Home

Astronomy Night, September 2006

Submitted by chris on Sat, 09/30/2006 - 11:33am.

Resources

(Some of these files are very large. Approximate sizes are listed for your reference. I don't recommend downloading the big ones unless you have a high-speed (cable/DSL) internet connection.)

I hosted another Astronomy Night at Rolling Hills Country Day School (RHCDS) on Friday, September 29th. This year, the science lab has a new projector, screen and sound system - perfect for the computer-based presentations I like to give. So, we gathered there, rather than in the multi-purpose room (MPR). Open to all students and their families, this event was once again well attended. With all the recent controversy surrounding the status of Pluto, I decided to focus on the recently-adopted new definition of a "planet" and why Pluto no longer qualifies. I think everyone came away with a better understanding (if not outright acceptance) of the issues.

A few weeks ago, a friend had sent me an interesting set of images showing the enormous differences in size and color of stars. I presented this too, since any sort of scale model of the cosmos is always a crowd-pleaser. Finally, I finished with a showing of my 5-minute video slideshow of Cassini's recent images at Saturn. All of these are available for download in the Resources area above.

Under the stars, we viewed a beautiful half moon, a faint but colorful Uranus and a number of deep-sky objects, including the Hercules Cluster (M13) and the Ring Nebula (M57). The conditions were poor, due to the combined effects of light pollution and high clouds and haze, but there was plenty of enthusiasm at the eyepiece, nonetheless.

»