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This is the Classical Astronomy Update, an email newsletter especially
for Christian homeschool families (though everyone is welcome!)
Please feel free to share this with any interested friends.
IN THIS UPDATE:
- Anouncements
- Request for Feedback
- Stellarium Planetarium Software
- Homeschool Conventions for 2010
- Dance of the Planets
- New Year's Eve Blue Moon
- Mars and the Moon
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the
gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. - Ephesians 2:8-9
Welcome to the Classical Astronomy Update!
Hello Friends,
It's been a while since the last Update. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed since that time. We've had a difficult year in the Ryan family, from financial struggles with my "day job" through a serious infection that my mother has been fighting since Mother's Day. If you could, we'd be grateful if your family could keep us in your prayers.
We're looking forward to writing another Update soon related to the discoveries of Galileo Galilei. January 7, 2010 marks the 400th anniversary of the famed astronomer's telescopic discovery of Jupiter's moons. We hope to soon take a look at the career of Galileo and dispell the common urban legends connected to Galileo's controversies with the church.
The bright constellation Orion is currently dominating the evening skies. The current season is the best time of year to learn Orion, clear skies permitting. If you can learn Orion and the bright stars in his neighborhood, you can easily learn the entire sky over the coming seasons. For more information on learning Orion and his neighbors, check out our Signs & Seasons homeschool astronomy curriculum.
Announcements
Request for Feedback
Has your family used our Signs & Seasons homeschool astronomy curriculum? If so, we'd like to ask you for your feedback. We're wondering whether the program has been effective at helping your students learn the sky and obtain the full benfits of the course. We'd like to know whether you encountered any problems or if there is anything in the materials that is unclear. We've attempted to create an accessible, user-friendly curriculum, yet we have received very little response from the readers. We are currently in the process of preparing a sequel to Signs & Seasons
and would like to know anything that anyone could share that would improve the program. Please send us an email through our contact form at www.ClassicalAstronomy.com.
Also, we ask you again for questions about astronomy. In the early days, this newsletter was driven by reader questions about the night sky. However, the last several years, we've received very few astronomy questions. It's nice to hear from the readers and find out what you want to know! Please send us an email through our contact form.
We'd be happy to try to answer any question, but our specialty is "Classical Astronomy," the traditional techniques of visually observing the Sun, Moon, stars and planets and their cycles. We don't specialize in NASA or the Hubble telescope, and we don't have much to say about cosmology and astrophysics and other aspects of "modern astronomy." So if you've been wondering about something, please drop us a line! We might be able to use your question for an article in upcoming Update newsletter! Thanks!
Stellarium Planetarium Software
One complaint we have heard about our Signs & Seasons homeschool astronomy curriculum is that cloudy weather frequently interferes with the observations of the sky. This is a known problem that we mention in the workbook, and something we can't control, particularly up north during the cold months. However, many users of Signs & Seasons
have reported good results in using planetarium software as a substitute for clear skies. A good planetarium program will give you a ground level view of the sky, and enable you to track the motions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets, for any day of any year. In this way, students using Signs & Seasons can "virtually" observe the sky, and resume actual sky observations when the sky clears.
We recommend Stellarium as an excellent "entry level" planetarium program. Stellarium is an open-source application that can be downloaded for free from http://www.stellarium.org/. Stellarium offers nice-looking simulated views of the night sky, and can be tailored to any location in the world. Stellarium plots the predictable motions of the celestial bodies to show calculated views of the skies, projected thousands of years into the past and future. Use Stellarium to help your astronomy student over those cloudy nights, and to enhance your understanding of the night sky.
Homeschool Conventions for 2010
At this time, Classical Astronomy/Fourth Day Press is confirmed for participating in the following homeschool conventions in 2010:
We're talking to a few other conventions for engagements for 2010, and will mention these in upcoming Updates. If you'd like to have us visit your local homeschool convention, please share my speaker profile with your convention planners. Thanks!
