Learning about planispheres, talking about the news and what is up in the sky tonight and listening to a little music! Happy New Years Everyone!

Okay, I have a joke for you. What is the definition of an optimist? How about an amateur astronomer in the Pacific Northwest!!! We have had almost 2 straight weeks of rain and if not rain clouds! It never fails that when we have time off the clouds come in so I am hoping all of my friends in other parts of the country are having better luck with their night sky!!

In fact, drop us a line and tell us how your New Year's Eve night fare and give us an astronomy related New Years resolution! 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!

So, I often work with kids, and adults for that matter, and when talking about the planets I use the mnemonic "My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas." To help them learn the planets in order. So here is my question to you, what mnemonics do you use to remember astronomical references? Drop us a line at astronomyagogo@gmail.com

Trivia!

We thought we would add some trivia to the podcast. We have three questions for you to answer and will announce the winners and the correct answers in next week's pod cast.

You can leave an answer in the comment section of our webpage astronomy.libsyn.com in the notes for Show #3 or email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com

• Question #1 Who was the first woman in space?
• Question #2 Which of the following animals has NOT flown in space? A: Dog, B:Brine Shrimp, C: Jellyfish, and D: Cat
• Question #3 How many planets in our solar system have rings?

Planispheres

Whether you like your astronomy occasionally or you are totally obsessed you should definitely know how to use a planisphere.

We are going to use this generic planisphere for this podcast. You should print a holder and the coordinate star wheel. If you can print them on heavy paper they will last longer.

A couple of things about planispheres

• You do need to use a planisphere for a specific location! You can't buy a commercial planisphere designed for 50 degrees North latitude and then use it in the Southern hemisphere.
• Planispheres don't show the planets. However many include a chart or booklet that will tell you which constellations to look in for particular planets in particular months. My solution is to look at a monthly sky calendar or map like the one at www.skymaps.com to see if there are any planets or other astronomical notables for the month.
• It is tough to take a picture of a sphere and accurately squash it flat. Some planispheres distort the constellations on the horizon.
• East and west will be oriented correctly once you hold it over head. The window is your horizon.

Monthly Sky maps

These are handy when you want to find planets and comets since these are updated monthly. They don't have the flexibility of planispheres so they usually state a time that the map is set for but now that you have played with your sky wheel and know how to turn it to simulate time you can turn the sky map to match the sky as well

Look insideâ?¦

• Sky and Telescope and Astronomy Magazines
• Free online Skymaps for Northern and Southern Hemisphere Skymaps.com

Need more Southern Hemisphere help?

Southern hemisphere views can use the maps designed for them at the same site but since you have all the sun you will have to wait until 10 pm to use the maps.
Learning the sky in the Southern hemisphere

What to look for in January

• Venus is sinking lower in the sky each night and will soon be gone until she becomes the morning star later in the month. On the evening of the 1st look for her next to the new crescent moon.
• Saturn is becoming the star of the show rising higher each night and is in the constellation cancer, so now that you have your planisphere finding Saturn should be easier.
• On the 4th Earth is at perihelion which means that we are at the point in our orbit closest to the sun!
• The Moon is full on the 14th of this month and waning to new moon on the 29th.

News

• Explosion on the Moon caught and recorded - probably a Taurid meteroid
• The science from Deep Impact on Tempel 1 -
• Mike Salway has posted a wonderful collection of planetary photographs
• Hubble finds a couple of more moon and rings for Uranus and confirms a moon find from Voyager 2

Music

• Intro: Bill deRome's "The Sundial"
• Fade out: Red River's "Ring in the Old" a end of the year song!

Check out the show note with all the links to the websites and podcasts mentioned on our show! Enjoy!

Astronomy a Go Go! Mini-podcast: Having fun with those new presents!

Closing song: "Just Dream" by Ginnicide

First off those MP3 players!

Here is what you need to listen to podcasts:

• a computer
• a connection to the Internet
• a free audio player, (standard part of Windows, Apple, Linux installation)
• a free podcast aggregator (these programs store and check for subscription updates for you)

 

Most podcasts have website that will allow you to listen to specific episodes without a subscriptions or additional software. But if you find a podcast you like having an aggregator makes life much easier.

