Kelling Heath Autumn Equinox Star Party next week

The Autumnal Equinox, when the day is approximately equal in length to the night, will be celebrated with the UK’s largest star party at Kelling Heath, Norfolk. The star party runs from Monday to Friday, the 14th-25th of September, with the main day falling on the 19th – the equinox itself. It is a residential star party, with places for tents, and there will be talks on the main day itself as well as trade stands and second hand astronomical stuff. During the main weekend, there is an area of the camping site dedicated entirely to amateur astronomers with a no lights policy. This has been entirely booked, but the area without the no lights restriction still has places at £10 a night pitch fee. You can simply drive up to take part, but be warned no cars will be allowed anywhere near the dark area, so find somewhere distant to park…

More IYA2009 media coverage

The World At Night is a series of photographs commissioned for the International Year of Astronomy, 2009 (as well as a public photo competition) showing various bits of the world against a starry background. This has been picked up by NewsHour, a PBS (American Public Service Broadcasting) news program, whose report is here.

We won’t go to the Moon?

Two media reports out today suggest lunar exploration will be cut out of the plan for NASA’s future. MSNBC news in its report “return to the Moon isn’t viable“, suggests that an extra $3 billion will be needed to keep NASA’s exploration afloat. It quotes a new report as suggesting NASA needs to stimulate private for profit ventures into space such as designing and flying new vehicles to resupply the International Space Station, which NASA fears will be vulnerable after the organisation abandons it in 2015.

New Scientist‘s take on the same report suggests that NASA without the budgetary increase will be left to perform orbital mission as the development of the Ares V rocket and Orion capsule would leave no money to develop lunar landing hardware. The mission to Mars would then involve no bootprints on the surface as all NASA could safely do would be orbit one of Mars’ moons for a bit before heading back home.

Makes you want to pat them on the head then hand the money over to the big boys…

#Meteorwatch in the news

The Discovery Channel’s web site has put up two interviews with members of Newbury Astronomy Society, relating to the recent twitter meteorwatch.

Newbury, tweeting under this account, organised and led the tweets on the night. But the efforts were mostly down to a few people. In this article, Discovery interviews Richard Fleet, Chairman of the society who tweets under this account.

But the main man behind the event was Adrian West, who tweets here, and he got a chance to write an article later on with Twitter: An Extreme Observatory.

The next #meteorwatch will be the Geminids in Mid-December, expected to be more spectacular than the Perseids this year. Between now and then, there will be a second #moonwatch in mid October, to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy, 2009 Autumn Moonwatch.

Ares rocket test on Thursday

Tests of the Ares 1 rocket first stage, which will launch the Orion capsule as part of the Constellation program intended to replace the shuttle, will take place on Thursday (the day Discovery hopes to land). The test is scheduled for 1 p.m. MDT on Thursday, Sept. 10, at the ATK test facility in Promontory, Utah. It will be broadcast live on NASA TV, starting ten minutes before the test and assuming Discovery isn’t on the way down then… The test was originally meant to happen on August 27th, but the ground test controller was acting up.

The Ares program tweets here. Further details about the test are here.

LCROSS briefing on Friday

The LCROSS probe, which intends to crash into a darkened crater in the lunar south polar region to look for evidence of water ice, will be the subject of a media briefing this Friday. The briefing will report on the spacecraft health, the final destination and explain the target criteria used. The briefing will take place at 10 a.m. PDT, Friday, 11th September, in the main auditorium, Building N201, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The event will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

Media representatives wanting to go or have telephone access should look here for further details.

Earth satellite orbits

Of a starry night, it is often pleasant to see something like the ISS or other satellites fly over. Maybe even view an Iridium Flare off a satellite at a fixed position above the Earth’s surface. But at what heights are these strange glows in the sky? Here’s a NASA factsheet explaining all. And here’s Heavens Above, to help you see the satellites above your location.

50th comet for McNaught

via Sky and Telescope.

Robert McNaught has cemented his position as the foremost discoverer of comets through ‘amateur’ means (as opposed to using things like SoHO to get blobs off the current and archived images, such as these people did). His fiftieth comet puts him eighteen ahead of even Carolyn Shoemaker, number two in the discovery league.

Of the comets he has found, fifteen are periodic (ie will return) and 38 were solo discoveries. He has also notched up 410 asteroids. His first was discovered with an 85mm camera lens, but the instruments he uses now – the half metre telescope at Siding Spring Observatory – obviously help a little, as do the clear Australian skies above that observatory.

And the comet? P/2009 Q5 is a periodic comet, visiting every 18 years.

2,000 sols for Opportunity

Five and a half years and 2,000 Martian days after landing, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity carries on her duties, presently spinning round the Block Island meteorite. Sister Rover Spirit arrived on the world a bit earlier, but “Oppy’s” delayed anniversary has finally arrived, and a poster to celebrate has been produced here, featuring words from this guy, sometimes seen rambling round Kendal…

Autumn Moonwatch call to arms

The International Year of Astronomy, 2009 is preparing to host its Autumn Moonwatch, and so has issued a call to arms to get events registered for the period this will cover:

Dear UK Astronomy Community,

We are now well into IYA2009, and Professor Ian Robson and I would like to thank you for all your efforts to date in engaging with the public and bringing IYA2009 to life. We are now gearing up for our next big national event, our Autumn Moonwatch, which will take place between 24 October and 01 November 2009.

During Autumn Moonwatch we want to get as many people as possible looking up at the night sky, whether through a telescope, binoculars or with their naked eyes, and for that we need your help!

Whether you open the doors of your observatory or planetarium; take your ‘scopes out into the street, the local shopping centre, or park; give a public lecture; or put on an exhibition; whatever you do you’ll be giving the public a chance to experience their own “Galileo moments”, their first look up in wonder at the night sky.

Many of you may already have events planned for Autumn Moonwatch, but if not we would urge you to make every effort to do so. If you only do one IYA2009 event this year, make it an Autumn Moonwatch event.

Of course we will do everything we can to promote your event, and will include it in our massive and ever-increasing online database of activities. We currently have 1200 unique events registered as part of IYA2009, spreading over 5000 days throughout the year. Last spring, when we ran Spring Moonwatch, we had 150 events taking place nationwide, but we want to make Autumn Moonwatch even bigger or better.

Help us to make it happen.

You can register your events via our very simple “Registration Document”, available here: http://www.astronomy2009.co.uk/index.php/resources

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards

Steve Owens