Many thanks to Kristine Washburn for spending time with us to talk about eclipses! Here are some of the links we mentioned to in the show.

WARNING!

Permanent eye damage can result from looking at the disk of the Sun directly, or through a camera viewfinder, or with binoculars or a telescope even when only a thin crescent of the Sun or Baily's Beads remain. The 1 percent of the Sun's surface still visible is about 10,000 times brighter than the full moon. Staring at the Sun under such circumstances is like using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight onto tinder. The retina is delicate and irreplaceable. There is little or nothing a retinal surgeon will be able to do to help you. Never look at the Sun outside of the total phase of an eclipse unless you have adequate protection.

 

One safe way of enjoying the Sun during a partial eclipse--or anytime--is a "pinhole camera," which allows you to view a projected image of the Sun. There are fancy pinhole cameras you can make out of cardboard boxes, but a perfectly adequate (and portable) version can be made out of two thin but stiff pieces of white cardboard. Punch a small clean pinhole in one piece of cardboard and let the sunlight fall through that hole onto the second piece of cardboard, which serves as a screen, held below it. An inverted image of the Sun is formed. To make the image larger, move the screen farther from the pinhole. To make the image brighter, move the screen closer to the pinhole. Do not make the pinhole wide or you will only have a shaft of sunlight rather than an image of the crescent Sun. Remember, this instrument is used with your back to the Sun. The sunlight passes over your shoulder, through the pinhole, and forms an image on the cardboard screen beneath it. Do not look through the pinhole at the Sun.

 

NASA S2N2: NASA Space Science Network Northwest
NASA Education Resource Center
Washington Space Grant Consortium: Info on professional development workshops, education resource center, e-newsletter, and much more!

Today and tomorrow the NASA home page will have info on the eclipse feed from Turkey

The Exploratorium's website for the live eclipse webcast

The NASA Sun-Earth Day homepage

Following are the times for the March 29th solar eclipse and NASA
eclipse webcast. 

EVENT         UT            EST         PST         Turkey
Webcast       10-11:15am    5-6:15am    2-3:15am    1-2:15pm
Telescope     9:30-12:30pm  4-7:30am    1:30-4:30am 12:30-3:30pm
Totality      10:55-10:59   5:55-5:59   2:55-2:59am 1:55-1:59pm

1st Contact   9:38am        4:38am      1:38am      12:38pm
2nd Contact   10:55am       5:55am      2:55am      1:55pm
3rd Contact   10:59am       5:59am      2:59am      1:59pm
4th Contact   12:13am       7:13am      4:13am      3:13pm


Sun-Earth Day 2006 is this week- March 29th.  The following is a 
schedule of the web cast:

   5:00 a.m. Welcome
   5:02 a.m. What is an eclipse?
   5:05 a.m. How are we seeing it?
   5:09 a.m. Where we are and why
   5:12 a.m. What is the sun?
   5:24 a.m. Crowd reactions
   5:27 a.m. What will we see looking down?
   5:33 a.m. What will it be like for us?
   5:39 a.m. Crowd reactions
   5:41 a.m. What will we see looking up?
   5:47 a.m. What we learn from eclipses (past/present)
   5:54 a.m. Prepare for totality
   5:54:59 a.m. Totality begins
   5:58:44 a.m. Totality ends
   6:00 a.m. Crowd reactions
   6:06 a.m. Commentary and replay of eclipse and sky darkening
   6:12 a.m. Thank you and sign off

NASA TV will carry the web cast live beginning at 4:30 am EST with
ground based telescope images.  The actual web cast will begin at
5:00am EST ending at 6:15 am EST.

Looking at astronomy in art, cruisin' the open clusters of Puppis, what do astronomers keep in their kits, some music and conversation.

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

Hello!

Hello to Anthony from Manchester, England! He is doing what most parents do just trying to stay one step ahead of the kid! And hello to Anthony's kids!

And happy birthday to my sister Mandy back home in Texas!

Special Viewing Project!

Globe at Night needs your help measuring and recording the amount of light pollution

Art

Van Gogh's "The White House at Night"
Munch's "Girls on a Pier"
Van Gogh's "Moon rise"

Donald Olson Marilynn Olson, his wife, and Russell Doescher Texas State University, San Marcos. Astronomer Russell Doescher confirmed that the star in "White House at Night" is actually Venus, just like in "Starry Night" and the placement of the moon. In Starry night Van Gogh actually painted the moon in the proper gibbous phase then changed it to a more romantic crescent

The Moon

-

Tonight the moon is in it's last quarter phase and shrinking daily. Which is good for all of the Messier hunters this weekend!

