Astronomers' Corner

[himiko sabbrawrra]

Otherwords we couldn't live there anyway.......

[Leda EmBorr]

I think that if that sun is an older star, life might have had the time to evolve. That's very exciting!


I feel confident that eventually we will find an extra-solar Earthlike planet close enough for us to travel to and colonize.

[Mon-Jas Charan]

Spring's Comet Lovejoy
April 23, 2007
by Roger W. Sinnott

While not especially bright, Comet Lovejoy passes some familiar telescopic sights in the next few weeks. It should appear as a fuzzy glow, about as easy to spot as M57, the famous Ring Nebula in Lyra, but a bit larger.

The comet discovered last month by Terry Lovejoy in Queensland, Australia, is now quite accessible before dawn to observers with small telescopes in the Northern Hemisphere. While it doesn't sport much of a tail, Comet Lovejoy (C/2007 E2) makes a fine deep-sky target as it moves from Aquila northward between the stars of Lyra and Hercules toward the head of Draco during the next few weeks, gradually fading from 8th to 10th magnitude.



The tick marks give the comet's location at 0 hours Universal Time on each date.

Bright moonlight can't be avoided during the period April 28th through May 3rd, so catch this fleet visitor when you can!

Our finder chart includes stars as faint as 7th magnitude, which will help skywatchers star-hop to the comet. Tick marks show its location night by night at 0 hours Universal Time (midnight at Greenwich). For example, just before dawn on Saturday, April 28th, North American observers will find it roughly midway between the ticks for the 28th and 29th, about 7° southwest of Messier 57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. Click on the chart for a wider view.

Lovejoy first detected this comet as a 9th-magnitude fuzzball on images taken with his Canon 350D. It's the first comet ever discovered with an off-the-shelf digital camera. The comet's future path was not known when we issued our AstroAlert last month, but Brian G. Marsden of the Minor Planet Center soon had enough observations to calculate that the comet would pass through perihelion (its closest point to the Sun) on March 27th, just outside Earth's orbit. It is moving along a parabolic trajectory whose plane is almost perpendicular to that of the solar system.

Comet Lovejoy is now receding from both the Sun and Earth, and it'll be outside the orbit of Mars by late May.

[himiko sabbrawrra]

*scratches head* uh...... I dont get that....

[Leda EmBorr]

Basically it says that you can see it with a telescope in the northern sky before dawn, and if you find it, it will look like a fuzzy ball.

Things like this are a challenge to search for because they are fleeting.

[Mon-Jas Charan]

This is cool

Probe Snaps New Images of Jupiter

[Leda EmBorr]

That is cool--- It would make a great desktop wall!


Hey, Blue Moon this month!!!!!!

[Mon-Jas Charan]

Space Weather News for May 31, 2007
spaceweather.com

BLUE MOON & JUPITER: According to folklore, tonight's full Moon over North America is a "Blue Moon" because it is the second full Moon in a calendar month. If you go outside to look at the Blue Moon, you'll see it has a companion: Jupiter. All night long, the giant planet will be located right beside the Moon. You can see the bright pair with the naked eye, or for a real treat, scan them with a backyard telescope. The moons of Jupiter, lunar mountains and craters, and the Great Red Spot are surprisingly easy to see.

A REAL BLUE MOON! Blue Moons are supposed to be absurd, but on May 21st, the Moon over Hungary really did turn blue. Onlookers describe it as a "unique and unforgettable" experience. Visit spaceweather.com to view photos of the display and to learn what caused it.

[Leda EmBorr]

Cool pics of that Hungarian blue moon! I'll definitely pull out my scope tonight!

[Mon-Jas Charan]

Blue Moon over North America

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

May 30, 2007: At 9:04 pm Eastern Daylight Time on May 31st, the full moon over North America will turn blue.

Not really. But it will be the second full moon of May and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon.

If you told a person in Shakespeare's day that something happens "once in a Blue Moon" they would attach no astronomical meaning to the statement. Blue moon simply meant rare or absurd, like making a date for "the Twelfth of Never."

But "meaning is a slippery substance," writes Philip Histhingy of the Dept. of Folklore, Memorial University of Newfoundland. "The phrase 'Blue Moon' has been around a long time, well over 400 years, and during that time its meaning has shifted."

Blue Moon?The modern definition sprang up in the 1940s. In those days the Maine Farmer's Almanac offered a definition of Blue Moon so convoluted even professional astronomers struggled to understand it. It involved factors such as ecclesiastical dates of Easter and Lent, tropical years, and the timing of seasons according to the dynamical mean sun. Aiming to explain blue moons to the layman, Sky & Telescope published an article in 1946 entitled "Once in a Blue Moon." The author James Hugh Pruett (1886-1955) cited the 1937 Maine almanac and opined that the "second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon."

This was not correct, but at least it could be understood. And thus the modern Blue Moon was born. A detailed account of the story may be found here.

Surveying the last four centuries of literature and folklore, "I have counted six different meanings which have been carried by the term," recounts Histhingy. In song, for instance, Blue Moons are a symbol of loneliness; when love conquers all, the Blue Moon turns gold. (See old Elvis records for more information.) "This makes discussion of the term a little complicated," he says.

One complication is that the Moon can turn genuinely blue, as shown in this photo taken by Tom King of Watauga, Texas:

"I had never paid any real attention to the term 'Blue Moon' until one October evening in 2003," he recalls. "I had my telescope set up in the backyard and the moon began rising in the east with a strange blue tint I had not seen before."

The cause of the blue was probably tiny droplets of water in the air. "The air was damp and heavy with moisture," notes King. When water droplets are about 1 micron (one millionth of a meter) in diameter, they strongly scatter red and green light while allowing other colors to pass. A white moonbeam passing through such a misty cloud turns blue.

Clouds of ice crystals, fine-grained sand, volcanic ash or smoke from forest fires can have the same effect. "The key," notes atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley, "is that the airborne particles should all be of very similar size, a micron or so in diameter." Only then do they scatter the correct wavelengths of moonlight and act as a blue filter.

There are other reasons for blue Moons, he notes. "Our eyes have automatic 'white balances' just like digital cameras. Go outdoors from a cozy cabin lit by an oil lamp (yellow light) and the Moon will appear blue until your eyes adjust."

What kind of Blue Moon will you see this week? There's only one way to find out!

[Leda EmBorr]

Being a painter... I always use blue when painting the moon.

[himiko sabbrawrra]

Moon = Cheese!!! sorry had to say that..

[Leda EmBorr]

Blue cheese!

[himiko sabbrawrra]

Blue cheese is good... but to think that if the moon was made of cheese... yikes...

[Leda EmBorr]

I'd hate to see the cow.