Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

photo courtesy of: Ron Wright
Grand Rapids MI

Can You Count the Stars Tonight?

My darling daughter, can you count the stars tonight?
Can you imagine a night, not so long ago, filled with starlight,
An infinity of shimmering diamonds on a meadow of velvet?
Can you close your eyes and picture a river of a million distant fireflies,
A cascade of sparkling heavenly beacons that once filled our skies?
Now that those who are without wonder or awe have taken our night,
My darling daughter, can you count the stars tonight?

Yes, daddy, I can see two!
---Doug Snyder, 5 August 1998

Listener Question

Ron, from Grand Rapids MI, is looking for E.T :-) 6.4 mag NGC 457 in Cassiopeia it doesn't have a "M" number but it isn't too hard to find. NGC 457not a good picture - too many stars! near M103 (7.4 mag NGC 581)

Also Anthony from Manchester is getting ready to go on holiday and sent in the following request:

"Hi Alice,

I will soon be going away on holiday with the family for a couple of
weeks and I wondered if you could throw out a question to your
listeners for any suggestions or recommendations for holiday reading?

Something reasonably light, in terms of weight and content, and
astro-related would be great. I won't have access to my scope and I'll
be most likely reading when its light (and hopefully sunny) so nothing
that requires any specific observing as I read. 

Cheers!  Anthony"

So leave your suggestions for Anthony in the show notes!

Viewing

Naked eye - May 27 - use binoculars (after sunset)to see a very young moon next to Mercury
May 30 - Moon and Mars line up with Castor and Pollux
May 31 - Waxing Crescent Moon, Saturn and the Beehive cluster all framed together

Binocular - M3 (6.3 mag) globular cluster half way between Cor Caroli and Arcturus about 12 degrees on the line starting from Arcturus
Jewel box in Crux (4.2 mag), Omega Centauri (3.9 mag), M7 Ptolomey's Cluster (3.3 mag) in Scorpio and M4 (5.4 mag) west of Antares.

Telescope - M63 The Sunflower Galaxy (8.5 mag), M94 in Canes Venatici(8.1 mag), and M51 the Whirlpool in Ursa Major all of which have very bright centers.
Compare these to M109 (9.8 mag) in Ursa Major Ringtail Galaxy (10.3 mag)NGC 4038 in Corvus and compare that to M104 (8.3 mag) Sombrero Galaxy on the border between Virgo and Corvus. For me this is still pretty far south in the light pollution and muck.

The Moon

Images created with Lunar Phase Pro

What to look for!
Waning and waxing crescent 2 days apart

Southeast favoring libration will help those with eagle eyes find some lunar edge items!

New! To help those working on Lunar awards* I will give latitudes and longitudes when possible. Remember latitudes that are negative (-) are South and longitudes that are negative (-) are West!

Object	Latitude	Longitude	Comments
Mare Australe	-38.9	93!
Mare Spumans	1.1	65.1
Mare Undarum	7	69
Crater Petavius and rimea	-25.1	60.4	Rimea Petavius a straight line from the central peak SW
Crater Langrenus(lan-grin'as)	-8.9	61.1	During the Apollo 8 mission, Astronaut James Lovell described Langrenus as, "quite a huge crater; it's got a central cone to it. The walls of the crater are terraced, about six or seven terraces on the way down." The Flemish Astronomer Michel Florent van Langren was the first person to draw a lunar map while giving names to many of the features. He even named this crater after himself. Ironically, this is the only one of his named features that has retained his original designation *Wikipedia entry Langrenas is also a site with a history of transient lunar phenomenon (tlp)
Crater Cleomedes	27.7	56	Just above Mare Crisium it is named after the 1st century Greek astronomer known for his book On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies. Crater Cleomedes is a very prominent crater approximately 126 kilometers in diameter with rilles on the central peak and sides.
Crater Hercules	46.7	39.1	With twin crater Atlas...
Crater Atlas	46.7	44.4	With twin crater Hercules...look for the dark halo craters

*Lunar Awards:
Astronomical League Lunar Club and Lunar Club 2
Lunar 100 - Charles A. Wood- 100 features laminated feature card available through Sky and Telescope
Free online support at Charles Wood's site and Mike Tyrrel site (lots of pictures slow to load)
Astronomy a Go Go! Lunar club (The loonies?) coming soon 4 levels; beginner, intermediate, advanced and master. No membership required no fees, beautiful "you print" certificate for each level and your name on the website.

