With "mostly cloudy" and a 40% chance of showers, we'll have to abandon
any hope of doing astronomy this evening. We'll try again next month.
Hope you all got to enjoy the Venus / Jupiter / Moon show in the
evenings over the past week!
Here's a little astronomy from Jane on the April edition of What's Up
from JPL:
http://youtu.be/nJSOTMm8wiQ
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones
Monrovia, CA
http://whiteoaks.com
If you are not quite sure which of those stars is Mars, or where to look
for swift Mercury, or your smart phone with Google Sky has a dead
battery, then this month's What's Up podcast will help you out. It'll
also show you why some Mars Oppositions are closer than others and
provide some moon-near-planets or planets-near-planets guideposts.
This month I added some downloadable planet finding charts, a calendar,
and a Mars Opposition graphic. You can find all these on the Solar
System Exploration website here right below the video formats.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=1124
Good dates to catch a planet (or two)
* March 3 is Mars Opposition. It'll rise at sunset, set near dawn,
and you'll have good views for many months!
* March 5 Mercury below Jupiter and Venus (its highest altitude)
* March 7 Moon and Mars
* March 12 and 13, Venus passes Jupiter (watch them switch places over
the next two weeks - Venus is the brighter of the two)
* March 25 Moon next to Jupiter
* March 26 Moon next to Venus
We'll have 2 telescopes out on busy Colorado Blvd, weather permitting
tomorrow night (Saturday March 3, since we were weathered out last
Friday night) Look for our man-sized telescopes somewhere along
Colorado between Fair Oaks and Pasadena Avenues, where we find a
curbside parking spot. Stop by and have a look at Jupiter, the moon, and
Venus, and we'll point out Mars (at opposition) to you.
Mark your calendar for May 19 - we'll hold a public star party in Mojave
National Preserve's Black Canyon Group Campsite on that night. Free
camping, RSVP required. Dark skies - darker than you've ever seen, I
bet. Let us know if you are interested, we'll get you the directions
and who to call for a campsite RSVP - potluck dinner before dark, lots
of rangers, interpretive staff attend. Great event!
This weekend is an interesting Mars in the Mojave Festival (March 9-12)
at Death Valley National Park
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/events/2012/03-09-2012_mars-and-the-mojave…
We may be there for a few of the events (hikes, great talks and panel
discussions)
--
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
http://jane.whiteoaks.com/http://twitter.com/jhjones
What's Up For March: Amazing planetary views all month
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-archive.cfm
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JPLnews
I made a mistake regarding Friday night astronomy in Old Town Pasadena.
The moon is going to set much too early for it to be a real sidewalk
astronomy night. So instead we'll do Pasadena on Saturday night, March 3.
Monrovia should be good on Saturday evening with a slim crescent moon
and Venus and Jupiter putting on a show.
Watch those two along with the moon for the next few evenings as they
put on a great sky show. Later in the evening (about 8:30) you can
"connect the dots" to the opposite side of the sky and see very bright
pumpkin-colored Mars rising in the east.
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones
Monrovia, CA
http://whiteoaks.com
Team OtAstro - what do you think of May 19 (an awesome new moon weekend)
for a Mojave getaway??
or
The group site is available on April 13, 14 (a nice third quarter moon) , and 27 (that date is out because its out sidewalk astro weekend).
If any of you belong to the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, David included us in the annual roundup letter to members. We were mentioned in the first paragraph! It was very nice. I have the letter someplace.....
PS David we are the "Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers" from the San Gabriel Mountain Foothills ;-)
Or On 2/1/2012 11:39 AM, David Lamfrom wrote:
> How about may 19 or around there. Sierra club is meeting there, and we
> would have a built in audience.
--
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
What's Up Podcast-January 2012: A pretty parade of planets
On Youtube: http://is.gd/kPUtSx
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro
My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/
Last night we were spooked by the wind forecast, and opted not to set up
in Pasadena. We're probably still a little touchy from the November wind
storm!
But the wind is forecast to die down this afternoon, and we're planning
to set up in Monrovia at Myrtle & Lime from 6:00 to 9:00.
If you've looked to the west after sunset the past few days, you've seen
the great sky show of Venus, moon, and Jupiter, tracing the ecliptic
across the sky. We'll get some up-close looks at the three of those
tonight. Come early to see Venus; it will set first.
Venus is not very interesting in a telescope until it begins to reach a
crescent phase. It's not quite there yet, but will be approaching that
over the next couple of months. Otherwise it's mostly a featureless
white ball that shows a little bit of phase like the moon.
When Venus is a crescent, people are always surprised that they aren't
looking at the moon -- just as Galileo was when he first observed Venus
in a telescope and began charting its phases.
