Space - Tullamore Astronomical Society

REALTA 

9+- 

Reviews, Events And Lectures – 

Tullamore Astronomy 

Publication of the Tullamore Astronomical 

Society. 

The Midlands only Astronomical Newsletter! 

Volume 7: Issue 2 – November/December 2005 

Price: €5.25 

www.tullamoreastronomy.com 

Space: 

Imagination 

Knows No 

Frontiers 

Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society 1

And then there were 12 Winners 

Space: Imagination Knows No Frontiers 

Comes to a climatic close 

The competition finally came to a close on Saturday October 22 nd . A presentation ceremony was organised, the music was 

playing, Big Bear made an appearance, and one end of the Byrne’s World of Wonder Tullamore store filled with eagerly 

awaiting kids and their families! Big Bear had lots of candy to give out, and with the festive atmosphere of a birthday 

party, and presents galore, the kids one by one came up and received their prize. The end to the TAS & Byrne’s 

Children’s Art Competition, had come to a climatic finale. 

There was a short recap by TAS’s Seanie Morris, and a welcome speech by Councillor Richard Egan, as emphasis was on 

the children and their imaginations in space and astronomy were highlighted and acknowledged. 

During the weeks leading up to the presentation, Michael O’Connell 

and Seanie Morris compiled the calendar. It now consists of the 12 winning 

posters accompanying each month, loaded with fun facts and historical dates 

and snippets. It also shows the key phases of the Moon throughout each 

month, and includes notes on where to observe each of the planets. 

The calendar is available to buy in Byrne’s World of Wonder, or at 

TAS meetings, priced €10. You can also obtain one by sending an SAE (96 

cents stamped) with €10 o the club secretary. All monies raised go into the 

clubs fund towards erecting a clubhouse next to the observatory. This will be 

a public accessible structure, which is hoped to be completed within 3 years. 

Back (l-r): Seanie Morris (TAS), Conor Rohan, Sean Hughes, John Cooke (Mngr, Byrne's WoW), Siobhain McCormack (judge), Big 

Bear (aka Earl Morris), Councillor Richard Egan, Shane Murray (Ast. Mngr, Byrne's WoW). Middle (l-r): Ciara O'Shea, Eanna Duffy, 

Conor Lynch, Jason Boland, Lucinda Daly, Shauna Stringer. Front (l-r): Heather Burke, Becky McDonagh, Colm McGuinness, Conor 

McGuinness. Picture by Darren Dempsey (TAS). 

2 

Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society

Key organisers and folks involved in the running of 

the competition: (l-r) Councillor Richard Egan, Shane 

Murray (Byrnes WoW), Siobhain McCormack (judged 

the entries), Michael O’Connell (TAS), Seanie Morris 

(TAS), John Cooke (Byrnes WoW), and Earl Morris 

(Byrne’s WoW). A very special thank you is extended 

to them for giving their time and energy into the 

competition and calendar. (Photo by Darren 

Dempsey) 

Many casual shoppers came in to have a look at what 

went on! Interest even went further than was hoped, as John 

Flannery (centre-right) from South Dublin Astronomy Society 

(SDAS) came down all the way from Ranelagh! Even the 

competition itself drew in entries from Offaly, Westmeath, 

Kildare Galway, and Laois counties! (Photo by Darren 

Dempsey) 

Seanie Morris after setting up his ETX-70 and the P.A. 

system – but was he overlooking them to make sure Big 

Bear would not ‘steal’ the show?! Deirdre Campbell helps 

out. 

Seanie Morris presented Shane Murray with a batch of 

the TAS 2006 Calendars a couple days after the 

presentation. So far (at the time of print), it is on sale in 

Byrne’s World of Wonder Tullamore and Mullingar shops. 

(Photo by Seanie Morris) 

It was deemed that each 

winning entry was worthy of 1 st 

Place! 

Becky McDonagh (7) from Tullamore, Ciara O’Shea (12) from Clonderig in Ballinahowen, Colm 

McGuinness (6) from Ballycue in Geashill, Conor Lynch (8) from Aughanrush in Killeigh, Conor 

McGuinness (5) from Ballycue in Geashill,Conor Rohan (11) from Ballinahowen, Eanna Duffy (9) 

from Ballinahowen, Heather Burke (8) from Tannery Wharf in Rathangan, Jason Boland (10) from 

Ballinahowen, Lucinda Daly (10) from Ballinahowen, Sean Hughes (12) from Kearney Park in 

Tullamore, and Shauna Stringer (7) from Corolanty in Shinrone. 

TAS says Congratulations to each of the winners, and a huge Well Done 

to over 330 more that entered! 


Letters to the Editor 

From: Girvan McKay 

Hello again, Seanie. This has nothing to do with Maire's lecture title, but maybe readers of Réalta might be faintly 

interested to read the following enquiry and my reply, which I received from a correspondent re: constellation names. 

ORIGINAL ENQUIRY: 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Sìol Cultural Enterprises" 

To: 

Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 2:13 PM 

Subject: Inquiry to Gaelic Constellations 

Hi, 

I’m doing some research on Scottish Gaelic (and older Celtic) astronomical terms. In my searching on-line I ran across a 

listing of the constellations in numerous languages including Galeic and Irish (constellation-names.at). I believe you 

contributed the Scottish Gaelic names of constellations (and the Irish). I was wondering what your source for these names 

was. Thanks for your help. 

Cheers, 

Trueman Matheson, 

Sìol Cultural Enterprises, 

St. Andrew's, NS, CANADA 

http://www.gaelicbooks.com 

MY REPLY: 

Thanks for the enquiry. The sources for the constellation names were, respectively: 

Scots Gaelic: 

REUL-EOLAS - by Patrick Moore, translated by Iain Aonghas MacLeoid, published 1997 by John A. Macleod, Largs, 

Ayrshire, ISBN 0 9530874 0 9. 

Also: THE ILLUSTRATED GAELIC-ENGLISH DICTIONARY, Edward Dwelly, various editions and reprints. 

Irish Gaelic: 

FOCLOIR REALTEOLAIOCHTA/ Dictionary of Astronomy, (name of compiler not given), publisher AN GUM, Dublin, 

1996, ISBN 1-85791-175-X. 

Also: ENGLISH-IRISH DICTIONARY, Tomas de Bhaldraithe, published by Government Publications, Dublin 1959. 

-Hope this helps. Girvan McKay / Garbhan MacAoidh. 

Thanks for that Girvan. It’s nice to get a query from across the waters! –Ed. 

Club Snippets 

TAS Christmas Party will be coming up soon. A date has 

not been fixed yet, so keep an eye on our website, or you will 

be notified via e-mail. If you are not already on the TAS E-mail 

List to be kept up to date with club news and astronomy events, 

send an e-mail to tullamoreastronomy@yahoo.co.uk. 

Club Fleeces There are still a few left. Sizes available are 

Large or Medium. Priced €15, they can be purchased at any 

meeting. 

TAS AGM This was fixed for Tuesday December 

6 th , but due to some committee members not being 

able to make it that night, it may be pushed up to the 

start of the New Year. Members will be advised. If 

you would like to become a more active member, 

then this will be your chance as a member to have 

your say in what the club should do. The AGM is 

open to everyone. 

4 


NEWS UPDATE 

From Around The Universe 

New crater formation theory • HST searches for oxygen on the Moon • 

Russia to launch Brazils first astronaut • 10 th ‘planet’ has a moon • Mars 

was once like Earth • 2 new moons for Pluto • Life’s building blocks 

abundant in space 

Hubble Searches for Oxygen on the Moon 

During the summer, scientists pointed the Hubble 

Space Telescope at the Moon to take a closer look at 

its soil. Initial findings support the potential existence of 

some unique varieties of oxygen–rich glassy soils in 

both the Aristarchus and Apollo 17 regions. They could 

be well suited for visits by robots and human explorers 

to learn how to live off the land on the Moon. 

While Hubble wasn't specifically designed to 

look at the Moon (it only has the resolution of a football 

field for an object so close) scientists can use the 

ultraviolet capability of its Advanced Camera for 

Surveys to analyse the contents of lunar soil, particularly 

minerals and ore that might contain oxygen. 

Since the Moon does not have a breathable 

atmosphere, and spacecrafts have limited load capacities, 

harvesting oxygen from the soil may be critical for longterm 

human missions. Hubble found that the soil in the 

regions examined contained abundant amounts of 

ilmenite, a mixture of titanium, iron, and oxygen. 

Laboratory experiments on Earth have shown 

that applying certain chemical processes to terrestrial 

ilmenite can easily liberate oxygen and water. Water can 

then be turned into oxygen and hydrogen, which could 

also be used for rocket fuel. 

Other studies have found evidence for water ice 

near the lunar poles. While those areas might serve well 

for human outposts, they are not necessarily the first 

choices for science missions. 

The Hubble team examined three lunar sites, 

two of which – the Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites – 

where soil chemistry is well known. The third was the 

Aristarchus crater, a "geologic wonderland" that has 

piqued geologists' interest for decades. The Aristarchus 

crater is the brightest feature of the Moon's near side, 

nearly twice as bright as most spots on the Moon and 

visible to the naked eye. It's just 25 miles across but 

more than two miles deep. At only 450 million years old, 

it is one of the younger major features on the Moon. 

More importantly, it sits in a region of the Moon 

that scientists believe was once rocked by volcanic 

explosions and tectonic shifts. The two-mile gouge 

exposes the historical record of what went on in the 

region, including the history of crust and mantle 

formation on a young satellite. 

