From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 1 08:22:07 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 1, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The next Skylights will appear Sunday, June 10. The Moon passes through its full phase this week, when it is opposite the Sun, on Tuesday, June 5. It will on that day rise near sunset and set near sunrise. Thereafter, it begins to thin through its waning gibbous phase. The night of June 5 the Moon will appear up and to the right of the planet Mars, while the following night it will have moved to appear up and to the left of the red planet. As we approach the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, when the Sun will be as far north as it can get (and as high as it can get for northerners), this full Moon will be the year's second-most southerly, the "Rose Moon" rising in the southeast, setting in the southwest. The brightest and dimmest planets (as seen from Earth) make the rest of the planetary news. Venus, very slightly dimming, reaches its greatest elongation west, when it is 46 degrees to the west of the Sun. This lovely planet, third only to the Sun and Moon in apparent brightness, now rises in the east just ahead of morning twilight. Even though the angle between it and the Sun now decreases, however, Venus will continue to rise earlier, and until mid-August into ever darker skies. Earliest Venus-rise will occur around mid-July. At the same time, dim Pluto, not visible without a good-sized telescope, is in opposition to the Sun the night of Monday, June 4. When the Moon reaches its full phase, it will lie roughly 10 degrees below the frigid outer planet, which some take not to be a planet at all. In truth, Pluto appears to be some kind of hybrid object that bridges the gap between the outer planets and the building blocks (the comets) that created them. Apparently there was just not enough raw material in these distant reaches of the Solar System to make a respectable planet like Neptune or Uranus. The early evening presents us with the tail of the longest constellation in the sky, Hydra , the Water Serpent, which wraps itself a third of the way around the celestial sphere. Find Corvus, the Crow, a small irregular box of stars that for northerners appears rather low in the south around 9 PM. The top two stars point leftward to Spica in Virgo, while the bottom two point to otherwise un-named Gamma Hydrae, the next-to-the-last bright star (such as it is) that lies in the celestial snake. Snakes of some sort are quite popular, others being summer's Serpens (the Serpent), which comes in two parts, the southern hemisphere's Hydrus (another water snake), and, if you wish to stretch the definition a bit, the northern hemisphere's Draco, the Dragon, whose tail winds between the Dippers. STAR OF THE WEEK. GIAUSAR (Lambda Draconis). The front bowl stars of the Big Dipper are famed for pointing at Polaris in Ursa Major's Little Dipper. What, however, of the stars along the way? The path to Polaris is so familiar that we rarely stop to see the other sights that lie along it. About a third of the way from Dubhe (the Big Dipper's front bowl star) to Polaris (and a just a bit to the east) lies Giausar, the tail star of Draco the Dragon, to which Bayer assigned the Greek letter Lambda. The Arabic name of this mid-fourth magnitude (3.84) star is confusing at best. At times thought to refer to a "central one" much as does the Arabic name of Orion, the word actually refers to the "nodes" of the lunar orbit, the points at which the Moon crosses the ecliptic plane twice a lunar month -- which makes little sense, since Draco contains the ecliptic POLE, and is therefore quite distant from the ecliptic itself. Rather clearly, the name was applied in error. The star is about as neglected by research astronomers as it is by even dedicated skywatchers, rather too bad as it has -- as a class M (M0) red giant -- one of the rarer of naked-eye types. Over the past 20 years it has been mentioned less than 40 times. It is neglected by other stars too, as it has no known companions. Giausar is one of the sky's cooler and larger stars. With a temperature of 3525 Kelvin, it shines to us (if the estimate of invisible infrared radiation is correct) from a distance of 335 light years with a luminosity 1870 times that of the Sun, which leads to a radius of 0.55 astronomical units, half the size of Earth's orbit. Large enough to have had its angular diameter measured (at 0.0073 seconds of arc), direct measure of radius makes it somewhat smaller, a "mere" 0.37 astronomical units, about the size of Mercury's orbit. Even the star's general behavior is obscure. Classified as a "semi-regular variable," there is some indication that it changes brightness erratically by about a tenth of the magnitude. Giausar appears to be on the "asymptotic giant branch," in a portion of its evolution in which it is brightening as a giant star for the second time. With a dead carbon core, the star (of perhaps two solar masses) will most likely begin to pulsate more vigorously as it prepares to shed its outer layers and to turn itself into a white dwarf, as someday will the Sun. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From GPOLLOCK at isbe.net Mon Jun 4 09:48:25 2001 From: GPOLLOCK at isbe.net (POLLOCK GWEN) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: FW: Student Rocket Launch June 6 Message-ID: <5AD21593ECDDD111986D0000F81EDAEB09C43952@smtp.isbe.state.il.us> great news to share, if you can pick this up Gwen Pollock **note new email address Illinois State Board of Education Division for Mathematics and Science 100 North First Street, N-243 Springfield, IL 62777 217/558-6284 217/785=9210 fax gpollock@isbe.net -----Original Message----- From: lzielin [mailto:lzielin@interaccess.com] Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 12:34 AM To: POLLOCK GWEN Subject: Student Rocket Launch June 6 Hello ... Some of my students and I will be launching a suborbital rocket on June 6. A webcast will be broadcast live. Check it out...The website is now available at: http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/rocket_cast/index.htm Enjoy Lynne From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Sun Jun 10 21:13:03 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the short week starting Sunday, June 10, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon, beginning the week in its waning gibbous phase, passes third quarter the evening of Wednesday, the 13th, and thereafter wanes through crescent, every day rising later after midnight. It passes south of Neptune, in Capricornus, on Sunday the 10th, and south of Uranus, in the far eastern end of the same constellation, the following day. The two planets outward from the Earth provide a wonderful contrast. Jupiter, the Solar System's giant, and ordinarily the second brightest of planets, passes conjunction with the Sun on Thursday the 14th, and will be quite invisible. Mars, on the other hand, is now at its best, passing opposition to the Sun the day before, Wednesday, the 13th. On opposition night, Mars will rise at sunset, set at sunrise, cross the celestial meridian to the south at midnight (1 AM daylight time), and have its greatest angular retrograde (westerly) speed. It will also about as close to the Earth as possible during this orbital round, 68.6 million kilometers, or 42.6 million miles. Unfortunately, the red planet, which now shines brighter than any star in the sky (and is now exceeded only by the morning's Venus, the Moon, and the Sun), will also be at about its most southerly position (just to the west of Sagittarius), and for northern observers about as low as it can get. Turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere then makes detail more difficult to view by telescope. After opposition, Mars will begin to rise before sunset, will move more and more into the early evening sky, and will be with nicely us for the remainder of the year. Mars passes opposition to the Sun every 780 days. The orbit is so eccentric that opposition distance vary considerably. The next one will be better. The minimum distance is 56 million kilometers (35 million miles), the maximum almost twice as great. Only Venus comes closer. Mars actually lies in far southern Ophiuchus between Sagittarius and Scorpius, providing a good chance to compare the color of the planet with its namesake Antares (Ares the Greek version of the war god), which is nicely visible to the far right of Mars. As spring slowly blends into summer, these beautiful summertime constellations, which contain the Milky Way, will begin to overtake the more drab spring skies, which now still dominate in the early evening, Virgo and Spica nearly due south as night falls. Watch as they slip away a degree per day to the west as the sky reflects the degree-per-day motion of the Earth around the Sun. If your skies are dark, you might make out the dim box of stars that forms Libra, the scales, the zodiacal constellation that lies between Virgo and Scorpius. STAR OF THE WEEK. ZANIAH (Eta Virginis). An old term -- before we understood that stars do move -- referred to the "fixed stars," the phrase really meant to distinguish real stars from the "wandering stars," the planets. The names applied to stars sometimes appear about as fixed as the stars themselves, that is they, or at least some of them, move around too. "Zaniah," the Eta star of Virgo, the Virgin, refers an angel, the "angel of a-awwa" (the meaning unknown, and with apologies to Arabic readers for leaving out the necessary accents), and was originally applied to Porrima (Gamma Virginis), and later fell to dimmer (mind-fourth magnitude, 3.89) Eta. In a rather special place, Zaniah, to the west of Porrima, is squeezed between the celestial equator and the ecliptic. Of the brighter stars that make the constellation figures, Zaniah is one of the closest to the equator, only 2/3 of a degree to the south of it, and only 10 degrees to the east of the autumnal equinox, the point where the Sun crosses the equator on its way south in September. Zaniah, 250 light years away, is classed as an A (A3) subgiant, the latter meaning that the star seems to be about to give up its central hydrogen fusion, if it has not already. From its surface temperature of 8800 Kelvin (and of course its distance) we can calculate a luminosity 130 times that of the Sun. The star's status and properties, however, are seriously compromised by its seeming triple nature. None of the components can be resolved by eye at the telescope. Ultrashort imaging (to avoid smearing of the image by twinkling) in addition to occultations by the Moon reveal a pair of stars (one fourth magnitude, the other fifth) separated by but 0.12 seconds of arc, or around 10 Astronomical Units. One of them, probably the brighter, is revealed by the spectrograph to be a much closer double with a period of 72 days and an average separation of only half an astronomical unit. This very close double is then orbited by the third outer star. It would seem impossible for a planet to survive the gravitational onslaught of the trio. All three seem to be class A stars, and one or more may be slightly variable. Though individually, each would become a relatively massive white dwarf, the proximity of the close pair will probably disrupt the flow of evolution as the more-massive of them will expand first and will encroach upon the other, a common scenario among close pairs. