This month is really the true anniversary of 400 years of astronomy, as this is when Galileo first put his spyglass on Venus and figured out what its different phases meant. Galileo got into a lot of trouble when he deduced that the Sun is the center of our Solar System, and not Earth.
Hope everyone has enjoyed the IYA. Rustic Skies was out and about giving presentations and having people view the night sky through our scopes.
The month of December will really be exciting. Jupiter is coming to an end of it’s wandering across the night sky, so we won’t see it again until 2010. Mars is just beginning, and in January 2010 Mars will be at opposition. For those of you who have not ‘experienced’ our Mars Opposition Dance, please watch for a location near you!
Mercury joins in the action just after sunset in the second week of December! At the other end of the night, Saturn returns to the morning sky. This past year, the rings were nearly edge on. Now start to watch them open and widen as 2010 progresses. Saturn will come to opposition later next year.
I enjoyed very much giving the presentation at the Enchanted Star Party in October, and would like to thank Judy Stanley for her hospitality. I truly enjoyed observing with my new found friends Chris from Sweden, and Doug who works on the Keck telescope. It was a pleasure meeting you both, and hunting the night sky with you gentlemen!
Our Sun for the past couple weeks has had new cycle sunspots and a couple night prominences, so it looks like solar max is starting to happen. If you get a chance, check out our daytime star. It is always fascinating and interesting to see what’s happening!
Til next time, we wish everyone a Happy Turkey Day….and want to remind everyone to Keep Looking Up!
Just a reminder for everyone, come on over to the ‘Enchanted Star Party’ being held in Socorro New Mexico October 14th through the 18th. This is going to be a great time for everyone, with lots of fun, activities, and some of the best skies around for observing! This is a 4 day event, so you come for a day, two….or grab the camping gear and watch the skies for all 4 days with the rest of us die hard astronomy nuts! There will be door prizes, deep sky observing, astronomy workshops, lectures and tours just to name a few. The dark sky observing site is the El Camino Real International Heritage Center. One night of observing will be at the Magdelena Ridge Observatory which is at an elevation of over 10,000 feet! Talk about reaching out and touching the stars! Astronaut John Grunsfeld is the key note speaker. John has been on 5 space shuttle flights and has some very interesting stories to share. For more information, check out the website at www.EnchantedSkies.org, or contact Judy Stanley at 575-835-7243.
October 14th through the 18th is the Enchanted Star Party in Socorro New Mexico. Kevin has the honor of giving a presentation on Wednesday, the 14th, at 1:15 on one of his favorite subjects "What NASA Solar System Ambassadors Do". Come and join the fun, and some of the best skies around for observing! This is a 4 day event, and lots of different activities are going on. There will be door prizes, deep sky observing, astronomy workshops, lectures and tours just to name a few. The dark sky observing site is the El Camino Real International Heritage Center. One night of observing will be at the Magdelena Ridge Observatory which is at an elevation of over 10,000 feet! Talk about reaching out and touching the stars! Astronaut John Grunsfeld is the key note speaker. John has been on 5 space shuttle flights and has some very interesting stories to share. For more information, check out the website at www.EnchantedSkies.org.
Don’t forget to check out Jupiter and its moons this month as it’s the first planet rising as darkness sets in. If you look east in the morning, you’ll see Venus and Mercury putting on a great morning show. It’s worth getting up a little bit early for, so grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the view before running off to work.
Saturn also rises right before dawn below Venus and Mercury. So you can see three beautiful morning stars.
In September, the Sun started becoming a little bit active for you solar observers. We’ve had 2 new solar cycle sun spots and some great prominences. The Sun offers new suprises and views every single day. Please remember….do NOT observe the Sun unless you have the proper equipment. DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN WITH YOUR NAKED EYE!!!
October in History. In 1998, John Glenn became the oldest person to travel in space (space shuttle discovery). In 1957, Sputnik first orbited the Earth. Last, but not least, in 1968 was the first launched Apollo flight.
