Astronomy (Period 7)

Course Description

Astronomy Calendar of Celestial Events
for Calendar Year 2015

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Our daytime star

Paolo Porcellana from Asti, Italy
About this image, the photographer said, “I managed to build this image capturing eight movies with exposures for the disc details, and seven others for the prominences. Then I joined the two mosaics using Photoshop. I then elaborated the image, giving it a slightly ‘hotter’ aspect. I think the many active zone and filaments give a 3-D effect to the Sun’s disc.” (Lunt LS50F and BF1200 filters on a 4.6-inch refractor at f/7, Point Grey Chameleon Mono CCD camera, taken December 8, 2011)

Catch a quick lunar eclipse

The Full Moon slides completely into Earth’s shadow twice in 2015, bringing observers two total lunar eclipses. The first happens April 4 and the second on the night of September 27/28. The April 4 event offers a fleeting glimpse of totality. The Moon traverses the northern edge of Earth’s dark umbral shadow and remains in it for just 4 minutes and 43 seconds. That makes it the 21st century’s shortest total lunar eclipse and the quickest since October 17, 1529, when totality lasted just 1 minute and 41 seconds. For observers, this means the Moon’s northern limb will appear abnormally bright at mideclipse because it lies so close to the edge of Earth’s shadow