Sky this Month shows for March

Venus as a Morning Star

Image credit: Ian Clarke

Above is an image of Venus, taken through a southeast window at 6:25 AM this morning. It makes an instructive parallel to this January 31 image of earth as seen by a camera on the Mars Curiosity rover:

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU

Read more

In both cases, the viewer is seeing an "inferior planet" (Not that there is anything wrong with them; it’s just an old term for those planets closer to the sun.) In the case of my image, it's Venus as a "morning star" seen from earth. In the case of the Mars Curiosity image, it's earth as an "evening star" as seen from Mars.

If you take the Gettysburg Times, you can read more about the Curiosity image in my column today (page B5). Here's an excerpt:

There have been other famous photos of the earth from space . . . . But I think Curiosity’s contribution will go down as a special one. For one thing, it’s a landscape, not a spacescape: as familiar as if we had flown Ansel Adams to Mars, and yet alien. As recognizable as our own views of Venus or Mercury as an evening “stars,” but utterly different because the point of light in question is our home.

 You'll be able to catch Venus an hour or so before sunrise through the late winter and spring.

ISS Flyover 2/7

Here is a photo I took yesterday of the International Space Station from near Fairfield, PA. The image is looking NE and the exposure was 30 seconds long. Therefore, the line represents 30 seconds of motion from the ISS, which actually appears like a bright, moving star to the unaided eye. The other bright object on the right is Jupiter. My go-to site for satellite predictions is www.heavens-above.com

See the Space Station Tonight!

Gettysburg view geneated at
www.heavens-above.com

Gettysburg will have a great view of the International Space Station tonight if it's clear. The ISS will appear low in the SW at 6:58 PM, pass almost overhead at 7:01:15, then disappear into the earth's shadow in the NE at 7:02. It will be bright! (mag -3.4) Share with your friends. To find out where/if you can see it in other regions (it should be pretty good up the mid-Atlantic), go to www.heavens-above.com and plug in your location.

-IC

First-half February Astrominute is Online

The WZBT / Hatter Planetarium astrominute for early February is online. Welcome back Annie Skrabak as narrator!

http://public.gettysburg.edu/~iclarke/hatter/podcasts/astrominute020114.mp3

Spring 2014 Schedule

Dear friends of the Hatter Planetarium:
We are sorry for the delay in releasing our schedule of spring shows. Over the holiday break, we decided to make some changes based on past attendance patterns. Our hope was to make all those changes in one announcement. We were not quite able to do that because the date of one new offering is not certain yet, so today we are publishing just the Sky this Month show dates. See below or download the PDF. Stay tuned for the new program soon!

In summary, here are the changes:

• Eliminating the Tuesday (formerly Monday) "Sky this Month" noon showings. 
• Adding a special topic show produced by our student workers with help from director Ian Clarke. All will be welcome to this show as always, but it will be in a time slot aimed at the campus community. (Probably lunchtime on a Thursday and afternoon on a Friday in late March.) Free food will be served! Exact topic and time will be announced in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your patience and we hope to see you at a show this spring. Questions, comments, and suggestions for the future are welcome.

Hatter Planetarium

Spring 2014 Show Schedule

NOTE: there will be a special student-directed presentation later in the semester
STAY TUNED!

The Sky this Month: February

Sunday, February 9, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, February 11, 7:00 PM

The Sky this Month: March

Sunday, March 2, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, March 4, 7:00 PM

The Sky this Month: April

Sunday, April 6, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, April 8, 7:00 PM

The Sky Summer

Sunday, May 4, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, May 6, 7:00 PM

For more information, updates, or any additional shows, visit
http://public.gettysburg.edu/~iclarke/hatter/index.html

Follow us on Twitter @GCPlanetarium