More stars. Less light. Participate in GLOBE at Night!
Calling all Earthlings! Take a few minutes to get involved in the GLOBE at Night campaign to preserve dark skies!
GLOBE at Night is a citizen-science campaign open to people all over the world to raise awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and report their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight”, but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. Through 2011, people in 115 countries contributed 66,000 measurements, making GLOBE at Night one of the most successful light pollution awareness campaigns to date. Please join us to participate in the 2012 campaign an hour after sunset til about 10pm January 14 through 23, February 12 through 21, March 13 through 22, and April 11 through 20. For information and resources, visit us at www.globeatnight.org.
Constance E. Walker, Ph.D.
Messier 38
Messier 38 (also known as M38 or NGC 1912) is an open cluster in the Auriga constellation. It was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 and independently found by Le Gentil in 1749. M36 and M37, also discovered by Hodierna, are grouped together with M38 at a distance of about 3,420 light years away from Earth.
The cluster's brightest stars form a pattern resembling the Greek letter Pi or, according to Webb, an "oblique cross." At its distance of 4,200 light years, its angular diameter of about 20' corresponds to about 25 light years, similar to that of its more distant neighbor M37. It is of intermediate age (about 220 million years, according to Sky Catalog 2000) and features a yellow giant of apparent magnitude +7.9 and spectral type G0 as its brightest member. This corresponds to an absolute magnitude of -1.5, or a luminosity of 900 suns. For comparison, the Sun would appear as a faint magnitude +15.3 star from the distance of M38.
End of the World - December 21, 2012
There are fanciful stories floating on the Internet claiming that the Earth will face destruction in December 2012, more specifically on the winter solstice date of December 21. There are three general causes given, none of them have any validity and none of them make much sense.
Grote Reber - Radio Astronomer
By Bill Pellerin
Houston Astronomical Society
GuideStar Editor
When you think about the pioneers in astronomy, the name Grote Reber does not generally come to mind. Yet, it is Grote Reber who was one of the early observers of the sky at radio frequencies.
What's Up with the Astronomical League December 2011
In this issue:
Christmas greetings Page 1
Keck Observatory Page 1
Awards deadlines Page 1, 2
ALCon 2012 (general) Page 2
NYAA/Horkheimer applications
Pages 3, 4, 5, 6
By Carroll Iorg
Dec 2011
Oodles of Exoplanets: The Search for other Habitable Worlds
The Keck Observatory will make the video of the lecture by Greg Laughlin on Dec 8 is now available for those who missed it. There is an audio problem in early part of the video that is corrected about 18 minutes from the beginning.
Oodles of Exoplanets from Keck Observatory on Vimeo.
