September 2007 - astronomy@lists.redbrick.dcu.ie

[Astronomy Ireland] Job Vacancy, Events, Pluto etc, Evening Classes
by AI Chairman 24 Sep '07

24 Sep '07

1. VACANCY: EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Astronomy Ireland now requires a full time Executive Secretary. The duties in this exciting and challenging post include: General secretarial type office work: Processing membership applications: Magazine distribution: Handling telephone queries: Invoice processing. Helping to promote Astronomy Ireland events e.g. Lectures, Star-B-Qs, Evening Classes etc by sending our notices of events: Full training will be given. If you would like to be considered for this post then send your CV to director(a)astronomy.ie immediately (Friday 5th October 2007 closing date). Attractive salary offered. 2. LECTURES AND EVENTS (ARMAGH, BELFAST, DUBLIN) Univeristy College Dublin: 2007 Inaugural lecture of the ‘Physics with Astronomy & Space Science’ Degree Programme: ‘Gamma Ray Bursts and the Birth of Black Holes’, by Dr. Neil Gehrels, Chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory, NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center. Co-recipient of the 2007 Rossi prize. Tuesday, September 25th, 2007, 6pm, Theatre B, Science Hub, UCD. All welcome. BELFAST: W5 (at the Odyssey Centre, Belfast) Science Outreach programme: Exhibition: "Living with a Star" exhibition by Miruna Popescu(Armagh Observatory) all this week (Sept 24-30 incl). Lecture: Simon Jeffery (Armagh Obs) lecture at W5: "Inside the Stars", Thursday 27 September, 11:00 to 12:00. Armagh Planetarium: To celebrate this 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch, Armagh Planetarium is hosting a special day of activities on Saturday 29th September 2007, with free admittance for the over 50s (bring your ID)! Along with our children’s show ‘Secret of the Cardboard Rocket’, we will be showing ‘Dawn of the Space Age’ - an authoritative account of the last fifty years of space travel, from Sputnik up until the present day. Open Daily 11.30am-5.00pm. Booking is Essential on 028 3752 3689 (Adults £6, Under 16/65+ £5). For further information and a list of show times visit www.armaghplanet.com 3. PLUTO NEAR STAR - RARE! Those of you with 8-inch or larger scopes should remember that Pluto makes that very rare pass of a relatively bright star on Thursday - see the feature on page 27 of our September magazine www.astronomy.ie/sub Also, this week the Moon is near Uranus (Tuesday), the Pleiades (Saturday and Sunday). Jupiter & Mars are in evening skies, and Venus and Saturn are in morning skies. Venus is an incredible sight in particular and we've been getting calls and emails from alarmed members of the public! ALL THE DETAILS (and diagrams) FOR ALL THESE EVENTS ARE IN OUR MAGAZINE www.astronomy.ie/sub Please email observe(a)astronomy.ie if you see any of these events. 4. EVENING CLASSES ABOUT TO BEGIN Enrol now for our 8 week course starting Oct.11 in TCD www.astronomy.ie/eveningclass.html Pat Kenny and David Moore discuss the classes www.astronomy.ie/audio/patkenny_20050201.mp3 (We hope to announce classes in Cork and Athlone soon) Astronomy Ireland the world's most popular astronomy club www.astronomy.ie Also, Telescopes & Advice: Tel (01) 847 0777 Monday-Saturday

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[Astronomy Ireland] Mars near Crab, Apollo Film, Star-B-Q Report & TV
by AI Chairman 15 Sep '07

15 Sep '07

1. Mars Near Crab Nebula One curiosity we omitted from the Sky Diary in the September issue of Astronomy & Space magazine is that the planet Mars passes just 50 arc minutes from the Crab Nebula (M1) on Sept. 16/17 and will be fairly close for several days either side. David Grennan has created this webpage to help you locate the supernova remnant, see www.astronomy.ie/marscrab.html where you will get lots more details. It should be possible to see the planet and the Crab in the same low power field of view so send in any sightings to observe(a)astronomy.ie If you take a photo please send it in to gallery(a)astronomy.ie This links in nicely to the excellent lecture about Supernovae that Stephen Smartt gave last Monday. The DVD of this can be ordered at www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html for just a few euro and I would highly recommend this particular talk (www.astronomy.ie/lecture200709.html) to you. Jupiter is a fantastic sight this month and several events involving its moons are listed in the magazine so order the current issue at www.astronomy.ie/sub where you also see all the photos sent in this month, sightings we have received, feature articles, all the latest pictures from space and lots more besides. You really are missing out on lots of information and sights to be seen if you are not getting the magazine in the post every month. It costs less than 4euro a month after all, so please sign up now at www.astronomy.ie/sub and support us. 2. Moon Landings Film in I.F.I. The Irish Film Institute have a Documentary Film Festival this month "Stranger Than Fiction". On Sunday Sept. 16 they will screen "In the Shadow of the Moon", a film about the Apollo Moon landings with all the surviving moon-walkers telling their own story. Sounds fascinating so check out www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/sdispfilm_07.asp?SID=134&filmID=5638 for more details. 3. Star-B-Q Report Around 600 people came from all around Ireland to Wicklow for last weekend's Star-B-Q to make it the biggest Telescope event Ireland has ever seen. This will help raise much needed funds to help Astronomy Ireland promote astronomy all around the country, principally by subsidising the cost our monthly colour magazine which you should all get, so a big thank you to everyone who came. Leo Enright gave a superb 3-D talk on Mars as our main speaker of the evening. A vast array of telescopes were laid out on the playing pitch with special offers on all telescopes being made by our Shop staff (you can still get these money off offers until the end of September. Food and refreshments were served and skies were clear at the start of the evening when we got to see Jupiter and some other sights. It clouded in after a while so we are going to set the telescopes up again for ticket-holders (if you are a ticket-holder and you did not get an email about this recently please reply now giving the name your tickets were purchased under, and we'll send details). A full report with loads of pictures is now online at www.astronomy.ie/sbqsept07rep.html click on each picture for a bigger photo. RTE TV NEWS did a report that was broadcast on Monday, see it here: www.astronomy.ie/video/rte_starbq.php Astronomy Ireland www.astronomy.ie Telescopes & Advice Tel (01) 847 0777 Monday-Saturday