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From dltman at theramp.net Thu Jun 14 21:42:29 2001 From: dltman at theramp.net (Dean & Tammy Tieman) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Fw: spam--please read as you may have gotten this e-mail Message-ID: <000a01c0f53c$70a55460$7ccdfe40@tieman> I received this message when reporting an incident of SPAM. I am not sure where the message came from, but I think that it may have been fed across our list serve as I recieved two copies of it within less than a minute (as since I am on both the HOU and SkyWatch listservers). I thought I suspect that some of you also received this message. I hope that you did not open it--it contains a virus which raids you address book and then passes itself along. If you did receive this message, you may want to run a Virus Scan to check out your system. > /.... > > [Translate, Traduisent, Ubersetzen, Traducono, Traduzem, Traducen] > > (Translations were done by kind visitors to our site) > > Portuguese: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/portuguese.txt > Spanish: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/spanish.txt > French: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/french.html > Italian: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/italian.txt > Danish: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/danish.txt > ..../ > > > Neither sexyfun.net nor slowmoe.com (the sexyfun.net web hosting > company) is sending the Snowwhite e-mails. These e-mails are sent to > you by the very same virus the attachments of the Snowwhite > e-mails are infected with. This virus, known as Hybris.gen, > will use the computers it infects to collect e-mail addresses. > It then sends a copy of the Snowwhite e-mail to those addresses. This > virus fakes/spoofs the "From:" address to make it appear that the > e-mail came from the sexyfun.net domain. > > The sexyfun.net domain was registered 3-4 months after the virus > was first discovered to maintain a web site containing information > about the Snowwhite e-mails and Hybris.gen virus. > > Below is a copy of a form letter we have been using to inform > people about the e-mail/SPAM/Virus everyone is getting. > > If you have any other questions about this after you read and visit > the URLs in the form letter, please feel free to reply to this email. > > Thank you. > > ======= Start of form letter ======= > > ==== THIS IS NOT A MAILING LIST!! THE USER "hahaha" ==== > ==== DOES NOT EXIST ON WWW.SEXYFUN.NET SERVERS! ==== > ==== THE HYBRIS.GEN VIRUS SENT THE EMAIL TO YOU! ==== > > The domain sexyfun.net was registered on 12/11/2000 to > provide Internet users with information on the SPAM/Virus > people have been receiving containing the e-mail address > hahaha@sexyfun.net. We maintain a web site ( http://www.sexyfun.net/ ) > that contains information about this SPAM/Virus. It contains > helpful information about the Hybris.gen Virus and links to > software you can use to clean your computer if you are infected, > as well as other miscellaneous information. > > The Virus acquires e-mails addresses by monitoring Internet > traffic (incoming/outgoing e-mails, web pages with e-mails on > them, etc.), and sends a copy of itself to the e-mail addresses > it captures. The e-mail that is sent contains a Spoofed/Faked > "From:" field in the header of hahaha@sexyfun.net. If you were > to look at the "Received:" lines in the FULL e-mail header, you > would notice that this e-mail came not from sexyfun.net, but > from some other computer. This infected computer is sometimes, > but not always, owned by a friend who has recently e-mailed you > and is not aware that his or her computer is infected with the virus. > > Here is a URL for a write up of the virus. It will show > you that this virus does indeed send out e-mails with a spoofed/faked > "From:" field. > > http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/hybris.shtml > > The person(s) responsible for this SPAM/Virus spoofed the > e-mail address of the sexyfun.net domain. The owner of the sexyfun.net > domain is NOT affiliated > > with this person or persons, neither is slowmoe.com, which is hosting > the website located at > http://www.sexyfun.net. > > sexyfun.net and slowmoe.com ARE providing information about > this SPAM/Virus in the form of a web site found at > http://www.sexyfun.net to help those whose computers are > infected. > > ========= End of form letter ========= > > -Abuse Admin (abuse@slowmoe.com) > > > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > > > > > > From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 15 08:31:55 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 15, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon disappears from the sky toward the end of the week, as it passes its new phase on Thursday, the 21st. As the lunar crescent wanes during the early morning hours, it will make a nice configuration with brilliant Venus the morning of Monday, the 18th. The following morning, Tuesday the 19th, the slimming crescent will be found beneath the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus and up and to the right of Saturn, which is now just clearing the glare of the Sun. Little Mercury, however, is not so lucky (or perhaps it is we who are not), as this smallest of the inner planets passes inferior conjunction with the Sun on Saturday, June 16. The big date takes place 5 days later. First, the Sun will cross the Summer Solstice in Gemini at 2:38 AM Central Daylight Time (1:38 AM EST, 12:38 PST), marking the first day of astronomical summer in the northern hemisphere, astronomical winter in the southern. At that moment, the northern end of the Earth's axis will be tipped in the direction of the Sun, the Sun will shine overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, will be circumpolar (not setting) at the Arctic Circle, and will not rise at the Antarctic Circle (technically anyway: atmospheric refraction and the extended diameter of the Sun will still make it visible). The Sun will then be as far north as it can get, 23.4 degrees from the equator. For the next 6 months, solar movement will be southerly. On the same date, Thursday the 21st, the new Moon will exactly cover the Sun to produce a total solar eclipse that will be visible along a path through the South Atlantic Ocean and across southern Africa. None of it will be visible in North America, though eastern South America will see a bit of a partial eclipse. The geometry of eclipses requires at least two solar eclipses a year. The June event is the only total eclipse. One other, on December 14, is annular (that is, the Moon will be too far away to completely cover the Sun), and will be visible principally through the Pacific Ocean. None of the news of the Sun can eclipse the current glory of Mars, however. Moving retrograde between Sagittarius and Scorpius, the planet is nicely up in the southeast at the end of twilight. Just look for the brightest thing you can see! Though Mars passed through opposition with the Sun on June 13, its eccentric orbit causes it to get slightly closer to us until -- again -- Thursday, the 21st, when the red planet will be 67,344,000 kilometers (41,846,000 million miles) from us, and at its best for viewing. Even a small telescope can show polar caps and dark markings. To the right of Mars is bright Antares in Scorpius. If you are not too far north, the figure of the celestial scorpion, curved tail, stinger, and all, is quite obvious. STAR OF THE WEEK. GIRTAB (Theta Scorpii). Girtab, Bayer's Theta star within Scorpius, the celestial scorpion, stands out in almost any way you can look at it. The name alone is unusual, in that it comes to us from Sumerian rather than Arabic or Greek, and means simply "the scorpion." Moreover it carries an additional name, "Sargas," also Sumerian, whose meaning is unknown. We'll stick here with Girtab, though Sargas is commonly used as well. Though the most southerly extent of the Sun is in neighboring Sagittarius, Scorpius is the most southerly of the zodiacal constellations. And bright second magnitude (1.87) Girtab is the most southerly BRIGHT star in the Scorpion, closely anchoring the southern curve of the scorpion's tail. At almost exactly 40 degrees below the celestial equator (and beat out only by much dimmer third magnitude Eta Scorpii, and then by only 1/6 degree), Girtab is invisible north of 50 degrees north latitude. The star's southerly position has allowed northern observers to use its visibility as a test of the night-sky brightness near the horizon. Scorpius is filled with bright blue-white stars of class B. As a yellow-white class F (F1) bright giant, Girtab is again an exception. From its distance of 272 light years, the star radiates 960 times more energy than the Sun from a surface with a temperature of 7200 Kelvin, its radius 20 times solar, making it a true giant indeed. Though its equatorial rotation speed is high (over 50 times that of the Sun), the large size still gives it a fairly long rotation period of 10 days (or less). Girtab is unusual too in our knowledge of its evolutionary status. There is no question that the star, which weighs in with a mass 3.7 times that of the Sun, is rapidly evolving with a dead helium core toward lower temperatures. One hundred million years ago, it WAS a blue class B star, one that would have fit right in with its current scorpian neighbors. As the star swells and the surface cools, it should in under a million years become a Cepheid variable like Mekbuda, and then become a red giant 5 times brighter than it is now, at which point the helium in its core will begin to fuse to carbon and oxygen, setting the stage for it to become a massive -- and distinctly single -- white dwarf. