Irish Astronomical Association News

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

IAA at LNDC, IAA Lecture, COSMOS, EarthHour, ISS, GAM, Mars, Orionid meteors

Hi all,

1. IAA at Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, near Lurgan, on 30 March, evening:

This will be similar to other IAA events, except that there will be an optional supper first at the LNDC cafe - see details below. There will be a £15 admission charge for the whole event, including supper, or £5 for the later observing session only. We will of course have the Stardome, (loaned from Armagh Planetarium with thanks once again), with regular starshows, so there will be plenty of interest even if it's cloudy. N.B: The meal is now almost fully booked, so if you want to go for that, book now.

DETAILS: Friday 30^th March: 6.30pm 'til late:

'Supper with the Stars': Join the Irish Astronomical Association for a spectacular evening of stargazing and culinary delights at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre.

There will be star shows in a mobile planetarium commencing at 7.30pm, followed by celestial views of the First Quarter Moon, brilliant Venus ("the Evening Star"), and fascinating Jupiter with its four large Galilean moons, Mars, Saturn, plus a lot more! All this is of course weather dependent.

There will also be an exhibition of the best photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the best ground-based observatories plus some amazing ones by IAA members, a display of telescopes and binoculars, and some amazing meteorites.

£5 entry for stargazing experience.

£15 includes the stargazing and a two course meal (6.30pm, Loughside Café, LNDC).

Booking is essential for this event. Please contact the Interpretative team at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre on 028 3831 1673 / 028 3832 1671 for further details and to book a place.

See also www.irishastro.org

2. IAA LECTURE, 4 April: (N.B. This is a change from what is in the programme card) The Astronomical Association's next public lecture will be given by John Flannery, of the SDAS: Title: "The Outer Limits: Exploring the Outer Solar System". WEDNESDAY 4 April, at 7.30 p.m., in the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen's University, Belfast. Synopsis: "For thousands of years we only knew of the classical planets out as far as Saturn. That all changed in 1781 when William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus and at a stroke doubled the then-known size of the Solar System. Neptune soon joined the planet club while Pluto had a brief membership during the 20th century.

Astronomers have found though that the outer solar system is a far more dynamic place than was originally thought with various classes of asteroid-sized bodies now catalogued, while Pluto itself is just one of a collection of similar sized objects. The talk will classify the members of the outer solar system, what research is currently taking place, speculate on future discoveries, and detail why Pluto was demoted from planet status."

3. COSMOS 2012: The Midlands Astronomy Club have finalised the programme for their very popular annual star party, at Annaharvey Farm, just outside Tullamore, Co Offaly, on the W/E of 13-15 April. Speakers include:

- Thierry Legault, world-renowned French astrophotographer
- Girvan McKay, Midlands Astronomy Club
- Eamon Ansbro, Kingsland Observatory, Roscommon
- Kevin Berwick, Dublin
- Dermot Gannon, Midlands Astronomy Club
- Apostolos Christou, Armagh Observatory
- Lawrence Rigney, Midlands Astronomy Club
More details are available on the website www.midlandsastronomy.com

4. Earth Hour 2012 March 31, 20:30 - 21:30. Switch off all unnecessary lights, see the sky, and save the planet! Take part in a global call to action to highlight concerns about climate change and the way we are wasting the world's limited resources

5. ISS The International Space Station started another series of morning passes on March 19. Details for your own location, and lots of other useful information such as Iridium Flares, are on the free site www.heavens-above.com

6. Global Astronomy Month. There will be an international star party to promote peace during Global Astronomy Month in April. "StarPeace" and "Astronomers Without Borders" have partnered for 30 days of StarPeace. Simultaneous events, some with online interaction between clubs in different countries, will circle the globe through 10 segments of longitude. Beginning in Oceania during the first three days of April, the event sweeps eastward to cover the world by month's end. If you are planning anything for this event, please let me know. For more information see www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/gam2012-programs/program-schedule/1064.html.

