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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 Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society
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… Réalta – Volume 7, Issue 2 – November/December 2005 – Tullamore Astronomical Society 13
Page 1 and 2: REALTA 9+- Reviews, Events And Lect
Page 3 and 4: Key organisers and folks involved i
Page 5 and 6: NEWS UPDATE From Around The Univers
Page 7 and 8: Moon discovered orbiting Solar Syst
Page 9 and 10: Two New Moons for Pluto? New images
Page 11: viewing for the most part during th
Page 15 and 16: One would expect one or some of the
Page 17 and 18: Goldilocks and the (many) more than
Page 19 and 20: cold or just right, while the chair
Page 21 and 22: SPACEFLIGHT News Russian Spacecraft
Page 23 and 24: Contributions Wanted Do you ever no

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