Observed a small glint of #ACS3 . It was invisible for the rest, as expected for a small 12U cube satellite. I guess the solar sail has not been deployed yet, as it should have been very bright!

Tomorrow: the planet Mars passes 0.04° SE (<3) from Neptune at ~5:00 Universal Time (UT); both are 40° and 41° from Sun in morning sky respectively, shining at magnitudes +1.1 and +7.9; the conjunction is one of the closer planet versus planet pairings for 2024.

Bizarre giant hail video in Guangxi, China this week. Video posted by Jim

Excellent view of the #Galileo launch upper stage cruising by Virginia Beach. Dave Dickinson Greg Redfern #Pixel8Pro

Egress of Antares at 22:04:45.

Now will spend the weekend figuring how to get the data from the video.

Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains -theconversation.com/could-a-telesc… via The Conversation U.S. - Pushing space telescopes to their limits in time and space.

My first light using IOT-VTI v3. Caught Al-Niyat ingress and waiting for egress in about 30 mins. Antares will be next approaching dawn. Yes I got a double occultation tonight!

Tonight: the -92% illuminated, waning gibbous Moon occults (passes in front of) the bright +1.1 magnitude star Antares at ~20:39UT for the horn of Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, southern India and southeast Asia. lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/042…

On 2024-04-11 I confirmed distant object A115JT0 = 2024 GT4 and comet A115IQO = C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) remotely at iTelescope.Net T32 in Australia.
Images: 4x300s. & 5x180s.
My astrometric data:
minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K24/K24GH…
minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K24/K24H2…
Dave Dickinson David Blanchflower BSc El Universo Hoy 🧈

April 8th’s total solar eclipse delivered an extra treat; a sungrazing comet, discovered just hours before totality. The comet dubbed SOHO-5008 was caught by several imagers shortly before its demise. Here’s our post for Universe Today on the discovery - universetoday.com/166712/there-w…

Comet 12/P Pons-Brooks reaches perihelion today at 0.78 (AU) (72.5 million miles) from the Sun… unfortunately, the comet is now unfavorably placed for observation at just 21 degrees from the Sun at dusk. Here’s a great capture of the comet from Apr 6 courtesy of Michael Jaeger:

Ukrainian forces rig machine gun networks to down Russian drones -defensenews.com/global/europe/… - How an elaborate detection network aids in defense of the country.

Interesting. Newly discovered comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS could be a moderately interesting (0 to +2 magnitude) object late this year/early next year when it reaches perihelion interior to the orbit of Mercury on January 13th, 2025, just 0.093 AU from the Sun.

cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/00530…

Explaining the Mystery of These Fiery SpaceX Rocket Photos -petapixel.com/2024/04/05/exp… - Starlink = the vermin of the skies.

As millions were looking up at the April 8th total solar eclipse, eyes in space both human and robotic were looking down at the Earth. Here’s our roundup of amazing captures of the eclipse from various vantage points near and far for Sky and Telescope: skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blog…

It’s been over a week now since the eclipse, and we’re still seeing amazing new images taken from the path of totality. Here’s a roundup of our faves for Universe Today featuring images by Tony Dunn Peter Forister 🍁🍂🍁 Christopher Becke Andrew Symes & more:

universetoday.com/166635/amazing…