European Association for Astronomy Education

I am the Moon – Look at Me  by Deirdre Kelleghan

15 Day Moon Durrus, West Cork Ireland 26th August 2010 23:05 UT – 00:08 UT Pastel and conte on black paper 200 mm Dob/ FL 1,200 mm / 32 mm eyepiece

I am the Moon – Look at Me by Deirdre Kelleghan

We are privileged to live on a beautiful but fragile planet moving through space at 18.5 miles per second. We are born, live and die here; in our lifetimes we owe it to ourselves to become even a little knowledgeable of our place in the Universe.  Just a small fraction of us ever get to leave the planet and become acutely aware of the startling reality that we do in fact live in space.

We all admire humans and robots who explore off planet, but each of us here on the Earth can still reach out to grab a bit of wonder for ourselves by simply looking up. Our moon is a beautiful object whether you look at it with an instrument or just by eye.

The Moon is our nearest natural orbiting satellite, so let us stand a while and look at it together.

Let’s think about what we see when we gaze upward.  On International Observe the Moon night the moons appearance is described as waxing gibbous.  The gibbous shape of the moon on September 18^th is exactly in-between the first quarter and full moon. This phase gives us the opportunity to view naked eye most of the Maria. In the northern section close to the terminator, Mare Imbrum, (The Sea of Rains) just a bit to the right is Mare Serenitatis,  (The Sea of Serenity) below Imbrium is Mare Insularium, (The Sea of Islands). Below Serenitatis, is Mare Tranquillitatis   (The Sea of Tranquillity), the place where men first stood upon the moon.

Just three days previous most people would refer to it as a half moon but have a think for a minute or two. The Moon is a spherical object, like a ball, it moves around our planet approximately once every twenty nine days.  On its journey it presents a different shape to us depending on its position to the sun in relation to the person viewing the near side from Earth.  The sun illuminates the moon’s surface and reflects that light towards our eyes. When the moon is at first quarter, half of its surface is lit up by the sun. At all times one half of the moons surfaces is bathed in sunlight while the other half rests in total darkness.

The Earth and the moon do a little orbital dance together which the sun lights up for our pleasure.

This dance involves the larger Earth partner holding the moons near side face towards itself the entire time .The orbital waltz created by the Earth and the moon as they swing around the sun together produces various phenomena during their annual soiree. These include eclipses, both lunar and solar, depending on the angle and varied positions between the three of them, the dancers and their light.

When you use your eyes only to look at the moon on International Observe the moon night, what are you looking at exactly? You will see the moon present itself to you when it is positioned a little more than one quarter way around the Earth. You will see the bright limb of the moon; you will see the line that separates daytime on the moon from night time on the moon. It is called ‘The Terminator’. Look closely and observe the darker markings ‘The Maria’ large lava filled impact basins. You will see the brighter higher areas and maybe if you have good eyesight you will see some of the larger craters and their rays. The lovely small rounded area to the upper right of The Sea of Tranquillity, close to the limb, is Mare Crisium (the sea of crisis).

With even a small pair of binoculars your view will be enhanced with detail. With a telescope depending on the size and quality of the eyepieces your view will be awesome.  There is a lifetimes worth of observing to be had with the moon alone. The contrast, the rich lunarscape, the play of light against the blackness of space, it is an exploration adventure available for all to view.

What\’s Up for September 2010 – The Moon

In this podcast Jane Houston Jones talks about the Moon and International Observe the Moon Night

Get Comfy the Perseids are Coming By Deirdre Kelleghan

Skellig Rocks image Bernard Kelleghan

About 24 years ago we had a holiday in a remote location in the west of Ireland. The house was high on a grassy ridge on Bolus Head looking over St Finian’s Bay in Co Kerry.  From this vantage point the 350 million year old Skellig Rocks rose like stegosaurus plates from the Atlantic Ocean. They were 16 kilometres out to sea but their jagged presence dominated the view to the South. It was early August and when darkness fell the predicable blinking of a distant lighthouse was the only manmade object discernable at sea level in the blackness.

One moonless evening, the sky was crystal clear, the summer triangle was dramatically intersected by our galaxies river of stars, so much more touchable than the suburban view.  I lay on the sun -dried grass looking for Perseids, one, two, three, four, five, six, plus several in the corner of my eye within a few minutes.

