Waxing Crescent Moon, 10/17

Here is a photo I took of the waxing crescent moon, taken on Oct. 17, 6:53 PM EDT south of Fairfield, PA.  The moon was new on Oct. 15 at 12:02 PM EDT, so this crescent is just short of 59 hours old. Thin as the crescent in this photo may seem, the record for seeing a crescent moon is about 15 hours from new. For comparison, this Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a 34-hour-old moon.

Image by Ian Clarke

AST 101 Observing 10/4

Setting up.

Here are a three photos from the Astro 101 observing session on Thursday, Oct. 4.

Sorry about the focus, but I wanted to include it. Of the two bright reddish objectrs, Mars is on the right and the  star Antares on the left. 7:30 PM EDT.

Cassiopeia and Perseous over the GCO dome. 8:30 PM, 60 sec. exposure.

Mid to Late October Podcast is Up

http://public.gettysburg.edu/~iclarke/hatter/podcasts/astrominute101512.mp3

Big Week at the Hatter Planetarium

Hatter director Ian Clarke, with Brad Rush
 and Scott Huggins of Spitz, Inc.

The week of October 8 was a big one at the Gettysburg College planetarium. On Tuesday afternoon, staff from Spitz (makers of our 1966 dome and star projector) arrived and set up one of their SciDome series of digital projectors. On Wednesday, College administrators and faculty enjoyed an informative day of demonstrations and Q & A on the technology.

On Thursday and Friday, a technician from Spitz replaced our obsolete lumiline cove lighting (check out its "toothy" appearance in the SciDome photo). The new cove lighting is made up of about a thousand red-blue-green LEDs. We can't wait for our next public show (Sunday, Nov. 4, 4:00 PM), but in the meantime, here are some photos.

Date set for New Cove Light Installation

It turns out that the scene in 1,000 to 1: The Cory Weissman Story will be the last hurrah for our yellow and blue lumiline cove lights (pictured right). The system is original to the 1966 construction of the Hatter Planetarium, and the bulbs have not been made for some time. Spitz, Inc., will be installing a modern set of red-blue-green LED cove lights on October 11 and 12. Look for them at our next show!

1000 to 1 Filming

Boom and camera frighteningly
close to our 1966 Spitz A3p.
 No worries; these guys were pros!

I just spent a few hours in the planetarium running some lights and effects for a scene in 1,000 to 1: The Cory Weissman Story, with help from student workers Caitlin and Annie (who were also in the scene as extras). Director Mike Levine seemed like perfect fit for the job and a pleasure to work for. Star David Henrie was there too, though obscured from my view by both planetarium and filmmaking equipment. It was great to talk to the crew and grips who knew what I meant when I talked about our "Lumiline" lighting, speaking of which . . . [see our next post]

Venus Regulus Conjunction

We've talked about the upcoming conjunction of brilliant planet Venus and bright star Regulus in the show, the Times column, and the podcast. The closest approach of the two will be in the early morning hours of Oct 3 (i.e., tonight), but the weather forecast is looking poor at this point. Here is what you'll see if we are lucky, or what we would have seen if it stays cloudy.

The inset represents the view through the eyepiece of a small telescope.

Venus will be about 150x brighter than Regulus, but Regulus is over four million times farther away! The two will stay together in the morning sky the rest of the month, with Venus sinking toward the rising sun and Regulus pulling away. The waning crescent moon will join the scene on mornings around Oct 12.

Images created with Stellarium

New astrominute, Oct 1-15

http://public.gettysburg.edu/~iclarke/hatter/podcasts/astrominute100112.mp3

Observing Session, Sept 24

 Here are a couple photos from a recent Astronomy 101 observing session. The first shows the waxing gibbous moon above campus before students arrived, and the second shows student activity on the observing deck during a thirty second exposure.