Thursday 19th April Pedros Castle

CAYMAN ISLANDS ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

We will aim to meet on Thursday, 19th April at 7.30 at Pedro Castle. Our rule of thumb is that if the skies are more than 50% cloudy, we cancel. This can sometimes be a difficult decision. Call me if in doubt. (925 6576 cell, 947 3065 home, 949 2557 work)

As of next month, for all paid-up members, we will be offering an extra session a month. It may be themed around a particular event, or it may just be an extra viewing. It will probably be at short notice, and I will contact everybody via email.
The membership form is below.

This month’s newsletter has been put together by Chris Cooke

April Highlights

Following the spectacular Lunar Eclipse seen at Moonrise on March 3rd last month I thought Id take as a theme for this month the Moon, especially as it has a number of additional celestial tricks to perform this month. The dates listed below are in chronological order finishing with some observing highlights for the meeting on the 19th

A Full Moon on 2nd April

A Full Moon with quite some significance! The Moon is at its apogee – that is it’s at its furthest from the Earth at 400,000 kilometers .The disk as seen from the Earth is therefore at its smallest. Everyone throughout the world will see a full looking moon this night but in fact no one will see the disk when it’s actually full. On the 2nd the Moon is just past full when it rises in the East at Dusk. This is the first full moon since the Spring Equinox and is actually called the Paschal Full Moon. The Spring Equinox marks the point where the Sun crosses the Equator - night and day at this moment are of equal length and it signifies the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon, so that’s why Easter is on the 9th April this year!

A New Moon on 17th April

On April 17th an extremely young thin Crescent Moon will be visible close to the horizon and just after sunset on the Western Coast of America. It will not be until the following evening that the Moon will be visible from the Caymans

Astronomical Society Meeting on 19th April

Visible in early evening over the Western Horizon is quite a visual spectacle! The 2 day old Moon will form a triangle with the brilliant planet Venus and the star aptly named as the Red Eye of Taurus the Bull - this is in fact a red giant called Aldebaran .

Also above the Moon will be a bright group of stars called the Pleiades. This is an Open Cluster of young bright blue stars and is called various names, M45 or the Seven Sisters as well as the Maia Nebula

However the Moon will steal the show. Here is a map for a 3 day old showing some of the more obvious features. In a telescope the image may appear upside down and even reversed left to right! (It depends on the type of telescope used).

On the other side of the sky will be Saturn and through the 8 inch Society Telescope the rings will be seen as well as cloud bands on the planet’s gaseous surface. To keep up the monthly theme up to 5 of Saturn’s Moons should be visible


The Lyrid meteor shower (April 16 – 25) deserves a mention too. The radiant or the point in the sky where the meteors appear to come from will not rise until after midnight. The shower peaks this year on April 22 giving around 20 per hour at the maximum. – But you never know, we may be lucky!!

Finally a Blue Moon on 31st May

A final trick for next month! The definition of a Blue Moon is two full moons in a month – not really blue at all but something to talk about !!

Thursday 22nd March Pedros Castle

Cayman Astronomical Society Newsletter for March 2007
(courtesy George Dalsheimer)

There is a Lunar Eclipse on March 3rd.

Our viewing is scheduled for March 22 at Pedro Castle.Time 7.00 pm

Daylight Savings Time in the US begins March 11, 2007

The Vernal Equinox occurs on March 21st (Astronomy Magazine has it on March 20th – not sure why). The spring equinox is the time when the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west for everyone on earth. In other words the Sun is directly over the equator. The word equinox means equal night but in fact the length of the day is actually longer than the length of night. This is because light from the sun can be seen before it rises and after it sets. Equality actually occurs several days before March 21st. Because of the location of objects in the sky at this time, it is possible to view all of the Messier Objects in one evening; of course you have to stay up all night. More about this later.

There will be many objects that can be viewed and below is a short list of some of the more obvious ones.
=====================

Moon – a sliver to the west.
Venus – close to the moon.
Andromeda Galaxy – setting and close to Venus (M31) Galaxy
Pleiades or Seven Sister. (M45) open cluster in Taurus

More overhead
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Orion and Orion’s Belt Orion’s Nebulae (M 42) Nebula
Rigel
Betelgeuse
Sirius
Saturn
Beehive Cluster (M 44) an open cluster of stars in Cancer

To the east
==========
Arcturus
Spica
Whirlpool Galaxy (M 51)


The M numbers above refer to the Messier Catalogue and his numbering system. The March issue of Astronomy Magazine has a pull out section devoted to Messier. Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French astronomer whose main interest was comets. However, he noted “cloudy” areas of the sky that did not move the way comets do. He began to make notes about these objects in 1758 and before he died he had listed 109 objects that are now called Messier Objects and numbered 1 to 109.

Some of the objects can be seen as smudges with the naked eye on a clear night. People with good eyesight can usually spot at least 20. Most of the objects can be seen with a good pair of binoculars. In fact some Messier objects, are best viewed through binoculars. As noted above, during the later part of March a good viewer can see all of the Messier Objects in one night. Astronomy clubs around the globe have Messier Parties to see how many objects they can see.

What are Messier Objects? To be continued.

Tuesday 20th February Viewing – Pedro Castle

The official viewing session starts at 7 p.m. with Venus and the thin crescent moon low in the western sky. Mercury should be visible at the time of writing (except it is cloudy) but will be gone by the 20th. See note below. The planet Saturn (a favourite of viewers) should be easily visible in the eastern sky, and we will be taking a good look.
Orion will still dominate naked-eye viewing and both binoculars and telescopes will give good views of the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy. As usual we will also look out for any other objects of interest, such as satellites etc.
P.S.
Members with telescopes may also want to see two difficult planets on the date below. (Information from the Sky and Telescope website) – Richard McLeod
· Wednesday, February 7
· Mercury is at greatest elongation, 18° east of the Sun. A telescope shows that Mercury's tiny disk (shimmering and fuzzing through the low-altitude air) is half lit, compared to Venus's gibbous phase.
· A telescopic challenge: Uranus, 6th magnitude, is about ¾° to the right (celestial northwest) of dazzling Venus at the time of late twilight for North America. Assuming you can see it at all, you may need a star atlas to distinguish Uranus from surrounding stars. For instance, 4th-magnitude Lambda Aquarii is farther to the two planets' lower right; try for this first.

Februarys Meeting

Unofficially the date of Tuesday Feb 20th has been set at Pedros Castle

Contact Nick Kelly (kellys_n@candw.ky) for more details

Tentative Dates for meetings in 2007

The Society Meets approximately 3 days after the new moon, normally at Pedros Castle. The Event is advertised in the local Newspapers and radio as well as by email distribution ..

APPROXIMATE MEETING DATES ARE AS FOLLOWS WE WOULD AIM TO MEET

JAN...MONDAY..22ND
FEB..TUESDAY..20TH
MAR..THURSDAY..22ND
APR..FRIDAY..2OTH
MAY..SATURDAY..19TH
JUNE..MONDAY..18TH
JULY..TUESDAY..17TH
AUG..WEDNESDAY..15TH
SEPT..FRIDAY..14TH
OCT..SUNDAY..14TH
NOV..MONDAY..12TH
DEC..WEDNESDAY..12TH

THIS IS ALL DEPENDENT ON PEDRO CASTLE’S SCHEDULE, IF WE MEET AT PEDRO. FRIDAYS AND SATURDAYS CAN BE POPULAR FOR EVENTS.