Grimaldi a tiny spot, sometime mistaken for a tiny sea on the western limb of the moon.
The approximate diameter of the inner rim is 140 kilometers(87 miles). The inner wall of Grimaldi has been so heavily worn and eroded by subsequent impacts that it forms a low, irregular ring of hills, ridges and peaks, rather than a typical crater rim. However there are peaks remaining that reach heights of over 2 kilometers.

Grimaldi is also a site for transient lunar phenomenon.
Image courtesy of the Lunar Republic

There was an interesting computer enhanced image of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, I ran across it on the Bad Astronomer's Blog It has been cleaned up...a bit too much! Also thanks to Tom's Astronomy Blog I found out that the IAU has provisionally approved of naming 7 of the moon's craters after the astronauts who perished in the Columbia tragedy. Once all is said and done I will find craters; Husband, McCool, Chawla, L. Clark, M. Anderson, D. Brown, Ramon for you.

Planets

• Earth - Normally we don't mention our little planet but with our Vernal/Autumnal Equinox just passing it is worth a mention. Great Animation - showing the Earth moving around the sun through it's season. If you carefully watch the illumination of sunlight on the earth you will notice that only on the vernal and autumnal equinox does it cover the globe from pole to pole. It also has the arctic and antarctic circles mapped so you can see the difference between equinox and solstice.
• Venus - The brightest planet visible this month. Venus is outstanding in the Eastern morning sky and you will want to grab a pair of binoculars or even just a finder scope to check out her phase. Just over half full she is intensely bright in her gibbous phase.
• Jupiter - The largest planet resides in the confines of Libra and is highest around 3:am on the ecliptic between the bright Spica to the west and the ruddy Antares to the east. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands to you, along with its four Galilean satellites.
• Saturn - It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest and most extraordinary moon. A 6-inch telescope will begin to show the orange color of its atmospheric haze.
• Mars has swung past Aldeberon and is almost between the tips of the bulls horns.
• Mercury - by this weekend and on into next week start looking for the re-appearance of Mercury as a morning planet. Just south of east about 25 degrees from Venus (towards the horizon and easterly) if you remember how to measure 25 degrees, it is the spread between your pinky and thumb when fully extended. Show #10 has our primer for measuring distances in the sky

Tools/Gadgets

What do you keep in your telescope kit? Do you have too much, too little? What is your favorite tool?
Alice's telescope box

• Telrad
• lenses
• lens cleaner(brush/lens pen)
• canned air
• all the telescope bits
• red led flashers
• red flashlights
• My binder (star charts, various lists I'm working on, telrad Messier charts)

Alice's reference box

• All the Sky Spot Telrad Finder Scope books
H.E. Ray's books of constellations (both)
• several different reference books depending upon the season and the reason for the outing.\
• 6 planispheres different varieties
• flat panel red light viewer - Light Wedge
• extra batteries (AA AAA etc)
• extra red flashlights
• tools (screw drivers, adjustable wrench, duct tape, clear tape, small bolts with wing-nuts, wire, etc)

At home

• Sky Atlas - desk set in white
• Loads of books!
• Computer

What I would love to build!!

• Eyepiece bench - I like this layout - don't have that many eyepieces!! But he has great directions for drill/cutting foam. I really like how he organized his filters.
• An observing chair, something like this
• A binocular mount, something like this

Clusters

Globular - Globular clusters are gravitationally bound concentrations of approximately ten thousand to one million stars. They populate the halo or bulge of the Milky Way and are believed to be very old and formed from an earlier generation of stars. Hayden Planetarium has a great simulation on the life of a globular cluster

Open cluster - Open (or galactic) clusters are physically related groups of stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction. They are believed to originate from large cosmic gas/dust clouds in the Milky Way, we can observe the formation of new young open star clusters. You can easily see this nebulosity in the Pleiades.

There are two types of descriptors you will see with open star clusters. There is the Shapley index (Harlow Shapley)
c - very loose and irregular
d - loose and poor
e - intermediately rich
f - fairly rich
g - considerably rich and concentrated

The more detailed and specific Trumpler index/rating which is broken into 3 parts + optional nebulosity note.

