IT'S LUNAR ECLIPSE TIME!

A rare astronomical event will happen Tuesday December 21 in the early hours of the morning.  The Sun, Earth, and Moon will be in perfect alignment and the Earth's shadow will cha-cha across the face of the Moon.  This is the TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE!  The action begins at 1:32 AM (Eastern Standard Time) when the first visible part of the shadow eats away the left side of the Moon.  I especially love to watch this part because of the precision - it happens exactly, to the second, when astronomer predict it.  That's the time to hoot a holler at the Moon like a real "Luna-tic". 

The Moon will continue to move into the darkest part of the Earth's shadow (the umbra) and turns an eerie shade of orange.  This will occur from 2:40-3:53am.  Why orange?  You're seeing the sunlight bend off of the the atmosphere of the Earth and still getting to the Moon with a slightly different hue.  You can think of it as the reflected light of all the sunrises and sunsets of the Earth giving the Moon a similar glow.

Then the Moon will slide out of the shadow and return to a normal full Moon at 5:01am.  And then that's it.  We won't have another one in the United States until 2014.  So don't miss it!  Either set an alarm to wake up to the eclipse or stay out all night! 

For more on the eclipse you can check out my videos for the program Jack Horkheimer's Star Gazer.  I'm privileged to be the guest host of this program that is on PBS across the country.  Look for me on your TV late at night or watch the eclipse videos at:
1 Minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSwxfzFsDUA
5 Minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4EpGFxHJY
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Piscis Australis - The Southern Fish

A cute, little fall constellation seemingly swims alone on the southern sky this month. Piscis Australis (or Piscis Austrinus) is the southern fish, big daddy to the two fish tied together in the zodiac constellation Pisces. The mythology on these stars is sketchy at best. One account says that a goddess fell into a lake near the Euphrates River and was saved by this fish. In most drawings of Piscis Australis the waters dumped by the constellation Aquarius flow right into his big mouth. Does a fish really need to drink?

Piscis Australis is easy to find because it has one really bright star called Fomalhaut (pronounced foam-a-low) which means, "fish's mouth." Look to the south right after sunset and you'll see one lonely bright star just a 1/4 the way up in the sky. That's Fomalhaut. The other stars are faint but look a little like a line-drawing of a goldfish.  Fomalhaut is a great indication for fall and it has the most unique color of all bright stars. Most astronomers will say that stars cannot be green, but if you look closely you might see it flicker blue, white, and GREEN. Most recently a planet was seen in orbit around Fomalhaut (see picture) so could this be a place for alien fish to thrive?
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Deanspace on YouTube

To meet the ever-growing demand for answers to the question, "Will the world really end on December 21, 2012?" I recently made a video that I hope will put everyone's mind at ease.  Please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPv1S706mao

Enjoy and spread the word.  It is NOT the end of the world.
Thanks,
Dean
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Tiamat the Dragon

One of the most ancient stories that survives to the present comes from the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish. This tells the tale of Tiamat the Dragon and Marduk the Hero.

"In the beginning there was nothing. Total blackness. Creatures emerged from the ether and roamed the dark universe. There existed a huge she-dragon named Tiamat who was 7 miles long from head to tail and ruled the darkness. She had a mob of other monsters who carried out her bidding and kept everyone in constant terror.

"There was a god named Marduk who decided to stand up to Tiamat and the monsters. Marduk had a giant net, a bow, and arrows. He was said to be able to control the seven winds and feared no monster. Marduk made it his quest to defeat Tiamat and free the fledgling world from her tyranny. When Marduk approached Tiamat, the mighty dragon towered over him. 'You dare to challenge me, little man,' she croaked. With barely a thought Tiamat snatched Marduk up in her right claw and brought him close to her fire-breathing snout. Marduk was not afraid. In fact, everything was going according to plan. He threw out the net which was carried by the seven winds to encircle the dragon's body. This slightly impressed Tiamat but all she said was, 'You'll make a nice appetizer after all.'

"She then opened up her mile-wide jaws and was about to devour Marduk when he sent the seven winds right down her throat. The winds puffed her up like a balloon while the net held her down. Then Marduk notched an arrow to his bow and let one fly down her open mouth, past her sharp fangs, through her long esophagus, and 'Thunk!' smack dab into her heart.

"Tiamat was dead. Marduk took her body and cut it in two parts. One half he threw upward to become the heavens, the other half became the Earth. He rounded up the monsters and threw them into the sky to become the stars around the once-mighty Tiamat who you can still see today in the constellation Draco."