Dance of the Planets
New Year's Eve Blue Moon
There's a Full Moon every month, so there's nothing very remarkable about that. However, the lunar month is not the same as our regular calendar month. The lunar month is the period of the cycle of the Moon's phases, that is, the time between the same phases, such as the interval from one Full Moon to the next Full Moon. This cycle of the lunar month is 29.53 days, on average. Since most regular calendar months are either 30 or 31 days, it happens once in a while that you get two Full Moons in the same month. The second Full Moon in a calendar month is called a blue moon.
Blue moons are not all that remarkable either. Since 12 lunar months add up to 354 days, there is only an 11-1/2 day shortfall each year, which means you get a blue moon about every two years or so. (obviously, you can never have a blue moon in February, even in a leap year!)
The traditional expression "once in a blue moon" has always meant "once in a long while," but this expression is much older than this method of calculating. It was recently discovered that the definition of a blue moon as a second Full Moon was accidentally created by Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946. But this definition is as good as any, and has become very popular over the years.
While none of the above is all that out of the ordinary, it is remarkable to have a blue moon on New Year's Eve! And that's just what we have this year, with the second Full Moon of the month on December 31, 2009. The last New Year's Eve blue moon was on December 31, 1990. I remember that night well, as Mrs. Ryan and I were newlyweds, and spent New Year's with friends when we lived in Maryland. This time around, we're the homeschool parents of five kids in Ohio! We will probably be grandparents on the next New Year's blue moon on December 31, 2028.
New Year's blue moons follow the 19 year luni-solar cycle, often called the Metonic Cycle, after the ancient Greek astronomer Meton, who purportedly disovered it in about 400 B.C. It so happens that 19 solar years almost exactly equals 235 lunar months, so that the same phases of the Moon occur on the same calendar dates of the year in a cycle that repeats every 19 years. The Metonic Cycle is the basis of the modern Hebrew Calendar, so that the dates of Passover, Yom Kippur and other Jewish holidays fall on the same calendar dates every 19 years. And as we see, the cycle also works for New Year's blue moons!
Clear skies permitting, try to notice the Full Moon on New Year's Eve. Adults, try to remember where you were on that same night in 1990. Kids, make it a point to remember this night so you can remember it when it happens again in 2028!
Mars and the Moon
We start out 2010 with a conjunction of the waning gibbous Moon with the red planet Mars on the evening of January 2, 2010. Mars is approaching opposition, and is increasing in brightness with each passing night. Mars is hard to miss as the bright, orange-colored "star" in between the bright constellations Gemini and Leo. The Moon will pass Mars on Saturday night, January 2, and the two will make a pretty pair in the night sky.
(For more information on the cycles of the Moon and Mars, and to learn the constellations Gemini and Leo, check out our Signs & Seasons curriculum.)
Mars will reach opposition on January 29, 2010. At this time, Mars is lined up with the Earth and the Sun, and so Mars rises in the east just as the Sun sets in the west, in the opposite part of the sky from each other (hence the name). Oppositions of Mars occur about every two years, and these events are not very remarkable either. However, the night of Mars' 2010 opposition also happens to be a Full Moon, the next one after the New Year's blue moon!
On the night of January 29, 2010, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon and Mars will be aligned in the solar system. But don't worry, this will not be a portent of cataclysm, and the Earth won't fly off its axis. There's nowhere near enough gravity to cause such disasters. And there is no "astrological meaning" or anything, since the Moon passes each planet every month, with no significance other than the celestial bodies following their paths ordained by the LORD.
However, it is very rare to have a Full Moon during an opposition, when Mars is at its brightest. I don't know offhand how rare, but don't expect to see another one anytime soon. So if skies are clear in your area this Saturday, step outside to see what God hath wrought!
Coming in future Classical Astronomy Updates:
- We hope to finally write about "The Galileo Affair" sometime in early 2010.
- The bright morning star Venus will be sinking toward the sunset through the fall, and will again be visible as as evening star in early 2010.
Til next time, God bless and clear skies!
-jay
The Ryan Family
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art
mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
- Psalm 8:3,4, a Psalm of David
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