You Can Help AAVSO!

Ever wanted to subscribe to Sky & Telescope? Need to renew? I recently received a special promotion just for you (my readers) and would like to pass it on. The picture below will lead you to a page where you can subscribe for 47% off. Also, $5.00 of your purchase goes straight to the American Asociation of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).



So help yourself and AAVSO today!

NOTE: I receive NO compensation, monetary or otherwise, for the posting of this link.

In order to help the AAVSO I followed the lead of the Visual Astronomy blog in posting this offer from Sky & Telescope.

Methane on Mars

Despite the tabloid headlines this does not mean that life on Mars has been found. It does mean that they found something unusual and they will investigate further.

This is such a great time to be an astronomer!

Star Party - February 7, 2009

Star Party Program for February 7, 2009

7:00pm: Feature Program - "Planet Quest: The Search for Another Earth" 

Club member Tim Reinhard will discuss the various techniques being used to locate and study planets around distant stars. It is now clear that extra solar planets around distant stars are common. The big questions are: do any contain life as we know it? Is there another earth out there?

8pm and again at 9pm: Planetarium Show of the Night Sky

Assistant planetarium director Pete Detterline will conduct the planetarium show this month featuring interesting facts about the February night sky.

Please note: Planetarium seating is limited. Because the dome is lowered, visitors must be seated under the dome to see the planetarium show.

7pm – 10pm: Telescope viewing of the Night Sky

Weather permitting, our observatory telescopes, plus individual club member telescopes, will be available for you to look through at various night sky objects. Feel free to ask questions about the objects you see or the telescopes you are looking through. This is an outdoor activity so dress warmly.

LEHIGH VALLEY AMATEUR ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

620B E. Rock Rd., Allentown PA 18103

610-797-3476 • www.lvaas.net

A non-profit educational organization founded in 1957

Today in Astronomy: January 11

William Tyler Olcott

January 11, 1873 – July 6, 1936

William Tyler Olcott was an American lawyer and amateur astronomer. In 1909, after attending a lecture by Edward Pickering, he developed an interest in observing variable stars. In 1911, he and professor Pickering founded the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Olcott also published several books to popularize the field of amateur astronomy. The Moon crater Olcott is named in his honor.

Today in Astronomy: Simon Marius

January 10, 1573 – December 26, 1624

Simon Marius was a German astronomer. In 1614 Marius published his work Mundus Iovialis describing the planet Jupiter and its moons. Here he claimed to have discovered the planet's four major moons some days before Galileo. This led to a dispute with Galileo, who showed that Marius provided only one observation as early as Galileo's, and it matched Galileo's diagram for the same date, as published in 1610. 

It is considered possible that Marius discovered the moons independently, but at least some days later than Galileo; if so, he is the only person known to have observed the moons in the period before Galileo published his observations. Regardless of priority, the mythological names by which these satellites are known today (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) are those given them by Marius. The Moon crater Marius is named in his honor.

Simon Marius also observed the Andromeda "nebula", which had in fact already been known to Arab astronomers of the Middle Ages.

Today in Astronomy: Caroline Herschel

Caroline Lucretia Herschel

March 16, 1750 – January 9, 1848

Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born British astronomer. She is the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers. Her most significant contribution to astronomy was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name. The Moon crater C. Herschel is named in her honor.

Today in Astronomy: Galileo

February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements include the first systematic studies of uniformly accelerated motion, improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo's empirical work was a significant break from the abstract Aristotelian approach of his time.

It is Galileo's first use of a telescope in 1609 that inspired the International Year of Astronomy in 2009.

Today in Astronomy: Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking is a British theoretical physicist and was born on January 8, 1942.

Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position once held by Issac Newton. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. These include the runaway popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation.

Happy Birthday, Stephen!

Today in Astronomy

NASA/JPL/DLR

January 7, 1610

Galileo Galilei observes the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time. He named them and in turn the four are called the Galilean moons. Jupiter's 4 Galilean moons, in a composite image comparing their sizes and the size of Jupiter (Great Red Spot visible). From the top, they are Io,Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

The Moon and Venus

The Moon and Venus over my house!

Happy New Year! But don't forget your leap second!

Today in Astronomy: Vesto Slipher

Vesto Melvin Slipher, born on November 11, 1875 (d. November 8, 1969), was an American astronomer. He spent his entire career at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he was director from 1916 to 1952. He used spectroscopy to investigate the rotation periods of planets and the composition of planetary atmospheres. In 1912, he was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, so he was the discoverer of galactic redshifts.

John Peacock, head of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, states:

a very large share of the credit for the discovery of the expanding universe is due to Slipher, and yet he tends to take very much second place to Hubble in most accounts.