Aristarchus crater was the planned landing site for 

Apollo 18, but no human or robot has ever set foot there, 

making it a likely target for the Lunar Reconnaissance 

Orbiter as it explores the lunar surface in 2008, 

according to current plans. Data from that mission, 

combined with Hubble's observations, will help plan the 

location of future robotic and human missions. 

Craters in Planets and Moons Not What They Seemed 

A hole in a moon or planet does 

not always mean what 

astronomers thought. Most of the 

craters on Jupiter's moon Europa 

are formed by chunks of rock and 

ice splashing back down onto the 

moon's surface after a meteor 

strike, a new study suggests. It was 

previously thought that most of the 

craters seen on moons and planets 

were the work of direct, or 

"primary" impacts from asteroids 

and comets. The new finding 

suggests that most of those craters 

might instead be "secondaries," 

impacts that formed by the 

material ejected from primary 

impacts. 

For Europa, secondaries 

account for as much as 95% of all 

the small craters - those less than a 

mile in diameter - observed on the 

moon. The finding has 

implications for how astronomers 

date the ages of planetary surfaces. 

Asteroids, comets and 

chunks of cosmic debris routinely 

bombard the surface of planets and 

moons. Earth's atmosphere protects 

us from most of these impacts, 

incinerating most objects before 

they hit the ground. Even so, Earth 

has experienced countless meteor 

impacts throughout its long 

history. The evidence for most of 

those impacts have been erased by 

erosion from wind and rain and by 

constant turnover of the Earth's 


crust (read the article about 

Apophis and a likely Earth impact 

in 2036 in the Sept/Oct 2005 issue 

of Réalta –Ed.). 

Earth's Moon, on the other 

hand, is pockmarked with millions 

of craters because it lacks both 

atmosphere and geologic activity. 

Similarly, Mars has thin 

atmosphere and relatively little 

geologic activity. 

On both the Moon and 

Mars, teasing out the primary 

impacts from the secondaries is 

difficult because the craters are just 

too numerous. 

The researchers instead 

turned to Europa and a world 

covered in a thick crust of ice. 

More importantly, Europa is 

geologically active like Earth. Its 

surface is constantly being repaved 

with new ice and as a result, 

Europa has very few craters. 

Using high-resolution 

images from NASA's Galileo 

spacecraft, the researchers 

measured the number, size and 

distribution of craters on Europa. 

They then ran a computer 

simulation of meteors randomly 

striking Europa but with the 

condition that the number and size 

of the craters had to match the real 

number and size observed in the 

images. After running the 

simulations hundreds of times and 

comparing the results to the 

images, they found that the crater 

distributions were not similar as 

would be expected if most of the 

craters were caused by primary 

impacts. 

The finding is important 

because scientists typically use 

crater counts to date the ages of 

planet and moon surfaces. When 

comparing two similar regions on a 

moon, for example, scientists 

generally assume that the region 

with more impact craters is older. 

Scientists can also use a region's 

crater density to calculate it's 

absolute age. They usually use our 

own Moon as a reference because 

scientists have reliably dated the 

age of some its craters based on 

rocks brought back by astronauts. 

If it turns out that most of 

these small caters are secondary 

and not primary, then that means 

the calibrated age from our Moon 

is not right. 

Most of the objects that 

strike Jupiter and its moons come 

from a region of the Solar System 

known as the Kuiper Belt. 

Therefore, another implication of 

the finding may be that there are 

fewer small asteroids in the Kuiper 

Belt than previously thought. It 

may be that small asteroids are 

rarely made or perhaps some 

process depletes them before they 

can reach Jupiter and its moons. 

Life's Building Blocks 

'Abundant in Space' 

The idea that comets and meteorites seeded an early 

Earth with the tools to make life has gained 

momentum from recent observations of some of these 

building blocks floating throughout the cosmos. 

Scientists scanning a galaxy 12 million light-years away 

with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detected copious 

amounts of nitrogen containing polycyclic aromatic 

hydrocarbons (PANHs), molecules critical to all known 

forms of life. 

PANHs carry information for DNA and RNA 

and are an important component of haemoglobin, the 

molecule that transports oxygen through the body. They 

also make chlorophyll, the main molecule responsible 

for photosynthesis in plants, and perhaps most 

importantly, they're the main ingredient in caffeine and 

chocolate. 

"There once was a time that the assumption was 

that the origin of life, everything from building simple 

compounds up to complex life, had to happen here on 

Earth," said study leader Doug Hudgins of Ames 

Research Center. "We've discovered that some very 

biologically interesting molecules can be formed outside 

our earthly environment and delivered here." 

While organic compounds have been discovered 

in meteorites that have landed on Earth, this is the first 

direct evidence for the presence of complex, important 

biogenic compounds in space. So far evidence suggests 

that PANHs are formed in the winds of dying stars and 

spread all over interstellar space. 

"This stuff contains the building blocks of life, 

and now we can say they're abundant in space," Hudgins 

said. "And wherever there's a planet out there, we know 

that these things are going to be raining down on it. It 

did here and it does elsewhere." Using the Spitzer Space 

Telescope, Hudgins and his colleagues detected the 

familiar chemical signature of regular polycyclic 

aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the spiral galaxy M81, 

as well as a similar, but unknown signature. 

"There were a few anomalies in the spectrum 

that we couldn't explain," Hudgins says. The researchers 

compared their readings to the infrared signatures of 

similar molecules, finally settling on nitrogen containing 

PANHs because their data showed there was nitrogen in 

the regions they were investigating. 

"When we did that, we found that by putting a 

little nitrogen in these molecules explained the troubling 

molecules," Hudgins said. "This discovery takes this 

reservoir of molecules that we didn't think were 

interesting and transforms all this stuff into something of 

biologic interest." 

6 


Moon discovered orbiting 

Solar System's 10th 

planet 

The newly discovered 10th planet, 2003 UB313, is 

looking more and more like one of the Solar System's 

major players. It has the heft of a real planet (latest 

estimates put it at about 20 percent larger than Pluto), a 

catchy code name (Xena, after the TV warrior princess), 

and a Guinness Book-ish record of its own (at about 97 

astronomical units-or 9 billion miles from the sun, it is 

the Solar System's farthest detected object). And, 

astronomers from the California Institute of Technology 

and their colleagues have now discovered, it has a moon. 

The discovery of the moon of 

the 10th planet from the W.M. 

Keck Observatory. The planet 

appears in the centre, while the 

moon is the small dot at the 3 

o'clock position. 

The moon, 100 times fainter than Xena and orbiting the 

planet once every couple of weeks, was spotted on 

September 10, 2005, with the 10-meter Keck II telescope 

at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii by Michael E. 

Brown, professor of planetary astronomy, and his 

colleagues at Caltech, the Keck Observatory, Yale 

University, and the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. 

"Since the day we discovered Xena, the big 

question has been whether or not it has a moon," says 

Brown. "Having a moon is just inherently cool-and it is 

something that most self-respecting planets have, so it is 

good to see that this one does too." 

Brown estimates that the moon, nicknamed 

"Gabrielle"-after the fictional Xena's fictional sidekick-is 

at least one-tenth of the size of Xena, which is thought to 

be about 2700 km in diameter (Pluto is 2274 km), and 

may be around 250 km across. 

To know Gabrielle's size more precisely, the 

researchers need to know the moon's composition, which 

has not yet been determined. Most objects in the Kuiper 

Belt, the massive swath of miniplanets that stretches 

from beyond Neptune out into the distant fringes of the 

solar system, are about half rock and half water ice. 

Since a half-rock, half-ice surface reflects a fairly 

predictable amount of sunlight, a general estimate of the 

size of an object with that composition can be made. 

Very icy objects, however, reflect a lot more light, and 

so will appear brighter-and thus bigger-than similarly 

sized rocky objects. 

Further observations of the moon with the 

Hubble Space Telescope, planned for November and 

December, will allow Brown and his colleagues to pin 

down Gabrielle's exact orbit around Xena. With that 

data, they will be able to calculate Xena's mass, using a 

formula first devised some 300 years ago by Isaac 

Newton. 

"A combination of the distance of the moon 

from the planet and the speed it goes around the planet 

tells you very precisely what the mass of the planet is," 

explains Brown. "If the planet is very massive, the moon 

will go around very fast; if it is less massive, the moon 

will travel more slowly. It is the only way we could ever 

measure the mass of Xena-because it has a moon." 

The researchers discovered Gabrielle using Keck 

II's recently commissioned Laser Guide Star Adaptive 

Optics system. Adaptive optics is a technique that 

removes the blurring of atmospheric turbulence, creating 

images as sharp as would be obtained from space-based 

telescopes. The new laser guide star system allows 

researchers to create an artificial "star" by bouncing a 

laser beam off a layer of the atmosphere about 75 miles 

above the ground. Bright stars located near the object of 

interest are used as the reference point for the adaptive 

optics corrections. Since no bright stars are naturally 

found near Xena, adaptive optics imaging would have 

been impossible without the laser system. 

"With Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics, 

observers not only get more resolution, but the light 

from distant objects is concentrated over a much smaller 

area of the sky, making faint detections possible," says 

Marcos van Dam, adaptive optics scientist at the W.M. 

Keck Observatory, and second author on the new paper. 

