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 The last weekend, while I was in the street
sometimes I looked at the sky because that day
the sky over Madrid was criss-crossed by high
clouds and I wanted to go out that night to
observe. Once I looked at the sky and I was
surprised when I saw a great sun halo, it was
incredible and you could see it very clear.
It was visible for hours.
This halo is like a small rainbow around the
sun, this phenomena was produced by ice crystals
in those clouds and that crystals caught the
rays of the sun and bent them into a magnificent
halo like you can see in the photo near these
lines. Too, you can see one of the hundreds
of airplanes that cross the sky of my city every
day.
The photo was taken with a Pentax istDL camera,
lens 18-55mm, f22, ISO-200 and 1/1000 exposure
using the camera flash too. If you want to see
more photos and a bigger explanation of the
sun halos you can visit the web of
Spaceweather.com of may 06.
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 I wanted to make a moon map, as the Lunar 100,
with all the Moon landing sites that the humans
and ours probes have reached. Speak about moon
landing is the same to speak about the space
race. The space race was a competition of space
exploration between the Soviet Union and the
United States which lasted roughly from 1957
to 1975.
You can´t find many points in the maps because
only a few number of probes and spaceships were
able to reach the moon. Almost 20 probes and
lunar modules reached the lunar surface in the
programs Lunik (URSS), Surveyour and the famous
Apollo (USA) which the humans walked on the
moon.
Many probes failed but finally the russians
reached the moon with the Lunik program. They
had 24 probes, only 7 were successful.
Surveyor program wanted to prepare the way
for the arrival of the first man to the Moon.
The program works between 1966 and 1968, seven
probes sent and five probes successful.
And what can I say about the Apollo program,
the program began in 1960 until 1969, with the
Apollo 11,
the humans got a dream...walk on the moon.
Five space ships more reached the moon.
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 I have listened many times a lot of people speaking
about the famous green flash that you can see
just before the sunset. I have tried to watch
it so many times that I don´t remember exactly.
But a few months before, while I was trying
to take a photo of a sun set behind Torrespaña
(or the "lollipop"), the most famous
communication tower in Spain, I could see it
and of course, I was able to take a photo that
you can see near these lines and in Spaceweather
web on april 18.
This phenomenon is very strange and is only
visible under a specials atmospheric conditions
just before the sun set. To see this phenomenon
you have to choose a clear day and a very smoth
and far horizon. The best place to see it is
a sunset on the sea. With these conditions and
some luck you will be able to see this phenomenon.
If you want to know more about the green flash
you should visit the
green flash of Wikipedia.
The photo was taken with a Pentax istDL camera,
Kenko 800mm, f16, ISO200, and exposure 1/1500
seconds.
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 The last sunday I made a short travel to visit
Pastrana,
a medieval, small and charming village in the
province of Guadalajara, Spain. I was walking
along its streets and visiting some monuments
and the best places of the village. One of these
places is the hermitage of the Sacred Heart
of Maria, one of the two hermitages situated
on top of the two hills that dominate the village
and there are wonderful views.
Over that hill you can find a statue of Christ
placed on top of a 10 meters pedestal, I was
under the statue when I looked at the statue
and, by chance, I saw the crescent moon over
the hand of Christ. Then I took this photo you
can see here and that was chosen as Lunar
Photo of the Day (LPOD) on april
16.
The photo is very simple as you can see. I
used a Pentax istDL and 70mm lens.
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 The lunar terminator is the best zone in the
moon to aim our telescopes. That is the place
where the sun rise, during the crescent moon,
or where the sun set during the decrescent moon.
Is there where we can get the best photos of
the moon because the light let to see the true
orography of our satellity.
But sometimes this light shows a curious images
like the case of the "x" that you
can see in the photo near these lines. The X
is formed by the crest of craters La Caille,
Blanchinus and Purbach. This place is higher
and is illuminated before by the Sun showing
that image.
