Hi all,
Please note: send all correspondence to me only at terrymosel@aol.com
Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone! Let's hope it's very much more peaceful than 2023! And I hope we have lots more clear skies too!
1. IAA New Year Party, 6 January, 6.0 for 6.30 p.m. McBride's, the Square, Comber, Co Down. £10 per head. Food and entertainment. The film will be 'Blue Planet', which is a documentary shot on the ISS; and there will be a quiz, with lots of prizes for winners and runners-up. Please book now and pay by Paypal, via https://irishastro.org/.
If you can't do that, please pay on the night, but you MUST let our treasurer Pat O'Neill know how may are in your party, so we can tell the caterers the final numbers, NO LATER THAN THURSDAY.
Pat is at pb.oneill@ntlworld.com, or via WhatsApp at +44 7866 413580
2. MERCURY:
Is visible as a morning star in early January lying well below and East of Venus.
These details are for about 40 minutes before sunrise; but you should start looking about 20-25 minutes before local sunrise, with binoculars at first. But never do this after sunrise!
Date Mag Ph % Elong Diam
Jan 04 0.1 40.0 21.1º 8.0"
Jan 07 -0.1 50.0 22.6º 7.4"
3. VENUS
Is also currently visible as a morning star,
Date Mag Ph % Elongº Diam
Jan 05 -4.0 79.1 36.6 13.8
Jan 09 -4.0 80.2 35.8 13.5
4. PERIHELION
The Earth will be at perihelion, its closest point to the Sun for this year on January 3 at 00.38, at a centre to centre distance of 0.9833070 AU, or 147,100,633 km. This is also the time when the Earth is moving fastest in its yearly orbit, following Kepler's Laws (and Newton & Einstein, of course)
5. QUADRANTIDS:
The third richest shower of the year, the Quadrantids, peaks on the night of January 3-4. The radiant, which lies between the end of the handle of the Plough, and the head of Draco, is highest near dawn. There's not too much moonlight interference, as the LQ Moon doesn't rise until after 1 a.m., and in very dark skies, the ZHR could be almost 100, and the observed rate up to 70 or 80 per hour! Well worth making an effort this year, and as the meteors are quite slow, they show up well in photos – if you get one in the field of view!
6, IAA LECTURE, Wed 10 January, 7.30 p.m. Dr Matt Nicholl, ARC, QUB. "Fantastic Bursts and where to find them (searching for the brightest supernovae)
7. Astronomy Calendar now available online
John Flannery has now got his new 2024 astronomy calendar completed and it's now available online free as a 2.5Mb pdf download at tinyurl.com/3ytt2v55.
Thanks John – great work as always!
8. ISS. The ISS will start a new series of evening passes on 16 January.
9. SATURN – Catch it while you can.
Saturn is in Aquarius, slowly sinking into the evening twilight, now slightly faded to mag 1.0. The rings are now closing rapidly from our perspective, with an angle of only about 9 degrees, which explains why it's no longer so bright when at opposition. The apparent diameter is 16." equatorial, and 14.2" polar, which shows that the disc is noticeably oblate. The rings have a diameter of 36", but only 6" on the minor axis. Of the satellites, Titan is very easy, and Rhea is usually visible even in a small telescope. Tethys and Dione are closer in, and fainter, and may need an aperture of 150mm to be seen. Even closer in, and fainter still, are Enceladus and Mimas, which will be easier to spot next year when the rings are almost edge-on, and thus much fainter, so their light doesn't drown out the faint inner satellites.
10. JUPITER still dominates the sky!
Our largest planet was at opposition on 3 November, and is by far the brightest starlike object in the evening sky. It's high enough up in the East for observing as soon as the sky darkens, in Aries, and at mag -2.6 it's much brighter than Saturn. Look for the 4 Galilean moons as they do their stately dance around the giant planet. Ganymede, Callisto and Io are bigger than our Moon; Europa is a bit smaller, but it's brighter than Callisto because of its bright ice-covered surface.
11. AOP; Stargazing evening, 26 January. 6.30 - 9.00 pm, Book now.
12. Galway Astronomy Festival: Saturday 27 January 2024
13. IRISH ASTRONOMY WEEK: March 9-16, 2024.
14. The Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) Conference is the only large-scale international conference for astronomy communication. The next CAP conference will be held in hybrid mode from 24 – 28 June 2024, in-person at Cité de l'espace, Toulouse, France and online.
15. NEW EASY TEASER:
What won't happen in 2037?
