STAR HUSTLER
THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION
STAR HUSTLER is seen nationally on most PBS stations. If it is not currently
on your PBS station we suggest you contact your local PBS programming director
and let them know it is available free to all PBS stations. You may take
a months worth of STAR HUSTLER off satellite for personal use, classroom
use, astronomy club use, etc.
1009th Show
To Be Aired : Monday 4/7/97 through Sunday 4/13/97
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings, fellow star gazers, and if you haven't
seen Comet Hale-Bopp already, please, please do so this month because we
simply don't know when we'll see a comet this good again, although we do
know that we won't see Comet Hale-Bopp again for another 2400 years. We
have two good viewing windows this month: this week through the 13th and
April 25th through May 12th. And by "windows" I simply mean that
we have two time periods when we won't have excessive light from the Moon
which always makes comet viewing difficult because excess moonlight is just
as bad as city lights and wipes out the exquisite fainter parts of any comet's
tail. Now to see Comet Hale-Bopp this week through Sunday the 13th, go outside
right after sunset as it gets dark out, have as unobstructed a horizon as
possible and look northwest and there you'll see this wonderful comet for
about an hour or so, just to the left of Cassiopeia. And you'll be able
to watch Hale-Bopp as it slowly moves night after night through Perseus
and approaches the region of the Seven Sisters, The Pleiades. OK, this is
where it is on Monday the 7th. And by Tuesday the 8th it will be joined
by an extremely slender crescent moon and the planet Mercury off to the
moon's right. On Wednesday the 9th a slightly fatter crescent; Thursday
the 10th, an even bigger crescent; Friday the 11th; Saturday the 12th and
Sunday the 13th when the moon's light will start to interfere with and wipe
out the most delicate parts of Hale-Bopp's tail from view. Now please, please
remember this: even though Comet Hale-Bopp is intrinsically the brightest
comet since The Great Comet of 1577, nevertheless, all comets, no matter
how great, will never ever look like the photographs we see in newspapers
which are time exposure photographs, or comets the way they're depicted
in the movies or telescopic images on video tape. Even the greatest comet
will never ever look like a brilliant sky rocket, but rather will look like
a bright star surrounded by a ghostly halo and followed by an even ghostlier
long train of gas and dust like Hale-Bopp. So if you don't expect any more
than a great ghostly apparition you won't be disappointed. And please, please,
if you have a pair of binoculars, I recommend 7 power by 50, use them now
because binoculars are indeed the best instruments for viewing all comets.
Now the next Hale-Bopp window of opportunity after this week will be April
25th through the 12 th of May. So until then, get thee outside, fellow aficianados,
and whatever you do, remember, Keep Looking Up!
* This week's Sky At A Glance and Planet
Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only.
To Be Aired : Monday 4/14/97 thru Sunday 4/20/97
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings, fellow star gazers, and what with moonlight
interfering with viewing Comet Hale-Bopp this week I thought we'd turn our
attention to explore the mysteries of other comets and one in particular,
one which was discovered just last December 22nd, and which plunged to its
fiery death into the Sun only one day later, and whose discovery was made
possible by the incredibly sophisticated instruments aboard SOHO, The Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, plus some of the most sensational
pictures of the Sun you have ever seen. It all began, some astronomers believe,
with an ancient super humongous comet whose 100 mile wide nucleus was larger
than any we've ever seen in modern times; a comet which visited Earth roughly
every one thousand years. Indeed, our Ice Age ancestors were undoubtedly
astonished at this wondrous sight until 10 to 20 thousand years ago it split
into two comets, one of which was seen and reported by Aristotle in 371
B.C. and the other seen in 1106 A.D. after which further splits into new
comets occurred over the next centuries. Then in 1843 a chunk of the comet
which Aristotle saw passed so close to the Sun that its tail shot out past
the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Earth, Mars and beyond and became
known as a sungrazer, as did several chunks of the 1106 A.D. comet which
made spectacular appearances in 1882 and 1965. And astronomers have long
speculated that there are many more chunks of the once great parent comet
which have also become individual comets, grazing so close to the Sun that
they can't be seen. And although a few of them have been spotted on occasion,
it took a spacecraft like SOHO to find ones that could never possibly ever
be seen from planet Earth. And in this video you will see one of these sun-grazing
comets left over from that ancient super comet that SOHO discovered last
December 22nd just before it plunged to its doom into the Sun one day later.