7. UNUSUAL CLOUDS ON MARS: What appear to be very high altitude clouds on Mars are puzzling astronomers. See the photos etc in this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2119623/Is-life-Mars-Well-certainly-looks-like-CLOUDS.html

8. JUPITER HELPS HALLEY'S COMET GIVE US MORE SPECTACULAR METEOR DISPLAYS. The dramatic appearance of Halley's comet in the night sky has been observed and recorded by astronomers since 240 BC. Now a study shows that the orbital influences of Jupiter on the comet and the debris it leaves in its wake are responsible for periodic outbursts of activity in the Orionid meteor showers, according to a paper presented by Aswin Sekhar of Armagh Observatory, at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Tuesday 27^th March.

Halley's comet orbits the Sun every 75-76 years on average. As its nucleus approaches the Sun, it heats up and releases gas and dust that form the spectacular tail. This outgassing leaves a trail of debris around the orbit. When the Earth crosses Halley's path – twice per orbit – the dust particles burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and we see meteor showers: the Orionids in October and the Eta Aquariids in May. Previous research has suggested that Orionid meteoroids have at times fallen into 'resonances' with Jupiter's orbit – a numerical relationship that influences orbital behaviour. Sekhar's new study suggests that Halley itself has been in resonances with Jupiter in the past, which in turn would increase the chances of populating resonant meteoroids in the stream. The particles ejected during those times experience a tendency to clump together due to periodic effects from Jupiter.

"This resonant behaviour of meteoroids means that Halley's debris is not uniformly distributed along its orbital path. When the Earth encounters one of these clumps, it experiences a much more spectacular meteor shower than usual," said Sekhar. Sekhar's work suggests that the unusual Orionid outburst observed in 1993 was due to 2:13 resonant meteoroids ejected from Halley around 240 BC.

9. TWITTER: the IAA now has a twitter account. twitter@IaaAstro

10. BBC THINGS TO DO WEBSITE: See the forthcoming IAA events on

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thingstodo

11. JOINING the IRISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION is now even easier: This link downloads a Word document to join the IAA. http://irishastro.org.uk/iaamembership.doc. See also www.irishastro.org.

Clear skies,

Terry Moseley

Friday, 23 March 2012

Spectacular conjunction, TV, IAA Event, COSMOS, EarthHour, ISS, Solar heat, Oops

Hi all,

1. Lovely gathering of the crescent Moon and the two brightest planets to continue into early next week.

You've all seen Jupiter and Venus pass close by each other. But there's more to come. Although they are now slowly drawing further apart, this weekend they will be joined a beautiful 'New Moon', with 'the Old Moon In the New Moon's Arms'. This will be a lovely sight.

The show will start on Saturday evening when a very thin crescent 'New Moon' will lie close to the horizon below Jupiter and brilliant Venus which will then be 'top of the stack'. Look from about 7.30 to 8 p.m.

The main event begins on Sunday evening, when the lovely crescent Moon will lie just to the right of Jupiter, with brilliant Venus above the pair. Look for the Earthshine, or the 'Old Moon In The New Moon's Arms', which is the faintly glowing disc of the rest of the Moon nestling in the 'arms' of the bright crescent. This will be visible from about 8.30 - 10 p.m. (Summer Time)

(The Earthshine, popularly known as 'The Old Moon In The New Moon's Arms' is caused by sunlight reflected from the Earth onto the dark side of the Moon, thus faintly illuminating it, and then that light is reflected back to Earth so that we can see it. If you were standing on the Moon at the time when Earthshine is visible from here, you would see a big bright 'almost full' Earth shining in the sky, and that bright 'Earthlight' is the counterpart to Moonlight as we see it here on Earth.)

The highlight will be on Monday evening, when the Moon will have forsaken Jupiter and will be nestling even closer to Venus! Again, look for the Old Moon in the New Moon's Arms. Time: from 8.30 - 10.00

On Tuesday evening, the Moon will have climbed above both planets, and the Earthshine will still be easily visible. Time: 8.30 - 10.00.

This beautiful grouping will make a lovely target for photographers.

2. See Four Planets + The Moon Simultaneously!

On Monday and Tuesday evening there will also be a chance to see the Moon and all of the naked-eye planets except Mercury simultaneously! From about 10.20 to 10.30 p.m. you can see Jupiter low in the West, Venus above it, then the Moon, and high up in the South will be ruddy Mars, just East of Regulus. Swing left to the East, and look low near the horizon to see the pale yellow glow of Saturn, left of Spica.

