Astro Nut

Sagittarius will soon be making his appearance.
So I have put together my target list for the year.
I just hope the weather will be kind.

M 8 Bright Nebula – Lagoon Nebula is one of the finest and brightest star-forming regions in the sky
M 17 Bright Nebula – Omega, Swan, Horseshoe, or Lobster Nebula
M 18 Open Cluster – 20 members?
M 20 Bright Nebula – Trifid Nebula, Starforming Nebula
M 21 Open Cluster
M 22 Globular Cluster – one of the brightest and remarkable clusters in the sky
M 23 Open Cluster – 129 probable cluster members
M 24 Star Cloud
M 25 Open Cluster – one of the more remarkable open clusters in constellation Sagittarius
M 28 Globular Cluster
M 54 Globular Cluster
M 55 Globular Cluster
M 69 Globular Cluster
M 70 Globular Cluster
M 75 Globular Cluster – one of the apparently fainter globular clusters in Messier’s catalog
NGC 6440 Globular Cluster
NGC 6507 Open Cluster
NGC 6520 Open Cluster
NGC 6528 Globular Cluster
NGC 6544 Globular Cluster
NGC 6553 Globular Cluster
NGC 6568 Open Cluster
NGC 6595 Emission Nebula
NGC 6624 Globular Cluster
NGC 6645 Open Cluster
NGC 6716 Open Cluster – faint, small, diffuse patch of light
NGC 6723 Globular Cluster – a small, moderately bright globular cluster
NGC 6818 Planetary – Nebula Little Gem
NGC 6822 Galaxy (Barnard’s Galaxy)

SAGITTARIUS, The Archer, represents a centaur – half-man, half-horse, descended from Ixion, the man who dared to lust after Hera, wife of Zeus. Realizing Ixion’s intentions, Zeus sent a cloud, disguised as Hera, to trick him. The offspring of this union was Kentauros, who was shunned by gods and mankind alike. He moved to Thessaly and bred with the mares there, and so centaurs were born. Some, like Chiron, the wise and kindly centaur who befriended Hercules and who is represented by CENTAURUS, were considerate and friendly to men, but many were aggressive. SAGITTARIUS is one of the latter, a fierce hunter with his bow and arrow always aimed at Scorpius.

Where have I been?
For the last 3 month we have had nothing but CLOUDS and snow!
Its enough to drive me NUTS!
And with all of the snow we have had its hard to believe that WINTER is still a couple of days away.

And to make matters worse I was working on this site and I dropped the Data Base
( ALL OF THE CONTENT )
And of course I did not have a back up.
I had to use a Google Cached copy to get all of the info back.
What a pain that was….

21 April 2008, admin @ 2:51 pm

Will the Earth fry future moon astronauts? by ZDNet’s Roland Piquepaille — Researchers working for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth’s magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth’s ‘magnetotail’ for six days every month — during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar ‘dust storms’ to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in ‘The Moon and the Magnetotail.’ So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, ‘Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.’ But read more…

Make sure you stop by Astro Links, its my new project “Astronomy Link List”

I can use your help in adding links to it!
If you have any ASTRO related links please add them to the list!

I would love to hear from you!!
Please leave your comments!

This is my backyard set up.
I put down 3 little concrete pads for the mount
and I know what branch Polaris hides behind.
So doing an rough Polar alignment is a snap.
I can drag the mount with the scope out of the house
all set up.

Join thousands of other students, families and citizen-scientists hunting for stars during March 8 – 21, 2007. Take part in this international event to observe the nighttime sky and learn more about light pollution around the world.

During the 2006 event over 18,000** people from 96 countries on all continents (except Antarctica) reported more than 4500 nighttime observations. Help us
The Globe At Night