There are several places to find directories of podcasts the current favorites being:

• iTunes music store podcast section
• Podcast Alley
• iPodder
• Liberated Syndication directory (Libsyn hosts my podcast)
• Podcasting News directory
• Podcast Pickle

...and since there seem to be as many podcast directories as podcasts check out the list created by Robin Good.

Here are our favorite astronomy and science podcasts.

General Public

• Astronomy a Go Go!
• Slacker Astronomy (quite hysterical)
• The Naked Scientist Radio Show
• StarDate
• Science at NASA
• Science Fridays from NPR

More Scientific

• Universe Today
• The Keck Observatory

Blogs without podcasts

• Bad Astronomy
• NASA Breaking News
• Planetary Society
• Space.com

And now for those new telescopes!

For those of you who are old hats at telescopes this will a review but if this is your first telescope you probably just can't wait to get that scope outside. The first rule of telescopes, binoculars and your eyes is never, never, ever look directly at the sun. We will talk about solar viewing at a later date for now just trust me permanent eye damage is no laughing matter. It is also a good thing to remind your friends and family looking through your scope as well.

Use the internet to search for "astronomy clubs", astronomers and knitter are probably the most prolific sharing groups on the internet! My club, the Tacoma Astronomical Club keeps a great website with all of our free public nights on the calendar. In North America you can go to the Astronomical League website to look for a list of member clubs in your area.

Find or make a red flashlight. White light kills your night vision so get or make a couple of red flashlights and keep them with your astronomy gear.

Learn about your scope. There is a very good beginers article at Sky and Telescope about choosing telescopes.

Practice aligning you finder tool The idea is that you look through the finder to find and center the telescope on the area you want to see. However this doesn't work if the finder isn't pointing the same way as the telescope. Not matching the finder with the telescope is probably the first, and most common mistake for all astronomers. This is a perfect afternoon activity.

Start out with big things! This time of year the waning crescent moon, the planets, the Orion nebula, and the Pleiades are all good first objects. You can find a free December star map at www.skymaps.com. We will be talking about planispheres on our next podcast so make sure you join us for that show.

Collimating your scope. Your refractors and most Cassigrains will not need collimating as long as they are handled carefully. However your reflectors/Newtonians will need collimating the first time you get them and any time you decide to toss it in the back of the car and find a super bumpy road to drive on. Follow the steps in your manual or check out one of these pages. Sky and Telescope article Step-by-step guide

I let you go I would like to thank the band 3 Blind Mice for their lovely comment on my first show, I played their song "Watchstar" and I would like to thank Stephanie, Arthur and Nic for their wonderful and supportive comments.

Good night everyone thanks for listening and we will talk to you in a few days at our end of the year podcast!

We have been experiencing some difficulty getting our files uploaded without being truncated. Thanks to everyone for their patience! Alice

Show #2 - The Winter Solstice Wecome to our second podcast and happy Winter solstice to you all! For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere it is time to give the sun back!! For me the winter solstice marks the middle of winter and I keep telling myself over and over that the sun is returning. So put up that tree, string some lights and have a sip of cider and enjoy while we explain the reason for the seasons.

• Seasons charts
• Another rant on where the seasons begin and end.
• Changes of the Seasons

News

• Beagle May be Found
• Lunar occulation of Spica charts
• Mars Rovers

Music

• End music: Sascha Ludwig - Tribute to Mozart
• Interlude: Dejie Johnson - What a Wonderful World

Welcome to our first podcast.

This show features a brief description of what planets and constellations are visible tonight, our full moon and the associated lunar standstill, and current space news.

Thanks to the following artist who provide podsafe music for us all.

• Background music for the introduction: Amplifico - All Your Sins
• Background music for the show: Cambridge Guitar Orchestra - Reverie
• Show end song: 3 Blind Mice - Watchstar

Our next show will feature what is visible in the night sky, the Winter Solstice and the reason for the season plus some wonderful music.

Katie and Alice are working on the script, and testing the equipment, for the first podcast. Since this podcast will be a collaborative effort the ramping up is a little slower. Stay tuned for the announcement of the first show! Special thanks to Michael for creating the intro for Astronomy a Go Go!