picture, Enter linuxastronomy.org website.


Constellations
Andromeda
Andromeda (And)
Aquila
Aquila (Aql) (eagle)
Bootes
Bootes (Boo) (herdsman)
Cancer
Cancer (Cnc) (crab)
Canes Venatici
Canes Venatici (CVn) (hunting dogs)
Canis Major
Canis Major (CMa) (big dog)
Canis Minor
Canis Minor (CMi) (lesser dog)
Capricornus
Capricornus (Cap) (sea goat)
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia (Cas)
Centaurus
Centaurus (Cen) (centaur)
Cepheus
Cepheus (Cep
Corona Borealis
Corona Borealis (CrB) (Northern Crown)
Cygnus
Cygnus (Cyg) (swan)
Draco
Draco (Dra) (dragon)
Hercules
Hercules (Her)
Leo
Leo (Leo) (lion)
Lyra
Lyra (Lyr) (Lyre)
Ophiucus
Ophiucus (Oph) (serpent holder)
Orion
Orion (Ori)
Pegasus
Pegasus (Peg) (winged horse)
Perseus
Perseus (Per)
Scorpius
Scorpius (Sco) (scorpion)
Sagitarius
Sagitarius (Sgr) (archer)
Telescopium
Telescopium (Tel) (telescope)
Ursa Major
Ursa Major (Uma) (big dipper)
Ursa Minor
Ursa Minor (Umi) (little dipper)
Virgo
Virgo (Vir) (virgin)
Sky Events.
September 2006 and beyond...

Future events or events in progress.
Events listed below, are mostly of general or scientific interest.
They are events people can often be part of them.
August 19 ASOD Star party (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Sawmill Trailhead.
August 25 RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
September 9 RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
September 19-21 conference on the societal impact of spaceflight (history.nasa.gov). It will be held in Washington, D.C
September 22 RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
September 23 ASOD Star party (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Sawmill Trailhead.
October 7 RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
October 13 ASOD Meeting (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California).
October 19-22 RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). Nightfall Anza Borrego.
October 21 ASOD Star party (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Sawmill Trailhead.
November 4 RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
November 10 ASOD Meeting (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California).
November 17 RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
November 18 ASOD Star party ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Coachella Valley Preserve.
December 2 RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
December 8 ASOD Meeting ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California).
December 15 RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California).
December 16 ASOD Star party ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Coachella Valley Preserve.


Solar system
Object: Earth Moon. Date and Time standard: PST (Pacific Standard Time). Year: 2006
Month: 1st quarter: full moon: latest quarter: new moon:
January
February
March
April 5 13 20 27
May 4 12 20 26
June 4 11 18 25
July 3 10 17 24
August 2 9 15 23
August 31
September 7 14 22
September 30
October 6 13 21
October 29
November 5 12 20
November 27
December 4 12 20
December 27

Date: what time: Events: Where: good chances of observation with: May last a few days:
Naked eyes Bino
culars
Tele
scopes
6 early morning Venus near Regulus, in Leo. East North-East x x x .
7 evening Partial Moon eclipse. East South-East x x x .
11 evening Jupiter near Zuben Elgenubi, which is the second brightest star (wikipedia) in the constellation Libra (despite its Bayer designation as "alpha").. West South-West . x x .
11 . Asteroid Vesta (wikipedia) will be in conjunction with the Sun. Vesta is the brightest asteroid and the only asteroid visible from earth, sometimes, with naked eyes only. Never ever look through a telescope or binoculars without an appropriate filter ! . . x x .
12 evening Nice Moon in Pleiades. East North-East . x x .
17 Early morning Nice alignement between the moon, Castor and Pollux. East x x x .
19 early morning Lovely Moon crescent near Saturn. East x x x .
20-22 early morning
About 45 minute before Sunrise, Venus, Mercury and Saturn, will be close to each others, with the thin smiling moon over, almost forming a line with the comming Sunrise.
(saturn.jpl.nasa.gov)
.
East x x x x
21 early morning Venus is just under a thin smiling moon. East . x x .
22 morning Annular eclipse of Sun. It will begin to be visible in Guyana, then Surinam. It will be a nice partial eclipse in French Guyana. People working at the ESA European Space Agency spaceport in Kourou, will have a first seat show. Then it will pass over the ocean.
map of eclipse path (sunearth.gsfc .nasa.gov).

map of eclipse path
with cities.

Map and Climate Data (home.cc.umanitoba.ca).
. x x x .
26 evening Moon crescent under Jupiter. West South-West x x x .
28 evening night Pleiades rise when evening become night. North-East x x x .