The new system also allowed Brown and his 

colleagues to observe a small moon in January around 

2003 EL61, code-named "Santa," another large new 

Kuiper Belt object. No moon was spotted around 2005 

FY9-or "Easterbunny"-the third of the three big Kuiper 

Belt objects recently discovered by Brown and his 

colleagues using the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope 

at Palomar Observatory. But the presence of moons 

around three of the Kuiper Belt's four largest objects- 

Xena, Santa, and Pluto-challenges conventional ideas 

about how worlds in this region of the solar system 

acquire satellites. 

Previously, researchers believed that Kuiper Belt 

objects obtained moons through a process called 

gravitational capture, in which two formerly separate 

objects moved too close to one another and become 

entrapped in each other's gravitational embrace. This 

was thought to be true of the Kuiper Belt's small 

denizens-but not, however, of Pluto. Pluto's massive, 

closely orbiting moon, Charon, broke off the planet 

billions of years ago, after it was smashed by another 

Kuiper Belt object. Xena's and Santa's moons appear 

best explained by a similar origin. 

"Pluto once seemed a unique oddball at the 

fringe of the solar system," Brown says. "But we now 

see that Xena, Pluto, and the others are part of a diverse 

family of large objects with similar characteristics, 

histories, and even moons, which together will teach us 

much more about the solar system than any single 

oddball ever would." 


Russia Agrees to Launch Brazil's First Astronaut to ISS 

Brazil’s first astronaut will 

launch toward the International 

Space Station (ISS) in March 

2006 under an agreement with 

Russia’s Federal Space Agency. 

Lt. Col. Marcus Pontes, of the 

Brazilian Air Force, is slated to 

ride up to the ISS aboard a 

Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft 

with the crew of Expedition 13 

under an agreement signed 

between the Federal Space Agency 

and Brazilian Space Agency 

(Agéncia Espacial Brasileiria). 

The Brazilian cosmonaut’s 

flight has been set for late March 

2006 at the insistent request of 

Brazil, which failed to launch its 

cosmonaut under a program of 

NASA. Pontes, 42, reported to 

NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 

Houston, Texas in 1998 to begin 

astronaut training. He served with 

the Space Station Operations 

Branch of NASA’s Astronaut 

Office while awaiting a spaceflight 

assignment, according to NASA 

officials. 

In a statement posted to 

their space agency’s website, 

Brazilian space officials said 

Pontes will carry about 33 pounds 

(15 kilograms) of scientific 

equipment into orbit on his 10-day 

flight, and conduct a series of 

experiments before returning to 

Earth with the Expedition 12 crew. 

He has already reported to Russia’s 

Star City for cosmonaut training 

and will spend eight days aboard 

the ISS, they added. 

Expedition 12 commander 

Bill McArthur and flight engineer 

Valery Tokarev boarded the ISS on 

Oct. 3 rd and are expected to spend 

at least six months in space before 

returning to Earth aboard their 

Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft in early 

April 

New map provides more 

evidence Mars once like 

Earth 

NASA scientists have discovered additional evidence 

that Mars once underwent plate tectonics, slow 

movement of the planet's crust, like the present-day 

Earth. A new map of Mars' magnetic field made by the 

Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft reveals a world whose 

history was shaped by great crustal plates being pulled 

apart or smashed together. 

Above: An artistic illustration of Earth magnetic field and Mars 

magnetic field 

Scientists first found evidence of plate tectonics on Mars 

in 1999. Those initial observations, also done with the 

Mars Global Surveyor's magnetometer, covered only one 

region in the Southern Hemisphere. The data was taken 

while the spacecraft performed an aerobraking 

manoeuvre, and so came from differing heights above 

the crust. 

This high resolution magnetic field map, the first 

of its kind, covers the entire surface of Mars. The new 

map is based on four years of data taken in a constant 

orbit. Each region on the surface has been sampled many 

times. The more measurements that are obtained, the 

more accuracy, and spatial resolution, can be achieved. 

The map lends support to and expands on the 

1999 results. Where the earlier data showed a "striping" 

of the magnetic field in one region, the new map finds 

striping elsewhere. More importantly, the new map 

shows evidence of features, transform faults, that are a 

"tell-tale" of plate tectonics on Earth. Each stripe 

represents a magnetic field pointed in one 

direction-positive or negative - and the alternating stripes 

indicate a "flipping" of the direction of the magnetic 

field from one stripe to another. 

Scientists see similar stripes in the crustal 

magnetic field on Earth. Stripes form whenever two 

plates are being pushed apart by molten rock coming 

up from the mantle, such as along the Mid-Atlantic 

Ridge. As the plate spreads and cools, it becomes 

magnetized in the direction of the Earth's strong global 

field. Since Earth's global field changes direction a 

few times every million years, on average, a flow that 

cools in one period will be magnetized in a different 

direction than a later flow. As the new crust is pushed 

out and away from the ridge, stripes of alternating 

magnetic fields aligned with the ridge axis develop. 

Transform faults, identified by "shifts" in the magnetic 

pattern, occur only in association with spreading centres. 

To see this characteristic magnetic imprint on 

Mars indicates that it, too, had regions where new crust 

came up from the mantle and spread out across the 

surface. And when you have new crust coming up, you 

need old crust plunging back down - the exact 

mechanism for plate tectonics. 

8 


Two New Moons for Pluto? 

New images gathered by the 

Hubble Space Telescope have 

revealed that this distant planet 

could have two additional 

moons. If this is true, Pluto will be 

the first Kuiper Belt Object found 

to have multiple moons. The 

candidate moons have been 

provisionally named S/2005 P1 

and S/2005 P2, and are 

approximately 44,000 km (27,000 

miles) away from Pluto. 

Using NASA's Hubble 

Space Telescope to probe the ninth 

planet in our Solar System, 

astronomers discovered that Pluto 

may have not one, but three 

moons. If confirmed, the discovery 

of the two new moons could offer 

insights into the nature and 

evolution of the Pluto system, 

Kuiper Belt Objects with satellite 

systems, and the early Kuiper Belt. 

The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of 

icy, rocky bodies beyond 

Neptune's orbit. 

Pluto was discovered in 

1930. Charon, Pluto's only 

confirmed moon, was discovered 

by ground-based observers in 

1978. The planet resides 3 billion 

miles from the sun in the heart of 

the Kuiper Belt. The candidate 

moons, provisionally designated 

S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, were 

observed to be approximately 

27,000 miles (44,000 kilometres) 

away from Pluto. The objects are 

roughly two to three times as far 

from Pluto as Charon. The team 

plans to make follow-up Hubble 

observations in February to 

confirm that the newly discovered 

objects are truly Pluto's moons. 

Only after confirmation will the 

International Astronomical Union 

consider names for S/2005 P1 and 

S/2005 P2. 

The Hubble telescope's 

Advanced Camera for Surveys 

observed the two new candidate 

moons on May 15 th . The new 

satellite candidates are roughly 

5,000 times fainter than Pluto, but 

stood out in these Hubble images. 

Three days later, Hubble looked at 

Pluto again. The two objects were 

still there and appeared to be 

moving in orbit around Pluto. 

A re-examination of Hubble 

images taken on June 14, 2002 has 

essentially confirmed the presence 

of both P1 and P2 near the 

predicted locations based on the 

2005 Hubble observations. 

The teams involved looked long 

and hard for other potential moons 

around Pluto. These Hubble 

images represent the most sensitive 

search yet for objects around Pluto, 

and it is unlikely that there are any 

other moons larger than about 10 

miles across in the Pluto system. 

The Irish 

Federation of 

Astronomical 

Societies 

Toy Superstore with branches all 

over Ireland 

Super Christmas Catalogue 

available in our Tullamore store 

NOW! 

Tel: 0506 20390 

With forums, hints 

& tips, and the 

world-renowned 

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www.irishastronomy.org 


UPCOMING ASTRONOMICAL EVENTS 

Compiled by John Flannery, South Dublin AS 

Summary 

Winter Solstice occurs on December 21 st at 18:35hrs: 

Winter officially begins in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Eclipses 

No eclipses occur during this time. 

The Planets 

Heads 

Binocular users may just about spot Mercury in the 

evening sky around time of greatest eastern elongation on 

November 3 rd (24°) given a clear south-western horizon. 

Your best chance of seeing the planet falls during 

December in the morning sky. Mercury begins December 

about 5° above the south-eastern skyline at the beginning of 

civil twilight and climbs higher each day until greatest 

western elongation (21°) on the 12 th when it can be found at 

an altitude of 9.5° around the same time of morning. 

Thereafter, it slowly retreats sunward (but remains quite 

bright at magnitude -0.4) and will probably be lost to view 

by New Year’s Day. A word of caution; if you are looking 

for Mercury in any sort of optical instrument make sure you 

do not accidentally sweep up the Sun in the field. It 

therefore makes sense to look for the planet in binoculars or 

a telescope after sunset or before sunrise. Advanced 

amateurs do observe the planet in daylight close to the Sun 

but only by taking careful precautions and having 

telescopes with setting circles that allow you to accurately 

“home in” on Mercury’s position in the sky. 

Venus has remained quite low in the evening sky all year 

but is now beginning to pull clear, gaining in altitude 

during the two-month period covered by these notes. It lies 

highest in our evening skies in mid-December (still only 

about 12 in altitude though) and reaches greatest brilliancy 

on December 9 th (magnitude -4.6). 