The first part is a Roman numeral that denotes concentration

I - Detached; strong concentration toward center
II - Detached; weak concentration toward center
III - Detached; no concentration toward center
IV - Not well detached from surrounding star field

The second part is a Arabic number to show the range in brightness

1 - Small range in brightness
2 - Moderate range in brightness
3 - Large range in brightness

Thirdly a letter to represent the richness of the cluster

p - Poor: Less than 50 stars
m - Moderately rich: 50 to 100 stars
r - Rich: More than 100 stars
If there is an nebulosity in and around the cluster there will be an "n" attached to the end.

I give you both since you will find both used in the different resource on the internet or on star charts.

Binocular/Telescope viewing
Open Clusters
NGC images courtesy of the Chinese Public Understanding of Science website (NGC)
NGC 2451 (mag 2.8) next door to...
NGC 2477 (mag 5.8) these together show you how differnt open clusters can be!

M47 ( NGC 2422 - mag 4.4) he Sky Catalog 2000 gives an estimated age of 78 million years for this stellar swarm which is receding from us at 9 km/sec. A bright cluster in Puppis, easily visible as a hazy patch to the naked eye. Binoculars will show a large hazy patch with many stars resolvable.
M46 (NGC 2437 -mag 6.0 )This cluster is right next to M47 and is also visible to the naked eye. In binoculars M46 appears as a large hazy patch with no stars resolvable, giving a nice contrast to M47. In telescopes at low powers this cluster evenly fills the eyepiece. While you are here go to medium or high power and look for the planetary nebula NGC 2438. It will appear as a faint uneven ring, with a blue/green color.

M48 (mag 5.8) in Hydra

Not to ignore the far N. Hemisphere try
M67 (NGC 2682 - mag 6.1) in Cancer
Mel 111 in Coma Berenices (mag 1.8) P.J. Melotte had cataloged it in his 1915 catalog as No. 111. One of Potolomy's first catalogued clusters. The Coma star cluster is currently neither approaching nor receding from us, i.e. it moves tangentially to us with a velocity. (see map in Constellation section)

Constellations

Coma Berenices, Berenice's hair - One of the last of the ancient constellations. Queen Berenice sacrificed her beautiful hair to the goddess Aphrodite in order to assure the safe return of her husband from battle. Upon his return the king demanded to be shown her hair. In order to save his own life(for the hair had been stolen) the temple priest related how Aphrodite was so moved by the sacrifice removed the hair and placed it into the skies as a constellation. Coma Berenices is a small, faint constellation that can be found immediately to the east of Leo.

News

There are so many great space and astronomy news sites out there I won't try and duplicate them all, I'll just report things that really strike my fancy or that I think you might be interested in. Here is a list of some of the sites I visit daily:

• NASA's Eclipse Page -
• Great Animation - showing the Earth moving around the sun through it's season. If you carefully watch the illumination of sunlight on the earth you will notice that only on the vernal and autumnal equinox does it cover the globe from pole to pole. It also has the arctic and antarctic circles mapped so you can see the difference between equinox and solstice.
• Wiki fun- This has very little to do with astronomy but have you ever tried entering a date, like March 22, in Wikipedia. It will list world events and personalities who share that date.

Comets visible with binoculars/telescopes in the northern hemisphere. -
Pojmanski
and 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
and C/2005 E2 ( McNaught )

"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

Music

Hans York -"Listen to the Moon"
Radoon -"From the Moon"

Branching out to things not Messier, following the water, wondering why comets are birthed in the furnace and the fridge, enjoying some music and, of course, your company.

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

Simon Vouet, The Muses Urania and Calliope, c. 1634
Urania (heavenly) is the muse of astronomy and astrology.
Calliope (beautiful-voiced) is the muse of epic poetry.

The Star-Splitter
by Robert Frost

You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?"
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a life-long curiosity
About our place among the infinities.

--first stanza

Welcome!

I know it is a little late, but happy Pi day. March 14th at 1:59 UTC can be fudged into 3.14159. In our department we celebrate the notorious number 3.14.59 with Pie of course, any excuse for a party!

To make thing even better it was Albert Einstein's birthday as well.

Another anniversary to celebrate is On this day in 1926, Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fuel rocket.

