the do
astronomy day and more hey there
stargazers
I'm Deanery guess astronomer for the
Cincinnati Observatory
and I'm james oberg director the key
cassava plop planetarium in Gainesville
Florida
mark Saturday May 10th on your calendar
as national astronomy day
a day when most astronomy clubs
planetariums
and Science Center's all across the
country will be celebrating stargazing
with all kinds of things astronomical
including
working through telescopes and usually
free of charge since 1973
national astronomy day has been observed
in April or May
on the Saturday closest to the first
quarter moon which will be
on the six this year now why do they do
that well
first quarter moons are always high in
the sky and
easily visible in early evening and
they're much more
interesting to observe through
telescopes for astronomy day
and they don't break in the sky so much
that other things like planets are
washed out
so Saturday close to a first-quarter
moon in May
when the weather is turning nice just
fits the bill soak our local planetarium
science center or astronomy club to see
what they're doing for astronomy day
and check our website stargazers online
.org for more info
and as they have for many years
astronomy magazine
and Celestron telescopes are once again
sponsoring astronomy day activities
all across the country with Celestron
providing telescopes as door prizes
and a grand prize winner will be chosen
from all across the country
for special telescope price now just
coincidentally
there are three planets available for
viewing just after sunset
end the moon will help you find them
well let's show it
okay we've got our sky set up for May
3rd about it hour after sunset
facing west we'll see the bright planet
Jupiter
which has been providing a spectacular
sky show for the past few months
just above jupiter it will find Castor
and Pollux the break twin stars in
Gemini
and below duper a waxing five-day-old
crescent moon
then on Sunday the 4th a slightly fatter
crescent moon will be just to the left
duper once again the third and the
fourth
if you keep on watching jupiter each
night over the next two months
you'll see something really unusual
let's look at jupiter
Ancaster and Pollux once more they make
a nice right triangle
don't they but over the next two months
Jupiter will rapidly move eastward in
the sky
each night and by the end of June as
jupiter is disappearing in the glow of
evening twilight caster pollack's n
Jupiter will be
almost in a straight line once again
right triangle
early in May straight line at the end of
June let's get back to the moon in the
other planets
if you watch every night next week
you'll see the moon move farther to the
east
each evening and on Saturday May 10
astronomy day
a fairly pudgy eleven-day old moon will
be about six degrees west of mars
and the next night May 11 the moon will
be East mars
and if you don't have a telescope most
astronomy clubs planetariums and science
centers will be showing you Jupiter
and Mars and the moon through their
telescopes on astronomy day
now we said there were three planets
that the moon will be showing you
what's turned the southeast after
enjoying mars
and the ringed planet Saturn will be
climbing higher in the sky
Saturn is brighter than it was at this
time last year
in fact it's brighter than it's been for
the past seven years
but why let's start by remembering the
big difference between the stars and
planets
stars produce their own light or what's
up while we see planets only because
they reflect the light
only one star the Sun planets like
senator really dinky when it comes to
showing lighten the sky
but since they're really close some
other planets can appear to be really
bright
now Saturn's rings are big part of the
reflecting surface that sends light from
the Sun
backed our way to the air the Rings do
not look the same all the time
in 2009 Saturn's rings were edge on to
us
and reflected very little and for a
short time
no white but that was over four years
ago
we'll be talking more about the change
in brightness a satyr and
upcoming episode stargazers at any rate
enjoy all the free events and free
telescopic doing on
national astronomy day it'll be a great
outing for the whole fam
keep looking up
s me
T