Mars Phoenix Lander - Touchdown 25th May

Breaking News: **NASA's Phoenix lander Has touched down on the surface of the Red Planet **

Cold Case - Phoenix And The Outlook For Life On Mars

This mission has the potential to take our understanding of the suitability of the sub surface conditions on Mars for life to a new level. First Photo from NASA show a flawless deployment of all the equipment. All systems are go !

Read the full article at http://ezinearticles.com/?id=1194381

The landing went off just like the animation below !

Viewing the Eta Aquarids

Haley's Comet is the best known of all the comets. It is a Comet that few of us will ever see again in our lifetime. However we can get to see bits of it as they burst into our atmosphere in the form of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower each May.
Check out the full story in my article at http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1144748
The maps below will help you to find where in the sky this shower radiates from.

Northern Hemisphere View 3:30 am

Southern Hemisphere View 3:30am

UPDATE 5-5:
I went out to observe the Eta Aquarids with fellow Gove Amateur Astronomers club member "Notch" this morning, and with a dark North Eastern sky vantage point, looking out over the Arafura Sea from 4:35 to 5:35 am we had a good setting.
I dont know about anyone else, but I find kicking back, relaxing and taking in a good meteor shower very inspiring, bringing a hightened sense of awareness of my surroundings.
It's hard not to be inspired with the music of the morning as waves tumble against the sand and the crickets sing their morning song.
It was Amazing to see just how bright the Zodiacal light gets, rising up from the eastern horizon for up to 1 hour before first light ! At one point it seemed to outshine the light dome from the nearby town of Nhulunbuy.
As usual the Meteors came in bursts of 3 or 4 in a minute.
One sporadic meteor was very impressive, traveling from south to north at the zenith. It was as bright as a welding flash (or so it seemed to my dark adapted eyes) and left a smoking train that persisted for at least 30 seconds.
Anyhow at 5:35am the final count was 45 confirmed Eta Aquarids
I am looking forward to tomorrow morning (the predicted peak) and what that might bring.
Leave a comment here and tell the world about your Eta Aquarid experience.

A Successful ISAN 2008 in Nhulunbuy

As the afternoon storms rolled in on Sunday here in Nhulunbuy I was able reflect back on a very successful International Sidewalk Astronomy Night 2008 (ISAN 2008) held on the previous evening of Saturday the 12th April
We had 3 telescopes there for the night,an 8 and 10 inch Dobsonian Mounted reflectors, plus an LX-90 Computerized tracking telescope. Manned by myself, Bruce & Notch.
The Dobsonian Telescope takes its name from the inventor of this type of telescope, the vererable John Dobson, who is also the founder of the ISAN !
We had probably 50 or 60 people stop for a look, many of whom had never looked through a telescope before. The Wow's and Wakara's (Yolngu for WOW)escaped the lips of many a viewer as they had their first look at Saturn through a telescope.
That fact alone made the night a great success.
An Announcement was even made over the PA at the Arnhem club, bringing quite a few more people out for a look.

We were in a location that we would never normally consider for an observing night, the most brightly lit street corner in town opposite the Arnhem Club.
The benefit was, it is also the busiest spot in town for people walking around.
Targets for the night were: The Moon, Mars, Saturn, Sirus (The brightest star) , Alpha Centuri (our nearest visible star bar the Sun)and the Orion Nebula.
We will probably even pick up a few new club members from the evening !
Thanks also to GAA members Eleonore and Tom for their help.
I look forward to the 2009 event, and I expect given the success we had, GAA will do a few more of these nights between now and then !

Earth Hour 2008 - In Gove NT

We held our Earth Hour Observing night last night (29th March) and it was well attended by members of the public here in Gove NT, with at least 50 stargazers
turning up for the evening.
For many of these people it was the first time to an Astronomy night.
The biggest benefits are:
* I have realized we can do public observing nights on our largest oval for the town.
* Awareness has been raised that earth hour is now a global event
* Local People have realized that Individuals can make a difference.
For an observing night in town it just needs 1 or 2 sets of lights
switched off (not hard to do)and we can have an observing night that is easily accessible to the public.
I am sure the countdown has begun to next years Earth Hour already & we can all
all do something to make every hour "Earth Hour"
The Photo above shows our scopes set up for our "Earth Hour" observing night on Hindle oval Nhulunbuy NT.

I have published a detailed article on Ezine articles on this subject to show how we can all carry the success of earth hour into the future, and how this benifits your astronomy experience.
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1077889

Earth Hour 2008 - Lights Out

In a huge expansion of the Earth Hour event hosted by Sydney last year, the WWF has promoted the event around the world.
As of tonight there are over 235,000 Individuals and 15,000 business registered to be involved.
There has been some comment that this is a token effort. However, when you take into account the number of people involved and if each person saves just .5 of a Kilo Watt hour (Kwh) that is over 100 Megawatt/hours and assuming that a business will save this amount again, we are talking about the output of a medium sized power station for 1 hr.
More importantly, if this becomes a habit, then the savings become signifigant.

From an Astronomy point of view, it is a huge opportunity to make people aware of just how much difference it makes, turning off unnecessary outdoor lighting.

So make sure you make the effort, register at http://www.earthhour.org/sign-up

GAA will be holding an observing night here in Gove on Sat at 8pm on Hindle Oval.

This is how it happened last year:

Saturn Comes to "Opposition"

So what does this mean with Saturn coming to "Opposition" ?
Simply put it means that as the sun sets in the west, Saturn will be rising in the east.
Or if you drew an imaginary line between, the Sun, Earth and Saturn, it would be at straight line at the time of opposition.
Saturn can now be seen at its closest point to the earth for the year and as such it is an ideal time to view the beautiful ringed planet.
Saturn's rings are slowing closing up as each year passes, this means that in a few years time we will see the rings edge on, making them almost disappear !
Right now though is the time to look though, and if you have never seen Saturn before you are in for a big treat. It is a planet of incredible beauty and the subtle colors will be seen as the scope goes above 6" in mirror or lens diameter.
Your will also be able to pick out 4 or 5 moons of Saturn, depending on your scope size !
Best time to enjoy Saturn is mid evening, when it has risen half way up in the eastern sky.
If you want to learn more on how to find Saturn and the other planets visit http://www.nightskysecrets.com

Bright Fireball (Meteorite ?) in USA

The bright fireball reported in the USA at 5:30 am Pacific time on the 19th Feb, in Washington, Oregon and Idaho has turned up on several security Cameras. There is a lot of uncertainty about the nature of the event. It could be a small asteroid or cometry fragment breaking up in Earth's atmosphere, an increasing number of these are being tracked by the automated telescopes, but none this small, reportedly the size of a basketball.
Thousands of tonnes of meteor dust falls to earth every year, but normally it comes in to the atmosphere in sand or rice grain size. Its always exciting to see a big one like this come in. Rest assured, no human in recorded history has been killed by a meteorite, yet !