Fri, 1 September 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night! photo courtesy of: ESA SMART-1 Credit: ESA Stars: Act I Les Miserables StarsIn your multitudes Scarce to be counted Filling the darkness With order and light You are the sentinels Silent and sure Keeping watch in the night Keeping watch in the night You know your place in the sky By Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
Listener FeedbackWelcome to Heath, Stephan, and Vance. I am glad to have you aboard and loved the emails. I also got a phone call from my Aunt Bonnie who was visiting my folks with the infamous "Mars Spectacular" email in hand. She apparently forgot about it until she heard the podcast. Apparently it caused much hilarity and spawned a welcomed phone call.
Listener QuestionMars Spectacular ... exact number repressedWhy is Pluto not a planet...lost count I'm ready for some new questions! ;-)
NewsSMART-1 to hit the Moon Read more from
NASA...or more from the ESA protal... One
of its most important discoveries was a "Peak of Eternal Light," peaks around
Crater Peary near the Moon's north pole in constant, year-round sunlight. Peaks
of Eternal Light are prime real estate for solar-powered Moon
bases. Uranian eclipse Read more from Space.com... ConstellationsScutum - The shield is the 5th smallest constellation and was introduced in late 1683 by Hevelius as commemoration of the victory of the Christian forces led by Polish king and hero John III Sobieski in the battle of Vienna. We have danced all around this constellation, looking at its brighter objects all summer but never calling it by name. It is home to M11 (NGC 6705) +6.3 mag, the Wild Duck Cluster, M26 (NGC 6694)an +8.0 mag open cluster. The globular cluster NGC 6712Sculptor - introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille as a sculptor's
studio, but the name was later shortened to just Sculptor. It sits North of the
Phoenix and Grus (the Crane) and to the east of Fomalhaut. Scuptor's 4-5th mag
stars outline what could be a large block of unshaped stone. Pisces Australis - Visible from 53 deg N the Southern Fish is one of the original 48 constellations that appeared in Ptolemy works. If you can find Aquarius and follow the water being poured from the jug you will find the Southern Fish drinking at the base of that cascade. The Arabs call the brightest star Fum al Hut (Fish Mouth)now Fomalhaut. Around 3000BC Persian astrologers used Fomalhaut (Haftorang) as one of their
4 Guardian Stars (Royal or Watcher Stars). They are: Microscopium - another one of de Lacaille's mechanical wonders. Visible from 45 deg N but the stars are very faint. If you draw a line from Fomalhaut to Kaus Australis (the bottom corner star of the spout in the Saggitarius teapot) the half way point will be right in the middle of Microscopium. Constellation image on its way! ViewingNaked eye -Participate in NASA's "Star Count" all you need is a paper towel tube! Something for the Northern Hemisphere is Algol. The Arabs called it Al ghul 'the ghoul' and the Greeks refered to it as the evil eye of the Gorgon Medusa. In the sky it is the second brightest star in the constellation Perseus and is indeed in Medusa's head in Perseus' outstreatched arms. "...the Gorgon's head, a ghastly sight, deformed and dreadful, and a sight of woe". - Homer, writing of Algol in the Iliad. Algol was actually an eclipsing binary 93 light-years away with a freakishly regular period of 2 days 20 hours 48 minutes 56 seconds to go from magnitude +2.1 to +3.4 and back. Use the charts from the AAVSO to find Algol and compare her in brightness to stars in the same area. Algol will be come easier to see (earlier!) and the season wears on. For more information visit the Sky and Telescope website.
Binocular - Turn those binoculars towards Algol for a treat. Telescope won't really give you the same nice wide field of view and the binoculars make it easier to compare magnitudes with stars around Algol. Binocular observers with really dark skies can view NGC 288 in Sculptor together with the bright galaxy NGC 253 in one field; NGC 288 appears as a round nebulous object. Telescope - Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 55 in Sculptor Viewing image on its way! The MoonPartial Lunar eclipse Sept 7 16:42 UT (first contact with penumbra)Images created with Lunar Phase Pro Our beautiful lunar photos are courtesy of Frank Barrett at celestialwonders.com I recommend visiting his site and checking out his lunar phase photos. You can zoom in for more detail. Show #26 took us to the Ptolemaeus group of craters and we are going to start at the end of that group for a little hop to hell! ;-)
"Just west of Thebit and its prominent A crater to the northwest, you see the Straight Wall - Rupes Recta - appearing as a thin, white line. Continue south until you see large, eroded crater Deslandres. On its western shore, is a bright ring that marks the boundary of Hell. While this might seem like an unusual name for a crater, it was named for an astronomer - and clergyman!"
