Astronomical & Space Events for July 2010

Planets

On 1 July Uranus and Jupiter will be 2°.  At 04:00 BST Jupiter will be 30° up in the south-east.

Jupiter will be 6.5° south of the last quarter Moon on 4 July.

16 July sees the Moon, Saturn and Mars making a right-angled triangle in the west-southwestern sky.  This can be seen as it gets dark.

On 31 July Mars is less than 2° south of Saturn, making an isosceles triangle with Venus.

Earth

On 6 July Earth is at its furthest from the Sun (aphelion).

Moon

At 02:30 BST on 8 July the Moon lies just to the right of the Pleiades.

At around 04:00 BST on 10 July the Moon is a thin sliver.

The crescent Moon lies 6.5° to the south of Venus at about 22:00 BST on 14 July.

Meteor Showers

21 July - Alpha Cygnid Meteor shower - weak - ZHR 5 meteors an hour.

23 July - Start of Perseid meteor shower which peaks on 12/13 August.

29 July - Peak of Southern Delta Aquarids meteor shower. ZHR 20 meteors an hour. Moon will be 17 days old so will wash out the less bright meteors.

Noctilucent Clouds

Still visible during July.

Announcement posted by : Website Team

Events in the South of England

The Case for our Cosmic Ancestry
Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff University)

8th September 2010

Lecture: A diverse set of evidence points to the origin of life on Earth being exogenous. Life most probably originated on a cosmic scale quite early in the history of the Universe. Comets carry this legacy of cosmic life, and seed planets like our Earth. Earth was seeded for the first time some 4 billion years ago, but this process of seeding continued and contributed to the evolution of life on our planet.

Chandra Wickramasinghe is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at Cardiff University and together with Fred Hoyle has been the pioneer of panspermia in the 20th century. His main astronomical interests are the physics and chemistry of interstellar dust grains and in the optical characterisation of interstellar and cometary dust. He was the first to propose an organic polymeric composition for cosmic dust in 1974. His other interests include the modelling of the cosmic microwave background in non-standard cosmologies.

These events often sell out so pre-book or call to check on (01962) 863791

For more details and tickets please visit the Intech web site

Announcement posted by : Website Team

Spring Moon Watch at Clanfield Observatory

Following the very popular events in the past two years, the 2011 Spring Moon Watch will run from Saturday 9th April to Monday 11th April. This weekend event will offer superb opportunities for viewing the first quarter Moon and also the planet Saturn.

We will use the same format and cost as our normal open evenings. (£7.50 for adults, £5.00 for children under 12).Please note that neither the Moon Watch nor the Open evenings are suitable for children under 8 years old.

To book for any of these events:
Email: jack.climpson@hantsastro.org.uk or mobile 079 8612 1613

Saturn image credit: NASA

Announcement posted by : Jack Climpson