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[Astronomy Ireland] RTE & Sky News Coming to Record-Breaking Star-B-Q
by AI Chairman 07 Sep '07

07 Sep '07

RTE are sending a camera crew to cover Star-B-Q on Saturday September 8th. Sky News will be there too. Leo Enright will give the key note address, a laser will shoot kilometres up in to the sky, the wonders of the universe will be on show....such is Star-B-Q See Jupiter, Mars, Galaxies, Clusters, Gas Clouds. Learn the stars by laser. Get binocular tips. Test out one of our telescopes before you buy. Enjoy the food. As well as the fantastic weather forecast for Saturday night we also have a far larger number of telescopes at this Star-B-Q than ever before, and so we can announce that bookings at the 2007 Star-B-Q have just broken the record of every Star-B-Q in the society's 17 year history - thank you all so much! We have a huge venue in Roundwood that can cater for 1,000 people so if you want to be a part of history and come along to the biggest telescope event in the history of Ireland then book your place(s) now (40euro per adult, 30euro per under-16s). Book online at www.astronomy.ie/sbq or call (01) 847 0777 Saturday 10am-4pm. or pay full price (50euro) at the gate (event starts 8pm, gates open 6:30pm). Food and light refreshments included in price and all proceeds go to help the society promote astronomy i.e. your hobby! So why not get a group together, or come on your own, it's going to be our biggest and best event ever, so don't miss it! www.astronomy.ie/sbq

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[Astronomy Ireland] Twin C14 Monsters for Star-B-Q
by AI Chairman 05 Sep '07

05 Sep '07

Star-B-Q fever has hit Astronomy Ireland. Hundreds of you have already booked your tickets for Saturday's big event so we wanted to give you a preview of what will be on offer below. Thank you for supporting our annual fund-raiser and check out how you can save 10 or 20euro per ticket below if you're not already booked! WEATHER LOOKS GOOD: To help us promote astronomy we are asking you to get family and friends to come along from all over Ireland to the event, especially as the long range weather forecast for Saturday night is looking very promising. Met Eireann comments "Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday will continue dry and settled with high pressure continuing to dominate our weather". Other websites give very promising forecasts too. TWIN "MONSTER" TELESCOPES: A lot of you are interested in telescopes. We are delighted to announce that two members Martin Brady (Tipperary) and Paul Farquharson (Dublin) are bringing their Celestron CGE 1400 telescopes to Star-B-Q on Saturday. Worth about 10,000euro each, the CGE 1400 is Celestron's largest Schmidt-Cassegrain and collects over 2,500 times more light than the human eye. It comes on the top-of-the-range CGE mount, a professional engineered American-made mount with extremely high precision pointing accuracy that can find 40,000 objects from the built-in keypad and millions more when hooked up to a PC or laptop. The views through the two "C14s" should be staggering, and will be complimented by the 21-inch (53cm) Millennium Telescope. Dozens of other powerful telescopes (all collect around 1,000 times, or more, light than the human eye) will at Star-B-Q for you to look through this Saturday (C8s, C9.25s, C11s etc). Thanks go to all our volunteers who are bringing them along to the event. WHAT YOU WILL SEE: The 'star attraction' will be the planet Jupiter now well placed in the southern sky after sunset. We'll show you its moons and cloud belts in the powerful telescopes. And maybe even the asteroid Vesta near Jupiter just now! The red planet Mars will also be on display. Mars will come closer to Earth this year than it will until 2016. Mars, is also the focus of Leo Enright's incredible 3-D lecture in the main hall to kick off Star-B-Q this year. Just think, after the presentation you can go outside and see the planet 'live' in the telescopes. There's loads more to see and do, from the huge laser beam, the wonders of the universe, the food, the demos, binocular classes and more. SAVE EUROS, BOOK NOW: The ticket price for Star-B-Q will rise to 50euro on Saturday but you can save 10euro on an adult ticket (save 20euro for Under 16s) if you book in advance. BIGGEST EVER: The 2007 Star-B-Q is going to be the biggest Star-B-Q ever, with more telescopes than ever being promised for the event. Plus it's the first to have a "key-note" speaker, Leo Enright. So do not miss this Star-B-Q this Saturday and get along to our biggest annual national event no matter where you live in Ireland. Book now and save 10euro/20euro adult/under16 at: www.astronomy.ie/sbq and please get everyone you know to come along for a night they will never forget (and help us raise funds to promote astronomy!). " I hope to see you, and all your friends and family there! " DAVID MOORE CHAIRMAN

