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.

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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"

Welcomes

Welcome to Eric, he left us a nice note on the show notes. I'm glad to here that you are inspired to get that scope back out and have some fun. I always love to hear that!.

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!

Tips and Tricks

Naked eye viewing -Pleiades 380 ly, Hyades "V" - 151 ly in Taurus, Alcor and Mizar
Binocular viewing - Great Orion Nebula 1500 ly, Perseus Double Cluster 7300 ly
Telescopic viewing -Castor is a multiple star system with 6 component - 3 visible with a telescope - 52 ly, Crab Nebula (M1) in Taurus is a supernova remnant 6,500 ly

Constellations for Show #6

The moon is a waning gibbous tonight and is now rising later so if you get your view in earlier you should be fine.

Thanks to Katie Dennis for providing us with the mythology for this week's N.Hemispere constellations. It is great to hear from our young adults and I love to hear their unique telling of the stories.

• The "Andromedia Group": Cassiopeia, the queen
• Andromedia, the chained lady
• Cepeus, the king
• Perseus, the hero
• Pegasus, the winged horse
• Cetus, the sea monster
• The Southern Ship: Carina - the keel
• Pyxis (pik-sis), the compass
• Vela (vE-lu), the sail
• Puppis (pup-is), the stern

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

Planets

Mars is still easy to pick out as the rusty red point west of the Pleiades and above the tale of Cetus the whale.
Saturn sits in Cancer and outshines all the stars in that constellation. Start at Gemini the twins and move east to the yellow large point of light. With Leo the Lion rising it will look the the lion's head or sycth is trying to catch Saturn
There is a great article on the Planetary website with several Cassini frames stitched together to animate the movement on the rings and the moons http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000342/
Jupiter is east of Virgo in the constellation Libra in the early morning hours.

News

Stardust - mission was a success. There is a NASA briefing tomorrow so I will listen in and give you all the scoop next week! Coverage for Stardust is so easily available I will point you to their website on my show notes and then next week talk about what didn't get covered as well.

Galileo - The pioneer spacecraft in Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo, has taken a major step towards securing the network's allocated frequencies. Giove-A transmitted the first of its navigational signals to ground stations in the UK and Belgium on Thursday. The UK-built satellite was launched on 28 December from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It is a demonstrator for the network that will give Europe its own version of the US Global Positioning System.

As I write this the New Horizons launch has been postponed to the 19th. Just so you know I will be an integral part of the New Horizons mission…no really. The camera named Alice is an Ultraviolet imaging spectrometer; analyzes composition and structure of Pluto's atmosphere and looks for atmospheres around Charon and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs).

Great interview with Venetia Phair the woman who named Pluto

It was interesting to see on Phil Plait's blog the Bad astronomy's blog http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/ That he is referring to Pluto as now the largest KBO or a trans-Neptunian object. Further complicating the situation, one such object (2003UB313) was recently discovered that is almost certainly larger than Pluto. Should it, too, be classified as a planet?

So what do we know about Pluto?

• Pluto's moon, Charon(Karon), is half the size of Pluto. The pair form a binary-planet, whose gravitational balance point is between the two bodies. Although binary planets are thought to be common in the galaxy, as are binary stars, no spacecraft has yet explored one. New Horizons will be the first mission to a binary object of any type
• Pluto is smaller than our moon, Titan and all of Jupiter's Gallelean moons
• Pluto's equitoral plane is at a right angle to the plane of it's orbit
• Pluto is dark, Named after the Greek god of the underworld who was able to render himself invisible.
• Charon Named after the mythological boatman who ferried souls across the river Styx to Pluto for judgement.
• Pluto's composition is unknown, but its density (about 2 gm/cm3) indicates that it is probably a mixture of 70% rock and 30% water ice much like Triton. The bright areas of the surface seem to be covered with ices of nitrogen with smaller amounts of (solid) methane, ethane and carbon monoxide. The composition of the darker areas of Pluto's surface is unknown but may be due to primordial organic material or photochemical reactions driven by cosmic rays.
• One day on Pluto is equal to bout 6.25 Earth Days and it takes approx. 90550 Earth days to orbit the sun

New Horizons: Mission Objectives

• Map surface composition of Pluto and Charon
• Map surface composition of Pluto and Charon
• Characterize geology and morphology ("the look") of Pluto and Charon
• Characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto and its escape rate
• Search for an atmosphere around Charon
• Map surface temperatures on Pluto and Charon
• Search for rings and additional satellites around Pluto
• PLUS... conduct similar investigations of one or more Kuiper Belt Objects

Trivia

Answers to the quiz from Show #5 Congratulations of Henry from Puyallup Wa for being the first to email in the answers to last week's quiz. Second place goes to a listener with the user name Pcelf.

