During a probe flyby on September 29th, the Messenger spacecrafts cameras and instruments revealed 6% of the planets surface which has not been seen before.

Image Credit: NASA Messenger Mission

M31 or NGC 224, the Andromeda Galaxy in the constellation Andromeda is located approximately 2.5 million light years from our solar system. If you are fortunate to be at a location far from city lights next week, you may be able to see it without optical aid. It is a spectacular sight in binoculars. If sky is transparent and very dark it will nearly fill half the view. Studies by the Spitzer space telescope in 2006 suggest that it may contain a trillion stars.

Image Credit: Brian Kimball, Longmont Astronomical Society. This image has a three hour luminance and one hour each of RGB. Taken with the Takahashi FSQ106ED and the SBIG STL-11000M with Astrodon filters. Processing was done in CCDStack, MaximDL-CCD and Photoshop 6.0.

An aerial video crew observed the October 28, 2009 Ares I-X test flight from a Cessna Skymaster aircraft positioned approximately 10 nautical miles away from the vehicle at an altitude of 12,000 feet. The videographer used a gyro-stabilized high-definition camera system mounted to the outside of the aircraft to capture this spectacular footage which provides extremely valuable engineering data, and imagery of the recovery sequence in rarely-seen detail. Ares I-X is the first flight test of the Constellation Program and provides NASA an early opportunity to gather critical data during vehicle ascent and during booster deceleration and recovery.
For more info: http://www.nasa.gov/ares

The Astroleague Office Coordinator, Brenda Sparks, will be available to take 'live' calls Mondays and Wednesdays 9:00 am to 4:00 pm CDT, phone 1-816-333-7759.