Learn how to use your hands to navigate between the stars and some tricky winter(summer)constellations.

Carpe Amor - Seize the Love!

"i carry your heart"
by ee cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Welcome!

Hello to Frank in Toronto he has a new scope and is floating on that new scope high!

Welcome to Ed from the Birmingham Astronomical Society in Birmingham Alabama. This club has a very nice webpage if you are looking for an example of a well laid out club page. I happen to be partial to ours as well! Ed did you know that there is a Birmingham Astronomical Society in the United Kingdom?

Lastly a special Howdy to my sister Kellie and her husband Craig and their boys. The final song in the show is for my nephews...Caleb and Ben when you are done looking at the stars put on the p.j.s and listen to the song... it is time for bed!

Tips and Tricks

We have been easing into astronomy and astronomical skills and I have a new skill for you to roughly gauge distances in the sky.

Held at arm's length, your pinky finger is about 1 degree wide. Your three middle fingers, held together, are about 5 degrees wide. If you hold out your fist, it will measure a 10 degree width of the sky. If you hold up just your pointer finger and your pinky finger, it will be about 15 degrees of sky between them. If you spread the thumb and pinky of one hand as far apart as they will go, it will be about 25 degrees from outside edge to outside edge.

Now this is an approximate measuring device of course but it works very well. So now I can go out and say that Saturn is 15 degrees SE of Pollux (of Castor and Pollux in Gemini)

Special Valentines Gift

In show #3 we talked about planispheres and how to use them. Planisphere are a wonderful tool and for the N. Hemisphere there are many that you can find for free online. Alas for the southern hemisphere I couldn't find one decent FREE planisphere. Chris, from the Astronomy in your hands website, is giving Astronomy a Go Go! podcast listeners a free planisphere! It is the city version but after looking at his site if you like the Milky Way version you can subscribe and get them all.

In order to make sure that folks don't just randomly find and pilfer these gifts I have hidden them on the show notes! For If you listened you will know what to do...(look at the bottom of the page)

Constellations

For most amateur astronomers constellations are shapes and containers that help us find other things that we really want to see like comets, double stars, and Messier objects. We have been working our way through the 88 'official' constellations since January and tonight we add 3 more all of which are tough!

• Lepus, the Hare. Only 4 bright stars from our city location and home to M79 is a beautiful globular cluster.
• Monoceros (mon-OSS-err-us), The Unicorn. Almost visible in the urban lights an home to M50 and open cluster.
• Columba, Noah's Dove. The constellation refers to the dove released several times during the voyage after the great flood to find land, it was this dove that returned with an olive branch in its beak, indicating dry land had been found.

Northern Hemisphere looking South


Equator, looking West and up


Southern Hemisphere looking North and up

Naked eye viewing- There are always celestial clues that time is just whizzing by. Not nearly as critical as the flooding of the Nile, when I start to seen Arcturus, the 4th brightest star in the night sky and the brightest star in the constellation Bootes, in my window at bed-time I know that it won't be long until the early summer (or winter in the S.H. )constellation will be visible.

But our naked eye challenge tonight is to find the Pleiades. They are in the constellation Taurus the Bull and near Mars. I have Mars marked in each of the charts on the show notes. The Pleiades, or M45 look to me like a very small cup with a short pokey handle. Just how many stars can you see. They are called the 7 sisters but this open cluster has hundreds of stars. I hope your vision is better than mine!

Binocular viewing- We are going to look back at the moon tonight and find the bright crater Copernicus

Named after the Polish astronomer who in 1543 gave us the first modern formulation of a heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system. You can see it with the naked eye but with your binoculars you should be able to see the high walls and if you look north and east you will find another large crater Eratosthenes (aira TOTH tha nees) named after the Greek mathematician who is noted for devising a system of latitude and longitude, and for being the first known to have computed the size of the Earth.

Telescopic viewing- If you have a telescope lets look for those Messier objects we talked about earlier. M79 and M50...you will be helping me get ready for next months marathon!

News

Cassini listens as well as looks! So if you think that Cassini is only taking fabulous pictures listen to this. The Cassini spacecraft has captured radio emissions believed to come from a large lightning storm on Saturn.

This image shows a rare and powerful storm on the night side of Saturn.

Light from Saturn's rings (called "ringshine") provided the illumination, allowing the storm and other cloud features to be seen. This storm is approx 2,175 miles north to south which is the distance from Seattle Washington to Dallas Texas

Space Station Flies in Higher Orbit The International Space Station (ISS) is in a higher orbit after a weekend boost from one of two unmanned cargo ships docked at the orbital platform. The maneuver will help place the ISS in position for the arrival of ISS Expedition 13 Russian ISS flight controllers said the reboost maneuver, which occurred at 5:20 p.m. EST (2020 GMT) on Feb. 11, also allowed them to test techniques to dodge space debris in orbit, according to the Interfax News Agency.

Part of a solar system running in reverse?

In a NASA news release from Monday reports that NASA scientists have discovered a solar system with planets rotating to two different direction. Our solar system is a one-way boulevard. All the planets --- from Mercury out to Pluto and even the newly discovered objects beyond --- revolve around the Sun in the same direction. The fact that a solar system can have planets running in opposite directions is a shocker.

This solar system, about 500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, is a work in progress. At its center is a young star. No planets have formed yet and likely won't for millions of years. What Remijan and Hollis saw were two flat and dusty disks rotating around the equatorial plane of the central star in opposite directions.
A paper describing this result will appear in the April 1 edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

Trivia

Answers for Show #9
1. Which constellation has the most Messier Objects? Answer: Sagittarius
2. What constellation mentioned tonight is the 'missing' constellation of the zodiac? Answer: Ophiuchus

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Music

Saffire -"Uppity Blues Woman, Don't you tell me!"
Eddie Rocks -"I don't want to live on the Moon"

Gift Directions!
North 1 2 3
Middle 1 2 3
South 1 2 3