We will take a moment to remeber all of those who have given their lives so that we may continue to explore space. The twisted teens take over the constellation portion of the podcast and we talk a bit about the moon, news, and science.

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

Welcome to Astronomy a Go Go for Thursday January 26, 2006!

A day to remember

Growing up in Houston Texas gave me a unique connection with NASA, our family paid attention to everything that was space related, Dad was occasionally called upon by NASA for projects dealing with lightning and I can remember summers at, then, Cape Canaveral watching launches from the beach. On this, the last Thursday of January NASA and the entire NASA family pause to salute the fallen heros of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia and all the other men and women who have given their lives for exploration.

It was Gus Grissom who perished in Apollo 1 who said:

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

Tips and Tricks

Naked eye viewing Start watching early in the week for the first time you can see the new waxing crescent moon. Also, if you are where it is dark look for Saturn, in Cancer, it will be in an open star cluster called M44 or the Beehive Binocular viewing-If you have binoculars take some time looking at the Beehive near Saturn in Cancer. Telescopic viewing- Those of you with telescopes we are going to take a look deep into the Orion Nebula, to the center of M42 for four bright stars that are almost touching each other, this area is called the "Trapezuim" there are more than 4 stars that make up this cluster and it is a sought after multiple star system. This area of the nebula is called the Huygenian Region named after the Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens who first discovered it in detail he discovered Titan as well.

The Sky and Constellations for Show #7

The moon is a waning crescent so you can expect a lovely dark weekend for viewing.

• Eirandus (eh-RID-ah-nuss): The River (alpha Eirandi Achernar a Eri AY-ker-nar)
• Cetus: The Whale
• Pisces: The Fish Almost every ancient civilization saw this figure. The brightest star in Pisces is named Alrisha, which is Arabic for "The Knot".

For those of you in the S. Hemisphere I would recommend listening to James Barclay's podcast on his website. He is in a luck spot on the planet, no light pollution and a great observatory. You can find all of his show in his podcast section.

Planets

The Evening Set Mars in Aries is still easy to pick out as the rusty red point SW of the Pleiades above the tale of Cetus the whale. Saturn sits in Cancer and outshines all the stars in that constellation. It makes a nice triangle with Castor and Procyon The Morning Set Venus is low in the sky rising just before the sun. She is technically in Sagittarius but those stars will be too washed out to see. Jupiter is in Libra and higher and west of Venus look between the red star Antaras and the bright white star Spica in the pre-dawn sky.

News

Stardust is a huge success and folks couldn't be happier.

New Horizon finally got off the ground and it was amazing just how fast that craft is going

Check out the news on the new galaxy that was discovered, it is so close that we basically couldn't see it. Go to the Slacker Astronomy site at www.slackerastronomy.org for the details and then listen to the show.

Extrasolar planet - large rocky planet found the count is now 159 and growing

Andromeda An unusually high number of galaxies are aligned along a single plane running through the center of the giant Andromeda galaxy. Scientists don't have a theory to explain why.

On the lighter side of news, Phil Plait's blog, the Bad Astronomers Blog has been nominated for a Bloggie award. The Bad Astronomer's blog is definitely worth adding to your "To Read" list. Go visit his website at http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/ and then vote for him at http://2006.bloggies.com/ He is in the Best Topical Blog section.

Trivia

Answer's for Show#6 Trivia

1. Besides Pluto, with other two planets have NS axises that are not between 0 straight up and down and say 45 degrees, remember Earth is at 23.5 degrees which is why we have seasons. (Answer: Venus 177 in retrograde and Uranus 97 spinning on its side rings perpendicular)
2. Which planet in the solar system has an axial tilt most like ours? (Answer: Mars! 25.19 degrees)
3. In astronomy does the term albedo mean? (Answer: the degree to which a planet, asteroid, or the like reflects light.)

This week's trivia

1. The constellation Eridanus is considered the SECOND longest constellation in the night sky, what is the longest?

Well that is it for Astronomy a Go Go! Show #7, I'm glad you tuned in as always you can email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com or leave a note in our show notes at www.astronomy.libsyn.com. We would love to hear from you!

Music

Music for remember the heros:Fumitaka Anzai song "Forest in the morning"