1. Astronomy Ireland
Celebrates World Space Week
This week from October 4 - 10 is
World Space Week and Astronomy Ireland have several exciting events lined up to
celebrate the largest annual space event in the world.
Evening
Classes
To celebrate World Space Week we are
launching our popular Evening Classes this Thursday, October 8, at
various locations around the
country. These fantastic classes are aimed at the beginner
and cover everything you ever wanted to know about the universe but
were afraid to ask. For more information and to enrol go to www.astronomy.ie/class.
Special Cassini
Lecture
Professor Carl Murray, a member of the imaging team on the
Cassini mission, will give a talk entitled
"Cassini: New Views of
Saturn". Professor Murray will discuss the incredibly
successful Cassini-Huygens mission, showing guests some of the
spectacular images taken by Cassini's cameras since the mission
began. P
rofessor Murray's talks will take place in
Dundalk on October 8 and Dublin on October 9 and a DVD is
available for everyone in Ireland. Last time Professor Murray spoke in
Ireland, over 400 people packed into his lecture.
Membership
Offer
As part of the UN International Year
of Astronomy 2009, Astronomy Ireland is giving away 3 months membership
FREE to all new members. To avail of this fantastic offer
simply go to www.astronomy.ie/offer or call us on (01) 847 0777.
2. See LCROSS
Impact The Moon
This Friday morning,
October 9, you can watch two Lunar impacts as NASA's LCROSS (Lunar CRater
Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission will impact the Moon as
planned. LCROSS will search for water ice by allowing its spent
Centaur rocket to impact the permanently shadowed polar crater, and the
satellite will then fly into the plume of dust left by the collision to
measure its properties before also crashing to the lunar
surface. Although this spectacle won't be visible from Irish skies, you can
watch it live on the NASA website at 12:31pm (Irish time) on www.nasa.gov/ntv. For more information on LCROSS click HERE.
3. Mercury Close To
Venus
This week the planet Mercury will be
visible in the early morning sky just before dawn (around 7am) providing us with
a spectacular planetary display as it will be placed just 5
degrees to the lower left of the planet Venus, visible high in the
East. Mercury will appear about 20 times dimmer than Venus, but will still
be as bright as the brightest stars in the sky. Mercury will also pass extremely
close to the slightly dimmer Saturn, again in the early morning before sunrise.
Remember to email what you see to observe@astronomy.ie and we will try to
include your observations in forthcoming issues of the magazine. Further
details, with star maps, are in our magazine (special offer).
4. 'Planets Around
Other Stars' - Lecture Report & DVD
Following an announcement on RTE
Television's The Afternoon Show on Monday, September
14, about 150 people packed our September Public Lecture to hear Dr. Chris
Watson give a superb overview of SuperWASP - a project with heavy Irish
involvement that detects planets around other stars. Dr. Watson described
how 374 planets have been found around other stars, some of which
have even been found from Irish soil. Some of the highlights of the talk
were Dr. Watson's description of the SuperWASP project, the excellent
videos and images explaining how the planets are found, the possibility of
finding alien worlds in distant solar systems, and the thought that one of these
worlds could be a new home for humanity in years to come. If you didn't manage to get along to the event you can own
your own copy on DVD for just 7euro (plus p&p). To order simply call us
on (01) 847 0777 or click HERE.
or
Tel (01) 847 0777
Mon-Sat