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 22 09:15:10 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 22, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. As busy as the sky was last week, it is quiet this week. The biggest event seems to be the Moon's passing its first quarter on the evening of Wednesday the 27th just about the time the sky darkens in North America. Four days before that, on Saturday the 23rd, during its ascent of the evening sky in the waxing crescent phase, the Moon passes through perigee, when it is closest to the Earth. Two planets, mythological opposites, now rule opposite portions of the sky. In the morning, Venus, the ancient epitome of love and beauty shines gloriously, its light a creamy white. This by-far- brightest of all planets now rises south of the classical figure of Aries around 3 AM well before twilight begins to brighten the eastern sky. In the evening, Mars has already risen by sunset. By late evening, its brilliant orange-red glow dominates the southeastern sky between the classical zodiacal constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. The other ancient planets, those known from ancient times, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury, are out of sight, though Saturn can be glimpsed in the early dawn. Venus and Mars are in reality the opposites of their mythological natures. Venus, for all its planetary beauty, is an inhospitable place, the bright reflecting clouds made of sulfuric acid that float in a thick, dense carbon dioxide atmosphere that drives the surface temperature to 470 degrees C (nearly 900 degrees F), about the temperature of a self-cleaning oven. Mars, on the other hand, is for all its cold near-airlessness, a place we could actually visit, and almost certainly will sometime in the future. The temperature can reach the freezing mark, and powerful evidence shows that water once flowed on the planet, though the air (again carbon dioxide) pressure -- about 1 percent that of Earth's -- no longer allows it. As the sky darkens, orange Arcturus shines high to the south, reddish Antares down and to the left and to the right of Mars. Compare their colors. Which appears the reddest? We probably all differ in our assessments. Down and to the right of Arcturus, Spica shines blue-white, the color contrast between it and the other three bodies quite noticeable. To the right of Spica is the box of stars that makes Corvus the Crow, a springtime constellation now making way for the stars of summer. Farther yet below Spica are the sprawling stars of northern Centaurus. If you are reasonably south of about 40 degrees north latitude, you might glimpse the fuzzy ball of the grandest globular cluster of stars in the Galaxy, magnificent Omega Centauri. STAR OF THE WEEK. ALCHIBA (Alpha Corvi). It is standard "knowledge" in astronomy that "Alpha" represents the brightest star in a constellation, "Beta" the second brightest, and so on. While such is often true, the rule is as much broken as held to, sometimes dramatically. Alchiba, the Alpha star of Corvus, the Crow, is a fine example. One wonders what Johannes Bayer, who lettered the stars in his great "Uranographia" of 1603, had in mind. The name, which from Arabic refers to a "tent" and is meant to describe the four fairly bright stars that make the distorted box of Corvus, is now erroneously applied to dim Alpha, which drops down from the right-hand side of the box and is outstripped by Beta, Gamma (Gienah), Delta (Algorab), and even Epsilon. Of the Alpha stars of the classical constellations, Alchiba, at mid-fourth magnitude (4.02), ranks number 3 from the bottom, beaten out (if that is the word) only by Alpha Crateris (Alkes) and Alpha Coronae Australis (Alfecca Merdiana). (Of all Alpha stars, including the modern constellations, the dimness record goes to faint-fifth magnitude and un-named Alpha Comae Berenices.) Classification of Alchiba has been a bit confused. Once considered a giant and now given as a class F (F0) dwarf or subdwarf, its luminosity (only four times that of the Sun) and temperature (7000 Kelvin) strongly suggest an ordinary hydrogen-fusing dwarf, in fact a near-subdwarf that shines less brightly than other stars of its temperature class. Quite close to us, at a distance of only 48 light years, if the star were only 3 times farther away, it would be invisible to the naked eye. It is more similar to the Sun than it actually appears, its mass only about 1.2 times solar, just younger and hotter. Subdwarfs are not really too faint for their temperatures, but too hot for their luminosities, the result of low metal contents in their atmospheres. While clearly not one of the classical subdwarfs (which have quite low metal contents), the temperature-luminosity status of Alchiba is consistent with a fairly low iron abundance (relative to hydrogen, which makes 90 percent of the outer layers of nearly all stars) of 25 percent that of the Sun. There is some evidence from its spectrum that the star has a close binary companion, though nothing at all is known about it. Alchiba will in 10 billion or so years die as a common, relatively low-mass white dwarf shrunken to the size of Earth. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From watersalesedwards at hotmail.com Thu Jun 28 15:00:43 2001 From: watersalesedwards at hotmail.com (watersalesedwards@hotmail.com) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: test Message-ID: <200106281900.OAA18047@forums.depaul.edu> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.depaul.edu/pipermail/skywatch/attachments/20010628/f66f347a/attachment.htm From GPOLLOCK at isbe.net Fri Jun 29 14:29:44 2001 From: GPOLLOCK at isbe.net (POLLOCK GWEN) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: FW: U.S. Geological Survey Weekly Science Update Message-ID: <5AD21593ECDDD111986D0000F81EDAEB09C43A86@smtp.isbe.state.il.us> FYI: June update from USGS Gwen Pollock **note new email address Illinois State Board of Education Division for Mathematics and Science 100 North First Street, N-243 Springfield, IL 62777 217/558-6284 217/785=9210 fax gpollock@isbe.net < mailto:gpollock@isbe.net > -----Original Message----- From: Robert R Holmes [mailto:bholmes@usgs.gov] Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 9:21 AM To: gpollock@isbe.net; phjones@isbe.net Cc: Robert R Holmes; Donna M Ayers Subject: U.S. Geological Survey Weekly Science Update Whooping Cranes About to Graduate From School!: On Monday, July 2, Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton will join members of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, to see the most endangered species of crane in the world in the final stages of "avian ground school" before being transported to Wisconsin for flight training behind ultralight aircraft. After three months rest at Wisconsin's Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, the flock will be led by three ultralight aircraft through seven states enroute to wintering grounds at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. At 1,250 miles, this experiment will be the longest human-led migration in history, and could take from four to six weeks. Last fall, biologists and ultralight pilots successfully led a flock of (non-endangered) sandhill cranes on the same route to determine whether such an experiment could possibly aid in re-establishing a migratory population of whooping cranes in the eastern United States. USGS and FWS biologists have worked together on this successful project, along with members of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, which is a unique coalition of government agencies and private, non-profit organizations from the U.S. and Canada that have committed time, resources and money to this experiment. USGS Science Goes to Camp--Science Camp 2001: The USGS is proud to announce the sixth year of the Reston (Va.) Association-USGS Science Camp partnership. Science camp consists of four, two-week sessions that end on August 17. Children ages 8-12 work in a science laboratory, have ample time to work at computers, and are visited by guest scientists each week. There are 60 children in each session. This summer, the four sessions are: Transportation Trek (June 25-July 6), 2001: A Camp Odyssey (July 9-July 20), Around the World in 10 Days (July 23-August 3), and Journey to the Center of the Earth (August 6-August 17). Sturgeon Conference: USGS scientist Bruce Manny will moderate a session on Conservation, enhancement, and restoration on July 11 at the Fourth International Symposium on Sturgeon in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Scientists from all over the world will attend the meeting and discuss the culture, diseases, physiology, status, and restoration of all species and subspecies of sturgeon. Minerals at MineExpo: A USGS presentation at Venezuela's MineExpo, held in Caracas during the week of July 9, will explore U.S. market opportunities for Venezuelan minerals. USGS scientist Ivette Torres will be an invited speaker at a technical symposium