Astronomy Wise

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DocumentaryStorm is pleased to recommend a handful of great astronomy documentaries for your viewing pleasure. The fine website, DocumentaryStorm.com, a curated resource for documentaries online, put together a list of some suitable documentaries especially for Lupuvictoryblog.

 Birth of the Moon: Cosmic Journeys has released the latest in their very popular science series. BIRTH OF THE MOON tells the story of how Earth’s moon came to be.

Violent Universe: Violent Universe leaps into the future. Five billion years from today the universe will be a very different place.

Time Lapse From Space: Around the world in 80 days? How about around the world in 7 minutes! This short video footage is space eye candy. Using time lapsing technology, you can try to spot your house form 250 miles above the Earth. This film was shot by the International Space Station while it journeyed around the Earth at an incredible speed of 17,500 miles per hour.

The Blue Planet: The IMAX film Blue Planet offers an eloquent reminder–and a cautionary warning–that the planet Earth is a delicate living organism, constantly reshaped and rejuvenated by the awesome forces of nature.

 

Coming Up In May 2012 - Re-published with permission from an original post by Derek Shirlaw."

Mercury can be found in the early morning sky during the first part of May. By the end of the month though it’ll have reached superior conjunction (it’ll be on the opposite side of the Sun from us). There’s some great unprecedented imagary and data coming back from NASA’s MESSENGER project which is in orbit around the closest planet to the Sun.

If you’ve been watching the evening sky regularly over the past few months, you’ll have noticed Venus getting progressively higher in the sky at the same time each night. However, by 16th May that will be changing as the planet appears to come to a stop in the sky before getting increasingly lower in the sky at the same time each night such that come June 5th it’ll be in transit across the Sun. This to-ing and fro-ing in the sky happens as Venus is catching up on Earth and will undertake us on its orbit around the Sun.

Jupiter reaches conjunction on 13th May and will therefore be on the opposite side to the Sun from us and well out of our view. It’s on it’s way to being a planet that rises in the morning just before the Sun – one for the very early birds!

Easily to find in the constellation of Leo this month, is Mars. The red planet is due South by about 20:00, but not really visible till around 21:30 because of the brightness of the setting Sun.

Saturn remains in the constellation of Virgo, close to the bright star Spica. It’s due South around 23:00 and forms a nice line with Arcturus and Spica as shown in the image a little further down the page.

The outermost planets Uranus and Neptune aren’t visible to the naked eye.

Original Link http://www.derekshirlaw.co.uk/how-the-sky-looks-in-may-2012/

 

May 2012

Day	Event
5	Full Moon
5 & 6	Eta Aquarid meteor shower maximum
12	Last quarter Moon
13	Jupiter at conjunction
20	Annular eclipse of the Sun visible from Asia, Pacific and N. America
20	New Moon
22	Conjunction of Jupiter and Mercury
27	Mercury in superior conjunction
28	First quarter Moon