As fall approaches, don’t forget to get out and do some great observing. Check out the Helix Nebula, M-13 in Hercules, and the Ring Nebula just to name a few.
Remember, even if your not observing, look up when your outside. You never know what you’ll see. At the beginning of September, we were lucky enough to happen to look up and see the ISS traveling across the sky with the space shuttle following in hot pursuit right behind it. It was a sight to remember!
For more information about Kevin’s programs, or to schedule one of your own, please contact him either via e-mail at Kevin@RusticSkies.com, or give him a call at 920-918-2151.
40 years ago in July, (July 20th to be exact) we landed on the moon. It was the first time ever that man had walked on another world. What an accomplishment. For those of you who are old enough to remember this event, it not only changed history, but also changed the hearts of man as we watched our brave astrononauts taking that first step. Hopefully, by the year 2020, we’ll be going back to the moon….but this time to stay for awhile!
Also, in 1976, Viking I landed on July 20 on Mars and sent back the first surface pictures of the red planet.
On July 30th 1971, the lunar rover was first driven on the lunar surface by astronaunts David Scott and James Irwin.
On July 26th, 1971 Apollo 15th was launched and in 2005 the Space Shuttle Discovery (first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster) launced to the International Space Station.
We are deep in the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) for 2009. Our Galileoscopes have finally arrived and we’d like to thank Astronomy from the Ground up for all their help. We will be putting on a couple of shows in August and September with these scopes. They are really a great way to explain and show what the original astronomers had to work with, and how amazing it is that they made all the discoveries that they did with the ‘primitive’ equipment they had.
This month Jupiter rises at about 11:30 p.m. cst in the constellation Aquarius. The best viewing is about 3:00 a.m.cst. So take a nap and be ready to spend some quality time outside viewing!
In July the meteor season starts heating up. For about 2 months, meteor showers of different sizes will grace our skies. The first will be the Aquarid shower which will peak on July 28th. You should be able to see about 20 meteors per hour. Viewing is best after midnight! The largest of these showers, the Perseids, will peak around August 13th.
So go on out, and catch some much needed photons! They’re good for the soul!
Til next time….here’s to clear skies and great summer nights observing!
We would like to apologize to everyone on our not keeping a little more current. Kevin has been ’scoping out’ (no pun intended) areas to set up the facilities. He has found quite a few areas that would be fantastic across the U.S, and hopefully we’ll be narrowing down the field shortly. I would like to thank everyone that has been working with him from different observatories and universities for their hospitality and generosity. We will have our regular updates back on schedule in the next week or two when he returns back to our current home base. For all of you who have been calling and emailing to set up events, we will be scheduling on a first call basis. We will make every attempt to try to get you all in, and thank you for your patience!
News from the birds nest: This past weekend was the bird festival at Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin. I was lucky enough to attend, and would like to thank the Horicon Marsh Bird Club for not only their hospitality, but also for them sharing some of their wealth of information. I can’t say enough great things about the club, and if you get a chance to attend one of their events it is definatly worthwhile to attend.
For those of you who have not had a chance to visit Horicon Marsh, I highly recommend this area for some fantastic bird watching. Please check out the website at http://www.horiconmarshbirdfestival.com as it will give you an idea of the amount of species you can find there and a map of the area. Pack a lunch and be prepared to spend the day as the Marsh is huge, and there are lots of great areas available to just sit back…grab your bino’s or scope….and enjoy the viewing!
I was able to go to the winter star party in Florida last month. It was awesome, and the weather terrific! I got to see the Southern Cross, Centurion A (the radio galaxy) and Etna Carina. What a marvelous globular cluster. I got to make some great friends along the way too!
This month for the IYA, the NASA theme is Galaxies and the Distant Universe. The featured object in the sky is The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) in the constellation Canes Venatici. M-51 is only 35 million light years away. Probably looks alot like our own Milky Way galaxy with its whirlpool arms. Check out the website Astronomy2009.nasa.gov for more info.
