Friday, April 29, 2011

Listen to AstroTom

I had a fun interview on the Land Minds show on Israel National News Radio (Arutz 7) with Efrat local Dovid Willner of Foundation Stone

We spoke about about Astronomy and the Jewish Calendar.


Sunday, April 10, 2011

NASA webcast from live telescope in Israel


Today and tomorrow (Sunday & Monday) there will be a live webcast from the telescope at  Bareket observatory in Modiin in conjunction with NASA. The broadcast will be from 9pm-11pm local time.
bareket_obsevatory_logo
See the article in today's Jerusalem Post and official announcement in English or Hebrew





-AstroTom


Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Moon and Saturn

Hopefully we'll get some much needed rain in the next few days, after that be sure to check out the sky show!

Look for the new moon this Monday night around as soon as it gets dark around  7:15. The moon will be hard to see as it will be low (less than 10 degree) and set by 7:49. Also the weather is going to be iffy with possible clouds and rain.

If you miss it Monday night, it should put on a nice show as it passes the Pleiades and Hyades on the next few nights. The picture below from Sky & Tel shows the sky as it will look in N America. For Israel the moon will be higher each night, about halfway between the moons in the picture.

,Twilight view

Now that Jupiter has set in the west Saturn is talking over the show in the east. Saturn comes to opposition this week. That means it is opposite the Sun in our sky, rising at sunset, highest at midnight in the south and setting at sunrise. It is also means Saturn is now closest to the earth, making it the biggest and brightest of the year. By 9pm Saturn is high enough for you take out your scopes and get a good view.

-AstroTom