Planets

Evening Planets
• Jupiter - Mag -2.5 in Libra. Just past opposition for those of you watching this gas giant over the past couple of months will have noticed it getting brighter. Clearly visible just after sunset, if you know where to look! The bright star to the SE is Zuben Elgenubi in Libra the bright star west along the ecliptic is Spica in the constellation Virgo. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands and four Galilean satellites.
  Listener Kevin recommended a piece of free software that I now have on all my computers Jupiter 2.
• Saturn - 0.1 mag In Cancer and tonight and moving East just 1.5 degree SW of M44 the Beehive cluster. It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest and most extraordinary moon.
• Mars - Mag +1.6 in Gemini creeping west towards Cancer and Saturn. It is the bright point of light SW of Castor and Pollux just SW of Kappa Gemini so that it looks like Pollux is trying to reach out and catch him.
• Mercury - has now finished his time behind the sun and has joined the rank of the evening planets. This weekend it will be very near the horizon just after sunset between the sun and the waxing crescent moon.
  Morning Planets
• Venus - Mag -3.9 The brightest morning planet visible. Low in the eastern morning sky. You will want to grab a pair of binoculars or even just a finder scope to check out her phase. Just over half full she is intensely bright in her gibbous phase.
• Uranus - Mag. 5.9 in Aquarius low in the south west before dawn.
• Neptune - Mag. 7.9 in Capricorn low in the south west before dawn
• Pluto Mag. 14 in Serpens Cauda is high in the south before dawn In Superior Conjunction - As alignment of an interior planet (Venus or Mercury) and the Sun which occurs when the Earth and the planet are on opposite sides of the Sun.
  

Viewing

Some things to keep in mind about our viewing difference:

• Location
• Age
• Ability/Experience
• Fatigue
• Instruments

Some things you can calculate and work around:

• Sky Brightness - The higher in the sky you look, the darker the sky will be. Plan your deep-sky observing projects accordingly. Also, light pollution tends to improve a bit after 11 or midnight as some outdoor lights get turned off.
• Dark Adaptation - After spending 15 minutes in darkness you might think your night vision is fully developed. But in fact your eyes gain as much as another two magnitudes of sensitivity during the next 15 minutes. Thereafter, dark adaptation improves very slightly for 90 minutes more. So don't expect to see faint objects at their best until a half hour or more into an observing session.
• Averted Vision -When you look directly at something, its image falls on your retina's fovea centralis. This spot is packed with bright-light-optimized cone cells and provides sharp resolution under strong illumination. To see something faint, you have to look slightly away from it. Doing so moves the image of your target off the fovea and onto parts of the retina that have more rod cells, which see only in black and white but are more light-sensitive than the cones.
• High Power - Can help bring out the detail of galaxies, clusters and nebula but can be thwarted by high sky brightness. Feel free to experiment!
• Capturing Color - In order to show us color, a deep-sky object must have a high enough surface brightness to stimulate the retina's cone cells Averted vision is not the way to look for color. The cones are thickest in the fovea, so stare right at your object. In this case, the lowest useful power should work best. A large telescope aperture is especially advantageous for those who seek to see color in deep-sky objects.

Weather charts and forecasts

Cloud cover This forecast may miss low cloud and afternoon thunderstorms. When the forecast is clear, the sky may still be hazy, if the transparency forecast is poor.

Transparency-Astronomically 'transparency' means just what astronomers mean by the word: the total transparency of the atmosphere from ground to space. It's calculated from the total amount of water vapor in the air. It is somewhat independent of the cloud cover forecast in that there can be isolated clouds in a transparent air mass, and poor transparency can occur when there is very little cloud.

