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.

Astronomy Night at the Emmaus Public Library

The last astronomy presentation at the library had a great turn-out so I scheduled more! 

Here is the info for the next one:

The Power of Telescopes

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 a presentation about the The Power of Telescopes will be given by Mark Tillotson. A hands-on demonstration of how a telescope works will be presented along with a discussion of the different types of telescopes in use today and the pictures they produce. 

The event is on Monday, April 6, 2009 at the Emmaus Public Library at 7 pm. If the skies are clear, I will set up a telescope after the presentation.

Future astronomy nights at the library are scheduled for Tuesday, May 12th and Monday, June 1st. Please join me at the library!

Fly Me to the Moon

This seems to have become my theme song: 

This is a great version. Frank dedicates it to the Apollo astronauts who landed on the Moon.

Shoot for the Stars

Image: Caelum Observatory

“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.” 

  - Les Brown

Kanawha and A Landlocked Virginia

This is a great 'strange map' and an interesting story. I'm sure Mr. Jefferson would not have approved of this. When Virginia seceeded from the Union, West Virginia seceeded from Virginia. This map represents a potential change in state boundaries and was created some time in 1861.

West Virginia is the state that seceded where others failed. When in 1861 the South broke away from the US to form the Confederacy, the Mountain State in its turn left Virginia to remain within the Union. The electoral process by which it did this was highly irregular, and its accession to the Union could be considered illegal and unconstitutional. But in wartime, legal niceties count for less than tactical advantage, and West Virginia became a full-fledged member of the United States in 1863. The wrangling about West Virginia’s secession stopped only in 1939, when it paid the final installment of its share of the pre-Civil War state debt to Virginia.

In this map Virginia is just a narrow strip along the Blue Ridge Mountains. Read the whole story at Strange Maps.

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!

The Periodic Table of Videos

The Periodic Table of Videos

This is a great site for all the science geeks out there (like me)! It is from the University of Nottingham and has a video for every element on the periodic table. This is the video for Sodium.