3. 'IN ORBIT: How Satellites Rule our World.' BBC2, 25 March, 9 pm. (thanks to Peter Paice for the alert)

4. IAA at Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, near Lurgan, on 30 March, evening:

This will be similar to other IAA events, except that there will be an optional supper first at the LNDC cafe - see details below. There will be a £15 admission charge for the whole event, including supper, or £5 for the later observing session only. We will of course have the Stardome of course (loaned from Armagh Planetarium with thanks once again), with regular starshows, so there will be plenty of interest even if it's cloudy. N.B: The meal is now almost fully booked, so if you want to go for that, book now.

DETAILS: Friday 30^th March: 6.30pm 'til late:

'Supper with the Stars': Join the Irish Astronomical Association for a spectacular evening of stargazing and culinary delights at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre.

£5 entry for stargazing experience.

£15 includes the stargazing and a two course meal (6.30pm, Loughside Café, LNDC).

Booking is essential for this event. Please contact the Interpretative team at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre on 028 3831 1673 / 028 3832 1671 for further details and to book a place.

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Lecture 2nite, SDAS, TV, LNDC, COSMOS, Spacetrain, Spaceclass, Earth Hour, more

Hi all,

1. IAA LECTURE, 21 March: The Astronomical Association's next public lecture will be given by Derek Heatly: Title: "Stop the World, And Let Me Off". The lecture is TONIGHT, WEDNESDAY 21 March, at 7.30 p.m., in the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen's University, Belfast.

Derek, who features prominently at almost all our public events, is going to be the first ever astronaut from N. Ireland, assuming all goes to plan. He has booked a flight into space with Richard Branson's 'Virgin Galactic', and has already been given his number in the launch sequence, among other celebrities and private individuals. He may get his flight next year, depending on how well the first commercial flights go.

Derek has already been up to the edge of space in a high-powered supersonic Russian Mig jet fighter, and has done weightless flights in the Russian aircraft used to train their astronauts. He will tell us of the latest developments in the Virgin Galactic programme, and show videos of the test flights of the 'spaceplane' in which he is due to launch.

It's great that one of our own members has taken the audacious step to fly into space, so this promises to be a fascinating evening. And before you ask, I don't know if there will be a toilet on board either!

ADMISSION IS FREE, as always, and includes light refreshments. Everyone is welcome! Full details of the rest of the programme are on the website: www.irishastro.org

2. SDAS Meeting: Thursday, March 22^nd. The speaker will be John Flannery, and his talk is titled "The Outer Limits: Cataloguing the Outer Solar System". Venue Gonzaga College, Ranelagh at 8pm and admission is free.

Synopsis: "For thousands of years we only knew of the classical planets out as far as Saturn. That all changed in 1781 when William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus and at a stroke doubled the then-known size of the Solar System. Neptune soon joined the planet club while Pluto had a brief membership during the 20th century.

3. 'IN ORBIT: How Satellites Rule our World.' BBC2, 25 March, 9 pm. (thanks to Peter Paice for the alert)

4. IAA at Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, near Lurgan, on 30 March, evening:

This will be similar to other IAA events, except that there will be an optional supper first at the LNDC cafe - see details below. There will be a £15 admission charge for the whole event, including supper, or £5 for the later observing session only. We will of course have the Stardome of course (loaned from Armagh Planetarium with thanks once again), with regular starshows, so there will be plenty of interest even if it's cloudy.

DETAILS: Friday 30^th March: 6.30pm 'til late:

'Supper with the Stars': Join the Irish Astronomical Association for a spectacular evening of stargazing and culinary delights at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre.

There will be star shows in a mobile planetarium commencing at 7.30pm, followed by celestial views of the First Quarter Moon, brilliant Venus ("the Evening Star"), and fascinating Jupiter with its four large Galilean moons, plus a lot more! All this is of course weather dependent.

£5 entry for stargazing experience.

£15 includes the stargazing and a two course meal (6.30pm, Loughside Café, LNDC).

Booking is essential for this event. Please contact the Interpretative team at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre on 028 3831 1673 / 028 3832 1671 for further details and to book a place.