EYE ON THE SKY'S CELEBRITY CRUISES PAGE 2006

The EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises Cunard Line Page

edited by Dan Benedict

THANKS! for joining EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises on our astronomy cruises aboard Cunard ships!

Watch this space for notices of other EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises on Cunard Line!
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Why Shipboard Stargazing?

A dark sky at sea gives an excellent opportunity to spot dim objects such as the Milky Way, Andromeda Galaxy (two million light-years away, the farthest object visible to the naked eye), the zodiacal light and gegenschein, and faint meteors and satellites. A sea level horizon is the best place to see the green flash.

Here are some Web sites with information on topics we discussed during the lectures and starwatches on Cunard Line:

Tonight's Sky

The most interesting sights you can see with the naked eye in the current sky are listed in:

This Week's Sky at a Glance
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing
Sky Calendar
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/sky_calendar.html
Skywatcher's Diary
http://www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/SkyWatchersDiary/Diary.html

For a graphical display of the night sky as seen from your home, you have several good options:

You can generate custom sky charts at Heavens-Above and Sky & Telescope by entering either a place name or your latitude and longitude.
For locations in the U.S. you can find latitudes and longitudes (in degrees/minutes/seconds) through the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Remember that locations in the U. S. are always "north" latitude and "west" longitude. For locations outside the U.S. you can find latitudes and longitudes through the Alexandria Digital Library.
You can also generate a customized sky map at 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 locations in the U. S. are always "north" latitude and "west" longitude. For maps that are easier to read, 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.

For high precision moon phase information and sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and civil twilight times for your city, go to:

U. S. Naval Observatory
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html

For all types of celestial information for your specific location, you can use:

CalSKY Astronomical Calculator
http://www.calsky.com

Satellites

To find out about when and where to look for satellites at your home, go to (and then bookmark after entering your location):

Heavens-Above
http://www.heavens-above.com

To find out how to watch for satellites, go to:

Visual Satellite Observer's Home Page
http://www.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html

All space shuttle launches are under review, and the latest information about shuttle schedules is on the Kennedy Space Center's Page at:

Upcoming Space Shuttle Launches
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm

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

Eclipses

Information about future eclipses can be found at:

NASA's Eclipse Home Page
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html

Atmospheric Phenomena

Cruises also offer excellent opportunities to observe daytime sky phenomena, such as described on these sites:

Les Cowley's Atmospheric Optics
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm
German Halo Workgroup
http://www.meteoros.de/indexe.htm
Harald Edens's Weather Photography
http://www.weather-photography.com/index.php
allthesky.com
http://www.allthesky.com/atmosphere/atmosphere.html

Green Flash

The most complete source of information I've found about the "green flash" is:

Andrew T. Young's Green Flash Page
http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF

General Astronomy News

For the latest astronomy and space news, try:

Sky & Telescope magazine
http://skyandtelescope.com
NASA, America's civilian space agency
http://www.nasa.gov
space.com Web site

You can receive Weekly News Bulletin and Skywatcher's Bulletin from Sky &Telescope via e-mail.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Goddard Space Flight Center posts a new image every day at:

Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Thanks again for joining EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises on Cunard Line, and we hope to sail with you again soon! Bon voyage!

Copyright 1999-2006 EYE ON THE SKY® News Service. All rights reserved.
EYE ON THE SKY® is a registered trademark of EYE ON THE SKY® News Service.
The address of this page is http://astrocruises.com/cunard

AstroCruises Travel and Dan Benedict can be reached at
1-609-530-9877, or at
astrocruises (at) hotmail.com
Last update: 6 August 2006

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