Planets

• Venus - The brightest planet visible this month. Venus is outstanding in the Eastern morning sky
• Jupiter - The largest planet resides in the confines of Libra and is highest around 3:am on the ecliptic between the bright Spica to the west and the ruddy Antares to the east. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands to you, along with its four Galilean satellites.
• Saturn - It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, but in the constellation of Cancer (1 1/2 thumb width west of The Beehive - M-44) A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest and most extraordinary moon. A 6-inch telescope will begin to show the orange color of its atmospheric haze.
• Mars is sneaking it's way closer to Aldeberon creating another eye for the bull. So in that part of the sky it is hip to be red, red Beetleguese, orange Aldeberon and the red Mars
• Mercury - hidden in the glare of the sun as are Uranus and Neptune

Tools

Catalogues -

• Uranography - The branch of astronomy concerned with mapping the stars, galaxies, or other celestial bodies.
• Uranometria - The sky atlas compiled by Johann Bayer in 1603
• Messier catalogue- compiled by Charles Messier
• New General Catalogue (NGC)- compiled by John Dreyer
  IC I published in 1895 added 1,529 new star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies
  IC II published in 1908 listed a further 3,857 objects
• NGC 2000.0 - is a modern compilation of the New General Catalogue, the Index Catalogue, and the Second Index Catalogue
• HIP - Hiparcos catalogue - Its name is an acronym for High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite and was chosen for its similarity to that of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus.
• Caldwell and Herschel 400 and Uranometria - all great astronomy catalogues

Constellations

Volans, the Flying FishOriginally named Piscis Volans, this constellation was named by Johann Bayer. It is located where all good fish should be, below a boat. In the southern sky Volans is southwest of Carina, the keel, and east of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Johannes Kepler called this set of stars Passer, the Sparrow.

Camelopardalis(ka-MEL-oh-PAR-duh-lis), the Giraffe can be found between Perseus, Auriga and Ursa Minor. This constellation was first observed to look like a camel but name was eventually changed to camelopardalis, which is Latin for giraffe. In the winter months the giraffe appears upside down. Only during the summer months does it appear right side up.

The Moon -

This weekend the moon will be moving from a full moon to a waning gibbous so your early evenings will be darker.

Mare Crisium (Sea of Crisis) will slowly be covered by lunar night as this week continues so we are going to look at the NW quadrant of the moon.

Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) slices across the northern cap of the moon and at it's western end seems to dump into Sinus Roris.

Image courtesy of the Lunar Republic

Sinus Roris (Bay of Dew)leads into the great Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). This ocean of regolith sweeps down the western side of the moon.

Last week we looked at the craters Copernicus and Kepler, this week our lunar crater is in the great ocean further north, but just as bright as Kepler. Crater Aristarcus

Image courtesy of the Lunar Republic

We are actually looking at a complex of Aristarcus a Greek grammarian noted for is commentary on the Iliad and the Odyssey and just a little bit SW Herodotus named after the greek "Father of History". Squiggled above and between them is Valles Schoteri. To see Herodotus or Schoteri will take a telescope. At the southern edge it finally meets up with Mare Humorum (Sea of Moisture) and Mare Congnitum (The Sea that has become known)

Naked eye viewing-The splendid open cluster IC 2602 is still known under the common name "Southern Pleiades." An open cluster of more than 50 stars in the constellation Carina, centered on the blue-white star Theta Carinae and can be seen with the naked eye. (use the chart below)

Binocular viewing Kemple's Cascade

Kemble�¢ï¿½ï¿½s cascade is situated in one of the most difficult constellations to detect in the night sky, Camelopardalis or the Giraffe. A string of 15 to 25 stars ranging from the 5th to the 9th magnitude. The stars seem to cascade from the northeast down to the southwest they do not form a group or cluster physically, it's only a chance arrangement of stars. At the southeastern end of the chain of stars you will find the 6th magnitude open cluster NGC 1502, containing 15 stars in a 7' area.

Eta Carina - The Eta Carina Nebula is the largest diffuse nebula in the sky, much larger than the more famous Orion Nebula. The star Eta Carinae itself is also interesting. It is a variable star; in the mid-19th century it was the second brightest star in the sky; today it is not even visible with the naked eye.
Star Chart generated from "Star Charts R Us"

Telescopic viewing My favorite object E.T (kachina doll cluster)

News

There are so many great space and astronomy news sites out there I won't try and duplicate them all, I'll just report things that really strike my fancy or that I think you might be interested in. Here is a list of some of the sites I visit daily:

• Planet Quest - the counter has moved up from 159 to 160 extrasolar planets. Starting in 1991 with Pulsar 1257 but more popularly realized with 51 Pegasi in 1995 the list now seems to have grown to 160 (plus a few others in waiting ) with the last addition residing in Sagittarius. Still getting the data in.
• Enceladus - "Our search for liquid water has taken a new turn. The type of evidence for liquid water on Enceladus is very different from what we've seen at Jupiter's moon Europa. On Europa the evidence from surface geological features points to an internal ocean. On Enceladus the evidence is direct observation of water vapor venting from sources close to the surface," said Dr. Peter Thomas, Cassini imaging scientist, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

  But in the mean time, scientist who believed that Enceladus was fueling Saturn's E ring now have further proof!