While it was Edwin Hubble who received all the publicity, Vesto Slipher actually made the discovery that galaxies are moving away from us. He also determined that the Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards the Milky Way!

Slipher was also responsible for hiring Clyde Tombaugh and supervised the work that led to the discovery of Pluto. His brother Earl C. Slipher was also an astronomer. The Moon crater Slipher and a crater on Mars are named in his honor.

Vesto Slipher died in Flagstaff, AZ on November 8, 1969 at the age of 93. He was one of the giants of astronomy and deserves greater recognition.

Sources:
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jap/slipher/
http://www.lowell.edu/Research/library/paper/vm_slipher.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesto_Melvin_Slipher

The Darth Raker Invasion

I spent most of the evening with Professor Darth Raker's Astronomy Class, which was visiting LVAAS to do some hands-on learning. It was a fun group, although Aimee 'White-Light' did cause some trouble in the beginning...



We looked at Jupiter through several different scopes and Bill showed us the 'Ring Nebula'. Will had fun showing off his 4.5" Celestron while I fiddled with both the 12" reflector (Roll-Off) and the 6" refractor (upstairs dome). Io went behind Jupiter at 7:19 pm. We had been watching it get closer and closer, wondering if it would cross in front or behind the giant planet. Ganymede, Europa and Calisto were also visible.




Fred gave them a Planetarium show and while the Prof was trying to take pictures I was nominated to lead the Library tour. Dave is the current club librarian and he said that it contains over 1,000 astronomy-related books, magazines, videos and DVD's. Quite a collection!!

The crowd departed with their notebooks - apparently a 4-page paper on Astronomy is due next week. They had fun and asked a lot of questions - which I was glad to answer. Good luck to all!



I then spent some quiet time with the Moon. The fast-moving clouds made for some interesting lighting on - and around - the Moon.

The rest of today's images are in my Picasa Web Album.

Thought for today:

“The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.”

- William Blake (English Poet, Painter and Engraver. 1757-1827)

Today in Astronomy

Giovanni Domenico Cassini died on this day in 1712 in Paris. He was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer. Cassini, also known as Giandomenico Cassini, was born on June 8, 1625 in Perinaldo, near Sanremo, at that time in the Republic of Genoa.

Cassini was an astronomer at the Panzano Observatory, from 1648 to 1669. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna and became, in 1671, director of the Paris Observatory. He thoroughly adopted his new country, to the extent that he became interchangeably known as Jean-Dominique Cassini —although that is also the name of his great-grand-son.

Along with Robert Hooke, Cassini is given credit for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (ca. 1665). Cassini was the first to observe four of Saturn's moons, which he called Sidera Lodoicea; he also discovered the Cassini Division (1675). Around 1690, Cassini was the first to observe differential rotation within Jupiter's atmosphere.

In 1672 he sent his colleague Jean Richer to Cayenne, French Guiana, while he himself stayed in Paris. The two made simultaneous observations of Mars and thus found its parallax to determine its distance, thus measuring for the first time the true dimensions of the solar system.

Cassini was the first to make successful measurements of longitude by the method suggested by Galileo, using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter as a clock.

Named after Cassini

• Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn
• The Cassini Division in Saturn's rings
• Cassini Regio, dark area on Iapetus
• Cassini crater on Mars
• Cassini crater on the Moon
• Cassini's Laws
• 24101 Cassini, an asteroid
• Cassini's identity for Fibonacci numbers
• Cassini oval
• Cassini Web Server

For more information visit the Astronomy Compendium.

LVAAS Star Party - September 6, 2008

The Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society - LVAAS - is holding its monthly Star Party on Saturday, September 6, 2008. 

This event is free and open to the public. If you would like to learn more about the night sky or take a look through a telescope, please join us!

7 pm: Feature Program - “A Trip to the Moon ”

Club member Mark Tillotson will take us on a journey to our nearest neighbor, the Moon.  You will explore craters that are visible from Earth and see stunning new images of Tycho, taken by the Japanese lunar probe Selene. Learn about Tycho’s fascinating system of rays and the size of some of the incredible impact craters.

8 pm and again at 9 pm: Planetarium Show of the Night Sky

Assistant planetarium director Peter Detterliner will guide us through the September night sky this month. Please note: Planetarium seating is limited. Because the dome is lowered, visitors
must be seated under the dome to see the planetarium show.

7 pm – 10 pm: Telescope viewing of the Night Sky

Weather permitting, our observatory telescopes, plus individual club member telescopes, will be available for you to look through at various night sky objects. Feel free to ask questions about the objects you see or the telescopes you are looking through.

You can learn more about LVAAS and the Star Party at www.lvaas.net.