Bristol Bay Astronomy Club

First Annual Event!

2010-09-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

Party on my deck! Bonfire afterward!

Earth Hour

2010-03-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.
Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Europe to Asia to the Americas will stand in darkness. People across the world from all walks of life will turn off their lights and join together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet. So sign up now and let’s make 2010 the biggest Earth Hour yet!.

2010-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Galaxy Zoo files contain almost a quarter of a million galaxies which have been imaged with a camera attached to a robotic telescope (the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, no less). In order to understand how these galaxies — and our own — formed, we need your help to classify them according to their shapes — a task at which your brain is better than even the fastest computer.
More than 150,000 people have taken part in Galaxy Zoo so far, producing a wealth of valuable data and sending telescopes on Earth and in space chasing after their discoveries. Zoo 2 focuses on the nearest, brightest and most beautiful galaxies, so to begin exploring the Universe, click the ‘How To Take Part’ link above, or read ‘The Story So Far’ to find out what Galaxy Zoo has achieved to date.
Thanks for your help, and happy classifying.

Happening this Week!

2010-03-13T16:54:00.000-08:00

Check out the link for info on how to participate - http://www.globeatnight.org/

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2010-03-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

BIGGEST FULL MOON OF THE YEAR:

2010-01-28T14:29:00.001-08:00

This Friday night, if you think the Moon looks unusually big, you're right. It's the biggest full Moon of 2010. Astronomers call it a "perigee Moon," some 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons of the year. (continued below)

Image credit and copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis: details.

Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago. The Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle; it is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. Astronomers call the point of closest approach "perigee," and that is where the Moon will be Friday night: diagram.
Look around sunset when the Moon is near the eastern horizon. At that time, illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through foreground objects such as buildings and trees. Why not let the "Moon illusion" amplify a full Moon that's extra-big to begin with? The swollen orb rising in the east may seem close enough to touch.
And what's that bright orange star right beside the Moon? Read on...

It's Mars!

2010-01-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

In a coincidence of celestial proportions, the Moon and Mars are having close encounters with Earth at the same time. Moreover, the two will spend Friday night gliding across the sky side-by-side. It's a must-see event: sky map.
On Jan. 27th, Tamas Ladanyi of Tes, Hungary, caught this view of the Red Planet, pre-conjunction:

"I used a Canon 500D (ISO 1600, 6 sec) to photograph the winter landscape on the plateau of Tes with its famous windmills in bright moonlight," says Ladanyi. "Mars shone beautifully above it all."
Readers with backyard telescopes should train their optics on Mars. The planet looks bigger through a telescope now than at any time between 2008 and 2014. Browse the links for views through the eyepiece: from John Nassr of Baguio, Philippines; from Alan Friedman of Buffalo, New York; from Mike Hood of Kathleen, Georgia; from John Nassr of Baguio, Philippines; from Jacob Bassøe of Copenhegen, Denmark; from Sadegh Ghomizadeh of Tehran, Iran.

Tia has this and it looks pretty cool!

2010-01-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

And it's on sale now at amazon.com!

2010-01-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

Partial eclipse of a blue moon expected Thursday morning

2009-12-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

Alaskans will have the chance to send off the old year and welcome the new one with more than the usual fireworks in the sky. Not only will the final day of 2009 feature a "blue moon," but the chance to see a partial lunar eclipse.

The partial eclipse should be most visible in the Anchorage area around moonset, at 10:38 a.m., but generally between 9:52 and 10:52 on Thursday morning, according to Louise Fode, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

"I don't know how dramatic the eclipse will be," she said. "With partial eclipses, sometimes they can be difficult to see."

Seeing the eclipse at all, of course, will be dependant on the weather, and the forecast is for partially cloudy skies, with a chance of fog rolling in from Cook Inlet.

A partial lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is partially darkened by the Earth's shadow.
A blue moon is when a second full moon occurs in a month. This will be the first time in nearly 20 years there's been a blue moon for New Year's Eve, and it won't happen again until 2028.

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2009-12-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

Click here for detailed information.

First Launch a Blast!

2009-12-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

Rocket Launch Scheduled for Monday

2009-12-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

We'll meet in Room 120 at 3:30 for final preparations and then gather on the field behind the school for our first launch. Make sure your parents know you are staying after school and that you need a ride home. After the launch we'll return to Room 120 for hot cocoa and cookies.

Meteor Showers!