Saturn is still awesome looking and its rings are almost edge on, so get out and check it out while you can!
In the month of April, Venus becomes a morning star right before sunrise in the East.
We will be celebrating 100 hours of astronomy April 2 through the 4th. On April 2nd we’ll be celebrating with the Kiel Wisconsin Middle School Science Club keeping with our motto of "Excite, Educate, Inspire"! On April 3rd well be down at the Washington County Family Living Center located in West Bend Wisconsin. Please contact the Family Center for registration.
April 4th is our grand program at the Ice Age Center located in Dundee Wisconsin. We will be there from 1:00 until 10:00 with Saturn presentations, the Mars opposition dance, hands on astronomy projects, solar viewing and night time telescope viewing (weather permitting). We will also be ‘Searching the Sky with your naked Eye’ presented by Joe and Mary Glover.
Participating will be Rustic Skies Astronomy, the Sheboygan Astronomical Society, fellow Solar System ambassador Derek Rickertt, and my good friends the Glovers. I would like to thank them all for their participation and help. Come join in the fun, we look forward to seeing you there! No registration is needed.
The rovers has been on Mars for 5 years now, over 1800 sols (1 Sol = 1 Martian day). Spirit and Opportunity have faced many challenges including global dust storms and -100 degree temperatures. Together they have proven that Mars 3 to 4 billion years ago had a warm, briney ocean.
Spirit, due to having to drive backwards due to a bad wheel, actually churned up the proof that Mars was once wet. It found silica sulfur and different organic salts that could have only formed in warm water.
Spirits has also climbed in the Columbia hills (at times up to a 30 degree angle), which is tough for even a person to do! As a comparison, Spirit has climbed as tall of a hill as the Statue of Liberty.
Opportunity, which landed 7 days after Spirit in a small shallow crater, saw bedrock with it’s first sight. It was able to examine it and found what looked like blueberries (but is actually iron rich hematite). It was also able to go examine it’s own heat shield. By doing this, we were able to learn a lot about how an alien atmosphere affects the things we build. It took 21 months to go to Victoria crater where Opportunity drove around and then entered the crater to conduct some great science. For more info on the Mars Rovers, go to WWW.NASA.Gov/Mission_Pages/mer/index.html
IYA (International Year of Astronomy) news for the month of February: Our featured theme is "Our Solar System" and the featured object in the sky is our Moon and it’s craters. If you get a chance, look on the western limb of the Moon for the dark filled crater Grimaldi. Also, check out the Mares (seas), the craters Tyco, Copernicus, Archimedes, Aristoteles and Posidorius. See if you can find the Alpine Valley (in the Vallis Alpes) where the straight wall is located (for you Wisconsin residents, this is NOT to be confused on where concerts are held! *L*).
Please check out David Delmonte’s website (found on our links page). He is a Solar System Ambassador in the Wash. DC area and is available for presentations, career days and science fairs. You can also sign up for David’s newsletter off his website. Thanks for letting us link it David!
Last, but not least, Galileo’s birthday is February 15th, 1564. Why not celebrate by having a party and going out observing!
That’s it for the Astronomy for now, so on to the birding!
News from the Birdhouse: As some owls start laying their eggs this time of year, the next time your out at night stand still for a couple of minutes and listen. See if you can catch a call from an owl! Not all owls ‘hoot’. They have a wide variety of calls. A good place to find out what your hearing is http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php. Please note that they have a very large listing of owls, so you may want to find out what owls are predominent in your area first in order to narrow it down!
Some owls hunt during the day, so you may be lucky enough to spot one them! An owls hunting ability is truly amazing with their keen eyesight and excellent hearing. A great horned owl is capable of hearing a mouse moving beneath a foot of snow!
Owls are able to fly silently through the sky due to the rough or ragged edges on their wing feathers. You can do your own demonstration of this easy at home! Take a strip of a thick material (canvas, etc), and spin it quickly over your head (in order to prevent accidents, we recommend doing this outside!). You will hear the typical whirling sound you expect to hear. Now take the material, and cut small slits (about 1-2" long) all down the length of the fabric. Now twirl it over your head. The whirling noise is gone….just like the wings of an owl!
