SEPTEMBER 2011 ASTRONOMY
From the Trackman Planetarium at Joliet Junior College
The Trackman Planetarium lost a good friend with the passing of Dr. Gena Proulx, the President of Joliet Junior College. Dr. Proulx passed away on August 12, 2011. Dr. Proulx always had encouraging words about the planetarium and for our programs. She will be missed.
The Autumnal Equinox is on September 23rd. On that date, the sun crosses the celestial equator, getting lower in the sky each day for us in the northern hemisphere. The celestial equator is an imaginary line across the sky from true east to true west and is directly overhead if you are on the equator. (48 degrees above the southern horizon for us.) From this equinox until the equinox in March, the sun will be above the southern hemisphere and the people in the southern hemisphere will start enjoying spring and summer. Although the equinox is supposed to mean equal hours of sunlight and darkness, because of the Earth’s orbital anomalies September 26th has the closest to 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of dark. The sun sets at the North Pole on the Autumnal Equinox and doesn’t rise above the horizon until next spring.
Jupiter rises in the late evening at the beginning of September and mid-evening by the end of the month. It is hard to miss the largest of all the planets. Our planet is orbiting toward Jupiter and we will be at our closest to Jupiter at the end of October. Venus, Mercury and Saturn are too close to the sun for viewing during September. Mars is in the sky during the night and it appears to move westward through the stars, eventually to be in the evening sky in mid-winter. The Big Dipper has moved off to the western sky, and the major stars in the mid-evening sky are the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle - Deneb, Altair and Vega. High in the northeastern sky is the “W” that makes up the constellation of Cassiopeia. Below and slightly to the west of Cassiopeia is the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest galaxy to our Milky Way Galaxy. If you are in really dark skies, you can see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye, but in this area you have to search for it with binoculars. The galaxy will appear as an elongated fuzz patch. The Milky Way is directly overheard during the mid-evening in September. Just look straight up with your binoculars and you should be able to see some of the billions of stars that are the sun’s neighbors.
Welcome to Mr. Andrew Morrison, a new Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Joliet Junior College. Professor Morrison comes to JJC from DePaul.
The Chicken Little people are predicting another disaster for the world with the close approach of Comet Elenin on October 16th. Like all comets, Elenin is a small body of ice and rock - Elenin being about 3 miles wide. As a comet approaches the sun, it begins to melt and grow a tail of water, gas and small rocks. At its closest approach to Earth, Elenin will be over 21 million miles away and will present no danger. Unfortunately, at this time it is predicted that the comet will only be visible with a telescope.
The full moon is on September 12th. The Native Americans called the September full moon the “Full Corn Moon”. In Asian countries, the September full moon is the time for the Moon Cake Festival, celebrated at the September (harvest) full moon. The Moon Cake Festival is for the young children, but everyone celebrates by eating the delicious pastries called Moon Cakes.
The sun starts the month in Leo and on the 17th it moves into Virgo where it remains for the rest of the month. The reason those dates don’t correspond with the Astrology dates you see in the newspaper is because the Astrology dates haven’t been updated in several hundred years. Meanwhile, because of a wobble in the Earth’s axis, the sun has changed position in relation to the stars. This circular movement of the north pole is known as precession and it is a 26,000 year cycle. As an example of how far off astrological charts can be, the sun is in Leo from August 11th until September 17th. But according to the astrologers, the sun is in Leo from July 23rd until August 22nd.
The 2011-2012 Season at the Trackman Planetarium begins with a show on the seasonal skies on September 13th at 7:30 pm. Seasonal skies for younger people will be at 6:30 pm on September 22nd. Weather permitting, we will do an outdoor show on September 27th at 7:30 pm. We will be at the far south end of the parking lot, near the baseball field. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, we will have a show on the Solar System in the planetarium. All shows at the planetarium are provided at no charge by Joliet Junior College.
School is back in session and Christine McKittrick is taking reservations for field trips to the Trackman Planetarium for the coming school year. Christine can be reached between 7 am and noon at (815) 280-6682.
Art Maurer
Director -Trackman Planetarium at Joliet Junior College
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