2009-12-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Make hot cocoa. Bundle up. Tell your friends. The best meteor shower of 2009 is about to fall over North America on a long, cold December night.
"It's the Geminid meteor shower," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "and it will peak on Dec. 13th and 14th under ideal viewing conditions."
A new Moon will keep skies dark for a display that Cooke and others say could top 140 meteors per hour. According to the International Meteor Organization, maximum activity should occur around 12:10 a.m. EST (0510 UT) on Dec. 14th. The peak is broad, however, and the night sky will be rich with Geminids for many hours and perhaps even days around the maximum.
The radiant of the Geminid shower is near Castor, the fainter of the Gemini Twin Stars.
The radiant is the perspective point where a shower's meteors would all appear to be coming from if you could see them approaching from the far distance. In reality they flash into view only when they hit Earth's atmosphere — which can happen anywhere in your sky. But their directions of flight, if you trace them backward far enough across your sky, all cross this point.

2009-11-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

The 2009 Leonids Are Coming!

2009-11-14T12:26:00.000-08:00

Most meteor showers vary from year to year, but the Leonids are particularly capricious. Many years they chug along producing just 5 or 10 meteors visible per hour. But at the Leonids' historical greatest, in 1833, meteors were seen to fall "like snowflakes in a blizzard," with estimated rates of several dozen per second.

This year is expected to be better than average. The "traditional," most reliable part of the shower should peak around 12 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, November 17th. You might see 20 or 30 meteors per hour under ideal dark-sky conditions. (Remember, if you want to stay up late instead of getting up early, you'll be staying up Monday night. It's easy to get the date wrong for events that happen after midnight!)

But if the sky is clear, why not go out again that morning — and also before the predicted peak, on the morning of the 16th? The Leonids have surprised the theorists before, and they surely will again.

Wherever you are, no Leonids will be visible before the shower's radiant point (in Leo) rises around local midnight. And peaks and bursts aside, the number of visible meteors increases steadily from radiant-rise until Leo is highest, just as the sky is starting to get light.

Be sure to bundle up warmly; meteor-watching is always colder than you expect. Ideal meteor-watching equipment is a comfortable lounge chair, a warm sleeping bag, and a pillow. If you live in a city or suburb, consider traveling to a dark location far from city skyglow. In any case, find a spot where no lights glare directly into your eyes.

The direction to watch is wherever your sky is darkest. Notice the meteors' flight paths; only those streaking away from the direction to the constellation Leo are Leonids.

Another, less-known meteor shower is going on simultaneously — the Taurids. They're sparse but tend to be very bright. If you see a slow, bright meteor heading away from the direction to Taurus, that's a Taurid.

And you're bound to see a few sporadics that aren't associated with any major shower.

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2009-11-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

Who is Checking Out Our Site?

2009-10-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

Once in a Blue Moon

2009-10-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

Once in a Blue Moon ... is a common way of saying not very often, but what exactly is a Blue Moon?

According to the popular definition, it is the second Full Moon to occur in a single calendar month.
The average interval between Full Moons is about 29.5 days, whilst the length of an average month is roughly 30.5 days. This makes it very unlikely that any given month will contain two Full Moons, though it does sometimes happen.
On average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century, so you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once every two-and-a-half years.
Is there a Blue Moon this year? Next year? The year I was born?
The Blue Moon Calculator knows the answer!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

Night Sky At a Glance

2009-10-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

The Moon skims the Pleiades Tuesday night as seen from North America. These scenes are always plotted exactly for a viewer near the center of North America (at latitude 40° north, longitude 90° west). For clarity, the Moon is always drawn three times its actual apparent size.

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2009-10-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

The Orioinids are Peaking!

2009-10-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

METEORS FROM HALLEY'S COMET: Earth is entering a stream of dusty debris from Halley's Comet, and this is causing the annual Orionid meteor shower. If forecasters are correct, the shower will peak on Wednesday morning, Oct. 21st, with dozens of meteors per hour. The best time to look is during the dark hours before local dawn.

For the past three years, Orionid rates have been unusually high, with reports of 60 or more meteors per hour. Researchers believe this is a result of some very old and rich debris from Comet Halley drifting across Earth's orbit. Computer models of the debris suggest that it is still in the neighborhood, so the trend of "good Orionids" could continue in 2009.

The Constellation We Need to Find For the Worldwide Star Count

2009-10-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Maybe this picture will help.

Surprise Guests Crash Star Party!

2009-10-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

2009-10-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

2009-10-17T14:28:00.001-07:00

Bach and the Stars

2009-10-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

Astronomy Club Members in the News

2009-10-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Sixth grade astronomy club member, Dylan Brady, explains a display to visitor Miles King during National Public Lands Day at the King Salmon Visitor Center.

LCROSS Model - Gives a Good Demo

2009-10-10T11:08:00.001-07:00

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2009-10-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Galilean Nights

2009-10-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Four hundred years since Galileo’s telescopic observations revolutionised our view of the Universe, the public will once again be turning their attention to the heavens. People all around the world are encouraged to take part in Galilean Nights activities on 22-24 October 2009 and experience for themselves the same sense of awe and wonder that Galileo must have felt. Visit the website for more info and let's plan an event to celebrate this!