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Draco the Dragon

In the northern sky in summer, we come across Draco the Dragon. Draco, along with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are CIRCUMPOLAR constellations - meaning they circle the pole star and never set throughout the year.

Draco's place in the heavens is easy to locate even if it's stars are difficult to find. Look for the coiling curve of faint stars that runs between the much brighter stars of the Big and Little Dipper. The Dragon looks more like a coiled snake and the four stars marking her head are the most pronounced. The brightest of the head stars, Eltannin, points near Vega and is the farthest point away from the Big Dipper.

Draco played a much more central role in the earliest astronomy than it does today. Even though it has few bright stars, it had one that beared many names:

Thuban - "Judge of Heaven," "High Horned One," "Proclaimer of Light," "The
Favorable Judge," "Crown of Heaven."

Why so many exalted names for a mediocre star? Because of the Earth's wobble - also called precession - Thuban was Pole Star around 2800 BC. It was the only star that didn't move and was always there to guide the ancients as the North Star does today. Egyptians built pyramids to Thuban, so that its light penetrated huge shafts at key dates and times.

Draco's brightest star is Eltannin- "Dragon's Head" (Arabic) "Isis" (Egyptian). In 3500 BC, the temple of Hathor in Greece was dedicated to Eltannin. The adjoining town was named the city of the dragon.

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Scutum the Shield

Not all of the constellations are ancient. In fact many of them were named in the 1600s for scientific instruments or newly discovered, exotic animals. One of the strangest ones is called Scutum the Shield. The Shield is not very bright but can found between Ophiuchus and Aquila and above Sagittarius.

Scutum was originally named "Sobieski's Shield" by the astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Hevelius loved charting the faintest of stars and created 7 constellations overlooked by the ancient Greeks. He was also known for having a 145 foot long telescope - one of the longest telescopes ever made. After Hevelius' observatory burned down, the King of Poland, John Sobieski, financed the rebuilding of a new observatory. Hevelius was so moved that he honored his patron by naming a bit of sky (though mostly empty of stars) after him.

Upon closer examination (with the aid of a telescope), there are tons of stars in Scutum. The Shield lies in a particularly think swath of the Milky Way. Just beyond 20/20 vision these stars are near the heart of our galaxy.

Not all of Hevelius' constellations made it to modern star charts. He named one group of stars after Cerberus, the Three-Headed Hound of the Underworld. How could the astronomers leave "Fluffy" out of the sky!?!

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Ophiuchus the Seprent Bearer

Ophiuchus looks like a long stretched out pentagon in the southwestern sky. Connect a line from Deneb through Vega and you will run into Ras Alhague, the brightest star in Ophiuchus.

Ras Alhague is an Arabic word meaning “Head of the Serpent Charmer”. Just to the right is another star in the constellation Hercules called Ras Algethi, or “Head of the Giant”. So we have two men bumping heads in the heavens! Ophiuchus is lucky. He gets to stand right-side up, while Hercules flies through the sky upside-down.

Many legends say that this group of stars forms a man holding a huge snake. You really have to use your imagination to see that. The Greeks believed this wrestler was named Asklepios. He was the god and inventor of medicine and was so gifted that he could even restore the dead to life.

Asklepios learned this trick from snakes. Once when he was making a house call to a sick patient, a serpent slithered into the room and coiled around his walking stick. Asklepios, slightly scared of snakes, quickly killed it. A few minutes later a second serpent crawled under the door carrying an odd herb in its fanged mouth. The second serpent went over to the dead one, applied the herb, and restored the snake to life. What was the magical herb? Who knows? But from that moment on Asklepios always carried a staff with a serpent wrapped around it. It became the symbol for the medical arts still in use today.

Asklepios quickly learned to make his own resurrection juice to bring back any lost patients. And later that month he even came to his buddy Orion's aid. As described in the Orion myth, the gods sent a scorpion to humble Orion's boasting - by killing him. Well, that sure showed him! But in another version of the myth, Asklepios was called to the scene of the crime to work his doctorly deeds. Not only did Asklepios raise Orion to life but he even dispatched the scorpion by squishing it under his sandaled foot.

Notice from the picture at the top that Ophiuchus is standing on the Scorpion. And he doesn't seem scared of that large serpent coiled around him. We'll learn his fate next week...
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