Today in history. Some interesting events.
Historical events, as well as future historical events, such as spacecrafts journey.
Date: History events (sorted by year, month, day):
2006 September 15 Around mid September ESA (European Space Agency) will launch an Ariane 5 launcher (configuration ECA) (esa.int). with 3 satellites on board (DirecTV 9S, Optus D1 et LDRex 2). This version of Ariane 5 (ECA) is able to place payloads weighing up to 9.6 tonnes Into Geostationary Transfer Orbit.
Ariane 5, has originaly been developed to carry the European shuttle "Hermes" into orbit. It is a "human grade" launcher.
().
Previous launches (esa.int).
Next launch (esa.int).
Next and Previous Missions (arianespace.com).
Desciption of an Ariane 5 launcher (fr.wikipedia.org) (french) with images.
Desciption of an Ariane 5 launcher (en.wikipedia.org) in english, with images (but different from the french page).
picture, Ariane 5 launcher
2006 September 9 STS-115 (wikipedia.org) Space Shuttle mission is the first to resume assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) following two "Return to Flight" test missions. The mission uses the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
2006 September 3 European space probe SMART-1 is expected to end its life in a scheduled crash on the moon surface. The SMART-1 impact (sci.esa.int) is expected in the Lacus Excellentiae region.
Latest on SMART-1 (sci.esa.int).
SMART-1 Impact Flash and Debris: Crash Scene Investigation (sci.esa.int).
SMART-1 (sci.esa.int).
Lunar impact (sci.esa.int).
AMIE View of SMART-1 Impact Site (sci.esa.int). SMART-1 Nominal Lunar Impact Position - Mineralogy (sci.esa.int).
SMART-1 maps its own impact site (sci.esa.int).
Telescope setup Observing the Moon around Impact (sci.esa.int).
SMART-1 space probe into Ariane 5, installation image
Lunar and Planetary Institute. SMART-1 Impact on the Moon (lpi.usra.edu).
Webcam live (esamultimedia.esa.int) from Main Control Room at ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany.
Images and Videos (sci.esa.int).
Best of SMART-1 (esa.int).
SMART-1 mission overview (esa.int) Masterpieces of miniaturisation.
SMART-1 space probe image

SMART-1 (wikipedia.org).

1979 September 1 Pioneer 11 (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) passed by Saturn on September 1, 1979, at a distance of 21,000 km (about 13'000 miles) from Saturn's cloud tops.
Pioneer 11 has been use as a real "Pioneer" or a "guiney pig", it has been decided to have it pass through Saturn rings belt plan and see if it can make it, or have a better idea of the risk involved in the belt. This decision has been taken as Voyager 1 and 2 where in route to Saturn. Voyager 1 and 2 had already passed jupiter, they were in route to Saturn. Pioneer 11 scientific equipment and experiment were less sophisticate than Voyager 1 and 2, it has been decided to try with it first, to see if it can make it through the rings. It was use successfully to try a pass through the rings and observe what it might encounter.

The Pioneer 11 scientific Mission ended on 30 September 1995, in November, 1995 was the last communication with it. It was launched on 5 April 1973. The space craft antenna is out of alignement with earth, currently, it is not known if it still send signal to earth.
Pioneer 11 is heading toward the constellation of Aquila (The Eagle), Northwest of the constellation of Sagittarius. Its next close encounter with a star will be in about 4 million years.
Pioneer 11 is going away from the Sun at about 2.5 AU/year, or 12 km/s (about 7.5 miles/s).

Pioneer 10 is on its way to Aldebaran (the eye of the bull) in the Taurus constellation (the bull). It wil reach it in about 2 million years.

Image from Nasa history (history.nasa.gov) web site.
Pioneer space probe image

Pioneer space probe message plaque image Pioneer Odissey (history.nasa.gov), (lot of detailled information).

Pioneer 10-11 message plaque.
1959 September 13
Luna 2 (wikipedia.org) Ended its mission by crashing successfully on the moon.

Luna 1 discovered what could be "Solar wind", then Luna 2 confirmed it. Luna 2 (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov)
image, Luna 2
1859 September 1 Richard Christopher Carrington (hao.ucar.edu), the first solar flare seems to have been observed on this day. This event has also been witnessed by another person, sir Hodgson also member of the (British) Royal Astronomical Society. They independently submitted nearly identical sightings, from different locations.
(1826 May 26 - 1875 November 27). Son of a wealthy brewer, his father imposed him to study for a career in church. He studied and graduated from 1844 to 1848. Meanwhile, as soon as he could get away with it he did. He found a strong interest into astronomy and pursued it. He joined an observatory, later build his own. He observed by night and also by days.