Owl sizes vary, ranging from 5.5 inches in length (the Elf owl) up to 22 inches (Great Horned). Owls do play a very important part in the circle of life, keeping rodent population down.
That’s it from the birdhouse for now! Happy birding!
Rustic Skies Astronomy is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and its your donations that keep us going! We now have a Paypal donations button found on our donations page for your convenience. We appreciate the money so far donated, but we have a way to go to reach our goal for our facilties. With your help, we can get the Rustic Skies Astronomy facilities up and running!
The goal for Rustic Skies is to open a facility that will offer outreach programs to school, parks, and certain organizations. The facility will focus on Astronomy and the wonders of nature. Our knowledgable and friendly staff will make your stay a fun and memorable one! We want to Excite, Educate and Inspire! We want to encourage our youth to stay in school and become the best they can be! We want all of our guests, no matter what age group, to walk away with a new bit of information, and a renewed appreciation on our fragile planet and the universe we all call home! Please help us with our goals!
January 1 of 2009 brings with it the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first astronomical observation through a telescope by Galileo Galilei.
Born in Pisa, Italy in 1564, his contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus (just like the phases of our moon), the discovery of the four largest moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, named the Galilean moons in his honor), and the observation and analysis of sunspots.Galileo was also the first to report lunar mountains and craters and even estimated the mountains’ heights from these observations, leading him to the conclusion that the Moon was "rough and uneven and not a perfect sphere as Aristotle had claimed.
Galileo did not invent the telescope, but he was the first to use the telescope to study the heavens systematically. His little telescope was poorer than even a cheap modern amateur telescope, but what he observed in the heavens rocked the very foundations of Aristotle’s universe.
The featured object for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) will be Venus. Telescopes and space probes are the featured subjects. Drop us a line at Info@RusticSkies.com, or give us a call at 920-918-2151, if you want to participate.
Come join the 135 nations who are collaborating to promote astronomy and its contributions to society and culture bringing the Universe closer to more people on Earth. Check out WWW.Astronomy2009.nasa.gov for more information.
News from the Birdhouse:
Happy New Year everyone! Now is the time of year when everyone starts dreaming of warmer weather, including planning their flower gardens for spring. As your sitting in front of a warm fire, drinking the warm drink of your choice and planning your dream garden, why not keep our little feathered friends in mind! The nectar, seeds, and berries of many plants are a great way to invite new birds to your home. Toss in a birdhouse, bird bath or feeder, and you have a masterpiece bird garden! Most seed catalogs will highlight which plants and flowers are chick (or bird) magnets. You can also find information on plants and flowers that attract birds and butterflies in some birding books and magazines. Just make sure that whichever plants you choose, that they are capable of growing in your climate zone. Happy planning!
Rustic Skies Astronomy is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and its your donations that keep us going! We now have a Paypal donations button found on our donations page for your convenience. We appreciate the money so far donated, but we have a way to go to reach our goal for our facilties. With your help, we can get the Rustic Skies Astronomy facilities up and running!
The goal for Rustic Skies is to open a facility that will offer outreach programs to school, parks, and certain organizations. The facility will focus on Astronomy and the wonders of nature. Our knowledgable and friendly staff will make your stay a fun and memorable one! We want to Excite, Educate and Inspire! We want to encourage our youth to stay in school and become the best they can be! We want all of our guests, no matter what age group, to walk away with a new bit of information, and a renewed appreciation on our fragile planet and the universe we all call home! Please help us with our goals!
My how the year has flown by! Seems like just yesterday it was summer and now we are in the silly season. A few things happening for December….
Saturn rises at Midnight (cst) under the constellation Leo. Take your last peek at Jupiter as it’s about to set, and will be out of our view until next summer. Venus rises higher and higher all month in the evening.
