The EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises Classical Cruises Page
edited by Dan Benedict
THANKS! for joining EYE ON THE SKY® November 26-December 19 for the
"Sailing Across the Atlantic Along the Trade-Wind Route" on CLASSICAL CRUISES' Panorama!
Co-sponsored by Council of American Maritime Museums and Harvard Alumni Association
Watch this space for notices of other
EYE ON THE SKY® cruises on CLASSICAL CRUISES!
Here are some of the Web sites of interest we discussed
during the lectures and observing sessions aboard the Panorama:
Tonight's Sky
The most interesting sights you can see with the naked eye in tonight's sky are listed in:
For moon phase information and sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and civil twilight times for your city, see:
For a graphical display of the night sky as seen from your home, go to Your Sky, "the interactive planetarium of the Web" and follow these instructions:
- To customize this site for your precise location, you need to know your latitude and longitude. For many locations you can find this by going to Mapblast at http://www.mapblast.com and entering your Street Address, City and State, then pressing Create Map button. The latitude and longitude are then given in decimal degrees (you can then click the Lat/Lon hypertext if you want the results in degrees/minutes/seconds). You can also find latitudes and longitudes (in degrees/minutes/seconds) through the USGS Geographic Names Information System at http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html.
- Go to the Your Sky: Sky Map Custom Settings page at http://www.fourmilab.to/yoursky/custom.html. You'll need to enter your latitude and longitude in the Observing Site boxes in either decimal degrees or degrees/minutes/seconds, remembering that locations in the U. S. are always "north" latitude and "west" longitude. For easier-to-read sky maps I suggest you change the defaults in the Display Options to the following:
- Uncheck Deep Sky Objects box
- Uncheck Constellations-Boundaries box
- Change value in Show Stars Brighter Than Magnitude to "3.5"
- Change value in Stars-Names for Magnitude to "1.5 and brighter"
- Uncheck Stars-Bayer/Flamsteed Codes box
- Click the Update button and then bookmark the resulting page in your Web browser so you don't have to repeat this step every time.
You can receive Sky & Telescope's Weekly News Bulletin and This Week's Sky at a Glance automatically via e-mail. For a free subscription, send e-mail to join@astromax.com and put the word "join" on the first line of the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send e-mail to unjoin@astromax.com and put the word "unjoin" on the first line of the body of the message. If you have any problems subscribing to or unsubscribing from the list, send a message to list administrator John Wagoner at stargate@gte.net for help.
Satellites
To find out about when and where to look for satellites at your home, see:
- Heavens-Above
http://www.heavens-above.com/countries.asp
(If you enter your location and then bookmark the resulting page in your Web browser,
you don't have to repeat this step every time.)
To find out how to watch for satellites, go to:
For a schedule of future launches of the space shuttles, see:
Meteor Showers
The American Meteor Society furnishes information about these (and other) meteor showers here:
- Quadrantids (peak January 3-4)
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/quadrantids.html
- Perseids (peak August 12-13)
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/perseids.html
- Leonids (peak November 17-18)
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/leonids.html
- Geminids (peak December 13-14)
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/geminids.html
The Expected 2001 Leonid Meteor Storm
- Rob McNaught of Australian National University predicts a possible Leonid meteor storm visible from the Caribbean and eastern North America on the morning of November 18, 2001, with a peak of about 25 meteors per minute. He predicts the best place to see Leonids in 2001 is Australia and eastern Asia, which he expects to have two peaks of about 250 meteors per minute. For more information, see the Astronomical Society of Australia's Leonid Page at http://www.atnf.csiro.au/asa_www/info_sheets/leonids.html.
Green Flash
The most complete source of information I've found about the "green flash" is:
Eclipses
Information about the Christmas Day partial eclipse of the sun can be found at:
Mystic Seaport, Connecticut: the maximum eclipse is 45 percent at 12:51 p.m. on December 25, 2000. You can also view the Christmas Day eclipse as seen from Mystic Seaport as a Microsoft video (AVI file, 20kb)
or QuickTime movie (MOV file, 206kb).
General Astronomy News
Good sources of general astronomy and space news are:
These broadcast programs cover current astronomy news and events:
Recommended Products
Some of these items are available through Sky & Telescope's Online Store, Astronomy magazine's AstroShops, Astronomical Society of the Pacific's on-line store and amazon.com. These are suggested retail prices and don't include taxes or shipping.
- Skywatch 2001 ($5) and Explore the Universe 2001 ($6) are the annual publications that give you the most bang for the buck.
- The Year in Space 2001 Desk Calendar ($15) is a good choice if you like to keep a diary of your observations.
- Astronomical Calendar 2001 by Guy Ottewell ($24, ISBN 0-934546-46-0) is, by far, the best and most complete annual sky guide.
- Atlas of the Universe by Patrick Moore ($40, ISBN 0-521-64210-8) is an excellent comprehensive astronomy reference suitable for beginning and advanced amateurs.
- Norton's Star Atlas and Reference Handbook by Ian Ridpath ($32 paperback, ISBN 0-5823-5855-5; $63 hardback, ISBN 0-5823-1283-3) is another excellent comprehensive astronomy reference suitable for beginning and advanced amateurs.
- Chandler Planispheres ($10) are also available for 30-40 and 40-50 degrees north latitude and in a southern hemisphere edition for 30-40 degrees south latitude.
- Orion Scenix 7x50 Binoculars ($78) is author Philip S. Harrington's (Star Ware) pick for best astronomical binoculars under $100.
- Meade ETX Telescopes have gotten a lot of publicity for their combination of high quality, advanced features (including computer control) and reasonable prices (under $1,000). Telescopes are much more expensive and complicated to use than binoculars (and so binoculars are often a better choice for beginning astronomers), but if you're serious about buying a telescope you may want to check out Mike Weasner's Weasner's Mighty ETX Site for an unbiased look at Meade ETX telescopes.
Passenger Leslie Weiss has created an online photo album of images she took on this trip.
Thanks again for joining EYE ON THE SKY® aboard the Panorama, and
we hope to sail with you again soon! Bon voyage!
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