Rainwater E-News 3/10/08
“Spring Backyard Astronomy” 7pm Friday evenings in March, 2008.
The next program will be Friday March 14 at 7pm.: Selenography, Tim Rich
Tonight’s talk will feature the geography of our Moon and the kinds of features you can see in a small telescope. A first quarter Moon and Saturn will be in the sky to observe the features we’ve heard about in the talk. Tim Rich from Rust College will be our speaker.
Plan to come and bring your friends. See below for the other programs in this series. The programs are free and open to the public. Observing will follow, weather permitting. Registration and info at http://www.rainwaterobservatory.org/programs/backyard.html These events are underwritten by the Mississippi NASA Space Grant Consortium. Rainwater Observatory is located 1 mile east of the Natchez Trace at French Camp.
COMING PROGRAMS (Contact us to arrange a program at Rainwater or in your community.)
March 13: 6:00pm 90 Cub Scouts, help needed
March 17: 8:00pm 50 middle schoolers from Tupelo, help appreciated
March 20: 10:30am Montpelier Kindergarten
March 20: 11:30am Kosciusko 3rd grade
March 21: Constellations of the March Sky, David Teske
The winter constellations, Orion and his hunting dogs are still in the western sky and the spring galaxy filled groups like Leo and Ursa Major are high overhead. Learn to find them and about their lore.
March 28: Saturn: The Lord of the Rings, Gary Lazich
The solar system’s seventh planet has revealed new aspects to the Cassini spacecraft that has been orbiting it for the past four years. Observe the rings as they become almost edge on to our view
Mid-South Star Gaze will be April 2-5, 2008. The registration form is up on the web site. Details and speakers will be added. http://www.rainwaterobservatory.org/stargaze/regform.html We have 75 pre-registered so far from 13 states.
Astronomy for Teachers: June 8-13 at Rainwater. 3 semester hours credit. www.outreach.olemiss.edu/teachers 662-915-7621 for info
Johannes Kepler’s Astronomy workshop at Rainwater: June 15-20, 4 CEU units. www.johanneskepler.org
NEWS FROM THE HILL
The Sangre telescope is scheduled to leave Santa Barbara on March 14. It will arrive on March 19 and John Martinez of Las Cumbres Observatory will arrive on March 20 to get final preparations done. March 24 is set for lifting the scope into the dome and beginning the set up. Some folks are arriving for the Star Gaze as early as March 29. There is a lot of prep work to do for the Mid-South so if you are free during the school spring holidays March 8-16 and would like to help get the 20” and 32” telescopes reinstalled, please contact me.
Before and during the Mid-South we plan to get visiting staff of the Las Cumbres observatory together with potential area partners to begin organizing a consortium of telescope users and area support entities. If you are interested in being part of such a coalition or being involved as a member of the advisory committee, let us know.
ASTRO NEWS: If you have info or links you’d like to share, let us know.
New WMAP Data Reveals Secrets of the Early Universe: http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov Five years of information reveals a hypothesized neutrino background, insights into the first second of the universe, and the end of the “dark ages” when the first stars were born.
New Images from the MESSENGER Mission reveal mysterious dark rimmed craters http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/07mar_strangecraters.htm?list899987
Saturn’s Moon Rhea May Have Rings: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
Auroras on Jupiter Tell Us About Space Weather: http://www.universetoday.com:80/2008/03/09/jupiter-has-van-allen-belts-too-just-bigger-implications-for-space-weather-prediction/ Jupiter’s radiation belts are thousands of times more powerful than Earth’s. How they interact with the solar wind will help explain the Sun-Earth Connection.
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