at MineExpo, which is sponsored by Venezuela's Chamber of Mines and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. USGS minerals information reports show that the U.S. is a net importer of more than 50 mineral commodities. Will Bald Eagles Fly Again Off California Coast?: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has asked USGS scientist Charles J. Henny to participate in a review panel to evaluate the feasibility of re-introducing bald eagles to the northern Channel Islands off southern California. The first meeting of the four-member panel is set for July 24 in Sacramento. Wisconsin DNR Recognizes USGS: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has enjoyed a productive relationship with the USGS for more than 30 years. To recognize this, the State of Wisconsin Natural Resources Board will present the USGS with Wisconsin Recognition Awards at a ceremony on June 27 in Kenosha. The awards, presented by DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzello, acknowledge past and ongoing studies, including work on the effects of acid rain deposition, the biogeochemical fate of mercury in aquatic systems, and the ecological consequences of mercury contamination on wildlife. Scientists Kevin Kenow and Warren Gebert will accept the awards on behalf of the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center and the USGS District Office. Oil Spill Response Data Available On Line: Oil spill risk information used by community planners and oil spill teams is now available from the USGS at http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/epa_atlas/overview.html . The USGS worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide oil spill risk information to community planners and oil spill responders that may be at risk during a spill. The USGS collects, inventories, and distributes data about resources that are sensitive to oil spills such as threatened and endangered species, natural resource areas, and water intakes. The data also includes information about potential spill sources such as oil pipelines and storage facilities. The web page provides the ability to quickly locate and download resource information in the form of Inland Sensitivity Atlas maps, documents, and Geographic Information System (GIS) data. The USGS Inland Waterways Spill Response Mapping Project covers Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and includes the Upper Mississippi River, Ohio River, and portions of the Great Lakes Basin. Spatial Data Infrastructure Meeting: The Executive Secretary of the Board on Geographic Names met recently with State Department officials and a team of cartographers from the United Nations to discuss an initiative to develop a spatial data infrastructure in which geographic names will be a critical data layer. Minerals Data/Mining Engineering: An article by USGS scientists David Doan (ret.) and David Menzie in the July issue of Mining Engineering states that since 1993, U.S. reliance on imports of raw and processed materials of mineral origin has increased dramatically. The difference in the value of U.S. mineral imports and exports, which was $4 billion in 1993, has increased to $29 billion in 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- Robert R. Holmes, Jr., P.E. bholmes@usgs.gov District Chief U.S. Geological Survey, WRD Urbana, Illinois 217-344-0037, ext3005 il.water.usgs.gov ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.depaul.edu/pipermail/skywatch/attachments/20010629/8dcfd2ce/attachment.htm From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 29 20:44:37 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 29, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon waxes through its gibbous phase early in the week, and passes through full on Thursday, July 5. The night of Monday, the 2nd, it will pass six degrees north of Mars, the red planet so brilliant that we will have little trouble seeing it even in bright moonlight. The tilt of the Martian orbit has taken Mars a bit below the ecliptic (the apparent solar path), whereas that of the lunar orbit has taken it a bit above, hence the rather large separation of the two bodies upon their conjunction. If conditions are right for a solar eclipse, as they were on June 21st, then they are usually right for a preceding or succeeding lunar eclipse (that is, the Moon must be crossing the ecliptic while new in the case of a solar eclipse, full in the case of a lunar). As a result, the Moon will undergo a partial eclipse at this full phase, on Thursday the 5th. Unfortunately, the event -- in which the Moon only partly immerses itself in the Earth's shadow -- will not be visible in North America. Those in the opposite hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean), however, will get a nice view, including Hawaiians. The Earth also takes the stage, as it passes through its aphelion point, where it is farthest from the Sun, on the Fourth of July. At a distance of 94,502,836 miles (152.088 million kilometers), our planet will be 3.5 percent farther from the Sun than when it passed perihelion, its closest point, last January 4, giving us 7 percent less solar warmth. Obviously, given the usual northern hemisphere July heat, the distance between the Earth and the Sun has little to do with the seasons, which are caused by the 23.4 degree tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation relative to its orbital perpendicular. All things being equal, the distance variation would cause southern hemisphere seasons to be more extreme than those in the northern hemisphere, but the effect is lost in the asymmetric distribution of the oceans, the southern hemisphere far more watery than the northern. Venus remains a stunning morning sight, while Mars maintains its rule over night, the red planet retrograding through the southern zodiac between Scorpius and Sagittarius. Look to the right of bright Mars to find Antares, the scorpion's alpha star. If you look down and to the right of Antares, and if you are far enough south, you can see the bright stars of Lupus the Wolf, one of the most southerly of the ancient constellations, the wolf held in the grip of Centaurus, the Centaur, even farther south and to the east. If Lupus and Centaurus are out of sight, instead admire the Big Dipper high overhead in early evening. Look then to the south to see the pair of stars that makes most of Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs) and then to the sprawl of fainter stars that make Coma Berenices, Berenices Hair, a cluster that makes a lovely sight in binoculars. Correction: Last week's Skylights claimed Alpha Comae Berenices to be the faintest "alpha star." The magnitudes of the individual stars of the double were not combined. The faintest alpha star is Alpha Octantis, of Octans, the Octant, the constellation that contains the South Celestial Pole. STAR OF THE WEEK. DIADEM (Alpha Comae Berenices). Not quite the brightest star in Coma Berenices (Berenices Hair), the Alpha star just loses out to Beta. The prominent portion of Coma Berenices is the beautiful Coma Berenices cluster. Diadem (Alpha) and Beta are both off to the eastern side of the constellation, and neither is a part of the cluster itself (which is 4.4 times farther away). The name "Diadem," a jewelled crown in the hair, is of modern and unknown origin, and is never really used for the Alpha star, which is commonly known just as Alpha Comae. Alpha Comae is a close double star, its two class F (F5) dwarfs (ordinary hydrogen fusing stars) almost identical to each other, very much as are the twin class F0 (and just slightly warmer) stars of Porrima (Gamma Virginis). Their apparent magnitudes of 5.07 together make Alpha Comae a fourth magnitude (4.3) star. The orbit of the pair is almost exactly edge-on, causing the two to appear to move back and forth in a straight line over a period of 25.85 years. At maximum separation they are not quite a second of arc apart, while at close passage (which takes place during the year 2001) they are effectively inseparable. The orbital tilt, however, a mere tenth of a degree against the line of sight, is enough to keep the stars from eclipsing each other. Averaging 12 astronomical units apart (a bit farther than Saturn is from the Sun), they come as close as 6 AU and go as far apart as 19 AU. The closeness of the pair makes distance measure by parallax (the apparent shift in position as the Earth orbits the Sun) from space (with the Hipparcos satellite) nearly impossible. The old ground-based result, however, of 60 light years gives the stars just the luminosities expected of F5 dwarfs, so it must be very close to correct. With temperatures of 6500 Kelvin, Diadem's stars are each 2.5 times brighter than the Sun and have masses about 25 percent greater, their luminosities and temperatures suggesting that they are still quite young. One at least is magnetically active like the Sun, with a rotation period of only 3 days (the fast spin generating the magnetic field). They are close enough in characteristics that they might even evolve together to produce a rare double giant star. Their mutual fate is to be an orbiting pair of identical lower-mass white dwarfs. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From waterinfo9754 at hotmail.com Sat Jun 30 19:31:01 2001 From: waterinfo9754 at hotmail.com (waterinfo9754@hotmail.com) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:40 2003 Subject: Are You Sure Your Water Is Safe To Drink? adv Message-ID: <20010630173101.ZQT284.