The Sky Tonight:
1:30 p.m.

  “Why CANDLES?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter 1
 
 
  Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry.  

—John Cheever (1912–1982), The Swimmer (1964)

Zeiss setup
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Before capturing, set sidereal.celx to correct date and hour, and turn on Celestia stars:
Celestia → Preferences… → Faintest Stars:

  1. Sun in ♉ Taurus: 4h 14m
  2. Moon in ♊ Gemini: 6h 33m
  3. Meridian in ♍ Virgo: 12h 25m at 9:00 p.m. EDT
  4. Messier 101: RA 14h 3m, Dec +54° 21′, 27 million lightyears in Ursa Major.

Weather and sky coverage. Hudson River. Almanac and Slide show. Big Dipper movie. Summer Triangle.
Mira in the New York Times and Nature.
Morning midi from Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt. Two-Part Invention. Musette. Brandenburg #3. alla Turca. Maple Leaf.
Dion and the Belmonts: Teenager in Love and lyrics.

lowercase z and a in Explorer instead of arrows

Outline for MARKSKYT.CUE

EDT sidereal
5:00 p.m. 8h 25m
6:00 p.m. 9h 25m
7:00 p.m. 10h 25m
8:00 p.m. 11h 25m
9:00 p.m. 12h 25m
10:00 p.m. 13h 25m
11:00 p.m. 14h 25m
12:00 a.m. 15h 25m
EDT sidereal
12:00 a.m. 15h 25m
1:00 a.m. 16h 25m
2:00 a.m. 17h 25m
3:00 a.m. 18h 25m
4:00 a.m. 19h 25m
5:00 a.m. 20h 25m
6:00 a.m. 21h 25m
7:00 a.m. 22h 25m

Events

U.S. Naval Observatory

  1. Phases of the Moon in EDT:
  2. Apogee and perigee of the Moon in EDT:
    1. Perigee, Monday, May 25, 2009 at 11:45 p.m. EDT
    2. Apogee, Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 12:05 p.m. EDT
    3. Perigee, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 6:49 a.m. EDT
    4. Apogee, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 5:50 p.m. EDT
  3. Ascending and descending nodes of the moon in EDT:
    1. descending: Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 5:19 a.m. EDT
    2. ascending: Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 5:15 a.m. EDT
    3. descending: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 12:24 p.m. EDT
    4. ascending: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:24 a.m. EDT
    4. 				2009

	 Apr			May		       Jun
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S    S  M Tu  W Th  F  S    S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
          1  2  3  4                   1  2       1  2  3  4  5  6
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11    3  4  5  6  7  8  9    7  8  9 10 11 12 13
12 13 14 15 16 17 18   10 11 12 13 14 15 16   14 15 16 17 18 19 20
19 20 21 22 23 24 25   17 18 19 20 21 22 23   21 22 23 24 25 26 27
26 27 28 29 30         24 25 26 27 28 29 30   28 29 30
                       31
  4. Earth’s Seasons
    1. Spring starts on Friday, March 20, 2009 at 7:44 a.m. EDT.
    2. Summer starts on Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 1:15 a.m. EDT.
    3. Fall starts on Tusday, September 22, 2009 at 4:18 p.m. EDT.
    4. Winter starts on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 12:47 p.m. EDT.
  5. Mercury: next greatest elongation east, Monday, August 24, 2009: 27.4° E. Calculator. Messenger flyby, September 29, 2009.
  6. ISS visibility.
  7. Shuttle: STS-125 to Hubble, Tuesday, May 12, 2009.
  8. Total lunar eclipse, Wednesday, February 20, 2008. Umbral phase begins at 8:47 p.m. EST.
  9. Daylight Savings Time started second Sunday in March: Sunday, March 8, 2009. Ends first Sunday in November, to keep us on DST for Hallowe’en: Sunday, November 1, 2009.
  10. Earth at perihelion, Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. EST. Aphelion will be Saturday, July 3, 2009 at 10:00 p.m. EDT.
  11. NEAF: April 18–19, 2009
  12. Phoenix Mars Lander landed on Mars, Sunday, May 25, 2008.

The seasonal programs change at the equinoxes and solstices.
June 30: still dark blue at 9:00 p.m. EDT.
December: Dark enough to see Vega at 4:59 p.m.