Above average transparency is necessary for good observation of low contrast objects like galaxies and nebulae. However, open clusters and planetary nebulae are quite observable in below average transparency. Large globulars and planets can be observed in poor transparency.

Transparency Scale
0. Do Not Observe - Completely cloudy or precipitating.
1. Very Poor - Mostly cloudy.
2. Poor - Partly cloudy or heavy haze. 1 or 2 Little Dipper stars visible.
3. Somewhat Clear - Cirrus or moderate haze. 3 or 4 Little Dipper stars visible.
4. Partly Clear - Slight haze. 4 or 5 Little Dipper stars visible.
5. Clear - No clouds. Milky Way visible with averted vision. 6 Little Dipper stars visible.
6. Very Clear - Milky Way and M31 visible. 7 Little Dipper stars visible.
7. Extremely Clear - M33 and/or M81 are visible.

Seeing
Refers to the blurring and twinkling of astronomical objects such as stars caused by turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. The turbulence can also come from the telescope itself, the observer, or the immediate surroundings.

Excellent seeing means at high magnification you will see fine detail on planets. In bad seeing, planets might look like they are under a layer of rippling water and show little detail at any magnification, but the view of galaxies is probably undiminished. Bad seeing is caused by turbulence combined with temperature differences in the atmosphere. This forecast attempts to predict turbulence and temperature differences that affect seeing for all altitudes.

Bad seeing can occur during perfectly clear weather. Often good seeing occurs during poor transparency. It's because seeing is not very related to the water vapor content of the air.

Astronomical Seeing
1. Severely disturbed skies: Even low power* views are uselessly shaky. Go read a good book.
2. Poor seeing: Low power images are pretty steady, but medium powers are not.
3. Good seeing: You can use about half the useful magnification of your scope. High powers* produce fidgety planets.
4. Excellent seeing: Medium-powers are crisp and stable. High-powers are good, but a little soft.
5. Superb seeing: Extremely Steady. Any power eyepiece produces a good crisp image.

* The PRACTICAL LOWEST power magnification for any telescope is approximately 7 times for each inch of aperture. Example: 28X for a 4-inch (100mm) diameter telescope
* The PRACTICAL HIGHEST power magnification for any telescope is approximately 50 times for each inch of aperture. Example: 200X for a 4-inch (100mm)diameter telescope.
Humidity

This forecasts ground-level relative humidity. Humidity variations won't determine whether or not you can observe, but it might affect observer comfort and can indicate the likelihood of dewing.

But dewing is not simply correlated to relative humidity. Dewing tends to happen when the sky is clear, the temperature is dropping and there isn't much wind. Being on a hilltop or in a small valley can make the difference between no dew and dripping telescopes.

An example of transparency forecasting from Environment Canada
Outside of North America try the 7timer site
In North America try Clear Sky Clock
Everyone can try Wunderground, here is an example of South America
Great Britain and Ireland can try The Weather Outlook they have a tab for astronomy and it seems to be improving. There is also MetCheck which loads faster and will take a postal code.

Limiting Magnitude

Apparent magnitudes How bright things look from Earth. We don't know how intrinsically bright an object is until we also take its distance into account. Thus astronomers created the absolute magnitude scale.

Absolute magnitude An object's absolute magnitude is simply how bright it would appear if placed at a standard distance of 10 parsecs (32.6 light-years) The parsec (symbol pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. It stands for "parallax of one arc second". BBC's Sky at Night programme: Patrick Moore demonstrates Parallax using Cricket.

Seen from this distance, the Sun would shine at an unimpressive visual magnitude 4.85. Rigel would blaze at a dazzling -8, nearly as bright as the quarter Moon. The red dwarf Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system, would appear to be magnitude 15.6, the tiniest little glimmer visible in a 16-inch telescope! Knowing absolute magnitudes makes plain how vastly diverse are the objects that we casually lump together under the single word "star."

