Mon, 18 December 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night! Image courtesy of Dr. Tyler Nordgren and his students.
ORION Eight stars pinhis frame to the night. He lies just above Not quite yet. Eight silent silver bells
Listener FeedbackFrom Ted - "I'd like to suggest a great book that I stumbled across at Barnes & Noble about 18 months ago. It is called "The Next Step, Finding and Viewing Messier's Objects." It was written by Ken Graun. The main part of the book is a section about the Messier Object. There are 2 pages per object. It has a little history and notes from Messier's original description. It gives the coordinates and a reference to it's location on star maps included in the book. What really sets this book apart is that it includes pictures taken by the author thru a 4 inch scope. It allows you to see exactly what you are looking for. The book also has a biography of Charles Messier, and a few general tips on astronomy. The book it not very large so it is easy to carry with you. I find the book extremely helpful to show people what they are looking for before they step up to the eyepiece. I hope you can find the book to review and recommend it on a future podcast. " Don has another book suggestion: "A great book for gifts is "There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars", by Bob Crelin. Great for helping children (and adults) learn about the effects of light pollution." Special Thanks!Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope for helping our club buy a PST for use with our club outreach!Just a reminder, Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope is offering a 5% discount for any AAGG listener! Just put "AAGG" in the discount code box at checkout to receive your discount.
Holiday lights in the sky - Stellar Spectrum
Mnemonics
for the Harvard Spectral Classification Scheme SunsunspotsPlanets  Evening Planets
 Morning Planets
Constellations Time for a quiz! Fornax - the Furnace - Invented by Lacaille during his stay at the Cape of Good Hope in 1751 - 1752 (who else!) ViewingNaked eye and binoculars - the Pleiades -the Hyades At a distance of only about 150 light years, the Hyades form one of the nearest open cluster to Earth.  Greek mythology, nymphs; daughters of Atlas and Aethra. They cared for both Zeus and Dionysus as infants. In recognition of these services, they were placed among the stars of the constellation Taurus, where their rising and setting corresponded to the rainy seasons. Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), the bright red star, is not a member of the cluster and situated much closer to us (about 60 light years, a factor 2.5 closer than the Hyades). Telescope - Northern Hemisphere chart You can use Taki's chart #14, chart 72 in the Pocket Sky Atlas NGC 7380 bright irregular open cluster, 7.2 mag, with bright nebulosity around. Once edge looks scalloped.NGC 7510- the "Little Piggy" cluster (Alice's name only) in Cephus 7.9 wedge or trapazoid shaped open cluster. Right across the boarder from... M52 - evil dustbunny cluster, 6.9 open cluster in Cassiopeia and just a few degree towards Polaris from Caph (beta Cassiopeia) is NGC 7790
Gifts for the Astronomer!Do it yourself (DIY) giftsThere are so many creative things you can do for your astronomer, or for yourself, that won't cost and arm and a leg! Consider the following:
Binocular
Mounts On to the shopping...
Off the scope
Atlases
...there are just toooo many but here is a start....
CometsComets for the Month.Check out the Sky Hound site."One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" Email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com or leave a note in our show notes at
www.astronomy.libsyn.com Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope is offering FREE web hosting on our servers for you or your organization's website. In order to promote the hobbies of Astronomy, Astrophotography, Photography, Birding or generally any topic that is of interest to our customer base, Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope is offering Hosting Grants.  |
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Thu, 18 May 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night! The Star Twinkle, twinkle, little star, When the blazing sun is gone, Then the Trav'ller in the dark, In the dark blue sky you keep, 'Tis your bright and tiny spark, ---Jane Taylor, The Star, 1806 Listener QuestionVenus in "The DaVinci Code"!Dad wanted to know if the statement in "The DaVinci Code" about Venus creating a perfect 5 pointed star in the sky (a pentagram) was true. Being a scientist he wanted the FACTS. Venus
Elongation Explorer Try it for yourself using western elongation or inferior conjunctions.
Apparition Date Elongation** Make sure you are measuring Venus at SUNRISE Data for Inferior Conjunctions 2004 Jun 9 You will need to look down on the solar system for these to work. Just running a 16 year cycle will let you see the over lapping 8 year cycles. Here is one 8 year cycle with a dot representing a weeks worth of movement. Venus has a strange path!
ViewingNaked eye - Watching Mars speed across Gemini. Pay careful attention to SAFE solar viewing: Projection with binoculars and good old Pinhole projection Binocular - a good practice for steadiness is looking at Jupiter and Saturn and while you are at Saturn take a look at the Beehive cluster M44. The Coma cluster (Mel 111) in Coma Berenice just north of Leo's tail Denebola and Open cluster NGC 4755 in Crux Telescope - 9.6 magnitude globular cluster - NGC 5634. Found about halfway between Iota and Mu Virginis and almost due south of Phi, what makes it special is it shares the fieldwith an 8th and a 12th magnitude star. This gives it the appearance of a 3 star system! M108 - Start with Beta Ursae Majoris - southwestern star of the Big Dipper. About a finger-width between it and Phecda to the southeast, you'll catch the 10.1 magnitude Edge-On galaxy Despite being faint, M108 contrasts well on a good dark night sky and larger scopes will make out irregular patches of detail. Less than a finger-width further southeast M97 - the Owl Nebula. For the Southern hemisphere go to Omega Centauri and catch 7.0 mag galaxy NGC 5128. NGC 5128 is easily found halfway between Omega and Iota Centauri. ConstellationsLyra - the Lyra or Harp - Lyra the Lyre or Harp is the instrument invented by Hermes (Mercury) and given to Apollo his half-brother, who in turn gave it to his son Orpheus, the musician of the Argonauts. Chamaeleon - the Chameleon in Australia it is sometimes unofficially called "the Frying Pan" when finding the south by the stars. The constellation contains a number of molecular clouds (called the "Chamaeleon dark clouds") that are forming low-mass T Tauri stars. The cloud complex lies some 400 to 600 light years from Earth, and contains tens of thousands of solar masses of gas and dust.   The MoonImages created with Lunar Phase Pro With a last quarter Moon this weekend we can anticipate nice dark evening skies. If you stay up late enough (or early enough) to catch the last quarter moon see if you can find the following: The tops of the Alpennines reflecting the sunlight from within the shadows. The "Cascade" of Ptolemeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel.  Planets
Variable Stars - Guest Presenter: Tom McDonagh!Tom's Powerpoint presentationFinder charts for Leo, Sextans and Andromeda Tom's links: Sample Variable Stars:
AGN = Active Galactic Nucleus British Astronomical Association Variable Star Section Astronomical Society of Australia Variable Star Group Center for Backyard Astrophysics Great links to keep bookmarked: CometsComets for May.Pojmanskiand 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 and C/2005 E2 ( McNaught )
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" Email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com or leave a note in our show notes at
www.astronomy.libsyn.com MusicBrobdingnagian Bards -"Wild Mountain Thyme"Monika Herzig -"The Third Passenger"
Category:Stars
-- posted at: 1:48 PM
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Thu, 18 May 2006
Talking about Venus in "The DaVinci Code" listening to some great music and having a wonderful conversation with Tom McDonagh about variable stars!
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Astronomy a Go Go! (Stars)
In the car, at work or under the night time sky astronomy goes where you go! |
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