OTEvents May 2016

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by Jane Houston Jones

We’re into a season of nice evening ISS passes for Southern California. Here’s the best evening Heavens-Above.com passes through Sunday. This is a nice high pass by Jupiter travelling SW to NE. Best from 9:34 p.m. until 9:41 p.m. tonight! You can also get emails with details for your latitude/longitude at https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ Thursday – Jupiter gets a flyby Date: 26 May 2016 Orbit: 402 x 404 km, 51.6° (Epoch: 26 May) Event Time Altitude Azimuth Distance (km) Brightness Sun altitude Rises 21:32:26 0° 228° (SW) 2,302 0.6 -17.2° Reaches altitude 10° 21:34:30 10° 230° (SW) 1,446 -0.4 -17.5° Maximum altitude 21:37:45 78° 316° (NW) 413 -3.3 -18.0° Drops below altitude 10° 21:41:00 10° 44° (NE) 1,453 -0.5 -18.5° Sets 21:43:05 0° 46° (NE) 2,315 0.5 -18.8° FRIDAY Date: 27 May 2016 Orbit: 402 x 404 km, 51.6° (Epoch: 26 May) Event Time Altitude Azimuth Distance (km) Brightness Sun altitude Rises 20:39:48 0° 213° (SSW) 2,300 0.5 -8.5° Reaches altitude 10° 20:41:55 10° 206° (SSW) 1,445 -0.6 -8.8° Maximum altitude 20:45:01 44° 133° (SE) 568 -3.0 -9.4° Drops below altitude 10° 20:48:08 10° 60° (ENE) 1,452 -0.8 -9.9° Sets 20:50:16 0° 53° (NE) 2,314 0.3 -10.3° Sunday Date: 29 May 2016 Orbit: 402 x 404 km, 51.6° (Epoch: 26 May) Event Time Altitude Azimuth Distance (km) Brightness Sun altitude Rises 20:30:29 0° 233° (SW) 2,303 0.8 -6.6° Reaches altitude 10° 20:32:34 10° 237° (WSW) 1,447 -0.2 -7.0° Maximum altitude 20:35:47 61° 318° (NW) 459 -2.7 -7.5° Drops below altitude 10° 20:39:00 10° 40° (NE) 1,454 -0.6 -8.1° Sets 20:41:06 0° 44° (NE) 2,315 0.4 -8.4° Jane Houston Jones Senior Outreach Specialist What's Up May 2016: Mercury transit, Mars closest approach https://youtu.be/TQ-qbykREXE

7 years, 11 months

Bad news (clouds tonight) good news (Mojave Star Party June 25th)

by Jane Houston Jones

We Sidewalk Astronomers have been watching the satellite images to assess tonight's weather all week. Nearly all the astronomers are busy tonight -- being a full moon weekend, that's when we spend the weekend with family and stuff like that. So we are reluctantly cancelling, tho' we never really announced we'd try for tonight, and it would have only been one or two of us anyway. But if you are at home and it is clear or only partly cloudy, step outside as close to midnight or as late as you can stay awake tonight -- we wouldn't be out doing sidewalk astronomy this late anyway. The full moon (moon at opposition) rises at about 8 p.m. and Mars is at it's 26 month opposition a few hours later. Mars won't get very high -- only about 35 degrees above the horizon about midnight. The moon will be just to the left of Mars, and Saturn will appear below the duo. Check out the Sidewalk Astronomers facebook page to see the star charts. You don't have to be on facebook to see the public star charts. https://www.facebook.com/Old-Town-Sidewalk-Astronomers-1619991271586682/?fr… I also wrote this in addition to my podcast linked below: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ Good news, Mojave National Preserve Spring Star Party rescheduled for June 25th. I guess that is officially summer, but just barely. Same routine, RSVP and so forth. The fall date has also been set, for those of you who like to plan in advance. It will be November 5th. The campground is also reserved the night before but the astronomers usually only set up telescopes on the Saturday night.. -- Jane Houston Jones What's Up May 2016 podcast: Mercury transit, Mars closest approach https://youtu.be/TQ-qbykREXE

7 years, 11 months

Sidewalk Astronomy cancelled tonight

by Jane Houston Jones

The streets around Library Park are closed to cars and parking for this weekend's Monrovia Days celebration, and there will be activities and booths in the park and on the adjacent streets around our Myrtle and Lime Street sidewalk astronomy corner. We'll reschedule Sidewalk Astronomy for next Saturday night, May 21 and share the light from the full moon, and Jupiter with you next week instead. To find out more about tonight's moon, here's a nice writeup about understanding the first quarter moon. Sidewalk astronomers typically pick the Saturday nearest the first quarter moon for their events. http://earthsky.org/moon-phases/first-quarter See you next weekend, and we are trying to reschedule the Mojave National Preserve star party, and we'll let you know when the date is finalized. -- Jane Houston Jones @jhjones What's Up May 2016: Mercury transit, Mars closest approach https://youtu.be/TQ-qbykREXE

7 years, 11 months

Mojave star party cancelled due to rain, What's Up otherwise

by Jane Houston Jones

Sadly, our Mojave National Star Party this weekend has to be cancelled. The weather prospects are this: our site appears to be right on the the southern edge of most of well known cloud and rain activity -- 20% chance of thunderstorms Saturday night. This chance of desert shower cells may creep up on us in the Mojave desert and we would not have the time to get all of our telescopes out of the rain. And tents would get it too. For those of us leaving our telescopes out and using our vehicle as a camper....well, not good (for the telescopes). 60% here in Monrovia right now and it is raining pretty hard. (10:30 p.m.) We have been studying the weather for 2 days and have sadly reached this decision with concurrence from the National Park. Saturday night WX: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 45. West southwest wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Friday night, when we were planning on arriving: 50% read it for yourselves, tho we look at many weather data. http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.2378&lon=-115.4992#.Vywprj_… We'll work on a rescheduled date...maybe sooner than the fall. And we welcome people to join our Amboy Crater nights - cars OK, no camping spots on the lava, bhut overnight in cars/vans in parking lot OK. In other news, Monday is a transit of Mercury -- Mercury is passing across the sun as seen from Earth. Happens 12 times each century. The time is from sunrise, when the sun rises Mercury is already crossing the face of the sun. For us west-coasters, it will be visible from sunrise to 11:30 a.m. My video and blog here tell the story. Steve Edberg, another JPL colleague and well known amateur astronomer, scientist and teacher and I put together this blog <https://webmail.jpl.nasa.gov/owa/redir.aspx?REF=CrAHlsTqrONd0nk4dtbkIiq_lqp…>https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2016/05/04/ten-facts-about-mercury-and-th… And my monthly podcast covers the transit (and Mars) this month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-qbykREXE I'll reach out personally to the people I know were planning on attending, and also to suggest some of our less-public dark sky events. You are all welcome to attend our not public events, mostly just a few telescopes, several doing astrophotography (aka no eyepiece view and no flashlights) but there are usually at least one or two telescopes available for viewing. Our site for these is Amboy crater, no campsites, a car park, toilets, and agreat 1 mile one way am hike to the crater -- Jane Houston Jones What's Up May 2016 podcast: Mercury transit, Mars closest approach https://youtu.be/TQ-qbykREXE

7 years, 11 months

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OTEvents May 2016