Some online calculators of Limiting Magnitude and surface brightness.

News

ESA lava tubes on Mars. Mars Express, shows Pavonis Mons, the central volcano of the three 'shield' volcanos that comprise Tharsis Montes

ProAM extrasolar planet find!. In June and July 2005, four amateur astronomers (Ron Bissinger in California, Bruce Gary in Arizona, Paul Howell in Maine, and Tonny Vanmunster in Belgium) carefully monitored one of the most promising candidates identified by XO: a magnitude-11.3 solar-type star in Corona Borealis. The amateur observations revealed the telltale periodic dips of a transiting object only 30 percent larger than Jupiter. The star decreases in brightness by 2 percent for 3 hours every 3.9415 days  -  the companion's orbital period. Armatur Transit organization Transit.org

Comets for May.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"
-- Shakespeare

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

28 -"Miles Away"
Katy Pfaffl -"Halfway There"

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.

What are some of the conditions that make our night-time observing so variable?

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

The Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the Trav'ller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often thro� my curtains peep,
For you never shut you eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

'Tis your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the trav'ller in the dark:
Tho' I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

---Jane Taylor, The Star, 1806

Listener Question

Venus 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
Planet Orbit JAVA script

Try it for yourself using western elongation or inferior conjunctions.

Data for western elongation (viewing Venus at sunrise)

Apparition      Date              Elongation
--------------------------------------------------
 Morning     2006 Mar 25     46.5W
 Morning     2004 Aug 17     45.8W
 Morning     2003 Jan 11     47.0W
 Morning     2001 Jun  8     45.8W
 Morning     1999 Oct 31     46.5W
 
 

** Make sure you are measuring Venus at SUNRISE

Data for Inferior Conjunctions
Planet Orbit JAVA script

2004 Jun 9
2006 Jan 14
2007 Aug 21
2009 Mar 27
2010 Nov 1

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!

Viewing

Naked 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.

Constellations

Lyra - 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 Moon

Images 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

Evening Planets
• Jupiter - Mag -2.5 in Libra. Just past opposition for those of you watching this gas giant over the past couple of months will have noticed it getting brighter. Clearly visible just after sunset, if you know where to look! The bright star to the SE is Zuben Elgenubi in Libra the bright star west along the ecliptic is Spica in the constellation Virgo. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands and four Galilean satellites.
• Saturn - Mag 0.3 in Cancer and tonight and moving East. It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest and most extraordinary moon.
• Mars - Mag +1.6 in Gemini creeping west towards Cancer and Saturn. It is the bright point of light SW of Castor and Pollux
  Morning Planets
  
• Venus - Mag -3.9 The brightest morning planet visible. Low in the eastern morning sky. You will want to grab a pair of binoculars or even just a finder scope to check out her phase. Just over half full she is intensely bright in her gibbous phase.
• Uranus - Mag. 5.9 in Aquarius low in the south west before dawn.
• Neptune - Mag. 7.9 in Capricorn low in the south west before dawn
• Pluto Mag. 14 in Serpens Cauda is high in the south before dawn In Superior Conjunction - As alignment of an interior planet (Venus or Mercury) and the Sun which occurs when the Earth and the planet are on opposite sides of the Sun.
  
• Mercury - in superior conjunction hence invisible

Variable Stars - Guest Presenter: Tom McDonagh!

Tom's Powerpoint presentation

Finder charts for Leo, Sextans and Andromeda

Tom's links:
I use MaxIm DL pretty exclusively.
AstroArt is a good less expensive program.
AIP4Win is a great program/text and goes a long way in explaining the imaging process as well as data reduction
Astrometrica Shareware
Professional level IRAF -Free!