  1. Day
    1. Noon, face south, sun highest at noon.
    2. Analog watch: which way is south?
    3. See how much ground we will gain as we go to
      • winter (December 21 in 2009)
      • spring (March 20 in 2009)
      • summer (June 21 in 2009).
      • fall (September 22 in 2009).
    4. Sunset: Should sun move to lower left or lower right? If we’s facing south, point west. The chair you’re sitting in is moving to the left (east). Objects in sky are getting left behind to the lower right (west).

  2. Celestial sphere
    1. Everything moves from left to right for same reason as sun: stars, moon, planets.
    2. Looks like a turning globe, the celestial sphere (Grand Central Terminal). Must be a celestial equator. Convenient to mark it with hours; time is speeded up. Equator attached to stars; meridian attached to ground.
    3. If there’s an equator, there must also be a north pole. North star special for three reasons:
      1. Shows which way is north. Manhattan north: 28.9° right of geographical north.
      2. Fixed point around which sky turns counterclockwise (trig convention).
      3. Shows your north latitude. (Measure with meridian, marked with degrees: the Fifth Avenue of the sky.) At latitude of Yonkers (40° 57′): north star is 41° up from horizon, celestial equator is 41° down from zenith. Go to
        1. 40° 56′ N Yonkers
        2. 41° 42′ N Poughkeepsie
        3. 42° 40′ N Albany
        4. 45° N top of Vermont
        5. 90° N North Pole
        6. 19° 34′ N Island of Hawaii (Arcturus is 19° 11′ N).
        7. 0° Equator
        8. 17° 40′ S Tahiti (Sirius is 16° 43′ S).
        Admiral Peary, arms horizontal in exuberance.
      Dippers.

  3. Moon: spells “DOC” each month.

  4. Planets
    1. ☿ Mercury in ♉ Taurus. Greatest elongation east: Monday, August 24, 2009.
    2. ♀ Venus (animations pp. 2–3) in ♒ Pisces.
    3. ♂ Mars in ♓ Pisces.
    4. ♃ Jupiter in ♑ Capricornus.
    5. Saturn ♄ (animations p. 4) below ♌ Leo.

  5. Ecliptic
    1. Atom, solar system: counterclockwise vs. back and forth. Spinning blob flattens out.
    2. Another reference line: the Ecliptic, marked with dates. Hard Science vs. Harry Hairspray Science: Zodiac.
    3. Mercury: use Zeiss annual motion to find greatest elongation east, Monday, August 24, 2009.

  6. Seasons
    1. Equator vs. ecliptic: sun high in summer. Use meridian to find dates of equinoxes and solstices. Midnight sun. Twilight is brief in these latitudes.
    2. Something else changes each season: a new quadrant of the sky comes into view. The stars of winter. 23 hours, 56 minutes.

  7. Stars: branch out from Big Dipper to Polaris, Arcturus, Jupiter near Zuben el Genubi (الزبن الجنوبي, south) and Zuben e Schamali (الزبن الشمالي, north, green) in Libra ♎.
    1. Arcturus at latitude of Hawaii, 19° north. Measure with meridian: equator at 49°, Arcturus at 68°. Sirius at latitude of Tahiti, 17° south. Polynesian navigation.
    2. Summer Triangle:
      1. ذنب Deneb (1400 ly): 61 Cygni, Bessel, 11.4 light years, 1838.
      2. واقع Vega (25 ly): solar apex; 37¢ stamp of Lyra.
      3. الطائر Altair (16 ly): Forbidden Planet
    3. Great Square of Pegasus, Andromeda Galaxy.
    4. Branch out from Orion
      1. Aldebaran الدبرلن, Pleiades
      2. Gemini, Pollux has Tacky Planet
      3. Capella the Goat Star
      4. Sirius, solar antapex

  8. Milky Way Galaxy
    1. Edge-on vs. overhead. Logarithmic spiral. Spinning blob flattens out.
    2. History:
      1. 1919: center in ♐ Sagittarius teapot (direction and distance to) Harlow Shapley
      2. 1927: direction and speed of rotation; total mass of galaxy Jan Oort
      3. 1951: William Wilson Morgan found the arms.
      4. 1980’s: bar
      5. 2000’s: black hole in center
      6. arm pitch 12°.
      7. Pace of discovery will quicken because Webb Space Telescope will be better than the Hubble Space Telescope.
    3. Local Group: Milky Way, Andromeda (M31, nearer edge 50,000 light years closer), Triangulum (M33). Satellites of Andromeda and Milky Way:
      1. M32 (appears closer to nucleus)
      2. M110 (more elongated)
      3. Large Magellenic Cloud in Dorado and Mensa
      4. Small Magellanic Cloud in Tucana
    4. Center of Virgo Supercluster near direction of travel through cosmic background microwave radiation.
    5. Olber’s paradox.