A Star Count for Everyone

2009-10-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

So how starry is your starry night sky? You can find out easily, thanks to a sky-awareness campaign called Great World Wide Star Count. It'll take just 20 minutes or so, and you'll be joined by thousands of equally-curious skygazers around the globe. Do it on your own, with your family, or as part of a larger group. We'll be learning more about this at our meeting this week. Click here for the full story.

Biggest Bang No One Ever Heard

2009-10-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Harvest Moon

2009-10-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Harvest Moon comes before or after the autumnal equinox and is simply the full moon closest to that equinox. About once every four years it occurs in October, depending on the cycles of the moon. Often, the Harvest Moon seems to be bigger or brighter or more colorful than other moons. These effects have to do with the seasonal tilt of the earth. The warm color of the moon shortly after it rises is caused by light from the moon passing through a greater amount of atmospheric particles than when the moon is overhead. The atmosphere scatters the bluish component of moonlight (which is really reflected white light from the sun), but allows the reddish component of the light to travel a straighter path to one's eyes. Hence all celestial bodies look reddish when they are low in the sky.

The apparent larger size is because the brain perceives a low-hanging moon to be larger than one that's high in the sky. This is known as a Moon Illusion and it can be seen with any full moon. It can also be seen with constellations; in other words, a constellation viewed low in the sky will appear bigger than when it is high in the sky.

Venus, Mercury, and Saturn dance at dawn this week

2009-10-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

Look for the Constellation Orion

2009-10-02T06:53:00.001-07:00

Iridium Flares

2009-09-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am pretty sure I've seen these in the sky before but had no idea what they were. Here's a definition - Bright flashes of light in the night sky that are due to sunlight reflecting off of the mirrors of orbiting Iridium communications satellites. They're also called "satellite glint" or "satellite flare".

2009-09-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

2009-09-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

Click here to get a list of the top satellites crossing the sky in your area.

Let's Schedule a Crash Party!

2009-09-26T11:59:00.001-07:00

LCROSS will hopefully be able to confirm the presence or absence of water ice at the moon's south pole. The mission includes a lunar impact that will create a plume that will be studied by NASA scientists.
Click here for more info.

This Week's Sky at a Glance

2009-09-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Build Your Own Satellite for Under $150

2009-09-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

It's on its Way!!

2009-09-20T13:12:00.001-07:00

Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium

Looking forward to having this for our next Star Party. Should make identifying stars and constellations a snap. I'll bring it in for our weekly homeroom meeting as soon as it arrives. Click here to read the complete product description.

Our First Star Party!

2009-09-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

Who: Astronomy Club Members
What: Solstice Party
When: Sat. Sept 19th 9-10:30 PM
Where: phone tower hill by the beach access road
Why: Constellation Search
What to bring:
blanket or lawn chair to sit on
binoculars and flashlight

Meeting is dependent on weather.
If it’s cloudy out and you can’t see any stars, we’ll have to reschedule.

2009-09-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Latest great site added to the list on the right side of the screen - Space and Astronautics News.

2009-09-11T17:13:00.001-07:00

Web site recreates Apollo 11 mission in real time.

2009-08-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

http://wechoosethemoon.org

The Sky This Week

2009-04-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Mercury meets up with the Pleiades in the western twilight, and the Moon joins the party on Sunday the 26th. The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, shine low in the dawn.

2009-03-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

Once again, the GLOBE community is invited to participate in the annual global sky observation known as GLOBE at Night. GLOBE at Night brings people outside to observe the constellation Orion from 16-28 March 2009. Participants simply choose a clear night on which stars are visible, take measurements of stars in this portion of the sky using GLOBE's Magnitude Charts, and enter observations into the GLOBE at Night Web site. Students — alongside teachers, parents and community members-- amass a data set from which they can begin to explore the concept of light pollution and to research the patterns of light pollution across the globe.

You can enter your observations on the GLOBE at Night Report web page from 16 March - 7 April.

Catch Winter's Comet Lulin

2009-01-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

As it moves to its closest approach to Earth on February 24, Lulin is expected to brighten to naked-eye visibility in rural areas, and will be observable low in the sky in an east-southeast direction before dawn.
Since Comet Lulin will be moving opposite the motion of the Earth, it will appear to approach us and move away especially fast. Beginning in February 2009, Comet Lulin will rise at about midnight local time. It won't be bright enough to go out and look at it with the naked eye, but any telescope or binoculars should allow you to see it.

