[cas_announce] Upcoming CAS Program: Neptune-Last Planet in the Solar System?
- From: Craig Niemi <craig_niemi@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Announce CAS_ <cas_announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:59:26 -0700 (PDT)
Just a reminder of our next Member / Public Program.
Neptune-Last Planet in the Solar System?
Saturday August 27th from 8 to 10pm
$3 Adults, Under 12 free.
No reservations needed.
I'm heading out of town and won't have a chance to coordinate our speaker
(Terry??) and volunteers, but like all our other events folks will be needed
for Check-In, Scope Operators and Astronomy Ambassadors to welcome our guests
and answer any questions they might have. The program begins at 8pm so being
set up by 7:30 is a good idea.
Val & I will be in the Badlands hoping for some clear skies (wanna bet on that).
Hopefully the skies will cooperate over CAS!
Craig
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http://local.cincinnati.com/share/news/story.aspx?sid=183876
Neptune-Last Planet in the Solar System?
From
1930, and until Pluto’s demotion in 2006, “My Very Excellent Mother
Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” was the saying we all used to remember the
order of the planets in our solar system: Mercury - Venus- Earth – Mars –
Jupiter – Saturn – Uranus –Neptune -Pluto.
But at times even
before Pluto got the celestial boot the correct order was Mercury –
Venus – Earth – Mars – Jupiter – Saturn – Uranus – Pluto - Neptune. One
of the reasons Pluto was demoted was the fact that its oval shaped orbit
sometimes crossed Neptune’s temporarily making this distant pale blue
dot the ninth planet.
While officially categorized as two of the
four Giant Gas planets Uranus and Neptune have never been particularly
popular with amateur or even professional astronomers. Overshadowed by
the views of the King of the Planets Jupiter and spectacular Saturn with
its amazing rings the other two are so distant that they never appear
as more than tiny pale blue-green disks in backyard telescopes. NASA’s
Voyager 2 spacecraft sailed past Neptune on August 25 1989 after a 12
year trip and returned mysteries that to this day have not been fully
explained. Most of what we’ve learned about Neptune since comes from the
Hubble Space Telescope.
However “Us” and “Nine” in their own
rights are remarkable and mysterious wanderers of our solar system.
Neptune’s largest moon Triton orbits backwards around the planet. 30
times farther away from the Sun than our own planet, Neptune receives
little energy from the Sun but somehow has the fastest winds, up to
1,500mph, in the solar system. Giant hurricane type storms, The Great
Dark Spot and Scooter circle the planet in the wrong direction.
Neptune
does hold particular appeal for local amateur astronomers. Orbiting so
far away Neptune has just this year completed one revolution around the
Sun since its discovery in 1846. The credit for its discovery was hotly
debated by French and English astronomers 165 years ago. While they were
bickering it’s likely that the astronomers at the Cincinnati
Observatory were the first Americans to view the new planet having just
missed being its discoverers.
You and your family can join that
Cincinnati tradition on Saturday August 27th from 8 to 10pm for a family
program on the Last Planet in our Solar System!
• First enjoy an introductory program about the far reaches of our solar system.
• Astronomers will be on hand to answer all your astronomical questions.
• View the stars and planets through the Society’s big telescopes! (weather
permitting)
• Be sure to come up with your own trick for remembering the order of the
planets.
For
100 years the Cincinnati Astronomical Society’s core mission has been
education and with its new headquarters is offering a wide variety of
programs for school groups, scouts, adults and club members.
The Cincinnati Astronomical Society
5274 Zion Rd. Cleves, OH 45002
(near the Mitchell Memorial Forest)
513-941-1981
www.cinastro.org
Admission: $3 adults, Under 12 free.
No reservations required.
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