1. Special Public Lectures - Hanny's Voorwerp
We are flying in Hanny van Arkel - a world-famous amateur astronomer - from the Netherlands to give a talk for you next week in Dublin AND Donegal.
You will remember reading about Hanny, a schoolteacher, in your October magazine last year (page 10). She found a new object a million million million miles across. A completely new kind of object about the size of a galaxy. This catapulted her to international fame and she has been the toast of media attention and spoken at astronomy conventions worldwide.
- 15 June, Dublin (Trinity College Dublin) - Click HERE for information and tickets.
- 17 June, Donegal (Letterkenny IT) - Click HERE for information and tickets.
There will be a party after the Dublin event next Monday at 9:30pm, with food kindly provided by The Lombard.
Will you come to these lectures next week?
2. Endeavour set for Saturday Launch
The NASA space shuttle Endeavour is ready to go. At 12:17pm BST on Saturday, June 13, Endeavour and its seven crew members will blast off from Kennedy Space Centre on a 16-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The object of the mission is to deliver the final components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory to the ISS, and will involve 5 spacewalks to install the components outside of the Japanese module. Endeavour will also deliver a new crew member to the space station, bringing home another after more than 3 months on board.
The pre-launch preparations and the launch itself can be watched live on NASA TV at www.nasa.gov/ntv.
3. What to see in Irish skies
There are several special events in Irish skies for the next few days:
- Jupiter is very prominent in the early morning sky, and a telescope or large pair of binoculars will reveal the disc and moons of the gas giant.
- Near Jupiter you will also be able to see Neptune with a telescope.
- The Moon will be located quite close to these planets over the weekend, too. See magazine for more details.
- Later on in the morning Mars and Venus are placed extremely close together near the horizon.
- We've had a number of reports recently of solar phenomena such as Sun dogs and Sun pillars. These are best seen in the morning and evenings. For more information and to see recent pictures taken by A.I. members go to www.astronomy.ie/solarphen.html.
For diagrams and lots more details all month long, see Sky Diary pages of our magazine (only 5euro inc. p&p).
IMPORTANT: Email what you see to observe@astronomy.ie for our monthly magazine report.
4. For Sale
NexStar 5SE, perfect condition, barely used - 650euro o.n.o. (RRP 969euro)
StarHopper 6/8/10/12, all brand new, huge discounts.
Call Paul or Shane on (01) 847 0777.
The world's most popular Astronomy Club AND Ireland's Only Astronomy Magazine
Tel (01) 847 0777 Mon-Sat
( subscribe / unsubscribe here )