Re: Serendipity

John O'Neill Nov 22, 2000

Hello,

Another coincidence during a public star party. In the Centre of
Dublin back on the 2nd Jan 1991 we, in the I.A.S, were showing
members of the public the, old favourite, the Galilean Moons of
Jupiter.

There said they could see none! We thought they must have moved the
focus again. But no it was Jupiter "Without Visible Satellite".See
S&T Sep 82 (p.214). I had completely forgotten about it and would
have missed it if not for our public star party.

This happens again on 8 November next, from 16:27 to 16:44 UT. The
eastern hemisphere will be favoured. See Guide for details.

John O'Neill




--- In guide-user@egroups.com, Roger Curry <rcurry@m...> wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> Just wanted to pass along an incredible coincidence.
>
> I was working with my astronomical society's vice president to
> set dates for 2001's public observing programs. We rotate
> between three public parks and the events are publicized through
> the park's newsletter. We always do the programs on Friday
> night and we try to take the Friday closest to First Quarter Moon
> during the calendar month.
>
> A problem arose with November, since the 1st Q date would
> fall on Nov. 23 and put it into conflict with the Thanksgiving
> holidays. So--do we move it up a week and have a bright
> full moon, or go back a week and try to show off some of the
> brighter DSO's? My friend asked me to check on Jupiter
> and Saturn to see if they would be observable next year on
> the 30th (full moon).
>
> I brought up Guide and set my date and the time as 8 p.m.,
> about half way through the observing session, then clicked
> on the planet icon to bring up Jupiter. Jupiter was just a few
> degrees off of the horizon at that time, so I tried Saturn.
>
> Instead of Saturn, I got the Full Moon. I thought I must have
> clicked the wrong button and did it again and again landed
> squarely on the full Moon. So I time stepped the Moon in
> 15 min increments and out popped Saturn from behind the
> Moon!
>
> It appears that the east coast will get a fine show! It shows
> first contact with Saturns rings at 00:19:15 (1 Dec 00) UTC
> (from Jacksonville, FL which is -5 from UTC) and it will take
> about a minute to completely occult the planet. Saturn will
> emerge (ring) at about 01:22:11.
>
> Because of my "discovery" of this event, we have changed
> the venue to an oceanside park to get the best horizon for
> the start of the occultation. I hope to have a low-light
> video camera at prime focus of a telescope with the video
> signal fed into a video recorder and a video projector so
> we can show the live event to everyone at the same time.
>
> I can not even think of how small of a chance it would be
> to randomly pick a date and time and to find a major event
> underway!
>
> Great program, Bill.
>
> Roger, in Jacksonville, FL
>
> ---------------
> Roger Curry
> Jacksonville, Florida
> Visit the NEFAS Web Site at www.nefas.org
> Roger's FTP site: ftp://rcurry.dns2go.com