March 3-16
GLOBE at Night is an annual 2-week campaign in March. People all over the world record the brightness of their night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars. They submit their measurements on-line and a few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements.
Go to the Globe at Night website for more info and to participate!
Ever wonder how to pronounce the names of some of the stars or constellations? Like Bootes? Or Cepheus? Or Dubhe?
Astronomical Society of the Pacific published a guide in 1936 which is available online as a pdf document —
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1936PASP…48..139R/0000140.000.html
Starry Night also has a pronunciation guide which, along with the written pronunciation, has a quicktime audio file so you can actually hear it spoken.
http://www.starrynighteducation.com/resources_pronunciation.html
So, how do YOU pronounce Bootes?
If you’d like to discuss this, please go to our forums:
http://www.csastro.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13220#13220
Giga Galaxy Zoom
From their about page:
ESOs GIGAGALAXY ZOOM: The Sky, from the Eye to the Telescope
Through three giant images, the GIGAGALAXY ZOOM project reveals the full sky as it appears with the unaided eye from one of the darkest deserts on Earth, then zooms in on a rich region of the Milky Way using a hobby telescope, and finally uses the power of a professional telescope to reveal the details of an iconic nebula.
In the framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), ESO has launched a new project aimed at connecting the sky as seen by the unaided eye with that seen by hobby and professional astronomers. The project, called GIGAGALAXY ZOOM, reveals three amazing, ultra-high-resolution images of the night sky that online stargazers can zoom in on and explore in an incredible level of detail.
The GIGAGALAXY ZOOM project thus illustrates the vision of IYA2009, which is to help people rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky.
– Posted originally by Jim W. in the Forums
Rob Hawley has produced an educational video on YouTube, broken down into 4 segments, total is about 30 minutes.
The video is about finding astronomical objects using charts, aka “starhopping”. He uses charts from Sky Map Pro, and from Sky Tools V3, but refers to paper charts as well in the video.
Here is the link…
http://www.robhawley.net/sh101