• Stardust Update - Comets, they said, may not be as simple as the clouds of ice, dust and gases they were thought to comprise. They may be diverse with complex and varied histories. Wild 2 seems to be an example of that complexity.

  Remarkably enough, we have found fire and ice," said Donald Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator and professor of astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle. The returned samples show high-temperature materials from the coldest part of our solar system.

  The material like that in the green Hawaiian beach sand is called olivine. Its presence in the comet's dust trail was a surprise. "It seems that comets are �¢ï¿½�¦ a mixture of materials formed at all temperatures, at places very near the early sun and at places very remote from it," said Michael Zolensky, Stardust curator and co-investigator at JSC

• Martian crater flyby - A "Grand Canyon of Mars" slices across the Red Planet near its equator. This canyon -- Valles Marineris, or the Mariner Valley -- is 10 times longer and deeper than Arizona's Grand Canyon, and 20 times wider. As the picture shows, you could drop the whole Los Angeles basin into a small part of Valles Marineris and leave plenty of room to spare. In length, the canyon extends far enough that it could reach across the United States from East Coast to West Coast, while its rim stands more than 25,000 feet high, nearly as tall as Earth's Mount Everest.

Comets visible with binoculars/telescopes in the northern hemisphere. - C/2006 A1 Pojmanski

and 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
and C/2005 E2 ( McNaught )

"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

Music

Josh Woodward -"Soft Orange Glow"
49Bliss -"The Way you Are"

Just how many ways can you think of to tell time?

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

 Canis Major

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

-- Robert Frost 

Welcome!

Welcome to Brian from Minnesota, Dave from Alabama and Pat from Montreal and thank you for the email.

Hello to Bill from Missouri who sent me a very nice note and also hello to his son who will be starting his Astronomy Merit badge soon! Remember, if it is a nice night out then you have an excuse to go outside and stay up late...as long an you are learning those constellations....and your homework is done!

Tips and Tricks - Time!

"Tiiiiiiime is not on my side...no siree!"

Local Apparent Time (LAT), also called apparent solar time or sundial time. Noon was what most people still think is noon: when the Sun crosses the meridian or the highest point in its path.

Your Local Mean Time (LMT) Astronomers created an imaginary, "averaged" Sun that travels along the celestial equator. Differs from your standard civil (clock) time by many minutes. The correction depends on how far you live east or west from the center of your time zone.

Standard time. Time zones are standardized on certain longitudes: 75 degrees W for Eastern Standard Time, 90 degrees for Central, 105 degrees for Mountain, and 120 degrees for Pacific. For every degree you are east of your time zone's standard longitude, add four minutes to standard time to get LMT. For each degree you are west, subtract four minutes. The number of minutes the real Sun lags behind or runs ahead of the mean Sun was named the equation of time.

Summer-time To obtain daylight saving time ("summer time"), subtract one hour from standard time.

Universal Time (UT). Standard time (and its daylight-saving variant) serves fine within a given time zone. But when a time applies worldwide, such as in an astronomical almanac, you need one reference point. Logically enough, the "universal" time zone that was agreed upon (in 1884) is that of 0 degrees longitude. This longitude is, by definition, that of a line engraved in a brass plate in the floor of the Old Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England. UT is often called.....

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Greenwich Mean Time" or UT1, until the popular meaning drifted to match UTC. Astronomers now try to avoid the term altogether unless they are waxing nostalgic. Adding to the confusion, GMT began the day at noon, not midnight. .

Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, Since 1967 the second has been defined as how long cesium-133 atoms take to emit 9,192,631,770 cycles of a certain microwave radiation in an atomic clock. To keep our clocks in close step with the turning of the Earth, a leap second is inserted into Universal Time when required - about once a year on average. A leap second may be added at the end of June 30th or December 31st UT, giving the last minute of the chosen day 61 seconds.

The result is the system by which all the world's clocks are set. UTC is the basis for all time-signal radio broadcasts and other time services.

Civil twilight - when the Sun's center is 6° below the horizon the brightest stars are visible and at sea the horizon is clearly defined.

Nautical twilight - when the Sun's center is 12 degrees below the horizon this would be the "dark" to obey in the mother's order to "be home before dark"! For nautical purposes it is that time when the horizon ceases to be clearly visible and it is impossible to determine altitudes with reference to the horizon.