This Week's Sky

2009-01-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

This Week's

2008-10-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

Count the Stars to Save the Sky

2008-10-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

Let's help measure the growth of light pollution! That's the idea behind the Great World Wide Star Count. The 2007 World Wide Star Count collected 6,600 observations from participants on all seven continents — yes, even Antarctica.

This year's count runs during the two weeks of moonless evenings from October 20th to November 3rd. See the home page for details about how you can participate.

So why not pitch in? It will take just five or ten minutes of your time, and it's lots of fun. It's also a great opportunity to get your family and neighbors to look up at the sky.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, we would like you to observe Cygnus, the Swan, which includes the Northern Cross asterism.

Finding Cygnus is easy! If you go outside about an hour after sunset and look straight up, you should see three very bright stars. which form the Summer Triangle. The one closest to the point directly overhead (known as the Zenith) is called Deneb, and represents the Swan's tail.

This illustration show the same area of the night sky. The lefthand image is what you would see under average conditions. The middle image shows the Swan and the righthand image shows the Northern Cross.

2008-10-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

Newest Link

2008-10-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

This looks like a fun site. I like the section on "Best days to fish"!

2008-09-21T22:21:00.001-07:00

This looks cool. You need a beefed up PC to run it. Here are some of the system requirements -

Microsoft® XP SP2 (minimum), Windows® Vista® (recommended)
PC with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, recommended
1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor

To being your journey through the stars you have to download the program. Then you can choose your guided tour and choose your telescope. View the locations of planets in the night sky in the past, present, or future.

Our Guide to the Stars

2008-09-19T20:06:00.001-07:00

I've been taking our weekly reading selections from this book by H. A. Rey. You can learn more about him in the biography below.

I have a Star Club bulletin board across the hall from my classroom in the high school wing. You can pick up your new reading selection there each Friday.

September 16th

2008-09-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

It's the birthday of the children's author and illustrator H.A. Rey, (books by this author) born Hans Augusto Reyersbach in Hamburg, Germany, in 1898. When Hans was a boy in Hamburg, he lived near a zoo, and he loved visiting the animals there he would imitate their noises and paint them. And in Hamburg he met a young girl named Margret Elisabeth Waldstein, but then she left to go study art. Hans served in the army, he went to school for a while, and he supported himself by designing posters for the circus. But the economy in Germany was bad, so he went to Rio de Janeiro to help his brother-in-law sell bathtubs. Hans changed his name from Reyersbach to Rey because it was hard for Brazilians to pronounce. In Brazil, he met up with Margret, who was all grown up, and they fell in love and got married.

Hans and Margret Rey returned to Europe in 1935, but they were Jewish and they couldn't go back to Nazi Germany, so they settled in Paris. Hans drew some cartoons of a giraffe for a newspaper, and a French publisher liked them and he asked Hans to do some more work like that. So the Reys started writing a book called Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys (1942), one of its characters was a monkey named Curious George, and the Reys thought he was the best character and that he should have a book of his own. They were happy to be living in Paris, happy to be working on more children's books and translations of nursery rhymes, but in June of 1940, they discovered that Hitler was about to take control of Paris and that they were in huge danger. As fast as he could, Hans constructed two bicycles from spare parts he found, and on the morning of June 14, the Reys biked out of the city with some food, warm coats, and five manuscripts. One of those manuscripts was Curious George.The Nazis took control of Paris that afternoon, but the Reys were safely out of the city. They biked for four days until they reached the Spanish border, and then they sold their bikes for enough money to buy train tickets to Lisbon. Over the next few months, they made it from Lisbon to Brazil, and then eventually to New York City. Curious George was published in 1941, and the Reys wrote and illustrated six more stories about him stories like Curious George Rides a Bike (1952) and Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966).

2008-09-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

Fall Equinox is Monday, September 22nd

2008-09-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

The September equinox occurs at 11:44 a.m. EDT. This is when the Sun crosses the celestial equator (i.e. crosses directly above Earth's equator) heading south for the year. Autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern Hemisphere.

Venus Meets Mars

2008-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

The planets Venus and Mars are perennial favorites. And now they're paired close together above the west-southwestern horizon shortly after sunset. From September 9th to the 15th, the two planets will be less than 1½° apart, visible together in a telescope at 30× or less. And at their closest, on September 11th, they'll fit together easily even at high power. The best time to start looking for these planets is right after sunset.

Lunar Calendar

2008-09-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

Space Station

2008-09-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

It's Started!

2008-08-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

Flyers went up in the hall on Thursday and Star Packet #1 went home on Friday. The plan is for a new Star Packet each Friday focusing on a new constellation. By the end of the school year you should be able to locate dozens of constellations.

Monthly Star Gazing meetings will be scheduled so we can learn to use the telescope. In between meetings get out there with your own two telescopes and see what you can find!