1. From 1978 to 1999, which planet was farthest from the Sun? (Neptune, because of Pluto's elliptical orbit Every 248 years the two planets swap places and for about 20 years Pluto becomes the eighth planet and Neptune the ninth)
2. What are the three main parts of a comet? (Neuculus, Coma, Tail)
3. In astronomy what does the term, Syzygy(sI zE ji), mean? (he alignment, either in conjunction or opposition, of three celestial bodies within the same gravitational system, esp. the sun, moon, and earth)
Henry's example was a full moon and if you were willing to ignore the slight difference in the orbital planes that would be fine, a total lunar eclipes would be closer to perfect. Well done Henry!

This week's 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.
2. Which planet in the solar system has an axial tilt most like ours?
3. In astronomy does the term albedo mean?

Well that is it for Astronomy a Go Go! Show #6, 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!

For all you rocket scientist out there and all the folk yanking there hair out waiting for New Horizons to get the go ahead, this song is for you...Rocket Science by Brain Bucket

Music

Intro music: This Spy Surfs Spy Beach
Send off music:Brain Buckit Rocket Science

I am working on the text to find out why it has decided to go all wacky. Sorry for the inconvenience. -Alice

Learn some tips and tricks for stargazing, meet some constellations old and new, catch up on the news and have some fun.

Welcomes

Welcome to Joe from Middlefield, Connecticut at 41.5 degrees N and Jeremy from Bristol England at 51.4 degrees N. Jeremy is a member of the Bristol Astronomical Society and was kind enough to pass along their website. It is a good website so go take a look.

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!

Tips and Tricks

We have a special award tonight, the first GoGo! Award goes to Damon in NE Texas. Damon and I have been talking offline about binocular viewing and how to keep the binoculars steady.

What ever binoculars you have right now are the best ones to start viewing with! Leaning against a wall or post, propping your elbows on the top, trunk or boot of the car are fast and easy ways to steady yourself but eventually you will want to incorporate some tools to help especially if you plan on sharing what you see with others. In a pinch you can put the binos on a regular camera tripod.

I have some links on the show note for instructions for mounting binos to tripods and for building your own binocular mounts. I love the parallelogram style mounts because they allow me to set the binoculars up on an object and then lower the binos to a child's level while keeping everything centered. Look ma no hands! Damon is off to build a set which is why he gets tonight's GoGo! Award.

Binocular viewing -

• http://www.astunit.com/tonkinsastro/binoculars/binomount.htm
• http://starpaul.com/Binoc.html
• http://home.wanadoo.nl/jhm.vangastel/Astronomy/binocs/binocs.htm
http://www.astro-tom.com/projects/binocular_mount.htm
• http://www.gcw.org.uk/bino/binonet.htm

Do it yourself equipment http://www.shoestringastronomy.com/diy/diy.htm

Free online book "What's up in 2006" by Tammy Plotner

Stargazing tips

There is nothing better than being out under a dark clear sky with thousands of stars above your head. Here are a few tips to make your sky viewing as comfortable and successful as possible