Telescopes will show the phase of the planet 

change from half to a thin crescent over the next two 

months, while the diameter of the disk swells from 24.5" to 

55". You should be able to spot Venus as a tiny crescent in 

binoculars by the end of the year. The Moon is nearby on 

November 5 th and December 4 th , making for an attractive 

sight. 

Still awaiting launch at time of writing is the 

European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission, 

designed to study the atmosphere and space-environment of 

Venus. Following launch, the spacecraft will take 153 days 

to reach Venus after which it will settle into orbit and begin 

science operations. Although previous missions such as 

Magellen have used radar to pierce the veil shrouding this 

mysterious world, we are still no closer to understanding 

UP 

why Earth’s sister planet boasts a greenhouse effect run 

riot. 

Mars continues to steal the show as it reaches opposition 

on November 7 th in the constellation Aries and shines at 

magnitude -2.3 throughout the night. The disk measures 

20" at this time and the Red Planet is sure to be carefully 

scrutinised by backyard observers. Or so we hope! Recent 

reports on the International Mars-watch page 

(http://elvis.rowan.edu/marswatch/) suggest that a dust 

storm first noticed brewing on the planet in mid-October 

has now increased in intensity. Should the storm grow in 

size it will gradually obscure features for observers and the 

disk will look bright orange. Any reports you have should 

be forwarded to the Mars-watch web site mentioned above. 

A detailed article on observing the planet during this 

apparition can be found at 

http://www.tnni.net/~dustymars/Article_2005.htm The 

Moon is close to Mars on November 14 th and December 

11 th . 

Jupiter necessitates an early rise as it is strictly a morning 

sky object during November and December. You will 

probably only first spot the cream-coloured planet from the 

second week of November onwards as its time of rising 

becomes progressively earlier ahead of the Sun. Jupiter 

shines at magnitude -1.7 at the moment and the disk is quite 

small (for Jupiter!), measuring 32". The planet moves from 

Virgo into Libra at the start of December. Look for the 

Moon nearby on the mornings of November 29 th and 

December 27 th . 

Saturn rises before midnight at the beginning of 

November and a little earlier each night until the end of the 

period covered by these notes. It brightens slowly from 

magnitude 0.3 to magnitude 0.0 during November and 

December as it closes in on its January 2006 opposition 

date. 

The beautiful ring system is easily visible in a 

small telescope but if you’ve been keeping a keen eye on 

the planet the last few years you will notice that they are 

gradually closing up -- their Earthward tilt is now around 

17.5°. It’s all to do with the inclination of Saturn’s orbit 

and ours; twice during Saturn’s 29 year long circuit of the 

Sun the rings appear edge-on to Earth-based observers as 

we pass through their plane. The rings will next be edge-on 

in September 2009 and will disappear from view in all but 

larger amateur telescopes. 

The Ringed Planet is still a dramatic sight at the 

moment close to the Beehive star cluster in Cancer that was 

mentioned in the previous issue’s notes. With the Moon 

close to the planet too on the evenings of November 22 nd 

and December 18 th it will add to an already dramatic sight 

in binoculars. 

Details for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are beyond 

10 


viewing for the most part during this time. 

Data & Phases of The Moon 

Data Summary 

November: 

5 th : below Venus in evening sky 

14 th : Full Moon right of Mars 

15 th : Full Moon left of Mars 

21 st : Last Quarter above Saturn 

28 th : thin Crescent next to Spica in Virgo 

29th: thin Crescent below Jupiter in morning 

30 th: Crescent right of Mercury in morning 

December: 

4 th : Crescent below Venus evening 

11 th : waxing Gibbous right of Mars 

12 th : waxing Gibbous left of Mars 

18 th : waning Gibbous right of Saturn 

19 th : waning Gibbous left of Saturn 

27 th : Crescent below Jupiter morning 

29 th : thin Crescent left of Mercury morning 

Phases 

New 1 st Qtr Full Last Qtr 

Nov 2 nd Nov 9 th Nov 16 th Nov 23 rd 

Dec 1 st Dec 8 th Dec 15 th Dec 

23 rd 

Dec 31 st 

I.S.S. Passes 

As we come into winter, the angle of the ISS’s orbit 

means it can only be viewed either early evening or early 

morning, mostly occurring twice each day. 

Nov 3 rd to Nov 20 th : early evening object, with 

sometimes 2 passes occurring 93 minutes apart. 

Nov 21 st to Nov 30 th : not visible over Ireland. 

Dec 1 st to Dec 17 th : early morning object, almost twice 

each morning. 

Dec 18 th to Dec 31 st : not visible over Ireland. 

The passes are too numerous to list here, but if you have 

access to the web, check out the reliable and free 

www.heavens-above.com for a comprehensive list of 

passes –Ed. 

Asteroids 

While sourcing material for these sky notes I discovered 

that a reasonably bright asteroid for binoculars, (19) 

Fortuna, will be close to Mars during November. Fortuna 

reaches opposition on the night of November 4 th when it 

can be found as a magnitude 8.9 speck of light 4.5° slightly 

north of east from Mars. Should the Irish weather cooperate 

around this time, carefully draw the star field over a few 

successive nights. You’ll find that the “star” that moves 

will be the asteroid. The apparent gap between Mars and 

the asteroid actually shrinks to about 2.5° by the end of 

November but Fortuna’s brightness has declined somewhat 

to magnitude 9.8 by this time, making binocular 

observation rather more difficult. Fortuna was discovered 

on August 22 nd , 1852 and lies 159 million kilometres from 

Earth when at opposition this year. 

The asteroid ranked third in order of discovery, (3) 

Juno, is at opposition on December 9 th in the eastern part 

of the constellation Orion. It peaks at magnitude 7.6 which 

is quite bright for Juno because this particular opposition 

occurs close to the asteroid’s minimum distance from the 

Sun in its eccentric 4.36 year long orbit. The asteroid falls 

within the same low power binocular field as Beta Eridani 

at this time, lying 3° northwest of the star. 

Meteors 

November 

The Taurids peak on the night of Nov. 3 rd /4 th in the 

constellation Taurus, high in the southeast at 9pm (as a 

guide). These average 10 per hour, with only a tiny sliver of 

the Moon on view, so it will be a dark night. The Leonids 

peak on Nov. 17 th , but an almost full Moon will spoil the 

view – only the brightest of meteors will be seen. Leo rises 

after midnight from the east. Rates that we were familiar 

with in recent years (but were clouded out for) that occur 

every 33 years will not be realistically met, but this shower 

could still throw in a few surprises. 

December 

The Geminids peak on December 14 th , but succumb to the 

nearly Full Moon. They can be considered even richer than 

the better known Perseids. The hours before midnight will 

probably be the most productive to observe The Ursids, 

peaking on Dec 22 nd . The waning gibbous Moon rises just 

after 11pm and will interfere with your watch somewhat 

after that. The Ursid radiant is close to Kocab (Beta Ursae 

Minoris) and so the shower is visible all night from our 

latitude. 

Name Max ZHR 

Taurids Nov 4 th 10 

Andromedids Nov 14 th 5 

Leonids Nov 17 th 30+ 

Geminids Dec 14 th 25+ 

Ursids Dec 22 nd 10 

Skynotes Extra 

The Moon 

A favourable lunar libration close to the Full Moon of 

December 15 th will tip the rugged southern highlands more 

towards us, allowing observers to view craters normally too 

close to the limb. It’s a fine opportunity to become 

acquainted with this terrain little explored by amateur 


astronomers. 

Currently in orbit about our near neighbour is 

SMART-1, Europe’s first lunar mission. It’s primarily a 

demonstration of new spacecraft technologies but ESA 

scientists are now engaged in a programme that will see the 

probe map the Moon’s surface in detail through to August 

2006. 

Mars. Just mention the fourth world from the Sun and you 

conjure up many examples of our fascination with the Red 

Planet. Every two years or so, the Earth and Mars reach 

opposition, when Mars appears “Full” to the telescopic 

observer. It’s rather like what you get with Full Moon; the 

Sun lies directly opposite the Moon in the sky with the 

Earth sitting in the middle. To say it’s an exact straight line 

is a bit misleading but the example is sound. 

Because Mars has a more eccentric orbit than us 

some of these oppositions can be closer than others; that of 

August 2003 was touted as the closest in 58,000 years but 

we’re splitting hairs when compared to some of the close 

oppositions of the last 100 years. It was the widely studied 

oppositions of the 1890s coupled with the canal 

controversy that spurred H.G. Wells to write his classic 

“The War of the Worlds” which was published in 1898. 

Forty years later the tale was to terrify the populace of the 

eastern seaboard of America on Halloween when Orsen 

Welles and his Mercury Theatre Company broadcast a 

radio production based on the book, updating the original to 

an almost believable account of a Martian invasion of the 

US. This year, Mars is closest to Earth (but still 69.42 

million kilometres distant) on October 30 th . Make a point of 

glancing skyward at Mars around this time and ponder its 

continuing allure. 

This chart is based at midnight on Dec 1 st . For every 15 days before that, subtract 1 hour. Likewise, for every 15 days after 

this time, add one hour. 

12 


Great Irish Women Astronomers 

By Girvan McKay, Tullamore AS 

Having read and heard a bit recently about the 

contribution made to astronomy by a number of 

remarkable Irish women, I think I can understand 

why some women become militant feminists. Women 

astronomers and scientists have had a raw deal – and not 

only in Ireland. We know a great deal about people like 

William Parsons, the Third Earl of Rosse, but how many 

of us can mention one female astronomer? Those of us 

who were at Cosmos some years ago, when Dr. Susan 

McKenna Lawler was a guest, can name one anyway, 

but she is by no means alone in her field. 

Take the Irishwoman Agnes Mary Clerke, for 

example. She lived from 1842 to 1907 and has been 

described as ‘the chief astronomical writer of the 

English-speaking world. She is commemorated in a 

crater on the moon which bears her name. Mary Ward 

(1827-1869), a first cousin of William Parsons is 

remembered as an early pioneer of the microscope rather 

than being involved in astronomy, but since both involve 

optics, the two activities are not unconnected. Mary 

Ward was the author of “Microscope Teachings” which 

helped to popularise the instrument. 

Recently I heard a very interesting radio 

interview with another outstanding Irish astronomer, 

Professor (Susan) Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born 1943 in 

Lurgan, Co. Armagh and educated at the Universities of 

Glasgow and Cambridge. The entry under her name in 

the Encyclopaedia of Ireland reads as follows: “While a 

postgraduate student at the Mullard Radio Laboratory, 

Cambridge, she collaborated with her supervisor 

Anthony Hewish, in constructing a radio telescope to 

investigate the scintillation of distant radio sources”. 

It seems, however, from what she said during 

the interview that most of the work of construction was 

done by herself. She says that it was then that she 

learned to use tools, such as pliers, a skill that girls 

weren’t taught at her school. In 1967 she discovered the 

first known pulsar – a rapidly spinning neutron star of 

about twice the Sun’s mass which had collapsed to a 

sphere of only a few kilometres in diameter. She told the 

interviewer that such a collapsed star is so dense that a 

piece of its material the size of a sugar cube would be as 

massive as our Earth. She managed the British support 

team of the international submillimetre-wave telescope 

in Hawaii. In 2001 she was appointed dean of science at 

the University of Bath. She has received nine honorary 

doctorates besides many other awards. 

Without any show of resentment, Dr. Bell 

Burnell mentioned how credit for the discovery of 

pulsars was given to the male astronomers she worked 

with. In the 1960s women scientists were not taken 

seriously. When the news broke of the pulsar discovery 

the team at the Radio Laboratory was swamped by 

reporters and photographers. All the scientific questions 

were fired at the men while the newspaper people were 

interested only in asking Dr. Bell Burnell personal 

questions, such as, did she have any boy friends and who 

was her present one? She was asked by the 

photographers to undo the top button of her dress for the 

photographers. Yet this was the person who made one 

of the most important astronomical discoveries of our 

time. 

It was striking how mildly Dr. Bell Burnell 

reacted to the way she was treated. During the radio 

broadcast she was asked what astronomers’ attitude was 

to religion. She replied that many were religious while 

others were not, and mentioned that she herself was of a 

Quaker background. She said that Quakers had a history 

of being involved in science because of their openness to 

freedom of thought and research. We can compare this 

with the way great scientists like Galileo were treated by 

the Church and the distrust of science by some United 

States fundamentalists today. 

I hope we in TAS and Réalta readers will have a 

chance to learn more about pulsars and other distant 

bodies in space. It is a fascinating subject. 

Girvan McKay, TAS. 

Editors Note: Its funny you should submit this Girvan. No sooner had I received your piece than I received the 

following article next page by Deirdre Kelleghan from the Irish Astronomical Society, about her recent trip to Trinity 

College Dublin to see Dr. Burnell talk about Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944). Read On… 


Subject: Arthur Stanley Eddington 

Event: BA Festival of Science Lecture Sept 8th 2005 – Trinity College Dublin 

Speaker: Professor Jocelyn Bell Brunell – Oxford University –CBE 

By Deirdre Kelleghan, Irish AS 

“Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate 

One thing at least is certain, light has weight 

One thing is certain and the rest debate 

Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight” 

-A.S. Eddington 

Professor Brunell came to Trinity College Dublin not 

to speak about her own field of radio astronomy and 

her involvement in the discovery of pulsars. The great 

professor came to deliver a lecture on Arthur Stanley 

Eddington (1882-1944) an English born astronomer who 

was instrumental in expounding the theories of Albert 

Einstein. Jocelyn Bell Brunell has an interest in the 

public understanding of science and has a penchant to 

present physics topics among non-traditional groups. 

A. S. Eddington was 

born in Kendal in 1882. 

As a child he had a 

fascination with numbers 

and Professor Burnell 

tells the anecdote of the 

child Eddington 

attempting to count all 

the stars in the sky and 

he was also driven to 

count all the words in the bible. He excelled 

academically and did a maths degree in the short space 

of two years. Shortly after graduating he won the Smiths 

prize and was appointed to the Royal Observatory 

Greenwich where he improved and developed practical 

observational techniques. She relayed that Eddington 

was a popular member of “The Dinner Club” as he did 

not drink and if you sat beside him at dinner you were 

likely to get his share of wine as well. He was made 

secretary of The Royal Observatory Greenwich in 1912 

and at the age of 31 he became Plumian Professor of 

Cambridge. Eddington never married or had children, he 

was a Quaker by faith and his primary belief that there is 

god and good within everybody was significant in his 

life in that he did not get caught up in the mass hysteria 

of anti-German feeling that permeated in Europe prior to 

the outbreak of WW1. Eddington was a pacifist and he 

avoided the war as a conscientious objector. He did get 

called to account for his stance but still managed to get 

out of fighting by being proved far too valuable a 

scientist. 

Eddington was one of the few people to read and 

understand Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. At 

that time German scientists were being expelled from 

The Royal Society and the scientific work of Germans 

was hardly getting any attention from the rest of the 

world. Albert Einstein gave up his nationality in 1901 

and became a Swiss citizen, but this failed to protect him 

from the welling anti German climate of the time. 

Eddington with his fundamental belief in the good in 

everyone set out to prove Einstein’s ideas in a practical 

way. He used the solar eclipse of May 29th 1919 to 

show one of the principals of Relativity. A know group 

of stars the Hyades star cluster is observed at night as 

usual, then in the unusual circumstances of a total solar 

eclipse the sun is observed against the same star cluster, 

some of the stars in this cluster appeared out of position 

as their light had bent around the mass of the sun. Sir 

Arthur Eddington stationed himself on an 

island off the western coast of Africa and sent another 

group of British scientists to Brazil. Their measurements 

of several of the stars in the cluster showed that the light 

from these stars was indeed bent as it grazed the Sun, by 

the exact amount of Einstein's predictions. Eddington’s 

team exposed 16 photographic plates in 5 minutes to 

capture the eclipse and the possible shift or apparent 

shift in the position of the stars. This research eventually 

confirmed Albert Einstein's theory that as light passes a 

very massive star; its path is bent due to gravity. Einstein 

became a celebrity overnight when the results were 

announced. Well this concept is not that easy to 

understand, so this is the way I thought about it, and it 

became clearer too me. 

The Hyades cluster is well known in the night sky 

Eddington knew that the Suns position on the 19th of 

May 1919 was in front of the Hyades cluster in daylight 

at the moment of the solar eclipse. 

14 


One would expect one or some of the stars to be 

masked by the Sun as it is a very massive star, as the 

solar eclipse revealed the Hyades cluster in the 

temporary night in the daylight at the moment of the 

solar eclipse. The sun in fact appeared to sit along beside 

them in the sky and caused the apparent position of a 

few of them to shift a bit. 

Eddington exposed photographic plates to record the 

eclipse and reveal that the stars of the cluster were not 

masked by the Suns mass, but the light from them was 

bent or curved by the Suns mass and gravitational field 

and continued to shine down on the earth, and appear on 

the developed plates. 

As light from Stars is coming from a very great 

distance, it takes many thousands of years and light 

years to travel to our eyes or to Eddington's photographic 

plates. 

The fact that the stars concerned appeared on his 

photographic plates and were not masked by the Sun, 

therefore Eddington proved this prediction of Einstein 

correct. 

Because the light from a star is travelling 

through time and space - when it bends around a large 

mass like the Sun - therefore time and space are 

temporally bent or curved or misshapen. This effect 

occurs close to the Sun at the 96 million mile mark and it 

is then the kink happens. The apparent displacement of 

light results from the warping of space in the vicinity of 

the massive object through which light travels. The light 

never changes course, but merely follows the curvature 

of space. Astronomers now refer to this displacement of 

light as gravitational lensing. 

According to Professor Brunell, Eddington was 

a wonderful communicator of science theory and was at 

the forefront of popularising Einstein’s work. There 

were few people in the world at the time that could 

understand the theory of Relativity yet alone explain it. 

A poster at the time announcing on of his talks on the 

subject claimed it was “A Book for 12 Wise Men” 

Arthur Stanly Eddington made Albert Einstein’s work 

popular and famous by his understanding and his desire 

to qualify Einstein’s theory for general consumption. 

Professor Jocelyn Bell Brunell in her lecture on 

September 8th 2005 continued that wonderful 

achievement of clear communication for both Albert 

Einstein and Arthur Eddington. 

In his honour several items have been named after 

Eddington. The Eddington crater on the moon is the 

remains of a lava flooded lunar impact crater, it is on the 

western edge of Oceanus Procellarum. To the west is the 

Struve walled plain to the east/southeast is the prominent 

Seleucus crater and south of Eddington is Krafft crater. 

In physics the Eddington Limit is a natural limit to the 

luminosity of a star. It is a way of describing the density 

of luminous intensity in a direction from the star, in 

relation to how much more the object radiates energy 

compared to our Sun. 