Sample Variable Stars:

Designation Name	Type	Mag1	Mag2	Period(days)
0918-68 RW CAR	M	9.3	15	318
0929-62 R CAR	M	4.6	9.6	308
0954-58 RR CAR	SRB	9.1	10.4	109
0955-63 RV CAR	M	11.3	16.2	365
1004-69 OY CAR	UGSU	12.2	16.5	260
1006-61 S CAR	M	5.7	8.5	150
1010-58A A CAR	M	10.7	15.2	384
1032-70 RZ CAR	M	10	15.4	272
1041-59 ETA CAR	SDOR	-0.8	7.9	157

AGN = Active Galactic Nucleus
C = Cepheid
M = Mira; long period variable
RCB = R Coronae Borealis type
RV = RV Tauri type
SR = Semiregular
UG = U Geminorum type cataclysmic
Z Cam = Z Camelopardalis type cataclysmic

Links to other variable star organizations:
British Astronomical Association Variable Star Section
Astronomical Society of Australia Variable Star Group
Center for Backyard Astrophysics

Great links to keep bookmarked:
AAVSO Variable Star of the Season
Juliean Dates
Hands on Astrophysics
Sky and Telescope's "Top 12 Naked Eye Variable Stars"
An international form of weather clocks

Comets

Comets for May.

Pojmanski
and 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3
and C/2005 E2 ( McNaught )

 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"
-- Shakespeare

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

Brobdingnagian Bards -"Wild Mountain Thyme"
Monika Herzig -"The Third Passenger"

Talking about Venus in "The DaVinci Code" listening to some great music and having a wonderful conversation with Tom McDonagh about variable stars! 

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

M87 is an active galaxy, one in which we see interesting objects. Near its core there is a spiral-shaped disc of hot gas. From the spectra of the two sides researchers can determine the speed of rotation of the disk and its size. From this they can weigh the size of the invisible object at the center.

Although the object is no bigger than our solar system it weighs three billion times as much as the sun. This means that gravity is so strong that light cannot escape...aka a black hole.

The faint diagonal line is believed to be the passage out of those fortunate particles which escape along the axis of rotation and avoid being swallowed by the black hole.

Cygnus X-1, Book One: The Voyage

"Prologue:
In the constellation of Cygnus,
there lurks a mysterious, invisible force:
the black hole of Cygnus X-1....

Six Stars of the Northern Cross
In mourning for their sister's loss
In a final flash of glory
Nevermore to grace the night...

1.
Invisible to telescopic eye
Infinity, the star that would not die

All who dare to cross her course
Are swallowed by her fearsome force

Through the void
To be destroyed
Or is there something more?
Atomized...at the core?
Or through the Astral Door?
To soar...

2.
I set a course just east of Lyra
And northwest of Pegasus
Flew into the light of Deneb
Sailed across the Milky Way
On my ship, the "Rocinante"
Wheeling through the galaxies,
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery

The x-ray is her siren song
My ship cannot resist her long
Nearer to my deadly goal
Until the black hole
Gains control...

3.
Spinning, whirling,
Still descending
Like a spiral sea,
Unending...

Sound and fury
Drown my heart
Every nerve
Is torn apart...

To be continued..."

- Neil Peart
(a truly amazing drummer!)

Welcome

Hello to Quentin from Denver and welcome to Mary from Oregon.

Star Parties

Stellafane
Table Mountain Star Party
Oregon Star Party
Klickatat Star Party (several dates to choose from)
and many others around the US
In the U.K. I have found a couple StarFest 2006 in the Dalby Forest, and the Autumn Equinox Star Party in Kelling Heath Norfork.

If you have a star party you would like to have mentioned on the show please email me at astronomyagogo AT gmail DOT com and I will give your party a shout-out!

Listener Questions

Send me an email with the subject "Listener Question" or record a short .mp3 file and email that to me and I'll add you to the show asking your own question. Make sure you record your first name, where you are from and if you are associated with a club mention them too! Try not to record urls, email those, and I will put the link in the notes.

One listener asked about how to tell if a particular site is dark...the best way is to talk to people who use the site or go to Clear Sky Clocks and look up the site.

Here are a couple of examples of clear sky clocks for Ft. Steilacoom, our city viewing site for TAS public nights:

or

Click on the larger Clear Sky Clock to learn more about how to use them and how to get one for your favorite star gazing spot!

The Moon

The Moon is full this weekend and if you remember our conversation about libration from Show #19 it is the Northwest corner that is healed over towards us this weekend. So put on your sunglasses and pick up your binoculars or telescopes with a moon filter and see if you can pick out some of the following.

Images created with Lunar Phase Pro

• Oceanus Procellarum - Ocean of Storms
• Mare Frigoris - Sea of Cold
• Mare Imbrium - Sea of Showers
• Sinus Iridum - Bay of Rainbows
• Sinus Roris - Bay of Dew
• Crater Plato -named after the great Greek philosopher Plato, the crater was also called the Greater Black Lake by Johannes Hevelius
  With a telescope see if you can find...
  
• Crater Harpalus - named after a treasurer for Alexander the great who had problems differentiating between Alexander's money and his own. This was the crater chosen as a rocket landing site in the 1950s science fiction film Destination Moon.
• Crater Pythagoras - named after the Greek mathematician and father of numbers. Pythagoras was well aware of the numerical significance of periods of the planets, sun and moon and the spheres of which produced a mathematical harmony he called the music of the spheres. Kepler would later attempt to formulate a model of the then known solar system in his work the "Harmony of the Worlds" based on some of the ideas of Pythagoras.
• Crater Xenophanes - Greek philosopher, poet and critic

My new favorite Lunar Field Map

The Sun

If you are interested in sunspots and solar activity you MUST add SpaceWeather.com to your daily reads.

Sun Dogs

A couple of weeks ago a listener emailed in questions about a large beautiful ring around the moon. If you remember the conversation we talked about how ice crystals high in the atmosphere refract the light from the moon into large halos. Sun dogs are halo companions.

Halos

The 22 degree radius( from your thumb to your pinky) halos are visible anywhere on the planet and created by sun or moon. Always complete circles although sometimes the horizon can block some of the ring. They are caused by light refracting through ice crystals at high altitude.

Photos courtesy of Lauri A. Kangas www.photon-echos.com

Corona (not the surface of the sun Corona)

On the other hand, corona are caused by water droplets they are very bright in the center and ringed with the subtle hues of rainbow colors and will grow larger or smaller as the cloud passing in front changes in density. Corona is produced by the diffraction of light. Small particles like water drops fine dust, ice can cause light to scatter light

Planets

Evening Planets
• Mars is in Gemini creeping closer to the belly of Pollux.
• Saturn - Is in Cancer and tonight and moving East. It appears as a yellowish star that rivals Capella in brightness, A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest and most extraordinary moon. It sits just west of the Beehive cluster
• Jupiter - The largest of our planets Jupiter sits in Libra just west of Zubenelgenubi. Even with the full moon you should be able to see Jupiter. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands to you, along with its four Galilean satellites.
  Morning Planets
• Mercury - Lost in the morning glare 30degrees from Venus towards the sun
• Venus - The brightest planet visible this month. Venus is outstanding in the Eastern morning sky and you will want to grab a pair of binoculars or even just a finder scope to check out her phase. Just over half full she is intensely bright in her gibbous phase.
• Uranus - is west of Venus (about 28 degrees) in Aquarius. Neptune is 24 degrees further along in Capricorn.

Black Holes!

Gravity 101
Wikipedia Gravity
Newtonian
Issac Newton

Every point mass attracts every other point mass by a force directed along the line 
connecting the two. This force is proportional to the product of the masses and inversely 
proportional to the square of the distance between them:

    F = G (m1*m2)/r2
		    

where:

    F is the magnitude of the (repulsive) gravitational force between the two point masses
    G is the gravitational constant
    m1 is the mass of the first point mass
    m2 is the mass of the second point mass
    r is the distance between the two point masses

In other words if one mass gets larger or the two masses get closer together the gravitational force is stronger, or if one mass decreases or the objects get further apart the gravitational force is weaker!