• Dress for the weather. You will not be moving much so it will be colder. If you dress in layers you can add clothes and take them off as needed. Put as much between you and the ground as possible. I use an old Girl Scout sit-upon to insulate myself from the ground or the chair and thick boots to insulate myself from the ground. Many people bring old pieces of carpet to stand on. Hats scarves and gloves should be carried in abundance.
• Find the darkest site you can. Sometimes we can't leave the house so make the space you are in as dark as you can. Turn off all the house lights and ask your neighbors to do the same. The side of the house may give you a narrow view but if it is dark that is okay, work on the stars in that area.
• Be a good Scout. Let people know where you are going and when you'll be back. If you are going to a remote site alone make sure you have a way to handle emergencies, like a dead battery. A cell phone and a 'flight plan' works here. Always make sure you leave the site better than you found it.
• If you travel out to a site try to get there before dark. It helps to get oriented and everything set up and finding the bathroom. Then you can sit back and have a nice cup of tea or a latte and relax and review your star charts in leisure while everyone else scurries around.
• Pay attention to your eyes! Keep your eyes dark adapted, avoid looking at lights, cover your eyes when cars come by, put on sunglasses if you need to go inside. The longer your eyes are in the dark the better you can see the faint objects in the sky.
• Have several red flashlights and hide the while light. Make sure you know how to turn off your headlights so they don't come on when you start the car and if you can find clear red plastic report covers they are wonderful for masking flashlight. It gives you a nice dark red use it to cover the interior car lights too.
• Pack for comfort. Think about your environment, are there mosquitoes, do you have a way to sit and look up (for hours) comfortable, wind?, a little table to put your stuff on? Food and drink? Music and your favorite astronomy podcasts to listen to? Bring foods that will keep you warm in the winter and include lots of water, it is better for your vision to keep your whole system hydrated.
• Have a plan for your viewing, it could be just to relax and look around but if you have something in particular make sure you have your planisphere and have done a little research before you go. Also have a Plan B!
• Take what you have. If you don't have a telescope that's fine! Take just yourself, or take some binoculars. The Pleiades, in the constellation Taurus, are better in binoculars than in a telescope. There is lots to see in binoculars.
• Once you feel like you are ready to buy a telescope, stop! Visit or join an astronomy club instead and play with all of their telescopes first. Give yourself time to discover what kind of astronomer you are likely to be and who you are doing this with.

Constellations for Show #5

 " Arthur's slow wain (wagon) his course doth roll,
    In utter darkness round the pole;
    The Northern Bear lowers black and grim;
    Orion's studded belt is dim;
    Twinkling faint, and distant far,
    Shimmers through mist each planet star,
    Ill may I read their high decree!"

    Sir Walter Scott, 1805, 
	'The Lay of the Last Minstrel', 
	Canto First, Verse XVII.

• Ursa Major, big bear
• Ursa Minor, little bear
• Draco, the drago
• Crux, the cross
• Musca, the fly
• Octans, the octant

Planets

Mars is still easy to pick out as the rusty red point west of the Pleiades and above the tale of Cetus the whale.
Saturn sits in Cancer and outshines all the stars in that constellation. Start at Gemini the twins and move east to the yellow large point of light.
There is a great article on the Planetary website with several Cassini frames stitched together to animate the movement on the rings and the moons http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000342/ Jupiter is east of Virgo in the constellation Libra in the early morning hours.

Next week we will start our weekly investigation into the planets starting with Mars.

News

After a remarkable 13-year voyage of discovery, TOPEX/Poseidon, the first great oceanographic research vessel to sail into space, ended its mission this month.

In a cosmic version of laser tag, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft and an Earth-based observatory successfully exchanged laser pulses with each other while millions of miles apart.

Polaris. (NASA news) The North Star is thought to be a steady, solitary point of light that guided sailors for ages, but there is more to this star than meets the eye. The North Star is actually a triple star system.

Rovers The most recent self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the solar panels still gleaming in the martian sunlight and carrying only a thin veneer of dust.

Of the nine recognized major planets in our solar system, Pluto alone remains unvisited by a man-made craft. New Horizons, the first of NASA's "New Frontiers" missions, was selected by NASA to fill this gaping hole in the exploration of our own solar system. Scheduled to launch January 17, 2006, New Horizons' journey will last at least 9 years and possibly as long as 15 years.

NASA'S HUBBLE REVEALS THOUSANDS OF ORION NEBULA STARS

"Orion is a bustling cauldron of activity. This new large-scale Hubble image of the region reveals a treasure-house of beauty and astonishing detail for comprehensive scientific study," said Jennifer Wiseman, NASA's Hubble program scientist.

NASA'S SPITZER FINDS POSSIBLE COMET DUST AROUND DEAD STAR

The Spitzer space telescope in an infared telescope that was launched in August of 2003.

