Galaxy Zoo

galaxy_zoo

A couple of days ago I came across this very interesting and “cool” website! Part of the Zooniverse (there is a link to Zooniverse on the links page). From the Zooniverse website, “Galaxy Zoo – The original Zooniverse project. Help astronomers figure out how galaxies form and evolve by classifying their shape. Over 50 million classifications so far but we need more!”

You register at the Galaxy Zoo website and then you can participate by classifying galaxies. They show you how and then you just classify when you have time. You can save the galaxies that you like the most to your own “gallery”. You can get very technical info on each galaxy, but don’t expect the Messier number!

There are also other things you can participate in, such as merging galaxies and detecting supernovae.  Enjoy!

The Quadrantic Meteor Shower

The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers of the year, but observers can be disappointed if conditions are not just right. The point from where the Quadrantid meteors appear to radiate is located within the extinct constellation Quadrans Muralis. On modern star charts, this radiant is located where the constellations Hercules, Boötes, and Draco meet in the sky. The shower can appear almost nonexistent until about 11 p.m. Unfortunately, the radiant does not attain a very high altitude for most Northern Hemisphere observers before morning twilight puts an end to the show. The best observations are actually possible from countries with high northern latitudes, such as Canada, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The display is virtually nonexistent for observers in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Quadrantids generally begin on December 28 and end on January 7, with maximum generally occurring during the morning hours of January 3/4. The Quadrantids are barely detectable on the beginning and ending dates, but observers in the Northern Hemisphere can see from 10 to around 60 meteors per hour at maximum. The maximum only lasts for a few hours.

For more info, go to the Meteor Showers Online website: http://meteorshowersonline.com/quadrantids.html

Astronomical Christmas

Here is a clever rendition of the Night before Christmas – the Astronomical Christmas that is….

‘Tis the Night Before Christmas and high in the sky
The stars are a-twinkling sight for the eye.
The First Quarter Moon on the 24th shines,
Begging new telescopes to sight on her line.

To read the rest, go to the Naval Oceonagraphy website at: http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/tours-events/sky-this-week/the-sky-this-week-2009-december-22-30

Telescopes for Beginners Workshop

scopeWhen:  Sat, January 23, 2010, 1:30pm – 3:30pm

Where:  Bear Creek Nature Center

 

 

Description:  Bring your telescope for this indoor workshop led by members of the Colorado Springs Astronomical Society. Learn how to use different kinds of telescopes, find out which will be the most effective for you and discover how to overcome the biggest bugaboo for beginners – the alignment procedure. Continue reading “Telescopes for Beginners Workshop”

The 2009 Geminid Meteor Shower

From the Nasa website: Dec. 8, 2009: Make hot cocoa. Bundle up. Tell your friends. The best meteor shower of 2009 is about to fall over North America on a long, cold December night.

“It’s the Geminid meteor shower,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “and it will peak on Dec. 13th and 14th under ideal viewing conditions.” To read the rest of this article click on this link.

Hypoxic Observer – October 2009

Weekends were made for Astronomy!

Table of Contents:

  1. Oriental Eclipse
  2. November Messier Objects
  3. Member Pictures
    1. Ginger Mayfield – Andromeda Galaxy (M31) & companion galaxies
    2. Floyd Glick – Jupiter & moons.
    3. Ron Bishop – M31 as seen by the camera and the computer
    4. Ron Bishop & Floyd Glick – Composite of five pictures. (Moon)
  4. Recent Star Parties
  5. Geminga – entry from Wikipedia
  6. Final Public Star Party of 2009

Download the PDF below:

[download id=”2″]

How To Build Your Own Poncet Table In Only 18 Months

or When A Bargain Isn’t Necessarily A Bargain

by Steve Bygren, steve2822@earthlink.net

In the spring of 1991, I decided to build my own poncet table for my 10 inch dobsonian. I had recently read a number of articles on poncet tables, and I figured I couldn’t live without one. I decided to build my own because they are relatively straight forward to construct, and the commercial versions cost nearly three times what my telescope cost me to build.Continue reading “How To Build Your Own Poncet Table In Only 18 Months”

April Star Party Followup

Following is an excerpt from an update by Jim (our VP) on our April Star Party.  Out of all the star parties scheduled for this Week of Astronomy, this was the only one that wasn’t cancelled due to weather!  It turned out great!  To view this thread in the forum go to: http://www.csastro.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3516&highlight= There are also additional pictures in the gallery! – http://www.csastro.org/forums/modules.php?set_albumName=album15&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

Skies cleared for the most part. Just a tad breezy and quite chilly but overall not too bad. Seeing was not as good as I had hoped with the muck in the air and of course the moon.

BobV’s new 20″ Starmaster took first light and it was quite an awesome site to behold. Several times during the night I would go see what he was looking at and then run back to my scope to compare. The biggest WOW I got was some moons of Saturn. In BobV’s we had the three brightest (will have to go look up the names) as well as two very distinct moons close to the rings. In my scope there was ONLY the three bright moons, the two that I observed in BobV’s scope were no where to be found in mine. That’s just frakkin awesome!!

I’m quite sure that BobV will be very very happy with his newest acquisition for quite some time to come.

We must have had 15 scopes out there though. Pretty good turnout despite the chilly weather.

Don’t think we got close to a 100 visitors but we did have a fair amount. I’m thinking we also had at least 30 PPCC students in that crowd.

Saturn and the Moon were viewed quite often. M13, M3, M42 and some doubles were also viewed.

Al, myself and some others took pictures early on. I’ll get mine posted here later as I’m sure Al will as well.

We started about 7:30 and went till 10:30.

Again…please pipe up with your name here if I don’t get it listed…

BobV, PapaJ, Bruce, KenF, Dennis, Floyd, Cindi, JimU, Al, JohnH, and others whose names escape me at the moment and myself.

Much thanx to all of those that helped support this event!

-JimW