#astronomerswithoutborders

TeddyBoy Protects His Eyes

TeddyBoy wants to advise you humans to wear protective goggles on August 21, the day the sun plays hide and seek with the moon. He wants to make sure you can read his upcoming essay "Where Have All the Sunbeams Gone." 

TeddyBoy Sinclair.com

Wednesday night's #AstronomicalConjunction of the waxing crescent Moon and planet Jupiter on the #WDEFNews12 Island Cove webcam.

#AstronomersWithoutBorders #BringBackTheNight #BackyardAstronomy #KeepLookingUp

GAM: Waving to Astronauts (and Cosmonauts):

http://urbanastronomyto.tumblr.com/

As you’re looking up at the sky, sometimes you might notice a pinpoint of light tracking above, whizzing past the stars. Those are actually satellites orbiting the earth. These are hard to see in the city, but there are a couple things that are visible, even in the most light-polluted areas.

First: Iridium flares. These are sometimes intense streaks of lights that come from a satellite’s solar panels reflecting light onto earth. They can be mistaken for shooting stars/meteors, but they are a lot slower moving, and the best part is, they are predictable. (extra homework: look up the difference between a meteor, meteoroid and meteorite. People mix them up all the time but there’s a big difference)

Second: The International Space Station. This is my favourite thing to watch because you’re actually watching people up in space fly by. When I’m outside my condo I get lots of funny looks from neighbours as I crane my neck up, but once I explain what I’m looking at, it’s great to see them light up and get excited about it too! The other great part about the ISS is that it is looking back at us. Most of the astronauts on board are on Twitter, tweeting pics of earth out every day. Give them a follow, especially Scott Kelly, who just started his Year In Space mission, and you probably remember how awesome Chris Hadfield was at this.

Check out the first 5 minutes of this video so see some amazing footage from the ISS. The rest of the video is cool too, but the best stuff is at the beginning https://youtu.be/k3rx6zNL8G0

Seeing flares and the ISS is easy, you just need cooperative weather and know when and where to look. I use an app called ISS Tracker. It shows me both the ISS and flares, with a few other things. It tells you when an event will happen, its magnitude, and points your phone in the right direction and elevation to see the flyover. It’s a lot of fun.

Finally, tonight, 04/12/15 is Yuri’s Night! Its the 54th anniversary of the first human in space, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Its also the 34th anniversary of the first space Shuttle launch. Why not go out and celebrate? From Toronto there will be an ISS fly-by in the north, not too high in the sky at 9:54pm, traveling west to east. Enjoy!