• One of my favorite Spitzer images is of the helix nebula
• Compare this image to the one by Hubble
• Last image is groundbased from the Anglo-Australian observatory

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope spotted what may be comet dust sprinkled around the white dwarf star G29-38 that died approximately 500 million years ago.

"Astronomers have known for decades that stars are born, have an extended middle age, and then wither away or explode. Spitzer is helping us understand how planetary systems evolve in tandem with their parent stars," said David Leisawitz, NASA's Spitzer program scientist.

Stardust Interview

Re-entry of Stardust If you live in the Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Northern Nevada, Southern Idaho or Western Utah you should be able to see some part of this man made meteor. The closer you live to the trajectory, which runs from Crescent City, to Mt Shasta, Cal and then through Winnemucca and Elko Nev, and finally to Western Utah, the higher in the sky it will be. With the Stardust mission returning it's comet samples and reentering at the highest speed of any man made object, you'll be able to know exactly when and where to see this amazing man made "meteor". As it stands, the capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere (135 km altitude) at 09:56:39 UT on 2006 January 15 (01:56:39 PDT). Follow the link above to find the tracking charts

Trivia

Answers to the quiz from Show #4

1. Since meteor showers take the name of the constellation they radiate from why is the meteor shower that radiates from the constellation Bootes called Quadranids? (Answer: Quadrans Muralis''' (Latin for mural quadrant) was a constellation created by J�©r�´me Lalande in 1795. It was located between the constellations of Bo�¶tes and Hercules. It is no longer in use, but the meteor shower Quadrantids is named after it.)
2. Can you see the International Space Station without a telescope?(Answer: You bet you can! Go to http://www.heavens-above.com/ to find out when you can next see the ISS fly-by)
3. What is the brightest star in our sky? (Answer: The Sun of course! Trick question so the brightest non-Sun star would be Sirius the Dog Star)

This week's trivia

1. From 1978 to 1999, which planet was farthest from the Sun?
2. What are the three main parts of a comet?
3. In astronomy what does the term, Syzygy(sI zE ji), mean?

Well that is it for Astronomy a Go Go! Show #5, 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

Intro music:Big George Jackson Band's Blue Sky
Send off music:Ginnicide's Goodnight

Starting a year long look at constellations, news, music and all things astronomical!

Welcome

Thanks to Peter (from Cullercoats England), Damon and Mike for dropping us a note!
To Rev. Chris Wallace a chaplain in the US army stationed in Iraq I hope "Astronomy a Go Go!" meets your astronomy needs.

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!

Constellations for the new year

Chris Dolan's site for the bare facts
For mythologies I use several this is a good starter one but there isn't a clear name to credit so if you find this is your site, thanks!
This Month

• Orion the hunter
• Canis Major
• Canis Minor
• Gemini (Castor and Pollux or in Mesopotamia the Twins are the brothers Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea)
• Auriga and
• Taurus

Planets

Mars is still easy to pick out as the rusty red point west of the Pleiades and above the tale of Cetus the whale.
Venus is almost gone for us and sits right on the horizon at twilight.
Saturn sits in Cancer and outshines all the stars in that constellation. Start at Gemini the twins and move east to the yellow large point of light.
Jupiter is east of Virgo in the constellation Libra in the early morning hours.

News

Spirit is starting its 3rd year and Opportunity is not far behind.
We have reached perihelion - we are closest to the sun yesterday, can you feel that down in the Southern hemisphere because we can't up here!
First quarter moon this weekend
There was a great podcast from Universe today () about a method for creating something like a tractor beam for near earth asteroids.

Trivia

Answers to the quiz from Show #3

1. The first woman in space was Lieutenant Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russia) Michael Williams got that one right
2. The only animal not sent to space was a jelly fish (cats were sent by the French) no one got this one, everyone seemed to want to banish the cats from space probably more of those Anubis lovers!
3. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings (Damon was only off by one!) Katie got this one.

This week's trivia

1. Since meteor showers take the name of the constellation they radiate from why is the meteor shower that radiates from the constellation Bootes called Quadranids?
2. Can you see the International Space Station without a telescope?
3. What is the brightest star in our sky?

Music

Intro music: Friction Baily's "Auld Lang Syne" Lovely voices!
Send off music: Charlie Crowe's "Joy" Rock on, great guitar work!