The EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises Oceania Cruises Page

edited by Dan Benedict

Watch this space for notices of EYE ON THE SKY® AstroCruises on Oceania Cruises!
Book through AstroCruises Travel for free membership in AstroCruisers (TM) astronomy club
and other agency discounts, value-added bonuses and special deals.

	Caribbean New Moon Cruise March 11-23, 2007 Oceania Regatta, Caribbean Highlights Sail from Miami Sunday, March 11 Itinerary: Virgin Gorda, Tortola, British Virgin Islands; Gustavia, St. Barts; Roseau, Dominica; Castries, St. Lucia; St. John's, Antigua; Samana, Dominican Republic; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos; three sea days Arrive in Miami Friday, March 23      Caribbean/Tropical cruises see naked-eye celestial sights unseen in the mainland U. S. and Europe — constellations and stars on the southern horizon, including Alpha Centauri (our solar system's nearest neighboring star) and Southern Cross. New moon March 18.      Contact us for current best AstroCruises (TM) deal.
	Middle East New Moon Cruise November 25-December 22, 2007 Oceania Nautica, Odyssey To Asia Sail from Rome (Civitavecchia, Italy) Sunday, November 25 Itinerary: Messina, Italy; Cairo (Port Said) and Luxor (Safaga), Egypt; Suez Canal Transit; Salalah and Muscat, Oman; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Bombay and Cochin, India; Phuket, Thailand; fourteen sea days Arrive in Singapore Monday, December 10      Tropical cruises see naked-eye celestial sights unseen in the mainland U. S. and Europe — constellations and stars on the southern horizon, including Alpha Centauri (our solar system's nearest neighboring star) and Southern Cross. Dry, dark skies of Middle East may allow viewing zodiacal light and gegenschein. Astronomer is aboard November 25-December 10 (seven sea days). New moon December 9.      Contact us for current best AstroCruises (TM) deal.
	Far East Full Moon Cruise February 29-March 24, 2008 Oceania Nautica, Oriental Rendezvous Sail from Bangkok (Laem Chabang, Thailand) Friday, February 29 Itinerary: Ko Samui, Thailand; Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Da Nang, and Hanoi (Ha Long Bay), Vietnam; Keelung, Taiwan; Kagoshima and Nagasaki, Japan; Hong Kong and Shanghai, China; Seoul (Inchon), Korea; eight sea days Arrive in Beijing (Tianjin, China) Monday, March 24      Tropical cruises see naked-eye celestial sights unseen in the mainland U. S. and Europe — constellations and stars on the southern horizon, including Alpha Centauri (our solar system's nearest neighboring star) and Southern Cross. Astronomer is aboard March 12-24 (five sea days) and will talk about "Ancient Chinese Astronomy." New moon March 8; full moon March 22.      Contact us for current best AstroCruises (TM) deal.

Weather

• Western Hemisphere clouds (latest satellite image)

---

A dark sky at sea gives an excellent opportunity to spot dim objects and phenomena such as the Milky Way, Andromeda Galaxy (two million light-years away, the farthest object visible with the naked eye), the zodiacal light and gegenschein (best times to see zodiacal light north of the tropics are March-April in the evening and October-November in the morning, for south of the tropics the reverse is true, and around November 15-20 gegenschein is located between the Pleiades and Hyades), auroras, noctilucent clouds and faint meteors and satellites. Change your latitude and see celestial sights you won't see at home — the southern hemisphere has stars, galaxies and globular star clusters you won't see in North America and Europe, and the Far North and Antarctica have atmospheric phenomena in summer unseen in other locations. Also, the flat sea horizon is the best place to spot the green flash.

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

Tonight's Sky

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

• Sky Calendar
  http://www.space.com/spacewatch/sky_calendar.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 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.satobs.org/satintro.html
  

The latest information about shuttle schedules is on the Kennedy Space Center's Page:

• Upcoming Space Shuttle Launches
  http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/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.atoptics.co.uk
  
• 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:

• NASA, America's civilian space agency
  http://www.nasa.gov
• space.com Web site
  http://space.com
• Astronomy Now British astronomy magazine
  http://www.astronomynow.com
• New York Times newspaper
  http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/space
• Florida Today newspaper from Florida's "Space Coast"
  http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/index.htm
• CNN Cable News Network
  http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space
• BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space
• ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/space

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 Regatta, and we hope to sail with you again soon! Bon voyage!

---

Copyright 2003-2007 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/oceaniacruises

AstroCruises Travel can be reached at
(609) 530-9877, or
astrocruises (at) hotmail.com

®