Accretion is an increase in size by the gradual addition 

of smaller parts, and in astronomy is a description of a 

gravitational process by which bodies like planets and 

stars form from gas and dust. 

The European Space Agency 

had a comprehensive plan for 

The Eddington Space 

Telescope, which would have 

been a very sensitive device 

for mapping the evolution of 

stars. It was to be launched in 

2008, the decision was taken 

to cancel the Eddington mission but several of its science 

packages will it is hoped make their way onto other 

missions to search for other habitable planets and to 

study the stars of our universe. 

On enquiring with The European Space Agency about 

the Eddington Mission this was the reply 

“Many thanks for your email enquiry concerning the 

Eddington 

Mission. As things currently stand the Eddington 

mission is cancelled, although it is possible that the 

mission could resurface at some point in the future There 

is a PDF document to be found by following this link 

that outline the scope of the Eddington mission” 

http://sci.esa.int/sciencee/www/object/doc.cfm?fobjectid=35806 

I would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Jocelyn 

Bell Brunell, for her kind advice and support in the 

development of this article. 

-Deirdre Kelleghan. 


A Wrinkle in Space-Time 

By Trudy E. Bell 

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it can 

explode into a supernova rivalling the brilliance of an 

entire galaxy. What’s left of the star fades in weeks, but 

its outer layers expand through space as a turbulent 

cloud of gases. Astronomers see beautiful remnants from 

past supernovas all around the sky, one of the most 

famous being the Crab Nebula in Taurus. 

When a star throws off nine-tenths of its mass in 

a supernova, however, it also throws off nine-tenths of 

its gravitational field. 

Astronomers see the light from supernovas. Can 

they also somehow sense the sudden and dramatic 

change in the exploding star’s gravitational field? 

Yes, they believe they can. According to 

Einstein’s general theory of relativity, changes in the 

star’s gravitational field should propagate outward, just 

like light—indeed, at the speed of light. 

Those propagating changes would be a gravitational 

wave. 

experiment to measure gravitational waves: the Laser 

Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA. 

LISA will look for patterns of compression and 

stretching in space-time that signal the passage of a 

gravitational wave. Three small spacecraft will fly in a 

triangular formation behind the Earth, each beaming a 

laser at the other two, continuously measuring their 

mutual separation. Although the three ‘craft will be 5 

million kilometres apart, they will monitor their 

separation to one billionth of a centimetre, smaller than 

an atom’s diameter, which is the kind of precision 

needed to sense these elusive waves. 

LISA is slated for launch around 2015. 

To learn more about LISA, go to 

http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov. Kids can learn about LISA and 

do a gravitational wave interactive crossword at 

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/lisaxword/lisaxw 

ord.shtml 

Einstein said what we feel as a gravitational 

field arises from the fact that huge masses curve space 

and time. The more massive an object, the more it bends 

the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension 

of time. And if a massive object’s gravitational field 

changes suddenly - say, when a star explodes - it should 

kink or wrinkle the very geometry of space-time. 

Moreover, that wrinkle should propagate outward like 

ripples radiating outward in a pond from a thrown stone. 

The frequency and timing of gravitational waves 

should reveal what’s happening deep inside a supernova, 

in contrast to light, which is radiated from the surface. 

Thus, gravitational waves allow astronomers to peer 

inside the universe’s most violent events—like doctors 

peer at patients’ internal organs using CAT scans. The 

technique is not limited to supernovas: colliding neutron 

stars, black holes and other exotic objects may be 

revealed, too. 

NASA and the European Space Agency are now 

building prototype equipment for the first space 

LISA’s three spacecraft will be positioned at the corners of a 

triangle 5 million kilometres on a side and will be able to detect 

gravitational wave induced changes in their separation 

distance of as little as one billionth of a centimetre. 

This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 

California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

16 


Goldilocks and the (many) more than three 

planets: some notes on Astrobiology 

By Girvan McKay, Tullamore AS 

What is Astrobiology? I hope I hear you ask. 

According to my encyclopaedia: Astrobiology is defined 

as: “The multi-disciplinary study of the origin, 

distribution and destiny of life in the universe. It 

addresses the questions of how does life begin and 

develop, does life exist elsewhere in the universe, and 

what is life’s future on Earth and beyond. It is a major 

goal of NASA’s science programmes.” 

The study of Astrobiology (also known as 

Exobiology) is above all associated with the name of the 

late Carl Sagan, who is also regarded as the first 

astrobiologist. In a way it’s a little strange to refer to it 

as a study, since to study anything you have to have 

some data to study. In this sense Astrobiology is like 

Theology, which purports to be the study of God. But if 

God, by definition, is invisible and unknowable, what is 

there to study? It isn’t even possible to prove the 

existence of God by either argument or research. 

The same applies to Astrobiology. We don’t 

know whether there is any kind of life outside of our 

own planet Earth. But in both cases, the search still goes 

on. Also, in both cases, it’s a matter of faith rather than 

proof. We haven’t as yet found any evidence of 

extraterrestrial life. Within our own solar system 

investigations are still being carried on to see if there is 

any evidence of existing or extinct life on Mars. So far 

nothing has been found although US scientists claim to 

see signs that there was once water there, and liquid 

water often indicates the presence of life. There are also 

hopes that there might be liquid water under the surface 

crust of Europa, Jupiter’s second satellite. 

You’ll realise, of course, that the search for life 

doesn’t necessary mean the search for intelligent life. 

Probably most astrobiologists would be happy if they 

discover any kind of life elsewhere in the solar system or 

outside it. They would be jumping up and down with 

joy if even all they found were something like a 

bacterium, an amoeba, a fungus, a lichen, a slime mould 

or anything else that was alive, even if it couldn’t read, 

write or think and looked like something in your dist bin 

or on mouldy cheese. 

Also associated with Carl Sagan and 

Astrobiology is the SETI programme, although this is 

the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - in other 

words for intelligent life, not just any kind of life. Back 

in November 2001 I gave a talk on ‘Life in the Universe’ 

in which I mentioned the SETI programme. For those of 

you who weren’t at that TAS lecture or who fell asleep 

during it, I’ll digress for a moment to say something 

about SETI. 

SETI was a research programme originally 

managed by NASA’s Ames Research Centre. It was 

aimed at using large radio telescopes to try and detect 

artificially generated radio signals from interstellar 

space. (I’m quoting here from another article in my 

encyclopaedia.) The hypothesis behind the belief that 

life might exist elsewhere in our galaxy is based on 

telescopic and spacecraft evidence that organic 

molecules are common in space and also on the 

hypothesis that planetary formation is a common byproduct 

of star formation. The SETI programme was 

first proposed in 1959 and thirty very limited searches 

were carried out. It was an American astronomer called 

Frank Drake who in 1960 was the first person to conduct 

a radio search for signals from extraterrestrial 

civilisations. 

Drake is mainly associated with an equation he 

proposed to organise this search. (By the way, Drake 

says himself that he only meant his equation as a 

gimmick and he was surprised when it was taken 

seriously and is now included in astronomy textbooks.) 

Here is the equation: 

N = R* fp n e fl fi f c L 

The factors indicate the following: R* , the number of 

stars; fp , the number of stars with planets; n e , the 

number of planets with habitable environments; fl , the 

fraction of these on which life has originated; fi , the 

number with intelligent life; 


f c , creatures with the technology to send out 

signals; and L, the longevity of civilisations. N is the 

number of stars meeting all these criteria. Of all the 

factors in the equation only one, R*, is anywhere near to 

being understood. It represents the number of stars and 

we do know that there are a lot of them - more than 100 

thousand million, or maybe as many as 400 thousand 

million in our galaxy alone. Eventually with the help of 

what they call the Terrestrial Planet Finder or TPF (a 

piece of equipment that has not yet been developed) that 

the researchers hope to solve the third factor in the 

Drake equation, n e, the number of planets with 

inhabitable environments. They might even be able to 

solve factor fl , those on which life has originated. 

TPF would capture the feeble light from a 

distant rocky planet, while cancelling out the far more 

brilliant light of its star. The amount of planetary light 

they could detect might amount to only one pixel. This 

minute quantity of light could then be examined for what 

are called the spectral signatures of, for example, 

oxygen, methane, ozone or some other clue to the 

possible presence of life. 

The forms of life that we know on Earth are 

dependent on liquid water and organic molecules, mostly 

made up of carbon. But even on Earth, the huge and 

widely differing conditions under which life can exist 

are amazing. Life is found in the sea and on land; in 

almost waterless desert conditions; in the Arctic and in 

the tropics; in the darkest depths of the ocean; in deep 

caves - and, in fact, almost anywhere. Some life forms 

can go without food for months and even years; some 

can lie dormant for great lengths of time and then 

seemingly revive; some can get their nourishment by 

dissolving rock and living off the chemicals in it. 

It’s also been suggested that there might be other 

forms of life in the universe quite unlike anything on 

Earth: life based perhaps on silicon instead of carbon; 

life that drifts in the atmosphere above a planet, and so 

on. 

A new SETI programme was initiated in 1992 at 

the world’s largest radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto 

Rico. In 1993 the US Congress withdrew its support for 

the programme, but it has been continues under private 

sponsorship. In May 1999 the SETI@home project was 

set up. This harnessed the power of millions of home 

computers to analyse signals picked up by a detector on 

the Arecibo radio telescope. So far results have been 

disappointing in spite of 40 years of searching. On one 

occasion it was thought that what might be an artificial 

signal had been detected, but it wasn’t repeated and it 

couldn’t be confirmed as anything out of the ordinary. 