The 'Lake District'. The same way the Lake District in Northern England has a
pletheora of 'tarn' the lunar surface also has its share of lacus (lakes), 17 in
all, there is one region that has a nice concentraion. Between Mare Vaporum and
Mare Serenitatis.
 Remember latitudes that are negative (-) are South and longitudes that are negative (-) are West! PlanetsEvening Planets
CometsComets for the Month.Check out the Sky Hound site."One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" Email us at astronomyagogo at gmail dot com or leave a note in our show notes at
www.astronomy.libsyn.com MusicCeltic Stone - Raggle Taggle GypsiesWoodland 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.  Category:Moon
-- posted at: 5:02 AM | ||||||||||||
Fri, 1 September 2006
The podcast is on it's way but I didn't want anyone to miss Smart1 hitting the moon!Make sure you go to the NASA website for the details of this event for Sept 3, UT 05:41 (Sept 2, 10:41 PDT for you west coasters!) Category:Moon
-- posted at: 4:04 AM | ||||||||||||
Thu, 31 August 2006
Answering those favorite old questions:
Will the Mars email ever stop!? Ha! Will Pluto spin out of orbit now that it isn't a Planet?!?!? It's still a Planet folks! Can Alice create a podcast on Nyquil?!?!? Absolutely NOT! LOL | ||||||||||||
Fri, 24 March 2006
Looking at astronomy in art, cruisin' the open clusters of Puppis, what do astronomers keep in their kits, some music and conversation.
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Fri, 24 March 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night! Van Gogh's "Starry Night" Hello!Hello to Anthony from Manchester, England! He is doing what most parents do just trying to stay one step ahead of the kid! And hello to Anthony's kids! And happy birthday to my sister Mandy back home in Texas! Special Viewing Project!Globe at Night needs your help measuring and recording the amount of light pollutionArt Van Gogh's "The White House at Night" Munch's "Girls on a Pier" Van Gogh's "Moon rise"Donald Olson Marilynn Olson, his wife, and Russell Doescher Texas State University, San Marcos. Astronomer Russell Doescher confirmed that the star in "White House at Night" is actually Venus, just like in "Starry Night" and the placement of the moon. In Starry night Van Gogh actually painted the moon in the proper gibbous phase then changed it to a more romantic crescent The Moon- Tonight the moon is in it's last quarter phase and shrinking daily. Which is good for all of the Messier hunters this weekend! Grimaldi a tiny spot, sometime mistaken for a tiny sea on the western limb of the moon.  Image courtesy of the Lunar Republic There was an interesting computer enhanced image of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, I ran across it on the Bad Astronomer's Blog It has been cleaned up...a bit too much! Also thanks to Tom's Astronomy Blog I found out that the IAU has provisionally approved of naming 7 of the moon's craters after the astronauts who perished in the Columbia tragedy. Once all is said and done I will find craters; Husband, McCool, Chawla, L. Clark, M. Anderson, D. Brown, Ramon for you. Planets
Tools/GadgetsWhat do you keep in your telescope kit? Do you have too much, too little? What is your favorite tool?Alice's telescope box
ClustersGlobular - Globular clusters are gravitationally bound concentrations of approximately ten thousand to one million stars. They populate the halo or bulge of the Milky Way and are believed to be very old and formed from an earlier generation of stars. Hayden Planetarium has a great simulation on the life of a globular cluster Open cluster - Open (or galactic) clusters are physically related groups of stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction. They are believed to originate from large cosmic gas/dust clouds in the Milky Way, we can observe the formation of new young open star clusters. You can easily see this nebulosity in the Pleiades. There are two types of descriptors you will see with open star clusters. There is the Shapley
index (Harlow Shapley) The more detailed and specific Trumpler index/rating which is broken into 3 parts + optional nebulosity note. The first part is a Roman numeral that denotes concentration I - Detached; strong concentration toward centerII - Detached; weak concentration toward center III - Detached; no concentration toward center IV - Not well detached from surrounding star field The second part is a Arabic number to show the range in brightness 1 - Small range in brightness2 - Moderate range in brightness 3 - Large range in brightness Thirdly a letter to represent the richness of the cluster p - Poor: Less than 50 starsm - Moderately rich: 50 to 100 stars r - Rich: More than 100 stars If there is an nebulosity in and around the cluster there will be an "n" attached to the end. I give you both since you will find both used in the different resource on the internet or on star charts. Binocular/Telescope viewing
Not to ignore the far N. Hemisphere try Constellations Coma Berenices, Berenice's hair - One of the last of the ancient constellations. Queen Berenice sacrificed her beautiful hair to the goddess Aphrodite in order to assure the safe return of her husband from battle. Upon his return the king demanded to be shown her hair. In order to save his own life(for the hair had been stolen) the temple priest related how Aphrodite was so moved by the sacrifice removed the hair and placed it into the skies as a constellation. Coma Berenices is a small, faint constellation that can be found immediately to the east of Leo.
