Stay up all night for an astronomical event April 14
April 11, 2014
Poster will be distributed via email to my students, who will distribute further to
their acquaintances and by posting around town.
Posting on newSFeed and SF calendar requested.
Press release is requested to go to usual local media. Press release info is as follows:
UP ALL NIGHT! Adventures in Public Observational Astronomy
with Dr. Sally Hoffman
(c) swh 2014 3/26/14
On the night of April 14, stay UP ALL NIGHT with Santa Fe's professional observational astronomer Star Goddess Dr. Sally Hoffman. This observational event is another in Dr. Hoffman's long-running series of observational presentations for the public. Through telescopes, we'll see planets, the moon, natural satellites, the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, and two eclipses LIVE! And it's all FREE!!!! Free maps of Mars and free photos of a total lunar eclipse are available. Bring your camera and take your own pictures through the telescopes! Santa Fe students, Santa Fe employees, and the general public are invited.
At 9:00 PM on Monday, April 14, our live adventure begins with a sprinkling of planets punctuated by the moon. Mars will have risen at 7:09 PM, followed by the moon only 25 minutes later.
The telescopic view of Mars will reveal a surface with white polar caps and mysterious gray-green areas. We may get to see the annual global sandstorms begin, which will obliterate the landscape for as much as five months.
At 9:04 PM, eclipse #1 will occur when Io, the volcanic satellite of Jupiter, is eclipsed by Jupiter, not to emerge from behind the planet until 12:36 AM.
At 9:51 PM, Saturn rises, its magnificent rings with the Cassini Division on display through the telescope. Visible also will be Titan, its largest satellite, the only natural satellite with a thick atmosphere, organic molecules on its surface, and methane rain instead of water rain.
For the sharp-eyed, there are several of our artificial satellites visible throughout the night, Galaxy 10 and ECHOSTAR among them.
A few minutes before midnight, the moon, in its eastward orbital trek against the background of the stars, will be in conjunction with (having the same east-west position as) Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, passing only 1.7 degrees north of this star.
All evening long, Jupiter will be visible high in the sky, sporting the Great Red Spot in its clouds. This swirling storm, the biggest hurricane in the solar system, its oscillating size varying from 2 to 4 times the diameter of the earth, will cross the centerline (central meridian) of the planet at approximately 12:30 AM. Jupiter concludes its part of the show by setting almost simultaneously with the commencement of the moon show just before 2:00AM.
The moon will have left Spica behind as the umbral portion of the lunar eclipse (eclipse #2) begins at 1:58 AM, when the moon enters the darker part of the earth's shadow. As the moon glides deeper into the earth's shadow, it will be immersed in a reddish glow produced by sunlight passing through the earth's atmosphere, which scatters away the blues and greens, leaving the red and orange light to be focused onto the moon. At 3:07 AM, when the moon becomes completely covered by the shadow, totality has begun. 3:46 AM is when the moon will be deepest into the shadow-this is mid-eclipse, just 3 minutes after the time when the moon becomes exactly full. The moon will continue to be bathed in the reddish glow, which will be prominent until sometime before 4:25 AM, when the edge of the moon begins to emerge from the dark shadow. At 5:38 AM, the moon will be uncloaked and return to normal-the umbral part of the eclipse will be over.
As the moon is escaping the earth's shadow to end its show, brilliant Venus makes its appearance as the Morning Star, rising at 4:59 AM. Through the telescopes, Venus will be seen in the gibbous phase (more than halfway lighted).