Astronomical twilight - when the Sun's center is 18 degrees below the horizon and there is no sun glow left at all.

John Harrison (March 24, 1693 - March 24, 1776) an English clock maker, who designed and built the world's first successful maritime clock, one whose accuracy was great enough to allow the determination of longitude over long distances.

Sky and Telescope article on Time

Planets

Venus - just before dawn between Aquila and Sagittarius
Jupiter - in the wee hours of the morning in the constellation Libra. On the 5th of this month it stopped moving across the sky relative to the background stars and began its westward motion or retrogradation.
Go check out the finder forTransit of the Great Red Spot and a JAVA script to help you find Jupiter's moons
Saturn - is in Cancer the crab and come summer we should see that planet slow down and turn around as well.
Mars - in Taurus between Aldeberon and the Pleiades and speeding right along

Naked eye viewing- Moon is a waxing gibbous and becomes full on the 14th (don't forget the penumbral eclipse!) Mare Frigoris is the long narrow strip of a sea across the lunar N.Pole
Right below Frigoris is Mare Imbrium (IM-bree-um - Sea of Rains) the second largest sea.
Craters Kepler and Copernicus run along just above the equator (I"m trying to create a picture so check back soon!)
and Mare Insularum(Sea of Islands) and Mare Nubium (NEW-bee-um)run below Copernicus.

Binocular viewing- looking for comets!

Telescopic viewing- Jupiter's new spot

Comets visible with telescopes in the northern hemisphere. - C/2006 A1 Pojmanski

and 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
and C/2005 E2 ( McNaught )

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

Music

46Bliss -"In a Long Time"
Allison Crowe - "Midnight"

A guided tour of the March night sky.

Astronomy a Go Go! Tour of the Sky: March 206

Northern and Southern hemisphere sky maps- also visit
James Barclay's site for a great tour of the Southern Hemisphere March sky.
Sky View Cafe is also a handy online planisphere!

Key Dates for March

March 13 - Moon at apogee (furthest from Earth) March 14 - Full Moon and Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
March 20 - The Vernal Equinox
March 24-26 - First weekend for the Messier Marathon
March 29 - New Moon and Total Solar Eclipse.
March 30-April 2 - Second weekend for the Messier Marathon

Two comets visible with telescopes in the southern hemisphere. - Pojmanski is now an early morning 5th magnitude comet
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 may eventually become a naked eye comet but I'm not going to predict that...we will keep an eye on both of these.

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

Music

Finniston -"Piece of Mind"
Mark Heimonen - "Innovation"

I hope some of you are having clear mornings because here it has been cloudy at 'comet' time. Send me some pictures please!!!! ;-)

For those of you wanting to calculate when to see the Great Red Spot and Red Spot Jr. there is a GRS calculator on the Sky and Tel website...

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_107_1.asp

The GRS is currently around 104 d long and I believe around 20 d South so unless my upside-down thinking is off Junior should transit after GRS. (the image on Science@NASA being south-side up) without lats and long on both I can be exact with a calculation but with a 10hr rotational period you wouldn't have to wait very long maybe 2 hours would get both in the same frame???

Astrophotographers out there have any comments or corrections???

Cheers!
Alice

Show notes on libsyn are a mess but you should be looking for the comet and at Jupiter for Red Spot Jr.

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

Talking about the Moon, chasing Mercury, planning for an astrophotography episode, sharing good astronomy sites, listening to music and having fun! (Not to mention staying up wayyyy too late!)

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

M104 Image courtesy of Thomas McDonagh
Copyright: Thomas McDonagh 2005 
60 second image collected remotely April 13, 2005
300 mm f/ 11.9
23.6 x 23.6 Arcmins FOV
RAS Observatory, NM

The Old Astronomer to His Pupil

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!

You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

          Sarah Williams

Welcome!

Hello to the original Go Go girl Joan! (aka Mom! aka Go!Go! Joanie)

RapidEye sent us more references for free planispheres and star charts...

"I heard your request for a free "Southern" Planisphere and this one didn't come up:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/planisphere/planisphere.htm
The guy is amazing and also did a free Mag 6.5 Atlas with a similar layout to Norton's:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm
Then he went a step further and did a free Mag 8.5 Atlas (his substitute for SA2K):
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas_85/atlas_85.htm"

David in Cardiff U.K. made a wonderful suggestion to create MP3s for 'in the field' listening

A big thanks to Kevin, Matt and Joseph who are feeding me information for a segment on astrophotography!

