Limerick Astronomy Club

So Where Have You Been Today? (Article 147) Perhaps to the shop, to work or just stayed in? It is often a good idea to take a different perspective — let’s look at the bigger picture. Imagine yourself, sitting on your favourite chair, located above the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, loo...

August Night Sky (Article 148) The end of the summer is officially here. August, the first month of autumn usually proves to be a better month for astronomy when compared to July. The long stretch in the day that was there in mid summer is starting to dwindle and the nights are coming in a lot soone...

Great astronomers: Tycho Brahe. (Article 149) Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler are mainly responsible for the great advances in astronomy in the late sixteenth century. From their observations and discoveries came the basic model of the Solar System we have to this day, with the Sun at its centre and...

NASA’s Golden Jubilee — 2008 ( Article 150) In the fifty years of its existence, America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration has made an immense contribution to the development space exploration and to our knowledge of the cosmos, both near and far away. Its many spacecraft, from Pioneer...

After the Big Bang. (Article 151) The origin of the universe is undergoing intense scrutiny by scientific observatories on the ground and in space. Ever more powerful instruments are being designed to harvest the faintest wisps of radiation from deepest space that come not only from far away, but fr...

September Night Sky (Article 152) Many astronomers across the country have had little or no opportunity to view the sky recently given the almost monsoon like weather conditions. It seems that June and July are months to wrap up the telescope and put it in the attic, but now with all the schools reo...

Great astronomers: Galileo Galilei (Article 153) Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking agree that Galileo was the father of modern science. His name is invoked repeatedly in Queen’s iconic song, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. All this praise is for a man who in his day, stirred up vicious controversy with his w...

So Who Is Watching The 1973 All- Ireland Hurling Final? (Article 154) As you know Limerick beat Kilkenny in the Final that year. It is now just over 35 years ago. Since radio and television signals are electromagnetic waves, the same as light waves, the distance that the television broadcast of the ...

Last Shuttle visit to Hubble Space Telescope (Article155) Edwin Hubble was one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th Century. In the 1920s he made the then astonishing discovery that Our Milky Way was not the entire universe, but was only one of millions of galaxies in an unimaginably large cosmos...

The Whirlpool Galaxy (Article 156) The Whirlpool Galaxy, discovered by Charles Messier, in 1773, is probably the best known spiral galaxy in the sky. It forms part of a small group of galaxies, located at a distance of approximately 30 million light years (the distance is not yet well determined), i...

October night sky (Article 157) The long nights are on the way in, it’s starting to get dark at 7pm these days. Jupiter is drifting into the evening twilight; it is visible as a very bright star in the southwestern sky in the hours after sunset. Venus is visible throughout the month as a bright star...

Whirlpool Star Party 2008: Award to Irish Amateur Astronomer. (Article 158) The Shannonside Astronomy club has once again organised a very successful Whirlpool Starparty in Birr from 26th to 28th September. The club patron, Lord Rosse, opened the proceedings of the 24th Starparty on Saturday morning...

Great astronomers: Percival Lowell (Article 159) Percival Lowell is certainly one of the most famous American astronomers, mainly due to his studies of the planet Mars, and his firm belief that an advanced civilisation once existed there. Born to a wealthy and influential Boston family in 1855, Lowe...

The European Space Agency ATV (Article 160) A previous Shannonside Astronomy Club Limerick Leader article covered the launch of the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Jules Verne. Launched on an Ariane 5 in March 2008, with the key objective of proving the concept of using ATV’...

November Night Sky: Winter Constellations Return. (Article 161) November is officially the first month of winter, however given the weather this year you could be forgiven for thinking that the seasons hold little meaning these days. This month sees the planet Venus skimming the south western horizo...