NewsThere 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. Here is a list of some of the sites I visit daily:
Comets visible with binoculars/telescopes in the northern hemisphere. -
"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 MusicHans York -"Listen to the Moon"Radoon -"From the Moon" Category:Moon
-- posted at: 12:02 PM | ||||||||||||
Thu, 2 March 2006
Talking about the Moon, chasing Mercury,
planning for an astrophotography episode,
sharing good astronomy sites, listening to
music and having fun!
(Not to mention staying up wayyyy too late!)
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Thu, 2 March 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!
M104 Image courtesy of Thomas McDonagh Copyright: Thomas McDonagh 2005 60 second image collected remotely April 13, 2005 300 mm f/ 11.9 23.6 x 23.6 Arcmins FOV RAS Observatory, NM
The Old Astronomer to His Pupil
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
Sarah Williams
Welcome!Hello to the original Go Go girl Joan! (aka Mom! aka Go!Go! Joanie) RapidEye sent us more references for free planispheres and star charts... "I heard your request for a free "Southern" Planisphere and this one didn't come up: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/planisphere/planisphere.htm The guy is amazing and also did a free Mag 6.5 Atlas with a similar layout to Norton's: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm Then he went a step further and did a free Mag 8.5 Atlas (his substitute for SA2K): http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas_85/atlas_85.htm" David in Cardiff U.K. made a wonderful suggestion to create MP3s for 'in the field' listening A big thanks to Kevin, Matt and Joseph who are feeding me information for a segment on astrophotography! I am really enjoying watching as people appear on the Frappr Map! Our most southern listener is "Iluvtheclean" from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the furtherest North is the "Neptune Family" in Anchorage AK...and I think we have some pointy stick issues in common so go visit www.justafewskeins.blogspot.com sometime! Finally welcome to Mordechai from Israel who had found a rekindling of interest in astronomy and is looking for the Andromeda Galaxy and so lets start the program with that! Don't forgetWe have links to all the reference from tonight's show in our show notes you can find them at astronomy.libsyn.com Tips and TricksFinding M31, M32, M110 This is what I do to find the Andromeda Galaxy. Start with
Alpheratz (AL-fer-rats)the star shared by Andromeda and Pegasus.
Most of Pegasus will be sitting just on the western horizon so
Alpheratz will be the brighter star on the horizon. Andromeda is
a long "V" shape which starts at Alpheratz and widens as she
stretches towards Perseus. If you go down the brighter line to
the second star Mirach then cross north to star on the dim line
and make one more step, the same distance and on the same line
north to a faint long smear. That is the Andromeda Galaxy and
with in her spiral arms is M32 and just on the opposite side a
little removed is M110. Think of Peter Pan.."Second star.. to the
right and straight on til morning" don't ask me why that works
but it does. Now, light pollution I can't fix for you. Planets
Mercury
In Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and thievery, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods and original FTD man.
