Babe Among the Stars
Created | Updated Jul 17, 2008
Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth - Ptolemy
Babe Among the Stars 17-30 July 08
On 17 July in 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts docked in space, in the first-ever link-up between the USA and the USSR. On 18 July, 1921, Colonel John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, was born in Cambridge, Ohio. On 21 July, 1620, French astronomer Jean-Felix Picard was born. He devised the system of right ascension for measuring positions of celestial objects in relation to the Earth, which is still in use today. The PICARD microsatellite mission is named after him, and there's also a Picard crater on the Moon. German astronomer Friedrich Bessel, winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1829, was born on 22 July, 1784. The first EVA (spacewalk) by a female happened on 25 July, 1984, the lady in question was Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya. Another birthday celebration this month is for Lenka Kotková - on 26 July she will be 35. Lenka searches the sky for near-earth objects (NEOs) and has so far discovered over 100 asteroids. British astronomer Jeremiah Dixon was born on 27 July, 1733, he was one half of the famous Mason-Dixon partnership. In 1769 Dixon travelled to Norway for a good vantage point to observe the greatly-anticipated Transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. Unfortunately the bane of astronomers is inclement weather, and Norway was clouded over. Still more unfortunate, (for Dixon), if he'd stayed in England, he'd have witnessed the event, as the Rev Gilbert White did, in his own garden in Selborne, Hampshire.
The Green Galaxy
Last year I joined a programme classifying galaxies for a project called Galaxy Zoo. It wasn't long before the most-obsessed were invited to join a forum where they could chat and upload interesting images. There I met a Dutch schoolteacher called Hanny, and one of her discoveries was rapidly nicknamed Hanny's Voorwerp. No-one knew what the object was - it's the wrong colour (green) and the wrong shape (it's either a frog or a gremlin) to be a 'proper' galaxy but it was classified as one. Research is ongoing, in the meantime the Kermit-galaxy was featured as Astronomy Picture of the Day on 25 June 2008. Well done Hanny!
Highlights This Month
This month Venus reverts from 'morning star' to 'evening glory'. On the evening of 18 July Venus will pass through M44 (the Beehive Cluster) in the constellation Cancer 'the crab'. On 26 June Venus will have crossed into the constellation Leo 'the lion'. Jupiter is supremely majestic in the south east, you don't need binoculars to view our Solar System's largest planet, but if you have an optical aid there are four of the Jovian system's moons on show.
Diary Dates
- 18 July: Full Moon
- 18 July: Venus in the Beehive Cluster (M44)
- 20 July: Neptune will be less than 1° south of the Moon
- 22 July: Uranus will be 4° south of the Moon
- 27/30 July: Maxim of Delta Aquarids meteor shower
Coming up next time: A total solar eclipse on 1 August.
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