Stellar Evolution -the short course
Stellar Evolution - java script
Wikipedia article
Cornell Astronomy Class

References
Night Sky Network
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and NASA
John Mitchell
Pierre Simon LaPlace
Einstein
Black Holes
Einstein's Legacy
Cambridge
Berkley
Kids sites

News

There are so many great space and astronomy news sites out there I won't try and duplicate them all, I'll just report things that really strike my fancy or that I think you might be interested in.

Our friend Brian from the The Southern California Science Café sent us a little event news to share. If you are going to be any where near UC-Irvine the evening of May 19th the Observatory there is hosting a Visitor Night! UC-Irvine Observatory is hosting a Visitor Night on Friday, May 19, from 8-10 PM. They will looking at Saturn and the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), among other objects.

New images of SW3 on the ESA site
ESA Mars Express

From the Planetary Society website we have some wonderful images from the Mars Express Orbiter but the images I found most interesting are at the bottom of the page where they show animated frames of dust devils in action.

Not to be out done...Wed, 10 May 2006 - After a month of maneuvering, ESA's Venus Express has reached its final science orbit. The spacecraft made its final maneuver on May 6th tighten its orbit above the planet. Its scientific instruments will now be turned on and tested over the course of May. This will make the spacecraft ready for its science phase, due to begin on June 4, 2006.

Two new distant companion galaxies have been discovered with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The first was found in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dog) by SDSS-II researcher Daniel Zucker at Cambridge University (UK). His colleague Vasily Belokurov discovered the second in the constellation Bootes (the Herdsman). The Sloan telescopes live at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico The two astronomers also used the data to identify "Fields of Streams" star streams in our galaxy that may be the remnants of other galaxies consumed by our own galaxy.

Comets visible with binoculars/telescopes in the northern hemisphere.

Pojmanski
and 73P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 and chart
and Sky Hound comets for May and Seiichi Yoshida's observable comets (both hemispheres)

Hello Alice,
 
   Last Sunday, two club members and I went to our observatory to look at 
Schwassmann - Wachmann 3 pass near the Ring Nebula.  We used a Stellacam EX camera 
on a Meade LX200 10 inch scope to display the pair on a TV monitor.  
I took pictures of the monitor with a regular digital camera.  Enjoy.
 
Brian Gray

Photo courtesy of Brian Gray (AAGG listener) Philip Hoyle and Phil Creed

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"
-- Shakespeare

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Music

Monika Herzig -Pauls Vesper - Schnell!
Josh Woodward -Goodbye To Spring

Talking about the moon, star parties, gravity, stellar evolution and black holes!

Astronomy a Go Go! Tour of the Sky: May 2006

I have divided the show into two parts, early May and late May with a song in the middle to help you find the division.

All of the observations are for 10pm for the mid latitudes as you move south it gets darker sooner so if you go out before 10 rotate my observations to the east 15 degrees for each hour.

Northern hemisphere sky map
Southern hemisphere sky map - also visit
James Barclay's site for a great tour of the Southern Hemisphere May sky.

So spread out a blanket, pull out your scopes and binoculars and join me for a tour of the May skies.

Key Dates for May

May
1 - Lunar Libration reveals Mare Australe on the lower eastern limb (selenographic coordinates 38.9° S, 93.0° E.)
1 - Moon at greatest Northern declination +29 degrees 4 - Jupiter at opposition 5 - First Quarter
6 - Eta Aquarid meteor shower peak and Astronomy Day 12 - Comet Schwassman-Wachmann closest to earth. 13 - Full Moon
16 - Moon at greatest southern declination -29 degrees 18 - Mercury at superior conjunction slipping into the glare of the sun to become an evening planet
20 - Last Quarter
27 - New Moon
30 - Moon and Mars line up with Castor and Pollux
31 - Waxing Crescent Moon, Saturn and the Beehive cluster all framed together
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Music

Alexye Nov -"Nightly Murmur of Crickets"
Jeff Vidov - "Arise--for chamber ensemble--2nd movement"
Adrina Thorpe - "Midnight"