Time to take action, I went into the house and dragged out several mattresses, and encouraged (made) my family and our guests come outside, lie down and look up. I have a vague memory of sofa cushions being shoved through windows at one point to help the nest building.

As usual they thought I was mad, but soon they were seeing one of the year’s wonders in perhaps the darkest place on our island. We watched for satellites and my mattress guests (two families, four adults, four children) had never seen them either, so in between meteors we looked at these metal objects orbiting about 200 miles up.

A perfect viewing spot, we watched on a slight incline toward Perseus in North East, but the meteors came from what seemed like every direction. We watched many many meteors sizzling into our atmosphere in dots and dashes with long gaps and differing lengths.   The Perseids are the result of   tiny cast – off particles from Comet Swift Tuttle, shed as it passed through our solar system on its 130 year orbit of our sun.  Once a  year the Earth’s journey round our sun brings our atmosphere and these remnants into contact with each other .These particles hit the  atmosphere at huge speeds and burn up thereby offering the observer natural fireworks. Ancient elements revealed by their colours as they vaporise in front of our eyes.

I will never forget the perfection of the viewing, the WOW’s, the laughter, the joy of my family seeing this beautiful meteor shower for the first time ever.

Over the years since I have watched the Perseids from a deck chair in my garden, some escape the eye under hazy lights in suburbia. It is always the most exciting shower of the year and rarely disappoints. If you are lucky to have clear skies between now and mid August, no equipment is needed, just you and your eyeballs. If you want to fill out an observing sheet to record, the colour, length, duration, direction, location, hourly rate of your Perseids then they are easy to find and fill.

Post midnight is the best time to view.  The Earth has left the Belt of Venus long behind and has rolled toward the night were other suns populate the soft deep cloak of space.  The Perseids bring nano seconds, and multi seconds of wispy joy to all who take the time to look up from mattresses or other comfy viewing places.  My apologies, to holiday homes everywhere.

Introducing Meteorwatch 2010 Check this out , contribute your observations , images, learn a little and most of all have fun.

The Perseids in association with ,The British Astronomical Association lots of good informaton on observing, imaging , and you can contribute your own observations and enjoy The Perseids even more . You can follow Meteorwatch on Twitter via @VirtualAstro
Hope it is clear and you all have a lovely time lookng up.

What\’s Up for August 2010 – The Perseids from Jane Houston Jones

The 20^th Anniversary of the launch of The Hubble Space Telescope was celebrated in St Peters National School Walkinstown Dublin 12 on April 23^rd.  As an outreach educator I decided to put on my Astronomy hat and my Artists hat that morning and bring the enormous printed image of the Carina Nebula to the attention of the children and teachers from 5^th class.

The Carina Nebula was the image of choice by both The European Space Agency and NASA to mark the 20^th Anniversary of Hubble.  The image shows a section of a powerful and beautiful star forming region in the constellation Carina. This constellation is only visible from the southern hemisphere.

It was therefore doubly engaging that this extraordinary image at this wonderful school in Dublin was also playing a part in informing young pupils about the view of the sky from different locations on the planet.

Nature created this awesome visually rich stellar nursery. Hubble became the servant who has worked so long to bring the wonders of our surrounding universe down to Earth.

I wanted to really engage children with this image, and bring it to them in a very personal way.

The idea of putting it on the floor instead of a wall has the immediate effect.  An art / astronomy workshop was in my opinion the way to grab young people’s interest and invite them to learn in an exciting and productive way.  The children of 5th class at St Peters National School sat around the image and I gave them a simple explanation about what they are looking at and how it was achieved.

The children had a lesson in star formation, distance in space, the colour indications within the image, details of The Hubble Space Telescope and the significance of this new camera and its work.

Through my workshop I wanted to literally bring the Hubble Anniversary image down to the ground in Dublin for the education and inspiration of children, the future scientists, space explorers, astronomers and artists in this country.

I am sure you will agree that the images speak volumes about the success of my workshop which was also a Global Astronomy Month event.

Links:
http://www.deirdrekelleghan.com/