Stars and Astronomy - Articles - Zimbio

Sky gazers can expect celestial fireworks Monday

Sat, 16 Nov 2008 07:33:13 GMT

posted by Joycebabu

New Delhi, Nov 16

Sky gazers can expect to see an exhibition of celestial fireworks over the next two days as the night sky will be lit up by the famous Leonid meteor shower expected to peak on Monday.

Amateur astronomers of the capital can see about 15 to 20 shooting stars every hour for the next couple of days.

"People can watch for the meteor showers during the early hours Monday. There will be fireballs in the sky," said N. Rathnashree, director Nehru Planetarium here.

The Leonid showers, known for its outbursts over the period 1998-2002, are the most famous meteors observable during the year.

"You need a simple telescope to watch the meteor showers. People in the capital should move to the outskirts to have a clear look as morning skies these days are covered with fog," Rathnashree said.

As a general rule, the fast-flying Leonid meteors do not pick up steam until after midnight, and the greatest numbers of meteors would rain down shortly before dawn, she said.

"A meteor is commonly called a shooting star. These shooting stars can be seen on any night, but when the number of meteors is large, it is called a meteor shower," Rathnashree said.

Meteor showers occur when earth crosses the cometary orbit. As comets move about their orbits they leave a stream of debris because dust and rocky material is liberated from its head as the ice vapourises.

"The meteor showers last for just a fraction of seconds before they are gone. Better keep a close look at the sky for the beautiful show," Rathnashree said.

The Leonids originate from a comet named Tempel-Tuttle, which makes a visit to the sun every 33 years. They get their name from the location of their radiant (the apparent point of their origin) in the constellation.

Last updated on Nov 16^th, 2008 at 13:00 pm IST--IANS

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Constellations, The Astronomers Navigation Tool

Thu, 10 Oct 2008 04:12:49 GMT

posted by Wildlily44

By: Koz Huseyin

Since the dawn of time, when man first looked up in the heavens, he painted the sky with pictures. The points of light from stars made patterns which looked like certain objects. Today these constellations are still in use, though some have been left out, and are necessary to navigate the heavens with a telescope.

Astronomy is an interesting topic. Even though today we have telescopes to look at objects in the sky with greater magnitude than with the naked eye, we still need a way of navigating the heavens. Even though astronomy has been a topic that people have delved into for thousands of years, the astronomy with optical telescopes is pretty much a recent invention, compared with our history.

Find the Right Telescope for Your Stargazing Needs

Best Free 3D Astronomy simulation software

Wed, 10 Jan 2008 16:01:28 GMT

posted by mriza

Everyone like to watch the sky? ever wondering travel to Mars or Jupiter? Do not go any where because you can do it only by sitting on in front of your Computer. This are a free 3D space Simulation software, install it on your Computer and let's take a walk to Pluto.

Stellarium

Stellarium is a software project that allows people to use their home computer as a virtual planetarium. It will calculate the positions of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars, and draw how the sky would look to an observer depending on their location and the time. It can also draw the constellations and simulate astronomical phenomena such as meteor showers, and solar or lunar eclipses.

Stellarium may be used as an educational tool for teaching about the night sky, as an observational aide for amateur astronomers wishing to plan a night’s observing, or simply as a curiosity (it’s fun!). Because of the high quality of the graphics that Stellarium produces, it is used in some real planetarium projector products. Some amateur astronomy groups use it to create sky maps for describing regions of the sky in articles for newsletters and magazines.

Celestia

Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you visually experience our universe in three dimensions. Celestia gives you the opportunity to capture and save an image on your screen as an individual graphic file (such as the figures seen in this User’s Guide).

You can also save a series of images as a movie file and play it back later in your computer or even embed it in a slide presentation. Thirdly, if you like a particular location and would like to return to that exact spot and time quickly, Celestia can save your location internally within the program as a “bookmark” or as an external “hyperlink” which can be pasted into another software program.

OpenUniverse

It's a fun, fast and free OpenGL space simulator. It currently focusses on the Solar System and lets you visit all of its planets, most major moons and a vast collection of smaller bodies in colorful, glorious and realtime 3D. If you've ever had a chance to visit Mercury or asteroid Geographos, here you'll find them looking exactly the same way, following exactly the same path as when you've left them.

First Telescope Buying Tips For Backyard Astronomy

Tue, 6 Aug 2008 10:24:33 GMT

posted by Wildlily44

By: Koz Huseyin

Using a telescope in your own backyard can be one of the greatest hobbies you get into, which is both rewarding and at the same time increases our knowledge of practical astronomy. However, getting there can be problematic. Here are some tips to buying your first telescope.