Setup

  1. Sound board: volume up for output, CD, and XP computer (to –30 for Peer Gynt midi); down for all others. Cassette tape not used in Mark’s version.

  2. Video projector: monitor select line 2, input select line 2, brightness and contrast up to set up VCR.

  3. Cassette: “Sky Tonight”. Not used in Mark’s version.

  4. VCR: Fantasia, tape 1, 1:27:34.

  5. XP computer: video projector monitor select line 1, input select line 1, to enable XP. iMicro (COMPUTER cable) must be plugged into into LINE-IN 1 of video projector. Open windows for Summer triangle, Peer Gynt, and slide show. Set up zoom and position of image on dome.

  6. Show DVD on standby so it doesn’t interfere with VCR and iMicro. Hubble telescope DVD has good animations; kept to left of DVD player.

  7. CD option: background music you can easily talk over. Tracks 2–5 on Jonn Serrie’s And the Stars go With You is cheesy but seems to work.

  8. Planet Animations
    1. ☿ Mercury: p. 3.
    2. ♀ Venus: pp. 2–3.
    3. ♁ Earth: pp. 1–2.
    4. ♂ Mars: p. 3.
    5. ♃ Jupiter: p. 3.
    6. ♄ Saturn: p. 4.
    7. ♅ Uranus: p. 4.
    8. ♆ Neptune: p. 4.
    9. ♇ Pluto: p. 4.

  9. Zeiss: current date, Sun on meridian, white and blue lights on. Universal projector on Ursa Major (#12) or Orion (#6), suitably rotated.

  10. Spice Computer: control-n control-l The only difference bteween P and F is that an additional slide appears as part of the opening credits, which says “Fujifilm Free Friday Star Nights.”

  11. Unplug side stage spots (LoCate 9 STEP: A). Remember to plug them back in after the show.

  12. Audience entry sequence.

Show

Keep talking. Dead air is as bad in the planetarium as it is on the radio. Actually, it’s worse, because people usually listen to the radio as they are driving or working. Having music playing helps. In general, you want sound, motion, something going on all the time. If you’re trying to figure something out, blather on while figuring it out.

Ask questions. So what’s the brightest star in the sky? Have you ever seen X? Get people thinking about what they’re seeing.

Slow and steady. Move volume up and down slowly. Dim lights up or down slowly. Fast darkness is startling; fast illumination is painful. Move the Zeiss slowly so people don’t get dizzy.

Talk about what you know. If you don’t know astrophysics, tell stories.

Links

  1. Checkers for Nixon on Venus.
  2. Tonight gateway.
  3. Analemma.
  4. Summer Triangle
  5. Fall Sky Tonight
  6. Source code for earlier versions of slide show:
  7. sphere animation
  8. 20 × 20 grid
  9. Large image of the constellation stamps, October 3, 2005, one for each season (or just Lyra).
  10. The Elegants: Little Star
  11. November, 2006: There are a few interesting (at least useful) presentations in the XP SOLAR SYSTEM folder: one which compares the relative sizes of objects in the Solar System; one which breaks the planets and the rest into families and gives examples of the complexity of the Kuiper Belt; and another which compares the orbit of β Geminorum B, the planet around the star Pollux, to the orbits of the planets in the Solar System. Now that Gemini is up late at night, you might want to mention that.

Comet 17P/Holmes

Wikipedia. Skyhound. Location chart.

Stuff to Read

  1. 50 Years
  2. 55 Cancri has five planets, at least.
  3. Japanese spacecraft orbiting the Moon: (three of them, one big, two little). A cool movie (Realtime, Marc thinks) from same.
  4. Chinese spacecraft orbiting the Moon.
  5. Now the Germans are thinking about it too.
  6. We can send robots to the Moon, why can’t we land people on Mars? Why, we would crash and die!
  7. The future we thought we would have: .doc and .jpg.