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@mc7.law5.hotmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.depaul.edu/pipermail/skywatch/attachments/20010630/2cf68512/attachment.htm From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 1 08:22:07 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 1, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The next Skylights will appear Sunday, June 10. The Moon passes through its full phase this week, when it is opposite the Sun, on Tuesday, June 5. It will on that day rise near sunset and set near sunrise. Thereafter, it begins to thin through its waning gibbous phase. The night of June 5 the Moon will appear up and to the right of the planet Mars, while the following night it will have moved to appear up and to the left of the red planet. As we approach the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, when the Sun will be as far north as it can get (and as high as it can get for northerners), this full Moon will be the year's second-most southerly, the "Rose Moon" rising in the southeast, setting in the southwest. The brightest and dimmest planets (as seen from Earth) make the rest of the planetary news. Venus, very slightly dimming, reaches its greatest elongation west, when it is 46 degrees to the west of the Sun. This lovely planet, third only to the Sun and Moon in apparent brightness, now rises in the east just ahead of morning twilight. Even though the angle between it and the Sun now decreases, however, Venus will continue to rise earlier, and until mid-August into ever darker skies. Earliest Venus-rise will occur around mid-July. At the same time, dim Pluto, not visible without a good-sized telescope, is in opposition to the Sun the night of Monday, June 4. When the Moon reaches its full phase, it will lie roughly 10 degrees below the frigid outer planet, which some take not to be a planet at all. In truth, Pluto appears to be some kind of hybrid object that bridges the gap between the outer planets and the building blocks (the comets) that created them. Apparently there was just not enough raw material in these distant reaches of the Solar System to make a respectable planet like Neptune or Uranus. The early evening presents us with the tail of the longest constellation in the sky, Hydra , the Water Serpent, which wraps itself a third of the way around the celestial sphere. Find Corvus, the Crow, a small irregular box of stars that for northerners appears rather low in the south around 9 PM. The top two stars point leftward to Spica in Virgo, while the bottom two point to otherwise un-named Gamma Hydrae, the next-to-the-last bright star (such as it is) that lies in the celestial snake. Snakes of some sort are quite popular, others being summer's Serpens (the Serpent), which comes in two parts, the southern hemisphere's Hydrus (another water snake), and, if you wish to stretch the definition a bit, the northern hemisphere's Draco, the Dragon, whose tail winds between the Dippers. STAR OF THE WEEK. GIAUSAR (Lambda Draconis). The front bowl stars of the Big Dipper are famed for pointing at Polaris in Ursa Major's Little Dipper. What, however, of the stars along the way? The path to Polaris is so familiar that we rarely stop to see the other sights that lie along it. About a third of the way from Dubhe (the Big Dipper's front bowl star) to Polaris (and a just a bit to the east) lies Giausar, the tail star of Draco the Dragon, to which Bayer assigned the Greek letter Lambda. The Arabic name of this mid-fourth magnitude (3.84) star is confusing at best. At times thought to refer to a "central one" much as does the Arabic name of Orion, the word actually refers to the "nodes" of the lunar orbit, the points at which the Moon crosses the ecliptic plane twice a lunar month -- which makes little sense, since Draco contains the ecliptic POLE, and is therefore quite distant from the ecliptic itself. Rather clearly, the name was applied in error. The star is about as neglected by research astronomers as it is by even dedicated skywatchers, rather too bad as it has -- as a class M (M0) red giant -- one of the rarer of naked-eye types. Over the past 20 years it has been mentioned less than 40 times. It is neglected by other stars too, as it has no known companions. Giausar is one of the sky's cooler and larger stars. With a temperature of 3525 Kelvin, it shines to us (if the estimate of invisible infrared radiation is correct) from a distance of 335 light years with a luminosity 1870 times that of the Sun, which leads to a radius of 0.55 astronomical units, half the size of Earth's orbit. Large enough to have had its angular diameter measured (at 0.0073 seconds of arc), direct measure of radius makes it somewhat smaller, a "mere" 0.37 astronomical units, about the size of Mercury's orbit. Even the star's general behavior is obscure. Classified as a "semi-regular variable," there is some indication that it changes brightness erratically by about a tenth of the magnitude. Giausar appears to be on the "asymptotic giant branch," in a portion of its evolution in which it is brightening as a giant star for the second time. With a dead carbon core, the star (of perhaps two solar masses) will most likely begin to pulsate more vigorously as it prepares to shed its outer layers and to turn itself into a white dwarf, as someday will the Sun. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From GPOLLOCK at isbe.net Mon Jun 4 09:48:25 2001 From: GPOLLOCK at isbe.net (POLLOCK GWEN) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: FW: Student Rocket Launch June 6 Message-ID: <5AD21593ECDDD111986D0000F81EDAEB09C43952@smtp.isbe.state.il.us> great news to share, if you can pick this up Gwen Pollock **note new email address Illinois State Board of Education Division for Mathematics and Science 100 North First Street, N-243 Springfield, IL 62777 217/558-6284 217/785=9210 fax gpollock@isbe.net -----Original Message----- From: lzielin [mailto:lzielin@interaccess.com] Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 12:34 AM To: POLLOCK GWEN Subject: Student Rocket Launch June 6 Hello ... Some of my students and I will be launching a suborbital rocket on June 6. A webcast will be broadcast live. Check it out...The website is now available at: http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/rocket_cast/index.htm Enjoy Lynne From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Sun Jun 10 21:13:03 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the short week starting Sunday, June 10, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon, beginning the week in its waning gibbous phase, passes third quarter the evening of Wednesday, the 13th, and thereafter wanes through crescent, every day rising later after midnight. It passes south of Neptune, in Capricornus, on Sunday the 10th, and south of Uranus, in the far eastern end of the same constellation, the following day. The two planets outward from the Earth provide a wonderful contrast. Jupiter, the Solar System's giant, and ordinarily the second brightest of planets, passes conjunction with the Sun on Thursday the 14th, and will be quite invisible. Mars, on the other hand, is now at its best, passing opposition to the Sun the day before, Wednesday, the 13th. On opposition night, Mars will rise at sunset, set at sunrise, cross the celestial meridian to the south at midnight (1 AM daylight time), and have its greatest angular retrograde (westerly) speed. It will also about as close to the Earth as possible during this orbital round, 68.6 million kilometers, or 42.6 million miles. Unfortunately, the red planet, which now shines brighter than any star in the sky (and is now exceeded only by the morning's Venus, the Moon, and the Sun), will also be at about its most southerly position (just to the west of Sagittarius), and for northern observers about as low as it can get. Turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere then makes detail more difficult to view by telescope. After opposition, Mars will begin to rise before sunset, will move more and more into the early evening sky, and will be with nicely us for the remainder of the year. Mars passes opposition to the Sun every 780 days. The orbit is so eccentric that opposition distance vary considerably. The next one will be better. The minimum distance is 56 million kilometers (35 million miles), the maximum almost twice as great. Only Venus comes closer. Mars actually lies in far southern Ophiuchus between Sagittarius and Scorpius, providing a good chance to compare the color of the planet with its namesake Antares (Ares the Greek version of the war god), which is nicely visible to the far right of Mars. As spring slowly blends into summer, these beautiful summertime constellations, which contain the Milky Way, will begin to overtake the more drab spring skies, which now still dominate in the early evening, Virgo and Spica nearly due south as night falls. Watch as they slip away a degree per day to the west as the sky reflects the degree-per-day motion of the Earth around the Sun. If your skies are dark, you might make out the dim box of stars that forms Libra, the scales, the zodiacal constellation that lies between Virgo and Scorpius. STAR OF THE WEEK. ZANIAH (Eta Virginis). An old term -- before we understood that stars do move -- referred to the "fixed stars," the phrase really meant to distinguish real stars from the "wandering stars," the planets. The names applied to stars sometimes appear about as fixed as the stars themselves, that is they, or at least some of them, move around too. "Zaniah," the Eta star of Virgo, the Virgin, refers an angel, the "angel of a-awwa" (the meaning unknown, and with apologies to Arabic readers for leaving out the necessary accents), and was originally applied to Porrima (Gamma Virginis), and later fell to dimmer (mind-fourth magnitude, 3.89) Eta. In a rather special place, Zaniah, to the west of Porrima, is squeezed between the celestial equator and the ecliptic. Of the brighter stars that make the constellation figures, Zaniah is one of the closest to the equator, only 2/3 of a degree to the south of it, and only 10 degrees to the east of the autumnal equinox, the point where the Sun crosses the equator on its way south in September. Zaniah, 250 light years away, is classed as an A (A3) subgiant, the latter meaning that the star seems to be about to give up its central hydrogen fusion, if it has not already. From its surface temperature of 8800 Kelvin (and of course its distance) we can calculate a luminosity 130 times that of the Sun. The star's status and properties, however, are seriously compromised by its seeming triple nature. None of the components can be resolved by eye at the telescope. Ultrashort imaging (to avoid smearing of the image by twinkling) in addition to occultations by the Moon reveal a pair of stars (one fourth magnitude, the other fifth) separated by but 0.12 seconds of arc, or around 10 Astronomical Units. One of them, probably the brighter, is revealed by the spectrograph to be a much closer double with a period of 72 days and an average separation of only half an astronomical unit. This very close double is then orbited by the third outer star. It would seem impossible for a planet to survive the gravitational onslaught of the trio. All three seem to be class A stars, and one or more may be slightly variable. Though individually, each would become a relatively massive white dwarf, the proximity of the close pair will probably disrupt the flow of evolution as the more-massive of them will expand first and will encroach upon the other, a common scenario among close pairs. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From dltman at theramp.net Thu Jun 14 21:42:29 2001 From: dltman at theramp.net (Dean & Tammy Tieman) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Fw: spam--please read as you may have gotten this e-mail Message-ID: <000a01c0f53c$70a55460$7ccdfe40@tieman> I received this message when reporting an incident of SPAM. I am not sure where the message came from, but I think that it may have been fed across our list serve as I recieved two copies of it within less than a minute (as since I am on both the HOU and SkyWatch listservers). I thought I suspect that some of you also received this message. I hope that you did not open it--it contains a virus which raids you address book and then passes itself along. If you did receive this message, you may want to run a Virus Scan to check out your system. > /.... > > [Translate, Traduisent, Ubersetzen, Traducono, Traduzem, Traducen] > > (Translations were done by kind visitors to our site) > > Portuguese: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/portuguese.txt > Spanish: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/spanish.txt > French: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/french.html > Italian: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/italian.txt > Danish: www.sexyfun.net/letters/form/danish.txt > ..../ > > > Neither sexyfun.net nor slowmoe.com (the sexyfun.net web hosting > company) is sending the Snowwhite e-mails. These e-mails are sent to > you by the very same virus the attachments of the Snowwhite > e-mails are infected with. This virus, known as Hybris.gen, > will use the computers it infects to collect e-mail addresses. > It then sends a copy of the Snowwhite e-mail to those addresses. This > virus fakes/spoofs the "From:" address to make it appear that the > e-mail came from the sexyfun.net domain. > > The sexyfun.net domain was registered 3-4 months after the virus > was first discovered to maintain a web site containing information > about the Snowwhite e-mails and Hybris.gen virus. > > Below is a copy of a form letter we have been using to inform > people about the e-mail/SPAM/Virus everyone is getting. > > If you have any other questions about this after you read and visit > the URLs in the form letter, please feel free to reply to this email. > > Thank you. > > ======= Start of form letter ======= > > ==== THIS IS NOT A MAILING LIST!! THE USER "hahaha" ==== > ==== DOES NOT EXIST ON WWW.SEXYFUN.NET SERVERS! ==== > ==== THE HYBRIS.GEN VIRUS SENT THE EMAIL TO YOU! ==== > > The domain sexyfun.net was registered on 12/11/2000 to > provide Internet users with information on the SPAM/Virus > people have been receiving containing the e-mail address > hahaha@sexyfun.net. We maintain a web site ( http://www.sexyfun.net/ ) > that contains information about this SPAM/Virus. It contains > helpful information about the Hybris.gen Virus and links to > software you can use to clean your computer if you are infected, > as well as other miscellaneous information. > > The Virus acquires e-mails addresses by monitoring Internet > traffic (incoming/outgoing e-mails, web pages with e-mails on > them, etc.), and sends a copy of itself to the e-mail addresses > it captures. The e-mail that is sent contains a Spoofed/Faked > "From:" field in the header of hahaha@sexyfun.net. If you were > to look at the "Received:" lines in the FULL e-mail header, you > would notice that this e-mail came not from sexyfun.net, but > from some other computer. This infected computer is sometimes, > but not always, owned by a friend who has recently e-mailed you > and is not aware that his or her computer is infected with the virus. > > Here is a URL for a write up of the virus. It will show > you that this virus does indeed send out e-mails with a spoofed/faked > "From:" field. > > http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/hybris.shtml > > The person(s) responsible for this SPAM/Virus spoofed the > e-mail address of the sexyfun.net domain. The owner of the sexyfun.net > domain is NOT affiliated > > with this person or persons, neither is slowmoe.com, which is hosting > the website located at > http://www.sexyfun.net. > > sexyfun.net and slowmoe.com ARE providing information about > this SPAM/Virus in the form of a web site found at > http://www.sexyfun.net to help those whose computers are > infected. > > ========= End of form letter ========= > > -Abuse Admin (abuse@slowmoe.com) > > > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > > > > > > From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 15 08:31:55 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 15, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon disappears from the sky toward the end of the week, as it passes its new phase on Thursday, the 21st. As the lunar crescent wanes during the early morning hours, it will make a nice configuration with brilliant Venus the morning of Monday, the 18th. The following morning, Tuesday the 19th, the slimming crescent will be found beneath the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus and up and to the right of Saturn, which is now just clearing the glare of the Sun. Little Mercury, however, is not so lucky (or perhaps it is we who are not), as this smallest of the inner planets passes inferior conjunction with the Sun on Saturday, June 16. The big date takes place 5 days later. First, the Sun will cross the Summer Solstice in Gemini at 2:38 AM Central Daylight Time (1:38 AM EST, 12:38 PST), marking the first day of astronomical summer in the northern hemisphere, astronomical winter in the southern. At that moment, the northern end of the Earth's axis will be tipped in the direction of the Sun, the Sun will shine overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, will be circumpolar (not setting) at the Arctic Circle, and will not rise at the Antarctic Circle (technically anyway: atmospheric refraction and the extended diameter of the Sun will still make it visible). The Sun will then be as far north as it can get, 23.4 degrees from the equator. For the next 6 months, solar movement will be southerly. On the same date, Thursday the 21st, the new Moon will exactly cover the Sun to produce a total solar eclipse that will be visible along a path through the South Atlantic Ocean and across southern Africa. None of it will be visible in North America, though eastern South America will see a bit of a partial eclipse. The geometry of eclipses requires at least two solar eclipses a year. The June event is the only total eclipse. One other, on December 14, is annular (that is, the Moon will be too far away to completely cover the Sun), and will be visible principally through the Pacific Ocean. None of the news of the Sun can eclipse the current glory of Mars, however. Moving retrograde between Sagittarius and Scorpius, the planet is nicely up in the southeast at the end of twilight. Just look for the brightest thing you can see! Though Mars passed through opposition with the Sun on June 13, its eccentric orbit causes it to get slightly closer to us until -- again -- Thursday, the 21st, when the red planet will be 67,344,000 kilometers (41,846,000 million miles) from us, and at its best for viewing. Even a small telescope can show polar caps and dark markings. To the right of Mars is bright Antares in Scorpius. If you are not too far north, the figure of the celestial scorpion, curved tail, stinger, and all, is quite obvious. STAR OF THE WEEK. GIRTAB (Theta Scorpii). Girtab, Bayer's Theta star within Scorpius, the celestial scorpion, stands out in almost any way you can look at it. The name alone is unusual, in that it comes to us from Sumerian rather than Arabic or Greek, and means simply "the scorpion." Moreover it carries an additional name, "Sargas," also Sumerian, whose meaning is unknown. We'll stick here with Girtab, though Sargas is commonly used as well. Though the most southerly extent of the Sun is in neighboring Sagittarius, Scorpius is the most southerly of the zodiacal constellations. And bright second magnitude (1.87) Girtab is the most southerly BRIGHT star in the Scorpion, closely anchoring the southern curve of the scorpion's tail. At almost exactly 40 degrees below the celestial equator (and beat out only by much dimmer third magnitude Eta Scorpii, and then by only 1/6 degree), Girtab is invisible north of 50 degrees north latitude. The star's southerly position has allowed northern observers to use its visibility as a test of the night-sky brightness near the horizon. Scorpius is filled with bright blue-white stars of class B. As a yellow-white class F (F1) bright giant, Girtab is again an exception. From its distance of 272 light years, the star radiates 960 times more energy than the Sun from a surface with a temperature of 7200 Kelvin, its radius 20 times solar, making it a true giant indeed. Though its equatorial rotation speed is high (over 50 times that of the Sun), the large size still gives it a fairly long rotation period of 10 days (or less). Girtab is unusual too in our knowledge of its evolutionary status. There is no question that the star, which weighs in with a mass 3.7 times that of the Sun, is rapidly evolving with a dead helium core toward lower temperatures. One hundred million years ago, it WAS a blue class B star, one that would have fit right in with its current scorpian neighbors. As the star swells and the surface cools, it should in under a million years become a Cepheid variable like Mekbuda, and then become a red giant 5 times brighter than it is now, at which point the helium in its core will begin to fuse to carbon and oxygen, setting the stage for it to become a massive -- and distinctly single -- white dwarf. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 22 09:15:10 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 22, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. As busy as the sky was last week, it is quiet this week. The biggest event seems to be the Moon's passing its first quarter on the evening of Wednesday the 27th just about the time the sky darkens in North America. Four days before that, on Saturday the 23rd, during its ascent of the evening sky in the waxing crescent phase, the Moon passes through perigee, when it is closest to the Earth. Two planets, mythological opposites, now rule opposite portions of the sky. In the morning, Venus, the ancient epitome of love and beauty shines gloriously, its light a creamy white. This by-far- brightest of all planets now rises south of the classical figure of Aries around 3 AM well before twilight begins to brighten the eastern sky. In the evening, Mars has already risen by sunset. By late evening, its brilliant orange-red glow dominates the southeastern sky between the classical zodiacal constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. The other ancient planets, those known from ancient times, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury, are out of sight, though Saturn can be glimpsed in the early dawn. Venus and Mars are in reality the opposites of their mythological natures. Venus, for all its planetary beauty, is an inhospitable place, the bright reflecting clouds made of sulfuric acid that float in a thick, dense carbon dioxide atmosphere that drives the surface temperature to 470 degrees C (nearly 900 degrees F), about the temperature of a self-cleaning oven. Mars, on the other hand, is for all its cold near-airlessness, a place we could actually visit, and almost certainly will sometime in the future. The temperature can reach the freezing mark, and powerful evidence shows that water once flowed on the planet, though the air (again carbon dioxide) pressure -- about 1 percent that of Earth's -- no longer allows it. As the sky darkens, orange Arcturus shines high to the south, reddish Antares down and to the left and to the right of Mars. Compare their colors. Which appears the reddest? We probably all differ in our assessments. Down and to the right of Arcturus, Spica shines blue-white, the color contrast between it and the other three bodies quite noticeable. To the right of Spica is the box of stars that makes Corvus the Crow, a springtime constellation now making way for the stars of summer. Farther yet below Spica are the sprawling stars of northern Centaurus. If you are reasonably south of about 40 degrees north latitude, you might glimpse the fuzzy ball of the grandest globular cluster of stars in the Galaxy, magnificent Omega Centauri. STAR OF THE WEEK. ALCHIBA (Alpha Corvi). It is standard "knowledge" in astronomy that "Alpha" represents the brightest star in a constellation, "Beta" the second brightest, and so on. While such is often true, the rule is as much broken as held to, sometimes dramatically. Alchiba, the Alpha star of Corvus, the Crow, is a fine example. One wonders what Johannes Bayer, who lettered the stars in his great "Uranographia" of 1603, had in mind. The name, which from Arabic refers to a "tent" and is meant to describe the four fairly bright stars that make the distorted box of Corvus, is now erroneously applied to dim Alpha, which drops down from the right-hand side of the box and is outstripped by Beta, Gamma (Gienah), Delta (Algorab), and even Epsilon. Of the Alpha stars of the classical constellations, Alchiba, at mid-fourth magnitude (4.02), ranks number 3 from the bottom, beaten out (if that is the word) only by Alpha Crateris (Alkes) and Alpha Coronae Australis (Alfecca Merdiana). (Of all Alpha stars, including the modern constellations, the dimness record goes to faint-fifth magnitude and un-named Alpha Comae Berenices.) Classification of Alchiba has been a bit confused. Once considered a giant and now given as a class F (F0) dwarf or subdwarf, its luminosity (only four times that of the Sun) and temperature (7000 Kelvin) strongly suggest an ordinary hydrogen-fusing dwarf, in fact a near-subdwarf that shines less brightly than other stars of its temperature class. Quite close to us, at a distance of only 48 light years, if the star were only 3 times farther away, it would be invisible to the naked eye. It is more similar to the Sun than it actually appears, its mass only about 1.2 times solar, just younger and hotter. Subdwarfs are not really too faint for their temperatures, but too hot for their luminosities, the result of low metal contents in their atmospheres. While clearly not one of the classical subdwarfs (which have quite low metal contents), the temperature-luminosity status of Alchiba is consistent with a fairly low iron abundance (relative to hydrogen, which makes 90 percent of the outer layers of nearly all stars) of 25 percent that of the Sun. There is some evidence from its spectrum that the star has a close binary companion, though nothing at all is known about it. Alchiba will in 10 billion or so years die as a common, relatively low-mass white dwarf shrunken to the size of Earth. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From watersalesedwards at hotmail.com Thu Jun 28 15:00:43 2001 From: watersalesedwards at hotmail.com (watersalesedwards@hotmail.com) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: test Message-ID: <200106281900.OAA18047@forums.depaul.edu> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.depaul.edu/pipermail/skywatch/attachments/20010628/f66f347a/attachment-0001.htm From GPOLLOCK at isbe.net Fri Jun 29 14:29:44 2001 From: GPOLLOCK at isbe.net (POLLOCK GWEN) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: FW: U.S. Geological Survey Weekly Science Update Message-ID: <5AD21593ECDDD111986D0000F81EDAEB09C43A86@smtp.isbe.state.il.us> FYI: June update from USGS Gwen Pollock **note new email address Illinois State Board of Education Division for Mathematics and Science 100 North First Street, N-243 Springfield, IL 62777 217/558-6284 217/785=9210 fax gpollock@isbe.net < mailto:gpollock@isbe.net > -----Original Message----- From: Robert R Holmes [mailto:bholmes@usgs.gov] Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 9:21 AM To: gpollock@isbe.net; phjones@isbe.net Cc: Robert R Holmes; Donna M Ayers Subject: U.S. Geological Survey Weekly Science Update Whooping Cranes About to Graduate From School!: On Monday, July 2, Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton will join members of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, to see the most endangered species of crane in the world in the final stages of "avian ground school" before being transported to Wisconsin for flight training behind ultralight aircraft. After three months rest at Wisconsin's Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, the flock will be led by three ultralight aircraft through seven states enroute to wintering grounds at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. At 1,250 miles, this experiment will be the longest human-led migration in history, and could take from four to six weeks. Last fall, biologists and ultralight pilots successfully led a flock of (non-endangered) sandhill cranes on the same route to determine whether such an experiment could possibly aid in re-establishing a migratory population of whooping cranes in the eastern United States. USGS and FWS biologists have worked together on this successful project, along with members of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, which is a unique coalition of government agencies and private, non-profit organizations from the U.S. and Canada that have committed time, resources and money to this experiment. USGS Science Goes to Camp--Science Camp 2001: The USGS is proud to announce the sixth year of the Reston (Va.) Association-USGS Science Camp partnership. Science camp consists of four, two-week sessions that end on August 17. Children ages 8-12 work in a science laboratory, have ample time to work at computers, and are visited by guest scientists each week. There are 60 children in each session. This summer, the four sessions are: Transportation Trek (June 25-July 6), 2001: A Camp Odyssey (July 9-July 20), Around the World in 10 Days (July 23-August 3), and Journey to the Center of the Earth (August 6-August 17). Sturgeon Conference: USGS scientist Bruce Manny will moderate a session on Conservation, enhancement, and restoration on July 11 at the Fourth International Symposium on Sturgeon in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Scientists from all over the world will attend the meeting and discuss the culture, diseases, physiology, status, and restoration of all species and subspecies of sturgeon. Minerals at MineExpo: A USGS presentation at Venezuela's MineExpo, held in Caracas during the week of July 9, will explore U.S. market opportunities for Venezuelan minerals. USGS scientist Ivette Torres will be an invited speaker at a technical symposium at MineExpo, which is sponsored by Venezuela's Chamber of Mines and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. USGS minerals information reports show that the U.S. is a net importer of more than 50 mineral commodities. Will Bald Eagles Fly Again Off California Coast?: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has asked USGS scientist Charles J. Henny to participate in a