In this article, you will discover:
* Understanding What You Want Out Of Astronomy
* Setting A Budget To Buy Telescopes
* Space Considerations To Think About
* Getting The Telescope From There To Here

Check Out Nandu Green for Telescopes and Many Other High-Tech Gadgets

August 1st Solar Eclipse

Thu, 1 Aug 2008 06:07:01 GMT

posted by Wildlily44

Friday, August 1 is a red-letter day for eclipse enthusiasts. On that date, the sun will be partially eclipsed over an immense area that includes western and central Asia, parts of northern and central Europe, all of Greenland and even a small slice of northeastern North America.

A total solar eclipse — the first in nearly two and a half years — will be visible along a narrow track that will start over the Northwest Passage of Canada, gives a glancing blow to northern Greenland, then shifts southeast through Siberia and western Mongolia and before ending near the famed Silk Route of China.

The path of totality for this upcoming eclipse is never more than 157 miles (252 km) wide.

Where it’s visible

The total eclipse begins at sunrise over Northern Canada’s Queen Maud Gulf, where the moon’s umbra will first touch down on the Earth, resulting in Canada’s hosting its first total solar eclipse since February 26, 1979.

As the sun comes into view over the north-northeast horizon its disk will become completely blocked by the moon. This is in the area of the famous Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic archipelago of Canada. The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and the Canadian mainland by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwestern Passages. Politically, this region belongs to Nunavut, the largest and newest of the territories of Canada; it was separated officially from the vast Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999.

Although the umbral shadow narrowly misses the towns of Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island, and Resolute on Cornwallis Island, its northern edge just clips the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world: Canada’s remote outpost of Alert, which lies just 508 miles (817 km) from the North Pole and has a population of just 5. Here, totality will last 43 seconds.

Crossing the open Arctic, the southern half of the totality path slides across the many fjords of northermost Greenland, coming to within 450 miles (720 km) of the North Pole at 9:38 UT over the Arctic Ocean before turning southeast. Totality sweeps over the Norwegian island group of Svalbard, while the northern edge of the umbra’s path just grazes Russia’s Franz Josef Land island group, then cuts across the crescent-shaped island of Novaya Zemlya on its way to central Asia. The umbra first touches the Russian coast on the Yamal Peninsula. Not far inland, greatest eclipse, producing 2 minutes 27 seconds of totality, is attained near the town of Nadym (pop. ~46,000), just inland from the boot-shaped Gulf of Obskaja.

Spending part of your summer in Siberia may sound a bit more appealing upon hearing that the central path passes almost directly over the city of Novosibirsk, Russia’s third most populous city (pop. ~1.4 million) where totality begins at 10:44 UT and will last 2 minutes 18 seconds. The center of the path will then follow the Mongolia-China border for several hundred kilometers, with Olgij, Mongolia getting 1 min 36s of totality. Totality finally whisks into north-central China, crossing the west end of the Great Wall before leaving the Earth at a point northeast of the major city of Xi’an (pop. 3.9 million).

The northern half of Maine as well as the Canadian Maritime Provinces will experience a partial eclipse at sunrise.

Eclipse expedition

A most unusual attempt to rendezvous with the moon’s shadow will be made by an Airbus A330-200 twin-engine long-range aircraft. Following a flight plan optimized specifically for the purpose of viewing this eclipse, all of the many unusual requirements of this flight have been evaluated and satisfied with arrangements by the air charter company Deutsche Polarflug (AirEvents) which has previously operated successful over-flights of the North Pole with this same aircraft.

Glenn Schneider, from the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory and a veteran of 26 total eclipses, has worked out the detailed formulation of the flight plan. He is targeting a point from the high polar north, at approximately +83-degrees latitude and about 440 nautical miles from the North Pole at an altitude of 37,000 feet above the Arctic Ocean.

This will be a unique event in the annals of solar eclipse-chasing since there are no records of any total solar eclipse observations as far north as this. While total solar eclipses in the polar regions are not rare, accessibility is very difficult. Until this juncture in time (and technology) very high-latitude (north or south) total solar eclipses have been elusive. The total solar eclipse of 23 November 2003 was the first in history to have been observed from the Antarctic.

Once again it needs repeating: to look at the sun without proper eye protection is dangerous. Even if you are in the path of the total eclipse you will need to protect your eyes during the partial phases.

Source: Philnews.com