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"