Between 1854 and 1857, he worked on a "Catalogue of 3735 Circumpolar Stars". He received a gold medal (wikipedia.org) from the (British) Royal Astronomical Society.
However, he his remembered mostly for his work on Sunspots. He has been impressed by the work and discovery of a German astronomer: "Heinrich Schwabe", who in 1843 discovered the sunspots cycle. Richard Carrington choose to continue Heinrich Schwabe work. From 1853 to 1861 he recorded sunspots location. He missed the observation of a full sunspots cycle by a few years.

Sunspots obervation allowed him to dicover the differential rotation of the sun as well as the migration of spots in the course of a cycle. These two discoveries have been shared with another German astronomer Gustav Spörer (hao.ucar.edu).

Richard Carrington, also determined very accurately the Sun's rotation axis and made the first observation of a white light flare.
Detailled biography (solarstorms.org).
Richard Christopher Carrington (wikipedia.org).
Biographies (solarstorms.org) of Richard Carrington and others.
(British) Royal Astronomical Society (ras.org.uk).

History of Solar Physics: (hao.ucar.edu) A Time Line of Great Moments.
Great Moments in the History of Solar Physics (web.hao.ucar.edu).
A Brief History of Magnetospheric (www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov) Physics Before the Spaceflight Era.
Carrington, Richard Christopher (1826-1875) astronomer (janus.lib.cam.ac.uk).
1846 September 23 AstronomerJohann Gottfried Galle (wikipedia) found Neptune. (1812 June 9 - 1910 July 10).
He was the first astronomer to have seen Neptune and used calculations made by a french mathematicien, Urbain Le Verrier (wikipedia). Neptune is the only planet discovered based on mathematical prediction rather than regular observations.
Galileo's astronomical drawings show that he had first observed Neptune on December 27, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613. Meanwhile both times he thought having found a fixed star.
Galle found the planet Neptune within 1 degree of Urbain le Verrier prediction.
Neptune discovery (wikipedia) had some controversy. Another mathematician from UK John Couch Adams (wikipedia), did some prediction about a year earlier, but both men where unaware of the work of each other. John Adams predictions were about 10 degrees off.
A conflict emerged between UK and France, regarding who discovered Neptune, Later it has been decided to give credit to both mathmaticians.
However, after some more in depth reading and some documents finding in 1998 (no error), it has been decided that Adams did not in fact deserve equal credit with Le Verrier (Scientific American).


This page is a work in progress.
Please, Let me know if you feel it does not display properly on your browser, or if you find out some inaccuracy.
I am not a native speaker of the English language, Do not hesitate to let me know of any grammar or spelling mistakes.


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Meanwhile, there is absolutely no waranty of any kind, the information on this site is accurate, neither correct.
To send us a message.

The latest and original of this document is available at the following address: http://www.linuxastronomy.org/lias/lias/hp/sky_data/hp/index.html Select Ephemerides.

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This page as well as the whole site is Copyright© , 2001 - 2006 Eugene Clement
Space

Astronomy picture of the day Astronomy picture of the day. NASA

Hubble picture of the day
Hubble space telescope, picture of the day (image and video).
ESA European Space Agency.

OSEI picture of the day
Picture from the OSEI (Operational Significant Event Imagery). These images usually represent environment change events.

Earth motion
for Coachella Valley.
seismology for Coachella Valleyseismology for Coachella Valley (Southern California).

Light pollution prevention start at home.

The night sky in the World. Satellite monitoring of the artificial night sky brightness and the stellar visibility.
IDAInternational Dark-Sky Association.

Auroral Activity Northern HemisphereAuroral Activity (Northern Hemisphere). NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) continually monitor the power flux carried by the protons and electrons that produce aurora in the atmosphere.
Auroral Activity Southern HemisphereAuroral Activity Southern Hemisphere.

GOES Solar X-ray Imager, provide full-disk images of the Sun once a minute in the 0.6-6 nm range with 5 arcsec pixels. It allow real-time prediction of solar-terrestrial disturbances.
more info.

SOHO Pick of the Week SOHO Pick of the Week. Courtesy of SOHO/EIT and SOHO/LASCO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
latest SOHO imageslatest SOHO images171.
latest SOHO imageslatest SOHO images284.

CosmicopiaMore about Cosmic Rays (educational).


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About the Author

I am simply a Linux enthusiast with an interest in science.

I like to build hardware projects and connect them to computers, to do data acquisitions and other things. I also like to make telescopes or make existing telescopes more convenient to use.

This page will hopefully help me to learn something. I am happy if I can share it with the reader.

I belong to the following astronomy societies: RAS. ASOD and linuxastronomy.org, which is a virtual group of linux enthusiast, experimenting with astronomy.

Suggestions or corrections with for goal to make this site better are welcome.