I am really enjoying watching as people appear on the Frappr Map! Our most southern listener is "Iluvtheclean" from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the furtherest North is the "Neptune Family" in Anchorage AK...and I think we have some pointy stick issues in common so go visit www.justafewskeins.blogspot.com sometime!

Finally welcome to Mordechai from Israel who had found a rekindling of interest in astronomy and is looking for the Andromeda Galaxy and so lets start the program with that!

Don't forget

We have links to all the reference from tonight's show in our show notes you can find them at astronomy.libsyn.com

Tips and Tricks

Finding M31, M32, M110

This is what I do to find the Andromeda Galaxy. Start with Alpheratz (AL-fer-rats)the star shared by Andromeda and Pegasus. Most of Pegasus will be sitting just on the western horizon so Alpheratz will be the brighter star on the horizon. Andromeda is a long "V" shape which starts at Alpheratz and widens as she stretches towards Perseus. If you go down the brighter line to the second star Mirach then cross north to star on the dim line and make one more step, the same distance and on the same line north to a faint long smear. That is the Andromeda Galaxy and with in her spiral arms is M32 and just on the opposite side a little removed is M110. Think of Peter Pan.."Second star.. to the right and straight on til morning" don't ask me why that works but it does. Now, light pollution I can't fix for you.

Planets

• Venus - The brightest planet visible this month. Venus is outstanding in the Eastern morning sky!
• Jupiter - The largest planet resides in the confines of Libra and it can be seen in the South before sunrise or late, late, late at night on the ecliptic between the bright Spica to the west and the ruddy Antares to the east. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands to you, along with its four Galilean satellites.
  UPDATE! go look for the new red spot on Jupiter...Little Red or Red Spot Jr.
• Saturn - It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, in the constellation of Cancer. (1 thumbwidths west of The Beehive - M-44)
• Mars is sneaking it's way closer to Aldeberon almost creating another eye for The Bull. So in that part of the sky it is hip to be red, red Betelgeuse, orange-red Aldeberon and the red Mars
• Mercury - creeping ever so much closer to the setting sun and will be gone soon!

Mercury

In Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and thievery, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods and original FTD man.

• Because Mercury proximity to the sun makes it a tough subject to study. It move quickly from being a morning planet to and evening planet and back again.
• Size wise Mercury is between the second smallest planet in the solar system after Pluto. It is smaller than the Earth by 40% and larger that our Moon by 40%.
• Doppler radar observations finally figured out how Mercury rotates and orbits. Mercury had 3 days every two years...wrap your head around that one your head.
• It was little Mercury that helped prove Einstein's theory of general relativity. Because of Mercuries eccentric orbit (perihelion =46 million km from the Sun but at aphelion =70 million) observers using Newtonian physics couldn't account for the math and spent years looking for another planetary body closer still to the sun to make up the difference in mass, the mystery planet sometimes referred to as Vulcan. Einstein's theory more accurately describes the motions of bodies in strong gravitational fields so scientist were able to accurately measure and predict Mercury's orbit.
• Mercury has an atmosphere that is generated and then quickly disappears, blasted away by solar winds...not wind like blowing but a stream of charged electrons and protons traveling from the surface of the sun at 450km/sec! Without an atmosphere to protect it Mercury is as pock-marked as our moon.
• What I love is the naming scheme or planetary nomenclature for the craters of Mercury.
• It is interesting to note that Messenger will need to fly by Earth, Venus and Mercury multiple times before it can gain enough speed to match Mercury's pace around the sun and be successfully captured by the little planet!

Tools

This one is from the lost and found, a site I remember finding and then telling myself I would bookmark and then forgot. Check out Messier45.com

Constellations
Claudius Ptolemaeus, known to us as Ptolomy, 'created' the first 48 constellation and published them in his book Almagest or "The Great Book" in ~147/148 C.E. in Egypt. Relying much upon the first western star charts created by Hipparchus 3 centuries earlier. Charting only the constellations he could see from his latitude, it took Johanne Bayer who completed the task creating the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere in 1603.

Lynx - the Lynx or Tiger - Lynx, the Tiger, is a modern constellation, created by the astronomer Hevelius in the 17th century. He named it Lynx, as you had to have "eyes as sharp as a tigers" to see it the constellation.

Leo - the Lion is an old school constellation. The bright star is Regulus and it is easy to find with his large sickle shaped head. Leo contains many bright galaxies, the twins (Spiral Galaxy M65, Spiral Galaxy M66) and the Leo Trio.

