Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.aaa.org/EyepieceFiles/aaa/2009_02_February_Eyepiece.pdf Дата изменения: Sun Feb 22 20:31:04 2015 Дата индексирования: Sun Apr 10 03:45:19 2016 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: molecular cloud

EYEPIECE
Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York February 2009 Volume 57, Number 2, ISSN 0146-7662

`100 Hours of Astronomy' Effort Is Ready to Roll
By Jason Kendall
On January 6 in Long Beach, Calif., the American Astronomical Society kicked off the beginning of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 with a big celebration attended by hundreds of professional and amateur astronomers. I was there, presenting a paper on my efforts at public outreach during this important year for astronomy worldwide. This year is the 400th anniversary of Galileo publishing the results of his telescopic observations. What he saw shook the world. The heavens above were no longer immutable and perfect, but had lumps and oddities all their own. In his g roundbreaking scientif ic text, "Siderius Nuncius," he described the three key observations that f inally overthrew the medieval thinking of his time: the mountains and valleys of the Moon, the "Medician" stars surrounding Jupiter and the phases of Venus. All three amazing discoveries served to help humanity understand a new and bigger universe than had been previously imagined. And this year we celebrate it. The IYA2009 was established by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to "help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery." To this end, the IYA has established a series of cornerstone projects which astronomy professionals and amateurs can use to promote the wonders of the night sky. Of these 10 global initiatives, a few are truly appropriate for our club. The core effort is simply to have people look at the sky, possibly through a telescope. Every AAA member who has a telescope can do this by simply going to a street corner on a clear night and persuading passersby to take a look. You'll be surprised at the positive response. My paper at the AAS conference outlined my 100 Nights of Astronomy. Every Wednesday and Saturday night this year, I hope to get New Yorkers to look through my telescopes. I've already started in Inwood Hill Park. On January 21, I kicked off the effort in 20-degree weather. A small group stuck with me, and we were occasionally rewarded with breaking clouds. I got to talk with a good bunch and Howard Fink showed up with a scope and two pairs of binoculars to help out. As we now, our skies are getting brighter. The generation that just got its f irst vote last year is the f irst to never have seen the Milky Way. It's our job to help show people that light pollution not only takes away celestial wonders but also costs New York City millions of dollars in wasted electricity. In addition, lack of darkness has adverse health effects on nocturnal wildlife. Did you know that the vertical column of light above the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas is so bright that birds fly into it, are frightened to leave the light so fly until they die from exhaustion? There are also preliminary indications that there are links between lack of melatonin in humanas and cancer. And glare bombs we all hate so much can be shown to make parks less safe from criminals. I attended a dark-skies workshop at the AAS meeting, and brought back resources for our organization. The 100 Hours of Astronomy effort is the largest and most important effort in which we as amateur astronomers can engage. On April 2-5 there is a global star party. I'm working to have at least one of those nights as a major public event in Inwood Hill Park. During these 100 hours, amateur and professional astronomers are urged to hold star parties, take a telescope to a mall, anything. The amazing eclipsing binary system Epsilon Aurigae has a 27-year cycle, and is poorly understood. The IYA hopes to enlist amateurs and professionals globally to watch the eclipse occur. The main star has a companion with a circumstellar disk that appears to be as large as Jupiter's orbit. I plan to be on the top of Inwood Hill with a large scope and 100 Hours continued on back page

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Comet Lulin moves swiftly into the evening sky this month.

By Tony Hoffman
The Sky for February 2009
A Lulu of a Comet. After 2007, a banner year for comets with the exceptional performances of comets McNaught and Holmes, 2008 was a letdown for comet observers. This year is getting off to a decent start with the arrival of Comet Lulin, which is expected to reach naked-eye visibility (at least from dark-sky sites) as it traverses the midnight sky in late February. Comet Lulin was discovered last July by Quanzhi Ye, a 19-year-old student at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, on images taken by Chi-Sheng Lin of the Lulin Observatory Sky Survey. Although not off icially an amateur discovery, it's another triumph for a cadre of (mostly young) Chinese amateurs who avail themselves of a range of imaging techniques in astronomical research and discovery. Ye has also discovered comets in SOHO images and asteroids in Spacewatch images, as well as in photos from the Lulin survey, for which he is chief investigator. The survey uses a 16-inch telescope in Taiwan. Comet Lulin has been dubbed the "Comet of Cooperation" by the Chinese press due to its discovery through collaborative efforts of both Taiwanese and mainland astronomers. Comet Lulin lies outside of Earth's orbit, which will make it visible in a dark sky well away from the Sun. It passed perihelion on January 15, and will make its closest approach to Earth on February 24, when it will be 0.41 AU away. Lulin has an unusual orbit, nearly in the plane of the ecliptic but retrograde, moving around the Sun in the direction opposite that of the planets. This will seem to make it move very quickly. It starts the month in Libra in the morning sky, moves through Virgo, passing near Spica at midmonth (when it will rise before midnight), passing Saturn on February 23 and Regulus in Leo on the 27th. It will be opposite the Sun on the 26th, and visible most of the night. Saturn Unringed. Venus will continue to dazzle observers

in the early evening sky, blazing at magnitude -4.8 at midmonth, when it will show a fat crescent 36 arc-seconds across to observers. (I've had several non-astronomer friends ask me recently what that ultra-bright orb they've been seeing is.) Saturn rises as Venus is setting, and a telescope reveals an unusual sight: the rings are gone. They're invisible because they're nearly edge-on to us, though you may be able to see the shadow of the rings as a thin black line on the planet's disk. February 2 First-quarter Moon at 6:13 p.m. February 7 Moon at perigee. February 9 Full Moon at 9:49 a.m. February 11 Moon lies near Saturn. February 13 Mercury at greatest elongation in morning sky. February 15 Comet Lulin lies near Spica. February 16 Last-quarter Moon at 4:37 p.m. February 17 Mars lies 0.6 degrees from Jupiter in morning twilight; Moon lies near Antares. February 19 Venus at greatest brilliancy (magnitude -4.8). February 22 Moon lies near Mercury and Jupiter. February 23 Moon lies near Mars; Mercury passes 0.6 degrees from Jupiter; Comet Lulin lies near Saturn. February 24 New Moon at 8:35 p.m. February 25 Asteroid 1 Ceres at opposition.February 26 Comet Lulin at opposition. February 27 Moon lies near Venus; Com