review panel to evaluate the feasibility of re-introducing bald eagles to the northern Channel Islands off southern California. The first meeting of the four-member panel is set for July 24 in Sacramento. Wisconsin DNR Recognizes USGS: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has enjoyed a productive relationship with the USGS for more than 30 years. To recognize this, the State of Wisconsin Natural Resources Board will present the USGS with Wisconsin Recognition Awards at a ceremony on June 27 in Kenosha. The awards, presented by DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzello, acknowledge past and ongoing studies, including work on the effects of acid rain deposition, the biogeochemical fate of mercury in aquatic systems, and the ecological consequences of mercury contamination on wildlife. Scientists Kevin Kenow and Warren Gebert will accept the awards on behalf of the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center and the USGS District Office. Oil Spill Response Data Available On Line: Oil spill risk information used by community planners and oil spill teams is now available from the USGS at http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/epa_atlas/overview.html . The USGS worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide oil spill risk information to community planners and oil spill responders that may be at risk during a spill. The USGS collects, inventories, and distributes data about resources that are sensitive to oil spills such as threatened and endangered species, natural resource areas, and water intakes. The data also includes information about potential spill sources such as oil pipelines and storage facilities. The web page provides the ability to quickly locate and download resource information in the form of Inland Sensitivity Atlas maps, documents, and Geographic Information System (GIS) data. The USGS Inland Waterways Spill Response Mapping Project covers Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and includes the Upper Mississippi River, Ohio River, and portions of the Great Lakes Basin. Spatial Data Infrastructure Meeting: The Executive Secretary of the Board on Geographic Names met recently with State Department officials and a team of cartographers from the United Nations to discuss an initiative to develop a spatial data infrastructure in which geographic names will be a critical data layer. Minerals Data/Mining Engineering: An article by USGS scientists David Doan (ret.) and David Menzie in the July issue of Mining Engineering states that since 1993, U.S. reliance on imports of raw and processed materials of mineral origin has increased dramatically. The difference in the value of U.S. mineral imports and exports, which was $4 billion in 1993, has increased to $29 billion in 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- Robert R. Holmes, Jr., P.E. bholmes@usgs.gov District Chief U.S. Geological Survey, WRD Urbana, Illinois 217-344-0037, ext3005 il.water.usgs.gov ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.depaul.edu/pipermail/skywatch/attachments/20010629/8dcfd2ce/attachment-0001.htm From kaler at astro.uiuc.edu Fri Jun 29 20:44:37 2001 From: kaler at astro.uiuc.edu (Jim Kaler) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Skylights Message-ID: Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy. Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, June 29, 2001. Phone (217) 333-8789. Prepared by Jim Kaler. Find Skylights on the Web at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html. The Moon waxes through its gibbous phase early in the week, and passes through full on Thursday, July 5. The night of Monday, the 2nd, it will pass six degrees north of Mars, the red planet so brilliant that we will have little trouble seeing it even in bright moonlight. The tilt of the Martian orbit has taken Mars a bit below the ecliptic (the apparent solar path), whereas that of the lunar orbit has taken it a bit above, hence the rather large separation of the two bodies upon their conjunction. If conditions are right for a solar eclipse, as they were on June 21st, then they are usually right for a preceding or succeeding lunar eclipse (that is, the Moon must be crossing the ecliptic while new in the case of a solar eclipse, full in the case of a lunar). As a result, the Moon will undergo a partial eclipse at this full phase, on Thursday the 5th. Unfortunately, the event -- in which the Moon only partly immerses itself in the Earth's shadow -- will not be visible in North America. Those in the opposite hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean), however, will get a nice view, including Hawaiians. The Earth also takes the stage, as it passes through its aphelion point, where it is farthest from the Sun, on the Fourth of July. At a distance of 94,502,836 miles (152.088 million kilometers), our planet will be 3.5 percent farther from the Sun than when it passed perihelion, its closest point, last January 4, giving us 7 percent less solar warmth. Obviously, given the usual northern hemisphere July heat, the distance between the Earth and the Sun has little to do with the seasons, which are caused by the 23.4 degree tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation relative to its orbital perpendicular. All things being equal, the distance variation would cause southern hemisphere seasons to be more extreme than those in the northern hemisphere, but the effect is lost in the asymmetric distribution of the oceans, the southern hemisphere far more watery than the northern. Venus remains a stunning morning sight, while Mars maintains its rule over night, the red planet retrograding through the southern zodiac between Scorpius and Sagittarius. Look to the right of bright Mars to find Antares, the scorpion's alpha star. If you look down and to the right of Antares, and if you are far enough south, you can see the bright stars of Lupus the Wolf, one of the most southerly of the ancient constellations, the wolf held in the grip of Centaurus, the Centaur, even farther south and to the east. If Lupus and Centaurus are out of sight, instead admire the Big Dipper high overhead in early evening. Look then to the south to see the pair of stars that makes most of Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs) and then to the sprawl of fainter stars that make Coma Berenices, Berenices Hair, a cluster that makes a lovely sight in binoculars. Correction: Last week's Skylights claimed Alpha Comae Berenices to be the faintest "alpha star." The magnitudes of the individual stars of the double were not combined. The faintest alpha star is Alpha Octantis, of Octans, the Octant, the constellation that contains the South Celestial Pole. STAR OF THE WEEK. DIADEM (Alpha Comae Berenices). Not quite the brightest star in Coma Berenices (Berenices Hair), the Alpha star just loses out to Beta. The prominent portion of Coma Berenices is the beautiful Coma Berenices cluster. Diadem (Alpha) and Beta are both off to the eastern side of the constellation, and neither is a part of the cluster itself (which is 4.4 times farther away). The name "Diadem," a jewelled crown in the hair, is of modern and unknown origin, and is never really used for the Alpha star, which is commonly known just as Alpha Comae. Alpha Comae is a close double star, its two class F (F5) dwarfs (ordinary hydrogen fusing stars) almost identical to each other, very much as are the twin class F0 (and just slightly warmer) stars of Porrima (Gamma Virginis). Their apparent magnitudes of 5.07 together make Alpha Comae a fourth magnitude (4.3) star. The orbit of the pair is almost exactly edge-on, causing the two to appear to move back and forth in a straight line over a period of 25.85 years. At maximum separation they are not quite a second of arc apart, while at close passage (which takes place during the year 2001) they are effectively inseparable. The orbital tilt, however, a mere tenth of a degree against the line of sight, is enough to keep the stars from eclipsing each other. Averaging 12 astronomical units apart (a bit farther than Saturn is from the Sun), they come as close as 6 AU and go as far apart as 19 AU. The closeness of the pair makes distance measure by parallax (the apparent shift in position as the Earth orbits the Sun) from space (with the Hipparcos satellite) nearly impossible. The old ground-based result, however, of 60 light years gives the stars just the luminosities expected of F5 dwarfs, so it must be very close to correct. With temperatures of 6500 Kelvin, Diadem's stars are each 2.5 times brighter than the Sun and have masses about 25 percent greater, their luminosities and temperatures suggesting that they are still quite young. One at least is magnetically active like the Sun, with a rotation period of only 3 days (the fast spin generating the magnetic field). They are close enough in characteristics that they might even evolve together to produce a rare double giant star. Their mutual fate is to be an orbiting pair of identical lower-mass white dwarfs. **************************************************************** Jim Kaler Professor of Astronomy Phone: (217) 333-9382 University of Illinois Fax: (217) 244-7638 Department of Astronomy email: kaler@astro.uiuc.edu 103 Astronomy Bldg. web: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ 1002 West Green St. Urbana, IL 61801 USA Visit: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/ for links to: Skylights (Weekly Sky News updated each Friday) Stars (Portraits of Stars and the Constellations) Astronomy! A Brief Edition (links and updates) ***************************************************************** From waterinfo9754 at hotmail.com Sat Jun 30 19:31:01 2001 From: waterinfo9754 at hotmail.com (waterinfo9754@hotmail.com) Date: Wed Apr 16 16:40:50 2003 Subject: Are You Sure Your Water Is Safe To Drink? adv Message-ID: <20010630173101.ZQT284.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@mc7.law5.hotmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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