The Moon - This weekend the moon will be moving from thin waxing crescent to first quarter. Start from the illuminated edge, this is the Moon's eastern limb regardless of her orientation to you. The large round sea we see is Mare Crisium acts as our East marker. The terminator is the North and South separator between the illuminated (day) part of the moon from the darker (night) side. On the 6th look for Mare Frigoris, the long narrow sea that stretches from East to West across the Northern 'cap' of the moon. The South has no large seas but lots of craters and is very bright. If you can practice finding these orientations and remember these markers you can travel anywhere and successfully navigate the moon even when she 'looks like a cup or a toad-stool"

On the 14th of this month much of the planet will see a partial lunar eclipse. This one is unique but might go unnoticed as the Moon passes only through the penumbra or outer shadow of Earth touching neither the dark 'true' shadow of the Earth, the umbra, or true light. If you follow the link and look at the diagram you will be impressed with just how little penumbra there is...basically only a Moon's width.

Naked eye viewing-

• Mare Crisium (KRY-see-um)Sea of Crisis
• Mare Undarium(un-DAR-um)Sea of Waves
• Mare Spumans(SPOO-manz)Foaming Sea
• Mare Fecunditatis(feh-KUN-di-TAH-tis) Sea of Fertility
• Mare Serenitatis(seh-REN-ih-TAH-tis) Sea of Serenity
• Mare Tranquillitatis(tran-KWIL-ih-TAH-tis) Sea of Tranquility
• Mare Nectaris(nek-TAHR-is) Sea of Nectar

Binocular viewing-On the South edge of Mare Nectaris is a crater called Piccolominni. The crater was named after Alessandro Piccolomini (June 13, 1508-March 12, 1578), and Italian writer, philosopher, and astronomer.

Ready for a challenge. Last week we talked about the two comets coming from the S.hemisphere and there has already been a sighting...with binoculars! This is from "Tom's Astronomy Blog" which I find informative and reliable enough to keep in in my Bloglines. I think we both look at the same news items because I find frequent overlap..which is good! His blog updates are daily.

"I made it outside early this morning, didn't bother with my coat, after all it was just a quick look. 
I was thinking Pojmanski would be below the horizon. Not so! Actually, it was higher than I had expected. 
It was also much brighter than I thought it would be, probably because I was expecting it to be much more 
diffuse than it was. Then again I heard it was a mag 5, seems about right.

I used binoculars and started doing a spiral sweep around 
Venus - talk about bright - and in a few minutes...success. "

So, can we all guess what Alice will be doing in the mornings? Russell also mentioned it in his new Dark Matter's podcast which came out Tuesday.

Telescopic viewing- One of the prettiest spiral galaxies is in our northeastern sky during the evening hours. M51 more poetically named the Whirlpool galaxy.
Another challenge is M101, the pinwheel galaxy. After you find the bright, face on galaxy in Ursa Major come back inside and take a look at the new Hubble image. Wow! These new images have caused researchers to pull the Pinwheel out of our class of galaxy and put her into a much larger class 170,000 light years across and trillions of stars.
Magnitude 7.9 RA: 14h03m18s Dec: +54°22'00" M101 almost makes an equilateral triangle with the double star Alcor-Mizar, the second star from the end of the handle of the big dipper, and Alkaid the end star of the handle. Space News.

Comets

Make sure you check the links for update, always better from the horse's mouth so to speak....

Pojmanski has brightened to 5.3 magnitude (as of Feb 21) and is visible in the N.Hemisphere Tom of "Tom's Astronomy" reported finding it on a sweep starting around Venus. Follow the link above to find the associated starchart.
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Could be 3.5 mag at best, and will be visible with naked eyes. It is already bright and visible visually, 12.3 mag on Feb. 27 (Seiichi Yoshida). Strongly condensed and easy to see. It keeps observable in good condition all through the encounter in May, while it will be brightening rapidly. Two other components B and G are also visible.

McNaught10.3 mag on Jan. 30 (Juan Jose Gonzalez). It was very small and sharp before, however, now it looks like a typical diffuse comet. It keeps 10 mag until March.

News

• Pluto might have rings (From Universe Today)
• ISS transits the moonEd Morana has a great photo of the ISS transiting the moon.
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter approaches Mars.
• Venus is not to be left outVenus Express (ESA) tested it's engine to be sure that it will be able to slow down enough to be properly captured into Venus orbit. The name Venus Express comes from the short time to define, prepare and launch the mission.

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

Music

Courtney Jones -"Ride"
anthems of a bygone era -"String Groove"