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. "

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.

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