*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<http://www.astronomy.ie/lecture200906(b).html>for information and tickets. - 17 June, Donegal (Letterkenny IT) - Click HERE<http://www.astronomy.ie/lecture200906(c).html>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<http://www.thesmithgroup.ie/thelombard/index.html>. 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<http://astronomy.ie/iss/>(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 <http://www.astronomy.ie/sub> 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 <http://www.astronomy.ie/sub> (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. ** ** ** ** * Astronomy Ireland <http://www.astronomy.ie/> The world's most popular Astronomy Club AND Ireland's Only Astronomy Magazine <http://www.astronomy.ie/sub> www.astronomy.ie Call Our Telescope Shop <http://www.astronomy.ie/shop> Tel (01) 847 0777 Mon-Sat ( subscribe / unsubscribe here<http://lists.redbrick.dcu.ie/mailman/listinfo/astronomy> )*