Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

Happy Equinox Everyone!

Well the Show #29 seems to have been corrupted. Some folks are getting the gerbil talk, some folks are getting puddles of static and a few are getting the file just fine.

I guess we are all in mourning over Slacker Astronomy. Sigh.

So! Since I am in transit to the N.W.R.A.L. Youth Starparty I am sending you all a quick note just to let you know that I will fix the podcast when I get home!

But this is a great dark weekend and I don't want you waiting for me!! So I have a gift for you. Here is the Scavenger Hunt I put together for the kids at the starparty!

Yes, most of them are Messier objects!
Yes, there is a lot of silliness!
Yes, we have to force pre-teens to get to know each other! (sigh)
Yes there is some staying up late involved! (because that is when the sugar kicks in!)
But since when do we all have to be so serious!!

If you haven't visited the Celestial Wonders site you should. That is where AAGG goes for our lunar images!. Here is a 4 day old moon.

Planets

Evening Planets

• Mars - Mag +1.8 is at the western end of Virgo. Into the glare!
• Mercury - Mag -1.7 and only visible by the truly persistant near the equator and in the Southern Hemisphere. Mark your calendars for inferior conjunction and visible transit on Nov. 8th
• Jupiter - Mag -1.7 in Libra. Clearly visible high in the sky just after sunset. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands and four Galilean satellites. Listener Kevin recommended a piece of free software that I now have on all my computers Jupiter 2 (Thanks Kevin!).
• Uranus - Mag +5.7 in Aquarius Uranus is best seen in a dark moonless sky away from artificial lighting. It may be seen looking like a very faint star to the dark-adapted naked eye that shimmers in and out of visibility just over 1/2 degree east of Lambda Aquarii. Find the tipped over letter Y of Aquarius, go 4 thumbwidths southeast to find Lambda, and then look pinky nail east.
• Neptune - Mag +7.8 in Capricorn 1.5 degree north of the +4.3 magnitude star Iota Capricorni

Morning Planets

• Venus - Mag -3.8 from the high northern latitudes she is lost in the glare of the sun. We will see her again in late Nov (SH) or Dec (NH).
• Saturn - Mag +0.5 on the western edge of Leo! Naked eye in the morning before sunrise and climbing higher all the time.

Shall we be sassy? Dwarf Planets..er...Minor Planets...er...Icy Dwarfs....er...um...hmmmm

• Pluto Mag +13.9 in Serpens Cauda
• 1 Ceres +7.9 mag in Piscis Austeralis 18.5 degrees West of Formalhaut
• UB313 mag +19 in central Cetus

Comets

Comets for the Month.

Check out the Sky Hound site.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"
-- Shakespeare

Email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com or leave a note in our show notes at www.astronomy.libsyn.com
Help us out by leaving a donation in the ol' PayPal hat

Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope is offering FREE web hosting on our servers for you or your organization's website. In order to promote the hobbies of Astronomy, Astrophotography, Photography, Birding or generally any topic that is of interest to our customer base, Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope is offering Hosting Grants.

I am trying!  I really am!  ;-)

Just when I thought that I was finally past the technical problems it looks like Libsyn has gone wacko...

So after I loaded the podcast instead of getting Astronomy a Go! Go! I was getting someone else's podcast or dancing bunnies.  Humm. 

So with that I will let you all know when it is safe to listen again!!  Since some of my listeners have younger kids with them I would rather not have a random podcast pop up!

Here is what Libsyn has to say....

"
This morning, betweeen the hours of approximately 12:45am eastern to 1:45, Libsyn servers experienced a crucial distribution error on its CDN that resulted in the erroneous distribution of files on some user accounts.  The problem has been identified and resolved, however during the time of the error period, affected user accounts may have had the wrong files distributed to subscriptions and direct downloads that called for files.

We are extremely sorry for the confusion and surprise that this may cause the subset of audiences that have been affected by this unusual error.   While this was a temporary and limited issue, it may have real unintended  consequences to some individuals; we fully understand the magnitude of delivering the wrong file, even one mis-matched file is one too many. "

Sadly Astronomy a GoGo is a No Show this week.  Our house painters have moved up their schedule and so it is a mad dash to prepare the outside of the house for the painting crew.  So for Alice it is time to trim the hedges and tarp up the roses.

Until next week here is wishing you a wonderful solstice!

The blog is broken and I will try and fix it when I get home. :-( That's what I get for doing things in a hurry at 4am. Alice

I am working on the text to find out why it has decided to go all wacky. Sorry for the inconvenience. -Alice

Katie and Alice are working on the script, and testing the equipment, for the first podcast. Since this podcast will be a collaborative effort the ramping up is a little slower. Stay tuned for the announcement of the first show! Special thanks to Michael for creating the intro for Astronomy a Go Go!