What seems to be a more promising line of 

investigation than the SETI programme is the search for 

stars, which might have planets orbiting them. In 1994, a 

Ph.D. student at the University of Geneva called Didier 

Queloz saw that a star he was observing appeared to be 

rocking back and forth. This phenomenon of wobbling 

stars has since been discovered to indicate the presence 

of a planet orbiting the star. With the existing technology 

in the nineteen nineties it was quite impossible to see 

such a planet, even with the most powerful optical 

telescopes, but it is hoped that it will become possible to 

mask the strong light from a star so as to enable 

observers to see at least its largest planets. This has been 

compared to seeing a firefly in the beam of a searchlight 

or lighthouse many miles away. By the year 2000 

astronomers had detected at least 22 planets outside our 

solar system thanks to this discovery of star wobble and 

their number is continually increasing as more and more 

are discovered. So far, only very large planets are 

detectable by this means: gas giants or planets with a 

mass much greater than that of the Earth. Researchers 

are calling these remote gas giants ’Jupiter’s’ after the 

planet of that name in our own solar system. 

What haven’t been found yet are rocky planets 

of a size similar to our planet, which is considered to be 

the best habitat for forms of life similar to those on 

Earth. Astronomers have taken to calling these 

‘Goldilocks Planets’. You’ll remember that in the story 

the little girl Goldilocks finds the house of the three 

bears, tries sitting on their chairs, eating their porridge 

and sleeping in their beds. The porridge is too hot, too 

18 


cold or just right, while the chairs and beds are too big, 

too small or just right. A suitable planet would have to 

be not too close to its star to be too hot for life; and not 

too far away from it to be too cold for life; not too big to 

have a crushing gravity; and not too small so that it loses 

its atmosphere. With the discovery of these other solar 

systems in our galaxy, more and more astronomers are 

becoming convinced that other planets like ours exist in 

the universe. 

A year or two ago David Bell (from 

Shannonside AC) gave us a lecture in which he argued 

the case for the view that our Earth might be the only 

planet on which life had emerged. He said at the time 

that he was taking up this position to provoke discussion 

and that he could equally argue for the opposite view 

that life was common throughout the universe. It seems 

that fewer and fewer astronomers are inclined towards 

what we might call the anthropocentric view, i.e. that we 

are unique in the universe and that Earth is the only 

planet where life has arisen. 

This is the kind of attitude that Galileo had to 

face when he said that the Earth went round the Sun and 

not the other way round. When you think how many 

countless millions of stars are in our galaxies and how 

many countless millions of galaxies there are in the 

universe, and how the building blocks of life can be 

detected even in deep space, it seems inconceivable that 

life is not to be found elsewhere. 

So the search for extraterrestrial life goes on. The 

National Geographic magazine has published a table 

showing the progress of this search as follows: 

1992: Arecibo Radio Telescope 

Scientists announce the discovery of planets around a 

pulsar. They are unlike any known planets and are 

almost certainly hostile to life, but they are the first alien 

planets to be found. 

1995: Haute-Provence Observatory (France) 

Astronomers discover a planet around a sun-like star, 51 

Pegasi, by tracking stellar motions. The same technique 

has revealed more than 130 planets. 

1999: STARE Project 

For the first time the shadow of a Jupiter-size planet is 

detected as the planet passes over the face of its star, HD 

209458. 

2001: Hubble Space Telescope 

By observing light from HD 209458 as its planet passes, 

astronomers see hints of a planetary atmosphere 

containing sodium. 

2003: Keck Interferometer 

This equipment combines light from the two existing 

Keck telescopes, eliminating atmospheric ‘noise’ with 

what’s called adaptive optics. It searches for debris disks 

around stars, which could indicate planet formation, and 

look directly for giant planets. 

2006: Large Binocular Telescope 

The twin mirrors of this telescope will search for debris 

disks and for newly former Jupiter-size planets. 

2007: Kepler Mission 

This space-based telescope will survey more than 

100,000 stars for dimming that hints at the presence of 

Earth-size planets. 

2009: Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) 

This will combine light from multiple telescopes to map 

stars and seek planets almost as small as Earth. 

2014-2020: Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) 

A two-part space mission to detect light from Earth-size 

planets, and search for signs of habitability. 

2025: Life Finder 

The Space-based Life Finder will search newfound 

Earths for signs of biological activity. 

So the first part pf this challenging programme has been 

achieved: We know now that there are other solar 

systems besides our own. Other stars have planets. Now 

it remains to be discovered whether any of these might 

sustain life; what that life might be like; and last of all, 

whether any such life forms could be intelligent. Man 

has ever undertaken probably no more exciting research. 

This article, by Girvan, was the basis for a lecture he 

gave to TAS on Tuesday October 11 th . It provided a 

good debate afterwards, where so many avenues of 

discussion about the possibility of life, both as we know 

it, and not, and where it could exist. 


Where No Spacecraft Has Gone Before 

By Dr. Tony Phillips 

In 1977, Voyager 1 left our planet. Its mission: to 

visit Jupiter and Saturn and to study their moons. The 

flybys were an enormous success. Voyager 1 discovered 

active volcanoes on Io, found evidence for submerged 

oceans on Europa, and photographed dark rings around 

Jupiter itself. Later, the spacecraft buzzed Saturn’s 

moon Titan—alerting astronomers that it was a very 

strange place indeed! —and flew behind Saturn’s rings, 

seeing what was hidden from Earth. 

Beyond Saturn, Neptune and Uranus beckoned, 

but Voyager 1’s planet-tour ended there. Saturn’s 

gravity seized Voyager 1 and slingshot it into deep 

space. Voyager 1 was heading for the stars—just as 

NASA had planned. 

Now, in 2005, the spacecraft is nine billion 

miles (96 astronomical units) from the Sun, and it has 

entered a strange region of space no ship has ever visited 

before. 

“We call this region ‘the heliosheath.’ It’s where 

the solar wind piles up against the interstellar medium at 

the outer edge of our solar 

system,” says Ed Stone, project 

scientist for the Voyager mission 

at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

heliosheath, the solar wind slows eventually to a dead 

stop. The slowing wind becomes denser, more turbulent, 

and its magnetic field—a remnant of the sun’s own 

magnetism--grows stronger. 

So far from Earth, this turbulent magnetic gas is 

curiously important to human life. “The heliosheath is a 

shield against galactic cosmic rays,” explains Stone. 

Subatomic particles blasted in our direction by distant 

supernovas and black holes are deflected by the 

heliosheath, protecting the inner solar system from much 

deadly radiation. 

Voyager 1 is exploring this shield for the first 

time. “We’ll remain inside the heliosheath for 8 to 10 

years,” predicts Stone, “then we’ll break through, finally 

reaching interstellar space.” 

What’s out there? Stay tuned… 

For more about the twin Voyager spacecraft, visit 

voyager.jpl.nasa.gov. Kids can learn about Voyager 1 

and 2 and their grand tour of the outer planets at 

spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/vgr_fact3.shtml . 

Out in the Milky Way, 

where Voyager 1 is trying to go, 

the “empty space” between stars 

is not really empty. It’s filled 

with clouds of gas and dust. The 

wind from the Sun blows a 

gigantic bubble in this cloudy 

“interstellar medium.” All nine 

planets from Mercury to Pluto fit 

comfortably inside. The 

heliosheath is, essentially, the 

bubble’s skin. 

“The heliosheath is different from any other 

place we’ve been,” says Stone. Near the Sun, the solar 

wind moves at a million miles per hour. At the 

Voyager 1, after 28 years of travel, has reached the 

heliosheath of our solar system. 

20 


SPACEFLIGHT 

News 

Russian Spacecraft Fails to Boost ISS into Higher Orbit 

A Russian spacecraft stopped short of boosting the 

International Space Station (ISS) into a higher orbit 

on Tuesday October 25 th when its engines 

unexpectedly shut down in mid-manoeuvre, Russian 

space officials said. After the first turn-on of the 

engines, they turned off spontaneously. 

The failed orbital manoeuvre poses no danger to 

the ISS or its two-astronaut crew, Expedition 12 

commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery 

Tokarev, and engineers are currently studying the glitch, 

according to a Federal Space Agency statement. There is 

no forecast at the moment as to when they would try 

again. 

Russian and U.S. space station flight controllers were 

expected to perform two engine burns that day using the 

Progress 19 spacecraft’s engines evening to raise the 

ISS into a higher orbit. The spacecraft is docked at the 

aft end of the station’s Zvezda module. 

The engine burns, each scheduled to run 11 

minutes and 40 seconds, were expected to raise the ISS 

into an orbit that hits 224 statute miles (360 kilometres) 

at its highest point, a bit higher that the station’s current 

orbital peak of 220 statute miles (354 kilometres), 

NASA officials. But the Progress engines switched off 

less than two minutes into the first burn, NASA officials 

said, adding that there appeared to be a communications 

problem between the spacecraft's thrusters and Russian 

navigation computers, which shut down the engines as 

designed due to the data dropout. 

The brief engine burn did accelerate the ISS by 

about 1.04 feet per second (0.31 meters per second) and 

raised the lowest point of the station's orbit - 211 miles 

(339 kilometres) - by about 0.7 miles (1.1 kilometres). 

