ISSP 2013 going well

The first half of the ISSP was lovely, and we were able to cover plenty of material on constellations and stars. The group worked really hard, and I am looking forward to seeing them all next week. If the sky is clear, I would like to invite any of this year's ISSP intake for an observing night on Friday 15th March, from 7pm until 8.30pm - don't forget to bring a grown-up with you - they are handy for lifts! Follow me on twitter for instant updates about the event.

Near Earth Asteroid Flyby

This Friday you can witness a once-in-a-lifetime close encounter with an asteroid. 2012DA14 is thought to be about 45 metres across, and it will pass so close to the Earth that it will be "beneath" most of our satellites!

During the evening of Friday night, it will pass through the constellation of the Plough, and although you won't be able to see it with just the naked eye, it will be quite possible to pick it out with ordinary binoculars as a dim star that seems to move from one minute to the next against the stellar background.

This handy chart from Heavens Above (link on this page) shows where the asteroid will be at various times in the evening. The ideal time will be at around 21:30, as it passes close to some very easy to spot stars.

If you stay out to watch - why not twitter your experience to @boothamshaw?

It's Geminid time!

The Geminid meteor shower should peak on the 13th/14th December, perhaps with rates as high as 100 shooting stars per hour. These is an unusual storm, because it doesn't seem to be associated with a comet. Instead, the source of the tiny rocks that make up the shower seems to be an asteroid called (strangely) 3200 Phaethon. This asteroid zooms very close to the sun during its orbit, so perhaps it gets cooked enough to create a swarm of debris along its orbital path. Another possibility is that 3200 Phaethon was actually smashed off of the much larger asteroid Pallas, and the Geminids are tiny fragments left over from this impact.

Either way, the absence of any Moon on these nights makes it very likely that this year is the best chance you'll get to see this storm. Look towards the north-east in the late evening - dress warmly!

Saturday morning meeting

So yesterday I told the amazing story the descent of the Apollo 11 mission's lander "Eagle". Hopefully, you came to realise that it was not at all as easy, or safe as popular histories might let you believe. I think that Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were every bit as heroic in the face of terrifying situations as other explorers, such as Shackleton or Douglas Mawson (more about him another time perhaps).

Here is an edited sound file of the descent as it was broadcast on 20th July 1969. I have deleted some of the gaps and tidied up a few parts, so my version is considerably shorter than it would have been in reality.

Listen out for Charlie Duke's voice (he's "Houston", or CAPCOM), Buzz Aldrin reading out altitude and lateral data and Neil Armstrong announcing the landing. You'll also hear Charlie Duke say "copy 1202" just before they get to 1400 feet - that was the error code in the navigation computer. Later, you'll hear descriptions of "great shadow" (the Eagle's own shadow on the Lunar surface) and the spray of dust and debris as the rocket exhaust hit the ground. Just before the landing, listen out for "contact light" as the leg probe hits the Moon, and then the engine shut-down sequence. Finally of course, there is the hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck exchange between Armstrong and Duke - "Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed", and "you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thankyou!"

Morning meeting, 30th November

Hopefully, you're visiting this post because you wanted to see some pictures of Joe Kitter doing his record-breaking skydive in 1959. If you got here, well done for listening!

Kittinger key facts;

Project codename: Excelsior
Maximum height reached: 31.3 km above the Earth
maximum speed during free fall: 988km per hour
time to climb: 90 minutes
time to fall: 13mins 45 secs


In this one, you can see him just exiting the capsule



Here he is after landing


this is a life-sized copy of the capsule - note how small it is!


Joe Kittinger was with Felix Baumgartner's ground control team when his record was finally beaten in 2012, after an amazing 53 years.

what will tomorrow's meeting be about?