This phenomenon happens once a month and lasts
only two hours, is necessary to be ready with
the telescope and the camera if you wants to
caught it. I didn´t know this phenomenon and
when I took this photo I was really trying to
take some photos of the termniator to try after
a panoramas making program. Some days later
I realized I had a X in one of my photos.
This photo is taken with a Skywatcher reflector
telescope, diameter 130mm and a Praktica compact
camera over the 20mm eyepiece and using the
optical zoom of this camera. The photo was published
on april 15 in Spaceweather,
with other images thay I recommend to you.
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 Yes! it´s true! I have a lot of difficults to
observe something from my window. You only need
to look at the picture near these lines to see
what I am talking about. A 13 floor building
in front of me (I live in a third floor), trees,
a great lamppost, my roof, light pollution,
hight dampness of the river which cross my city...
and of course sometimes clouds.
But sometimes I try to take a good photo and
last night I tried to catch a satellite over
my city, between the Moon and the star Procyon,
that was the Iridium 61. The Iridiums are a
constellation of comunications satellites which
have an antennas that reflect the light of the
Sun on the terrestrial surface but only sometimes,
during a few seconds and only visible from a
exact point (read
more about Iridiums).
That Iridium got a -2 magnitude and 57º altitude.
The clouds almost avoid I could take a photo
but finally, like you can see, only were able
to cover the Moon. Too you can estimate how
difficult is to me to take a photo from my window.
The image was taken with a Pentax istDL digital
camera, 18mm lens, 16" exposure and ISO
400. The camera was situated on the floor.
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 To finish the group of lunar maps I put this
one showing the lunar lakes in the near face
of our satellite. Some lakes are so small that
you won´t be able to see clearly the situation
on the map, but in these cases you can see at
least the exact zone to look at.
I think and I hope these maps can be very importants
and useful to people with small telescopes,
people who begins in lunar observation or people
who wants to know where are they when they are
looking at the Moon. Later on I will put here
maps more detailed. You can find a complete
list of lunar lakes, seas and bays in
Wikipedia with a lot of descriptions.
The photo was taken with a Skywatcher reflector
telescope 130/900 over a motorized EQ2 mount
and a Praktica DCZ compacta camera with digiscoping
with a 20mm eyepiece. With Photoshop I increased
contrast and put the text. To know and put the
exact place of every feature I used the Virtual
Moon Atlas Expert Version 3.5, a excellent program
that I recommend it you. This program is enough
to identify most of lunar features visibles
with backyard telescopes, also this program
give us many information of them.
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 I don´t use to write about clouds in this page,
I only have a section in the images gallery
and sometimes write something when I have a
good photo of clouds. They haven´t a great relation
with astronomy except to bother ours astronomic
observations. We depend completely on them.
To be honest I have to say that the clouds
have a great captivation. Sometimes they have
forms very surprising, fascinating, impressive,...
beautiful. You can find a web in internet with
a lot of wonderful photos of clouds... this
is the site of The
Cloud Apprecitation Society.
This Society congregate all the people who
hates the blue skies or, like the say in its
manifesto, all who live life with his head in
the clouds. The truth is that you can´t leave
to watch theirs images galleries, you will be
grateful to me.
One of my photos of clouds was included in
these galleries, that is a honour to me after
seeing the photos are there. This photo was
taken in the Gallocanta Lake (Zaragoza - Spain)
two years ago, we was there observing thousands
of cranes which stop there to rest during migrations.
In the photo you can see these cranes returning
to the lake after the sunset with a Kelvin-Helmholtz
clouds or wave clouds.
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 I continue with my didactic work and at this
time I have created a map with the bays and
lunar marshes. I think this features are very
important to beginners in lunar observation
and observers who wants to know more about the
moon.
You can find a complete list of lunar "Seas",
bays, marshes and lakes in this site of Wikipedia.
You will find a lot of information and details
of every feature butthe problem is that you
won´t fin there a map with the exact position
over the lunar surface. This is the reason to
make this map.