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[Astronomy Ireland] "Supernova" Lecture & DVD, BBC Sky at Night, Star-B-Q in Irish Times
by AI Chairman 03 Sep '07

03 Sep '07

1. Lecture & DVD: "Supernovae - Hunting Exploding Stars" Astronomy Ireland's next Public Lecture will be held on Monday September 10 and will be made available on DVD for everyone in Ireland. The talk is aimed at the general public and is suitable for people of all ages, so bring all your family and friends. For those unable to make it to the talk, a DVD of this lecture can be ordered at low cost (5euro + P&P) on www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html When a massive star reaches the end of its short life, it explodes as a supernova. For a few weeks, this star will outshine the combined glow of its galaxy. In 1006 AD, the "Lupus Supernova" shone so brightly that it was visible for several months in broad daylight! A supernova occurs in our galaxy on average every 50 years, but as luck would have it, the last one exploded in 1604. However, 444 million years ago a nearby supernova almost wiped out all life on Earth, causing the "Ordovician Mass Extinction". Luckily, our Sun is too small to explode this way, but the familiar stars Betelgeuse, Spica and Antares will. When they do - what will happen to us? These and other questions will be answered by Professor Stephen Smartt, of Queens University, Belfast - a leading European authority in this field who is giving our September Public Lecture on Monday. Lecture Title: "Supernovae - Hunting Exploding Stars" Lecture Venue: Physics Building, Trinity College, Dublin 2 Date: Monday, September 10 Time: 8:00pm Admission: 5euro (3euro to concessions) Organiser: Astronomy Ireland ALL WELCOME Tickets are available at the door or visit www.astronomy.ie/lecture200709.html or call (01) 847 07 77. DVD available at www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html or by calling (01) 847 07 77. 2. BBC "Sky at Night" In the small hours of Monday morning the September issue of Sir Patrick Moore's "The Sky at Night" was broadcast. Black Holes were the feature this month in a TV programme that was very similar to Astronomy Ireland's 2007 New Year Public Lecture. Astronomy Royal for Scotland, Prof John Brown, an accomplished magician used magic tricks to explain Black Holes in fun way ably assisted by Chris Lintott and Fiona Speirits. REPEATS: You can catch the show again on BBC Four (Mon Sep 3 at 7:30pm and Tue Sep 4 at 3:15am) and again on BBC 2 on Saturday Sep 8 at 1pm(don't let it delay you getting to Star-B-Q that night though!) If you want a copy of Prof John Brown's New Year Lecture to Astronomy Ireland (the only one this year that was so packed that we had to turn people away!) on DVD then see www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html 3. Star-B-Q is this Saturday! The Irish Times magazine ran a feature on this Saturday's Star-B-Q which brought in loads more bookings making this the biggest Star-B-Q in Astronomy Ireland's 17 year history. And rightly so, as Star-B-Q has become the biggest annual astronomy event on the island with people travelling from all parts of Ireland (north and south) to attend. This year much more has been added to the programme with far more telescopes than ever before and a celebrity Key Note Speaker - space journalist Leo Enright (RTE & BBC). Ireland's biggest annual telescope show includes this year - a.. See Jupiter, Mars, Galaxies, and Nebulae from pitch-dark skies. b.. "3-D Mars" - See the red planet in depth - our keynote address by Leo Enright. c.. 1/4 million Euro worth of telescopes for you to look through - biggest collection ever! d.. Professionally catered barbecue included in the price! e.. Special laser guide to the stars and constellations (most powerful hand-held laser in Ireland) f.. and lots more besides! DON'T MISS IT: We want you to help make this the biggest and greatest Star-B-Q in history by getting everyone you know to come along for a fascinating evening. Whether you know anything about astronomy or not you'll have a great night out and see unbelievable sights! Please bring all your family and friends as possible for a great night out with the stars! Book your Star-B-Q tickets online at www.astronomy.ie/sbq Astronomy Ireland Tel (01) 847 0777 www.astronomy.ie/sbq

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