OTEvents September 2007

otevents@otastro.org

3 participants
5 discussions

by Jane H Jones

Mojo and I attended the AANC - Astronomical Association of Northern California's annual conference "Reach for the Stars" at College of San Mateo yesterday. Mojo took pictures and I gave a Cassini Mission talk. http://aancstars2007.org/events.shtml Once it was dark, the CSM Observatory opened, after a great Planetarium show about Black Holes. All day long there was a planetarium show called The Sky at Night to whet the attendees appetites for what would be visible that night. Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, the moon, and several galaxies clusters and nebula were visible from the observatory through assorted telescopes owned by both the university and by attending amateur astronomers - dozens of telescopes in the afternoon and the evening. In the daytime there were some great talks - two on astrophotography, and the others on science, the hourly planetarium shows, family activities, a solar system walk, solar observing and telescope making demonstrations, and even a band called Dark Matter singing and playing! Everyone hung around for the raffle - lots of wonderful donated items - from telescopes to cameras to books to posters and more. Dr. Peter Jenniskens had the Aurigid Meteor Mission covered at the SETI table. Complete with meteorites, his flight suit, a Mission photo poster display, a flux measurement camera and meteor videotape running all afternoon - the same camera I used to record the meteors I saw and counted on the Aurigid and Perseid Mission flights last month. We arrived at about 10:00 a.m. and left about 11:00 p.m. - had a great time seeing all our Northern California astro pals! Lots of work to put these conferences on - College of San Mateo, the San Mateo County Astronomical Society, the AANC and KCSM's Jazz Under the Stars, dozens of volunteers and the vendors http://aancstars2007.org/vendors.shtml for a great day and night! Here are the pictures: http://photo.whiteoaks.com/2007-09-29-aanc/ There are several conferences like this here in southern California too! We'll try to tell you about them all. Let us know if you are interested. Last Night there was also the Starry Starry Nights Festival in Yucca Valley which we missed because we couldn't be in two places at the same time. Our next sidewalk astronomy nights are October 19 and 20, and we may do something for Halloween too! Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Senior Outreach Specialist, Cassini Program JPL - 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 230-205 Pasadena, CA 91109 818-393-6435 jane.h.jones(a)jpl.nasa.gov Cassini SOC http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm What's Up? http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/amateurastronomy/index.html

18 years, 10 months

No telescopes tonight

by Morris Jones

NOAA just changed its public forecast for the region from "partly cloudy" to "mostly cloudy," and at 1:30 p.m. today it was still raining in Monrovia. That means we'll have wet grass at the park, and foggy or cloudy skies. That's my guess. So no telescopes tonight! Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones Monrovia, CA http://www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org

18 years, 10 months

No astronomy tonight

by Morris Jones

Given the 70% chance of rain tonight, it's a safe bet to say we won't have telescopes in Old Town Pasadena tonight. We're scheduled for Monrovia tomorrow evening, and that's looking pretty questionable. I'll update the list as I see the conditions tomorrow afternoon. Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones Monrovia, CA http://www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org

18 years, 10 months

What's Up at JPL?

by Jane H Jones

Lots of Solar System happenings here at JPL this week, and it's only Wednesday! I hope you've had a chance to look at the incredible images from Cassini over the past 2 days! If not, I highly recommend a look! The Iapetus images are simply amazing! Find the series of Iapetus links, along with a Cassini Status report on the Cassini website now! http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm Dawn - the mission to the asteroid belt - is nearing launch. The rover Opportunity has dipped all 6 of its wheels into Victoria Crater on Mars after hunkering down during a massive dust storm on our red planet neighbor. And Cassini is returning simply amazing images, now in its 4th year of the mission. You can see all three of these features on the JPL website today: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ What else is up? As Voyager celebrates its 30th year anniversary, all four of the outer planets - Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune - are all visible this month and all four are featured in "What's Up for September". Link to the video, plus all the downloads of charts and short animations from the JPL Education Page: http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/amateurastronomy/index.html You can subscribe to JPL Podcasts here - What's Up, and many other podcasts are available in a High Definition video feed. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/tools/podcast.cfm See all these podcasts on You Tube, too: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=JPLnews&p=r&page=1 Link to Voyager website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html Link to the Dawn website: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/ Link to the Mars Exploration website http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Senior Outreach Specialist, Cassini Program JPL - 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 230-205 Pasadena, CA 91109 818-393-6435 jane.h.jones(a)jpl.nasa.gov Cassini SOC http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm What's Up? http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/amateurastronomy/index.html

18 years, 11 months

An interesting class - Basics of Interplanetary Flight

by Jane Houston Jones

I thought you Old Town Astronomer list members might be interested in this class. Basics of Interplanetary Flight! If so read on! Hello - I'd like to invite you to consider joining us, starting next week, for "Basics of Interplanetary Flight," a night course open to the public. The first class meeting is Thursday September 13, 2007. This week, though, is the week to register: late registration fees start Monday. Classes are hosted by the Art Center College of Design Public Programs, at their award-winning South Campus building (converted wind tunnel facility) on Raymond at Glenarm in Pasadena. This is hands-on interplanetary exploration. In the course of seven consecutive Thursday evenings, we will experiment together to intuitively learn the keys to interplanetary flight. We can usually count on enjoying a stellar guest speaker, as well. So far, previous class participants have included physicians, secretaries, film producers, engineers, undergrads, grad students, writers, teachers, pilots, architects, even a celebrity. Here's a quote from a participant in the summer term that ended recently: "Incredible. Interesting topics were explored in a fun way, often with experiments. Each night left me eager to learn more." We generally divide our three-hour meetings into developing three lines of inquiry: (1) Observing and grasping each of the major factors in the whole environment in which we live and operate our robots: being the companion of a dwarf star in a bubble orbiting a super-massive black hole at the center of one of many galaxies (and understanding just how this is known); (2) Learning how spacecraft are put together, what all their components do, how they work, and why; (3) Soaking in the results; seeing and experiencing new worlds, encountering the latest and ongoing discoveries. Information from the Art Center course catalog is included below. Substantial tuition discounts are offered to teachers, members of The Planetary Society, and others. For more details, and a link for registration, see http://people.artcenter.edu/doody. If you have any questions, please email me at doody(a)artcenter.edu Thanks! Dave Doody E/078 Basics of Interplanetary Flight noncredit $395 Art Center at Night is pleased to offer you this extraordinary opportunity to study the fundamentals of robotic space flight with Caltech/JPL senior engineer Dave Doody, Flight Operations Lead for the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft's realtime operations. We have as our home a very rare planet, the companion of a star-in-a-bubble, orbiting the distant black hole at our galactic center. In this 7-week workshop, you will look back at our planet from this greater perspective, and explore the vehicles, the techniques, and the science experiments involved in today's ongoing extraterrestrial exploration. Many familiar products such as cell phones, medical devices, and imaging systems have developmental roots on the edges of robotic space flight. Surveying these roots may help designers conceive future products. Knowing how real spacecraft move may be useful for filmmakers and illustrators. The range of topics will intrigue any curious participant. Class discussions will be enhanced by ongoing Q&A, many hands-on demonstrations, design-based learning sessions, and a "guest star" appearance or two. No prerequisites. 7 sessions Thursdays 7 -10 pm Dave Doody SOUTH CAMPUS -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA 34.2048N 118.1732W, 637.0 feet http://www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org

18 years, 11 months

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OTEvents September 2007