Tools This one is from the lost and found, a site I remember finding and then telling myself I would bookmark and then forgot. Check out Messier45.com Constellations Lynx - the Lynx or Tiger - Lynx, the Tiger, is a modern constellation, created by the astronomer Hevelius in the 17th century. He named it Lynx, as you had to have "eyes as sharp as a tigers" to see it the constellation. Leo - the Lion is an old school constellation. The
bright star is Regulus and it is easy to find with his large
sickle shaped head. Leo contains many bright galaxies, the twins
(Spiral Galaxy M65, Spiral Galaxy M66) and the Leo Trio. The Moon - This weekend the moon will be moving from thin waxing crescent to first quarter. Start from the illuminated edge, this is the Moon's eastern limb regardless of her orientation to you. The large round sea we see is Mare Crisium acts as our East marker. The terminator is the North and South separator between the illuminated (day) part of the moon from the darker (night) side. On the 6th look for Mare Frigoris, the long narrow sea that stretches from East to West across the Northern 'cap' of the moon. The South has no large seas but lots of craters and is very bright. If you can practice finding these orientations and remember these markers you can travel anywhere and successfully navigate the moon even when she 'looks like a cup or a toad-stool" On the 14th of this month much of the planet will see a
partial lunar eclipse. This one is unique but might go
unnoticed as the Moon passes only through the penumbra or outer
shadow of Earth touching neither the dark 'true' shadow of the
Earth, the umbra, or true light. If you follow the link and look
at the diagram you will be impressed with just how little
penumbra there is...basically only a Moon's width. Naked eye viewing-
Binocular viewing-On the South edge of Mare Nectaris is a crater called Piccolominni. The crater was named after Alessandro Piccolomini (June 13, 1508-March 12, 1578), and Italian writer, philosopher, and astronomer. Ready for a challenge. Last week we talked about the two comets coming from the S.hemisphere and there has already been a sighting...with binoculars! This is from "Tom's Astronomy Blog" which I find informative and reliable enough to keep in in my Bloglines. I think we both look at the same news items because I find frequent overlap..which is good! His blog updates are daily. "I made it outside early this morning, didn't bother with my coat, after all it was just a quick look. I was thinking Pojmanski would be below the horizon. Not so! Actually, it was higher than I had expected. It was also much brighter than I thought it would be, probably because I was expecting it to be much more diffuse than it was. Then again I heard it was a mag 5, seems about right. I used binoculars and started doing a spiral sweep around Venus - talk about bright - and in a few minutes...success. "So, can we all guess what Alice will be doing in the mornings? Russell also mentioned it in his new Dark Matter's podcast which came out Tuesday. Telescopic viewing- One of the prettiest
spiral galaxies is in our northeastern sky during the evening
hours. M51 more poetically named the Whirlpool galaxy. CometsMake sure you check the links for update, always better from the horse's mouth so to speak.... Pojmanski
has brightened to 5.3 magnitude (as of Feb 21) and is visible in
the N.Hemisphere Tom of "Tom's Astronomy" reported finding it on
a sweep starting around Venus. Follow the link above to find the
associated starchart. McNaught10.3 mag on Jan. 30 (Juan Jose Gonzalez). It was very small and sharp before, however, now it looks like a typical diffuse comet. It keeps 10 mag until March. News
Email us at astronomyagogo@gmail.com or leave a note in our
show notes at www.astronomy.libsyn.com or help us out by leaving
a donation in the ol' PayPal hat MusicCourtney Jones -"Ride"anthems of a bygone era -"String Groove" Category:Moon
-- posted at: 3:23 PM | ||||||||||||
Thu, 26 January 2006
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.
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Thu, 26 January 2006
Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!Welcome to Astronomy a Go Go for Thursday January 26, 2006! A day to rememberGrowing 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 TricksNaked 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 #7The moon is a waning crescent so you can expect a lovely dark weekend for viewing.
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. PlanetsThe 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. NewsStardust 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. 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. TriviaAnswer's for Show#6 Trivia
This week's trivia
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! MusicMusic for remember the heros:Fumitaka Anzai song "Forest in the morning" Category:Moon
-- posted at: 10:43 AM | ||||||||||||
Wed, 21 December 2005
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.
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. | ||||||||||||
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Astronomy a Go Go! (Moon)
In the car, at work or under the night time sky astronomy goes where you go! |
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