Other engines could be used to boost the space 

station’s orbit, but Russian space officials are still 

evaluating the glitch Tuesday’s altitude-raising 

manoeuvre was slated to place the station into the proper 

position for a second orbital boost later this year that 

would set up the ISS to receive an unmanned Russianbuilt 

cargo ship – Progress 20 – slated to launch toward 

the space station on December 21 st . 

Progress 20 will ferry vital supplies, spare parts 

and equipment to McArthur and Tokarev, who began 

their six-month tour aboard the ISS in October. 

Contamination cleanup continues on Venus Express 

orbiter 

European scientists are 

reasonably confident their Venus 

Express spacecraft will launch to 

Earth's nearest neighbour before 

the tight window of opportunity 

when the planets are aligned 

slams shut in a few weeks. The 

mission was supposed to blast off 

on Wednesday October 26 th , from 

Baikonur Cosmodrome in 

Kazakhstan. But contamination 

found on the satellite forced launch 

preparations to stop, putting Venus 

Express into an unplanned holding 

pattern. 

The spacecraft was already 

mated to its Soyuz rocket inside an 

assembly building in advance of 

being rolled to the launch pad. 

Then came the discovery of some 

insulation material that had come 

off the Fregat upper stage and was 

floating free inside the rocket's 

nose cone where Venus Express sat 

encapsulated for launch. 

Over the previous 

weekend, the Fregat and spacecraft 

still tucked inside the nose cone 

were detached from the Soyuz for 

train transport to another facility 

25 miles away. The shroud was 

opened that Monday, enabling 

inspections of Venus Express by 

technicians to determine if any 

damage had occurred by the 

insulation. 

"The scenario is so far 

very encouraging, as only fairly 

large particles, pieces of the 

insulating material initially 

covering the launcher's Fregat 

upper stage, have been found on 

the body of the spacecraft," ESA 

said in a press statement. 

"These have been easy to 

identify by naked eye or with UV 

lamps, and are being carefully 

removed with tweezers, vacuumcleaners 

or nitrogen gas airbrushes, 

according to size." 

The cleaning will continue, 

followed by re-installation of the 

nose cone and transfer back to the 

Soyuz rocket's assembly building. 

Although a new launch date has 

not been set, lift-off is expected to 

be targeted for sometime between 

November 6 and 9. Venus Express 

must launch by November 24 to 


catch the necessary trajectory from 

Earth to its destination. The probe 

should reach Venus five months 

after launch. It will fire the 

onboard main engine to enter orbit 

around the planet for the most 

comprehensive examination of the 

mysterious Venusian atmosphere 

and new observations of its 

surface. 

Venus Express will fly in a 

highly elliptical orbit looping from 

155 miles at its closest point to 

41,000 miles at the most distant. 

The EADS Astrium-built craft 

carries seven instruments mostly 

derived from Europe's Mars 

Express and the Rosetta comet 

mission. The mission, Europe's 

first exploration of Venus, will last 

two Venusian days or 486 Earth 

days. 

Editors post-script… 

Just before this article was sent to 

print, the following was issued 

(taken from space.com): 

Russian space officials Monday 

set a Nov. 9 blastoff for a 

European probe to explore 

Venus after its earlier launch 

was postponed because of a 

booster rocket problem. 

Engineers will be able to fix the 

flaws by that date, the Federal 

Space Agency said in 

scheduling the launch at the 

Russian-leased Baikonur 

Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Japanese 

spacecraft 

ready to land on 

asteroid Nov 12 

Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid samplereturn 

satellite is scheduled to 

make the first of two landings on 

its target asteroid on November 

12 th following ground controllers’ 

conclusion that it has enough fuel 

to finish its job despite the loss of 

two of its three reaction wheels, 

the Japanese space agency, JAXA, 

announced. 

Under current planning, a 

second touchdown would occur 

November 25 th before Hayabusa, 

whose name was Muses-C before 

its May 2003 launch, begins a 

return flight to Earth. Since 

September 12 th , the satellite has 

been stationed several kilometres 

from the Itokawa asteroid, which is 

some 300 million kilometres from 

Earth. 

Hayabusa lost the use of 

its first reaction wheel in July. The 

second failed October 3 rd , forcing 

increased reliance on the chemicalpropellant 

thrusters to maintain 

satellite attitude control. 

JAXA said the Hayabusa 

project engineers have made “a 

strenuous” effort to devise a fuelconservation 

plan to maintain 

Hayabusa stably in position and at 

the same time provide for the two 

“touch-and-go” manoeuvres during 

which the satellite will scoop up 

asteroid samples. 

JAXA will test Hayabusa 

touchdown manoeuvres November 

4 th with what the agency calls a 

“rehearsal descent.” Several 

candidate landing sites are still 

being evaluated, JAXA said. 

Mars rover Spirit begins descent from summit 

Spirit, the robot on wheels that reached the top of a 

Martian hill this summer after an epic climb, is 

heading back down toward its next target for 

exploration. After two months at the summit of 

Husband Hill, the six-wheeled rover is descending to a 

basin where the scientific instruments it carries will 

examine an outcrop dubbed "home plate" because from 

orbit it looks like home on a baseball field. 

Spirit's yearlong climb to the peak was a major 

feat for the Mars rover, which along with its twin, 

Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet 

in January 2004. 

Last month, scientists released the first fullcolour 

panoramic photo of the landscape taken by Spirit 

from the 270-foot-high summit. It shows the rover's 

distinct tracks in the dust, the flat plains of the 

surrounding Gusev Crater region and distant plateaus on 

the crater rim. 

Spirit also has been studying rocks and using its 

robotic arm to sift the soil to determine how the hill 

formed. The leading theory is that Husband Hill became 

uplifted as a result of crater impact. 

Mission scientists say a comparison of the 

summit rocks reveal similar geologic features to those 

found on the side of the hill. In both cases, the rocks' 

makeup reveals they have been altered by water. 

It will take about two months for Spirit to make 

it all the way down Husband Hill, which is named after 

Rick Husband, the commander of the space shuttle 

Columbia that broke apart as it was returning from Earth 

orbit in 2003. 

Meanwhile, Opportunity is in good health again 

after recovering from a recent computer glitch while 

surveying the Meridiani Planum region. 

22 


Contributions Wanted 

Do you ever notice that it is the same people that 

submit something for Réalta? Sometimes, it can be 

unfair to expect the same people to keep something like 

this going. That is why I want you to think of a 

contribution, of any kind, that you would like to share 

with readers. It can be about something you read in a 

magazine somewhere, r a recap on a nights observing, 

‘Lecturers’ Wanted! 

In addition to Réalta contributions, TAS is also 

looking for folks to volunteer a small amount of their 

time to give a talk to the club. You do not need to be a 

professor, or have any distinct qualifications. Just the 

ability to stand in front of members and friends and talk 

telling us what you saw, or even an article you penned 

yourself. Variety is good, and while Réalta has had 

many, MANY interesting articles on its pages, it is the 

same few people that keep doing the good work! 

So have a think about it – contact details are at the 

bottom of this page. 

-Ed. 

about some astronomy topic that you choose. We will 

even help you along! Have a word with any committee 

member at any meeting if you “want to know more”, or 

e-mail the Secretary: 

tullamoreastronomy@yahoo.co.uk. New faces and 

voices are always welcome! 

Know someone who could use a 2006 

Calendar? Then why not tell them to 

get one of ours! You already know 

what it is about, but do you also know 

that proceeds from this go to help 

TAS build a public accessible meeting 

room/clubhouse, and refurbish its 

observatory? TAS relies on funding 

like this to get the project finished, 

which, when complete, will 

incorporate a comfortable meeting 

room and kitchen, as well as access 

to our observatory with telescope for 

astronomy enthusiasts and research. 

The Calendar is available from any 

committee member, or direct from 

Byrne’s World of Wonder (Tullamore 

& Mullingar), priced €10.00. 

Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2: November/December 2005. 

Réalta is issued by the Tullamore Astronomical Society as a community-based organisation magazine. 

Editor: 

Seanie Morris 

Contributors this issue: 

Trudy E. Bell, Darren Dempsey, John Flannery, Deirdre Kelleghan, Girvan McKay, Michael O’Connell, Tony Phillips 

Editorial & Submissions Address: 

C/o Seanie Morris, ‘ANSTEE’, Daingean Road, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland. Email: tasnewsletter@go.com. Submissions are welcome, preferably by 

email or on disk (MS .txt or .doc format), but submissions on paper are also very welcome. Please acknowledge any reference sources for your 

submission. 

Printed By: 

Aungier Print Ltd., Sackville House, Sackville Place, Dublin 1. Tel: 01-8788406/7 or Email: aungierprint@iolfree.ie 

All articles contained are © Réalta & Tullamore Astronomical Society, and the source of the articles (if stated). 

© Réalta 1997-2005. All Rights Reserved. 


How To Find TAS’s 

Meeting Nights 

Tullamore Astronomical 

Society hold their talks and 

classes in astronomy on 

TUESDAY nights, in the Order 

of Malta Training Room. 

Meetings start at 8pm, are 

informal, and free to attend. 

Weather permitting, light 

observing will take place in the 

car park afterwards. 

On the dedicated Observing 

Nights, members meet in the 

car park in front of Tullamore 

Carpets/Hire Depot at 8pm, 

and head out to the 

Observatory together. 

For more information, contact 

the club at: 

tullamoreastronomy@yahoo.co.uk 

24 

Réalta – Volume 6, Issue 3 – April/May 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society

Space - Tullamore Astronomical Society

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