We’re holding our fourth annual science/swim party at the Galactic Headquarters of the Cosmos Research Center on July 3. For more information, contact tom.

Here is a video I made of the San Diego Science Festival at Petco Park March 27, 2010. It had about 120 exciting hands-on science booths, with about 50,000 people attending. (I am a member of the festival advisory board).

And here is my film from the 2009 festival at Balboa Park.

Path of Asteroid Anastasia eclipsing the star Zeta Ophiuchi

We will be out looking for the eclipse of the asteroid Anastasia, as it passes in front of the star Zeta Ophiuchi on the morning of April 6, 2010 at 3:34 AM PDT.  From the web site: Asteroid Occulations:

The eclipse, or "occultation" as astronomers call it, will occur at
3:34 am PDT Tuesday morning, April 6th, in the Los Angeles area.
The star will abrupty disappear for less than 10 seconds, and since
the time uncertainty is less than half a minute, you don't need to
watch very long.  So you can set your alarm to wake up 15 to 20 min.
before the occultation, and be back in bed within half an hour, thus
not loosing too much sleep for this weekday event.

The 25-mile-wide path is expected to pass over Orange County and
extend north from there, over West Covina and Ontario, Calif.
However, the location of the path is quite uncertain; the path could
instead pass over downtown Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley
(with a small chance that it could pass over even Ventura and
Bakersfield), or it could shift east, possibly passing over San
Bernardino or, rather less likely, over San Diego and Palm Springs.
Even an observer on the predicted central line has only a 26% chance
to have an occultation.

Although seeing the eclipse from the Cosmos Research Center is not very likely, if we could see it, we could
provide some valuable information to astronomers about the exact shape and location of the asteroid.
Its a mind-boggling to think that we can predict a rock passing in front of a star millions of miles away.

In conjunction with the Elfin Forest Nature Interpretive Center, we will be having a science club meeting.

One activity will be to look at water from the creek through the microscope.  Here is scientist Abby looking at pond water:

We will be having our third annual Cosmos Research Center Star Party at Anza, California, on August 14, 2010. We will have a BBQ, a Science Symposium for kids to give power point presentations about the stars, and then will be able to see the sky using the mighty Kuhn 22″ telescope at the Orange County Astronomers club Observatory.

The moon will be up for the early evening, giving us a chance to see it close up for a while.  Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Saturn will be clustered near each other just at sunset.  When the moon sets, we’ll have a dark sky and a chance to see the Milky Way, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.  With a little luck, we’ll be able to see all the planets in one night!

I’ll be watching the LCROSS impact on the moon this Friday morning from a 22″ telescope in Anza, California.  I thought it would be nice to have some music to listen to while watching it, so I asked my favorite composer Kevin MacLeod if he would be interested in composing something special.

We tossed around some ideas, and he came up with this amazing piece: called Impact.  You can download the smaller MP3 version, or the larger WAV version.  This is meant to start exactly 11 minutes before impact, and has a voiceover counting down the time to impact.  This is royalty-free music, so feel free to pass it freely according to Kevin’s license agreement.

Enjoy!

This is Dr. Bob Bell donating a centrifuge to the Cosmos Research Center…

NASA has launched the LCROSS mission to send a satellite into the moon at twice the speed of a bullet the morning of Oct. 9, 2009. The Cosmos Research Center will use the 22″ Kuhn Telescope in Anza, Ca. to see if we can photograph the plume that the collisions eject.

We will be holding our second annual Star Party at the Orange County Astronomers observatory in Anza, Ca on August 15, 2009.  We will be using the Mighty Kuhn, a 22″ telescope housed in its own observatory, complete with computers to control its movement across the sky.

We will meet at 6PM for a picnic dinner, followed at 7:30 by Science Symposium.   Students will be able to give Powerpoint presentations about some topic in astronomy, cosmology, extra solar planets, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

We will also have a discussion “Should the earth be broadcasting to outer space to announce its presence to possible other civilizations?”  We will talk a little about the technology that allows us to do this, as well as the ethics involved: who should decide this question?

As darkness falls, we will fire up the computers and telescope to see the wonders of the clear dark sky…

This party is open to Orange County Astronomers club members and their guests.  Limited accommodations are available at the Anza House trailer. Camping is available.

Contact Tom Munnecke or Kevin Nelson if you’d like to participate or make a presentation.

Here are the photos from the Star Party: