "People will be finding meteorites here for a hundred years," he said.

"With the good Earth all around"

That’s what the welcome sign reads as you enter the town of Livingston, Wisconsin, one of the places meteorites have been found from the April 14 fireball. I couldn’t have agreed more as I stared at acres of soft, cloddy dirt, corn stubble and maroon-colored corn cobs strewn about the farmer’s field we searched yesterday. "They’re all around us,"  said hunter Dave Gheesling of Georgia, referring to the space rocks that must surely be nearby. He spoke with conviction and helped buoy  my hopes of finding a piece if I remained persistent. Jack Schrader from Arizona spoke from deep experience: "Don’t worry, this is just the beginning. There are thousands of meteorites out here."  

Dave Gheesling takes his daughter Maddie for a spin while searching a corn field for meteorites near Montfort, Wisconsin Wednesday. Photo: Bob King

I ran into these two fellows and a half dozen others near the Iowa-Grant High School where students found two meteorites earlier Wednesday on the school grounds. I joined Gheesling and his spirited 7-year-old daughter Maddie for a walk through the corn stubble for about two hours. We were looking for rounded rocks with fresh black crust that snap to a magnet — the elusive meteorites.  Every so often I’d walk on something hard and think maybe this was it, but it was just another corn cob or one of the numerous sandstone or limestone rocks scattered about the fields poking fun at me. Chunks of dirt, especially those dampened by a short afternoon rainfall, looked surprisingly like meteorites until you reached down to pick it up and crumbled it between your fingers.

When Dave left, I was on my own and talked a lot to the ground trying to conjure up a meteorite by sheer force of logic and will. I mean why shouldn’t there be one here? This patch of earth was just as likely to hold celestial treasure as one five miles away. The ground unfortunately didn’t give an inch. Not today at least. After walking several miles in pleasant sunshine — there had even been a rainbow earlier — I called it quits for the day and joined two other hunters for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in nearby Mineral Point. Let me just say the dumplings were excellent.

I’ve always read about hunting for meteorites but this was my first attempt. Even if I don’t find one, I wanted to experience the steady, slow pace of the hunt and dine on the anticipation of finding a rocky visitor from outer space nestled in the rolling farmlands of southern Wisconsin. I could come face to face with a five-pounder. Who knows? Space stones or not, the camaraderie and good cheer among this group of hunters will make for another good day today.

Greg Hupe, a meteorite hunter from Florida, was led to his Wisconsin meteorite find by the play of light in a patch of grass and clover near the end of day. He explained how the light was just right, how it drew him to the stone.

Today we’ll all get an early start in the continental breakfast room at the motel and discuss the best places to hunt based on where others have found meteorites and where we have permission.

The farm country landscape is a new one for someone used to living in close company with poplars and pines. Wide, wide and flat. I can see my car from miles away; it has real stature in this landscape that goes on and on to the horizon. There’s so much sky it makes you wish you had wings.

(Blogging from my meteorite hunting roadtrip near Livingston, Wisc. I apologize for the lack of photos — I ran out of the house without the card reader for my main camera! I took only a couple with another camera. I’ll have the rest up on tomorrow’s blog.)

An erupting prominence observed by SDO on March 30, 2010. Hi-res image. Credit: SDO/AIA

Before signing off, I have to share these two just-released photos taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). They show incredible detail on the sun’s surface and in its prominences, those large, fiery loops of incandescent hydrogen gas arcing above the sun’s surface. For more on the new sun-spying satellite as well as some breathtaking movies, please see THIS  LINK.

A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 110,000 degrees F); blues and greens are hotter greater than 1.8 million degrees) Hi res version. Credit: SDO/AIA