Blogs

The upcoming Transit of Venus is getting a lot of press - if you are looking to purchase a solar filter or "eclipse shades" to view the event you are unfortunately too late and out of luck. All the vendors we've seen are sold out or backlogged until after the transit (largely due to the big solar eclipse that was visible out west a few weeks ago).

Here a bunch of thank you letters NJAG received after helping School Four of Clifton, NJ with an astronomy night.  They are fantastic.

A small asteroid will skim past Earth on Monday:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/124430479.html

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

A Total Lunar Eclipse will occur on the morning of Tuesday,  December 21, 2010 from 1:33 am to 5:01 am.

For more info see the Newark Museum' Blog

This video was taken with my newly purchased Astrotech 111EDT telescope, Starlight Xpress ccd SVXF-H9 and guider, on a CGEM mount, 37x60 sec images combined of Comet 103p/Hartley2. Wait and watch as the comet moves between two stars and ends past another bright star (I did not get their names). Taken from Whiting, New Jersey

http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1705&category=Science

I was listening to the radio program Coast to Coast this morning and heard about a mysterious object in M82.  http://www.coasttocoastam.com/   I believe this program often has off the wall articles, but the story I've linked is about astronomy.  The link above cuts straight to the story.

The State offers non-profit charitable organizations the chance to get computers.  I don't see the NJAG as such a charity, but we do help schools from time to time and other and it is defined and registered as a non-profit with NJ.  Should we look into getting one for say: astrophotography, web development, SETI, etc? 

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/surpluspc/

Any thoughts on a project?

If we’re going to get lucky with SETI, it’s probably going to be through the reception of an interstellar beacon rather than the chance detection of an electronic emission from space. Sure, chance catches are possible, and for all we know odd receptions like the WOW! signal of 1977 might be cases in point.