Jupiter remains high and bright this month and next.
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
http://whiteoaks.com
It may be New Year's Eve, but it's also a great night for sidewalk
astronomy.
We will be set up in Monrovia's Library park tonight, at the corner of
Myrtle & Lime, from about 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Here's the thing though: the city of Monrovia is closing off a block of
Myrtle, between Lemon and Colorado, to hold a New Year's Eve block
party. The street will be closed this afternoon, and the block party
starts at 7:00 p.m.
But if you have a chance to start your evening in downtown Monrovia
tonight, we'll be giving out great views of the moon and Jupiter with
its four big Galilean moons.
Don't miss Jane's "What's Up" for NASA for January, here on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/udTu2K15Boo
And she has a great blog post today on the subject of black-eyed peas
for New Year's Eve:
http://jane.whiteoaks.com/2011/12/30/black-eyed-peas-a-new-years-traditiona…
Best regards and Happy New Year,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
http://whiteoaks.com
If you step outside tonight you'll see a pretty first quarter moon.
We'd love to be out with telescopes, but with all the wind damage in
both Pasadena and Monrovia, we're cancelling both events this weekend.
Our corner in Monrovia - the corner of Myrtle and Lime Streets - is
strewn with the wreckage of huge fallen trees and is cordoned off with
yellow tape. The big Deodar known as the "Christmas" Tree in Library
Park was also a victim of the Santa Annas, uprooted, it's lying in a big
mess of branches, lights, and the big star on top is bear the fountain.
A huge tree gone.
Now back to the moon. Take a look at the distance between the moon and
Jupiter tonight. Look again tomorrow night. And look again on Sunday
night. YOu'll see the moon appears closer to Jupiter every night! On
December 5th and 6th the moon will be very near Jupiter. I wrote a
little feature about it with some nice links.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=1004
Have a good and safe weekend. Jane
--
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
What's Up Podcast-November 2011
Mars launch, Planetary magnetospheres
NASA podcast: http://is.gd/bSXeAl
Youtube site: http://is.gd/kPUtSx
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro
My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/
Today's rain doesn't appear to be letting up tonight for our monthly
sidewalk astronomy in Old town Pasadena, and the forecast for Saturday
night has worsened. We'll make that call tomorrow, but I wouldn't plan
an excursion for cloudy night moon and planet viewing. We'll post an
announcement if we're going our tomorrow night. Leaning towards
weathered out conditins/cancellation.
So it's a weekend for armchair astronomy! Mojo and I have made weekend
treks to two dark sky locations on the two past weekends.
Mojo brings our Astro-Physics Traveler - a spectacular small telescope
well suited to astrophotography out to the desert when we can get away,
and are not doing National Park public viewing (which is most of the
time). Read his last two weekend stories, and gaze at his pretty images
here: http://mojo.whiteoaks.com/
I picked a few interesting visual targets to write about, and I hauled
my huge 17.5 inch reflector out to the desert the last two weekends. I
selected a few targets that NASA telescopes or astronomers have also
studied to look at. http://jane.whiteoaks.com/
My monthly What's Up video is all about the upcoming Nov 25 launch of
the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, plus
something about planetary magnetospheres. Here's the JPL Youtube link
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JPLnews#grid/uploads
There's also a good short video about the science planned for Tuesday's
close flyby of Asteroid YU55 on that Youtube page, right above my
video. Nasa will use Earth as a spacecraft to image this asteroid as it
whizzes by, and will use the huge radio antennae out in the Mojave
Desert at Goldstone to measure this thing. Usually we have to fly "to"
the object to study it. This time the object comes "to" us - close
enough to Earth to use our ground based telescopes, but far enough away
not to worry about it any danger.
Amateur astronomers wonder if YU55 can be seen in backyard telescopes.
If your backyard is really dark, and you know exactly where to look, and
you have charts to show where it will be, you might see it, and those
lucky observers will see it move in the eyepiece view. This
writer/amateur astronomer from Duluth MN has some excellent charts and a
good explanation.
http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2011/11/02/users-guide-to-monday-nights-aste…
Jane (and the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers)
--
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
What's Up Podcast-November 2011
Mars launch, Planetary magnetospheres
NASA podcast: http://is.gd/bSXeAl
Youtube site: http://is.gd/kPUtSx
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro
My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/
Stephen Coleman was at our InOMN event last night with a camera and
tripod. He took some great natural-light shots of the astronomers,
telescopes, and accidental astronomers getting looks at the moon.
http://photo.whiteoaks.com/2011-10-08-sidewalk-inomn/
We had about 150 visitors last night in old town Monrovia.
Stephen, thanks so much for the great shots!
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
http://whiteoaks.com