16. DIFFICULT TEASER: - ANSWERED ALREADY!
What links a Camel, a Finch, a Koala, and a Tasmanian Devil?
Congrats to a new entrant, and a new First Prize winner! Mary Kirwan Mackey was in first just ahead of two other previous winners.
Next was Peter Denman, and third was - I don't belieeeeeve it (in best Victor Meldrew voice) – Conn Buckley, who has done it again! That's FOUR in a row!
So it's Mary in First Place with Peter a close second, and Conn a close third!
ANSWER: They are nicknames given to the LFBOTS: 'Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients' which are some strange type of explosions in space that cannot be yet explained.
17. NEW DIFFICULT TEASER: (Right – I've been too easy on you: with this one – No mercy!)
Q. What have the constellations Lepus and Apus uniquely got in common?
18. GENERAL SEASONAL / HOLIDAY TEASER. I offer this for non-astronomer partners, children, parents, siblings etc, to give your grey matter some exercise over the holiday period. Of course, astronomers can have a go too.
Q. What common 5-letter English word has six single-word full anagrams, making seven including itself? Five are easy, but you'll have to work had to get the other two! One may be classed as slang, but is becoming quite common, and one of them is rather specialised or esoteric, but if you get five, a little bit of re-arranging and Googling will get you another one, and then another.
(By single-word I mean that all five letters are used in other single different words. For example, TIME has only 4, including itself – time, mite, emit, item. In that example, 'met', & 'tie', & 'it', & 'me', would not count.)
So, to repeat: I'm looking for a 5-letter English word in which all 5 letters can be used to anagram 6 other single words, giving a total of 7. You can obviously start with any of the words! And of course, plurals count.
And I trust you not to use any form of AI such as ChatGPT! (I haven't even checked to see if it would work!)
ONE ANSWER ALREADY!
It seems that there is at least one other answer to the one I was looking for – found by, Guess who? Conn Buckley! Well done Conn, AGAIN – but everyone else keep trying, as there are now at least two possible solutions!
19. INTERESTING WEBLINKS (Disclaimer – Use of material herein from various sources does not imply approval or otherwise of the opinions, political or otherwise, of those sources). NB: If the title in the weblink does not indicate the subject matter, I give a brief simple intro before the link. I may also comment about the link afterwards.
ASTROPHYSICS:
A bizarre speed-demon star has winds powering a cloud of gas called 'Potaroo' (msn.com)
EARTH & MOON
World population up 75 million this year, standing at 8 billion on Jan. 1 | AP News That is simply, obviously, far too many. EXOLIFEA carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets (spacedaily.com) EXOPLANETS:Earth 2.0? Huge breakthrough boosts hopes of finding life on other planets (msn.com) And
Another Earth: https://www.beautyofplanet.com/its-official-astronomers-have-discovered-another-earth-2/?fbclid=IwAR1azXGoMNsXNT9uyFmgK2nW6hg2sYwYfMnGwCoTbzs1447AvUMp
SOLAR SYSTEM NASA's Curiosity Rover Captures a Martian Day, From Dawn to Dusk (spacedaily.com)
Impact crater on Mars:
https://www.facebook.com/1306886536/posts/10233229605664662/?sfnsn=scwspmo SPACEMeet 'Valkyrie,' the NASA Humanoid Robot Designed to Perform Tasks in Outer Space (msn.com)
NASA and Russia will keep launching each other's astronauts to ISS until 2025: report | Space
TELESCOPES, EQUIPMENT, TECHNIQUES etc
Design for revolutionary new space telescope: https://www.astronomy.com/science/a-new-thin-lensed-telescope-design-could-far-surpass-james-webb/?utm_campaign=organicsocial&utm_content=a_new_kind_of_telescope_c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0YYFqJXy9cTwosBSD54ctkLw7HAkeL3juyFiZUAFHlsy8MmWz9ZtTeUCw
20. JOINING the IRISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION. This link gives options to join the IAA.
https://irishastro.org/join-the-iaa/ If you are a UK taxpayer, please select the 'gift-aid' box, as that enables us to reclaim the standard rate of tax on your subscription, at no cost to you. You can also make a donation via Paypal if you wish: just click on the 'Donate' button. See also https://irishastro.org/
The Irish Astronomical Association is registered with The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland NIC 105858
DISCLAIMER: Any views expressed herein are mine, and do not necessarily represent those of the IAA.
Clear skies,
Terry Moseley
No comments:
Post a Comment