The International Year of Astronomy is in 2009. It’s been 400 years since Galileo first took a glimpse through his hand made telescope. There will be events every month celebrating astronomy and the many things that we have discovered and learned. The big kick off date is January 10th, 2009.
The featured object for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) will be Venus. Telescopes and space probes are the featured subjects. Drop us a line at Info@RusticSkies.com, or give us a call at 920-918-2151, if you want to participate.
From our home to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas!
News from the Birdhouse: Something to ‘crow’ about
As the cold weather has rolled in, many of our favorite summer birds have rolled out, migrating to warmer weather. Now is a great time to appreciate our more hardy friends, one being the crow! The reason I’m bringing crows up to the front of the pack here, is that the crow is one of the most overlooked birds! They are truly interesting and ingenious birds. Using logic, imagination and the ability to solve problems; some researchers are comparing them to chimps and gorillas!
They are very social creatures, and breed cooperatively. This means that nesting pairs are helped in their nesting attempts by non-breeding helpers. Something that only 3% of all bird and mammals do! In fall and winter they congregate into large roosts which can number up into the thousands. These roosts can cover a large area of suitable trees. In the spring, they team up with their mate who is generally the same mate every year. They live on an average of 17 - 21 years.
What amazes me about crows is their ability to solve daily living problems. They have been known to place hard to crack seeds on roads, waiting for cars to roll over them to crack the shells. They have been observed building tools to aid them in gathering food. One example of this is creating a hook shaped twig which by placing in their mouth and talons enable to to probe at grub holes in trees. They have also been know to ‘hunt’ in packs….swooping down on small prey (such as mice and rabbits) into roadways as cars are passing, creating their own roadkill. Researchers have also found that they have linguistic capabilities and have been found to relay information over great distances.
So even though they may not be on your personal list of favorite birds, give the crow credit for it’s ingenuity and sit back and watch them some morning!
Rustic Skies Astronomy is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and its your donations that keep us going! We now have a Paypal donations button found on our donations page for your convenience. We appreciate the money so far donated, but we have a way to go to reach our goal for our facilties. With your help, we can get the Rustic Skies Astronomy facilities up and running!
The goal for Rustic Skies is to open a facility that will offer outreach programs to school, parks, and certain organizations. The facility will focus on Astronomy and the wonders of nature. Our knowledgable and friendly staff will make your stay a fun and memorable one! We want to Excite, Educate and Inspire! We want to encourage our youth to stay in school and become the best they can be! We want all of our guests, no matter what age group, to walk away with a new bit of information, and a renewed appreciation on our fragile planet and the universe we all call home! Please help us with our goals!
We would like to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and hope that you have clear skies! If you get a chance, go out in the early morning (about 4:00 a.m. CST) for the rings of Saturn are just about edge on and barely visible through a scope. Check this out, as this only happens only every 14 years where the rings are edge on.to us and we’ll only be able to see the beautiful golden ball of Saturn.
On December 2, Kevin will be at the Kiel Middle School working with their science club. They will be doing some hands on activities, and learning lots along the way!
We are very excited that the Wisconsin Education Association of Student Support Programs (WEASSP) has invited Kevin to do a presentation on December 5 for hands-on activities. Not only is he looking forward to working with the association, but is also looking forward to sharing his information with educators to share in their classrooms. "Excite, Educate, Inspire" That’s what it’s all about!
We are sorry to report that the Phoenix mission has come to an end on Mars. After 5 months, the Martian winter has caught up with the Phoenix. The things we have learned about the soil content and the Martian arctic were just astounding to scientists and the general public alike. Please go to the Phoenix site found at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/ and scroll down to the Phoenix tribute. Click on this and you’ll see a short movie on the mission and its accomplishments.
This coming year we’ll be introducing alot of hands-on projects for educators and classrooms alike. If interested in the presentations or workshops, please contact Kevin either by e-mail at Kevin@RusticSkies.com, or better yet, just give him a call at 920-918-2151. Remember, Rustic Skies is all about "Excite, Educate, Inspire"!