The photo was taken with a Skywatcher reflector
telescope 130/900 over a motorized EQ2 mount
and a Praktica DCZ compacta camera with digiscoping
with a 20mm eyepiece. With Photoshop I increased
contrast and put the text. To know and put the
exact place of every feature I used the Virtual
Moon Atlas Expert Version 3.5, a excellent program
that I recommend it you. This program is enough
to identify most of lunar features visibles
with backyard telescopes, also this program
give us many information of them.
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 One of my photos of the moon was choosen to
be the Lunar
Photo of the Day (LPOD) the last 23 februery.
On friday I was thinking about what of my photos
of the moon could be enough good to stay in
the LPOD archieve. There are a lot of incredible
quality photos of our satellite. Finally I found
one of the full moon where I put the all the
names of the visibles lunar "seas"
and I thought it was a very instructional photo
and I sent it to LPOD.
Most of the lunar "seas" are on the
visible face frome the Earth (20% of the lunar
surface) but in the far side are two "seas"
more, the Mare Moscoviense and the Mare Ingenii
that we only can see in photos taken by spaceprobes.
Too, some "seas" in the near face
are visible only when the libration
of the moon lets it, being invisible the rest
of the time.
This photo was taken with a Skywatcher refletor
130/900 over a motorized EQ2 mount and a compact
camera Praktica DCZ on digiscoping with a 20mm
eyepiece. I put the names of the seas and gave
it more contrast with Photoshop.
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 At this time we hadn´t luck with the observation
of this eclipse. The weather these days in Spain
is very bad (or very good because with need
rain), clouds, clouds and more clouds. We hoped
to have a clear sky yesterday night, not all
the sky but enought to see some moments of this
amazing event.
When the eclipse began the sky was completely
clear, but the clouds covered all the sky six
minutes before the totality.
I only was able to take a photo of the totality
in a few seconds that the clouds let see the
moon, but not very well. We will have to wait
to the next total lunar eclipse visible from
Spain, in 2010.
I could see this event from the headquarter
of the Astrohenares
Astronomical Association in Coslada (Madrid),
they prepared an
observation with telescopes, visualization
of films of astronomy, food, drink and a
interview on tv... thank you!
You can see the sequence
of this eclipse I took with a Pentax istDL,
400mm f8 lens, iso200 and exposure from 1/2000
to 6". Over a EQ2 mount RA motorized.
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 On february 21 we will be able to see a total
lunar eclipse. The best place to observe this
event was the area of American continent.
You can find all the information of this event
in this graphics
made by NASA and in this one the World
visibility.
Together this lines you can see some photos
of the last total lunar eclipse seen from Spain,
you can find the complete
sequence of this eclipse here.
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 I explained down, in the photo of the sunset
of the skyline, so difficult is to find a day
with a sky completely clear and get the horizon
free of clouds to be able to have the wonderful
photos of a sunset. But is more difficult if
you want to take a photo of a small target with
the sun just behind.
I was trying to take a photo of the comunications
tower Torre España of Madrid, with 232 meters
of height with the antenna. During the last
year was impossible to take a photo, clouds,
problems, rain... but finally I was able to
take no one photo, I took three photos in differents
days. You can
see them here.
To take this photos I used a Pentax istDL with
a Kenko 800mm lens at f16. Two photos was taken
without solar filter and I put ISO200 and 1/4000.
To take the other photo, using a Mylar solar
filter I used ISO1600 and 1/60.
The tower was built in 1982, conmemorating
the FIFA World Cup celebrated in Spain that
year, I remember perfectly the day of the inauguration,
we could see it on tv during several days. National
terrestrial television channels, along with
a few radio stations, broadcast from this tower.
The Torre España tower is generally known in
Madrid as the "Pirulí", given the
similarity between the tower and a lollipop
("Pirulí" is a Spanish word for lollipop,
although Chupa Chups as a generalization is
also widely used). It is not open for tourists.
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