Named SOHO 6, this comet is just one of 7 sungazers discovered by SOHO.
But what is even more remarkable are the pictures of our Sun taken by an
instrument aboard SOHO called a coronagraph which covers the disk of the
Sun in a perpetual eclipse and actually shows the stars behind the Sun in
December. You see, we have long known from calculations that in December
the Sun is always positioned directly in front of the constellation Sagittarius
and the heart of the Milky Way, but not until now have we ever been able
to actually see the stars as the Sun travels in front of them. Additionally,
in these pictures which cover 28 million miles across on your screen, you
can see the Great Dark Rift in the Milky Way and a humongous mass ejection
of gas shooting out at speeds of over 300 miles per second. What a movie!
The discovery and death of a comet and a violent explosion on the Sun as
it drifts across a background of stars.Wow! How wonderful it is to Keep
Looking Up!
* This week's Sky At A Glance and Planet
Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only.
STAR HUSTLER is seen nationally on most PBS stations. If it is not currently
on your PBS station we suggest you contact your local PBS programming director
and let them know it is available free to all PBS stations. You may take
a months worth of STAR HUSTLER off satellite for personal use, classroom
use, astronomy club use, etc.
To Be Aired : Monday 4/21/97 through Sunday 4/27/97
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and I can't believe
it's happening but we're getting ready to say farewell to great Comet Hale-Bopp
which was discovered over a year and a half ago and which we've been tracking
on "Star Hustler" ever since. And indeed, this has been a great
comet. And if you haven't seen it, for pete's sake, do so now. And if at
all possible, get as far away from city lights as you can and have as flat
and unobstructed a horizon as possible because Comet Hale-Bopp is getting
closer and closer to the horizon every night. Now for our last good window
of opportunity for seeing Hale-Bopp when we won't have a lot of bright moonlight
to wipe out the finer details in its tail is Friday night, April 25th through
Saturday night, May 12th. To find it simply go outside after it gets dark
out and look west/northwest where you will not only see the comet as it
slowly moves night after night from just above the Pleiades through Taurus.
But you will also see to Hale-Bopp's left winter's greatest constellation,
Orion the Hunter, getting ready to set. Now the comet will still be bright,
although not nearly as bright as it was at the beginning of April. And please,
if you have a pair of 7 by 50 binoculars use them because you'll be amazed
at how much more of the comet and its tail you'll be able to see. Now on
April 24th it will be just above the Pleiades, then watch it night after
night as it moves through Taurus and above its red eye star, Aldebaran.
And, of course, remember the farther away you get from all the artificial
lights the better the comet will be. And as we say farewell to Comet Hale-Bopp
think of this as you gaze at it: the last time it was here was over 4 thousand
years ago when the pyramids were still brand spankin' new. And the next
time anyone will see it won't be for over 2000 more years. Also keep in
mind that Hale-Bopp is intrinsically the brightest comet we've seen since
the Great Comet of 1577. And the only reason it wasn't even brighter in
Earth's skies was because it did not come nearly as close to us as last
year's Hyakutake, even though this comet is much, much bigger. In fact,
the head of this comet is still over a million miles wide and its tail is
still several million miles long. And once again let's show you what a dramatic
orbit it has because while our Earth and all the planets circle the Sun
in an almost identical path alone the same plane, Hale-Bopp's orbit is almost
at right angles to the orbits of the planets which means that it swooped
up from underneath the planetary plane to high above us and is now falling
back down toward the Sun. And after May 6th will plunge below us and head
back out into deep space once again. So get thee out these final two weeks
for a Hale-Bopp farewell. And remember even though it won't be around for
2 more millennia, there will always be something up there to make you want
to Keep Looking Up!
* This week's Sky At A Glance and Planet
Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only.
STAR HUSTLER is seen nationally on most PBS stations. If it is not currently
on your PBS station we suggest you contact your local PBS programming director
and let them know it is available free to all PBS stations. You may take
a months worth of STAR HUSTLER off satellite for personal use, classroom
use, astronomy club use, etc.
To Be Aired : Monday 4/28/97 through Sunday 5/5/97
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings, fellow star gazers, and I want you all
to mark one evening on your calendar as an exquisite night to remember because
on Thursday evening, May 8th, just after it gets dark out an exquisite two-day-old
slender sliver of a crescent Moon, complete with Earthshine will make an
exquisite pairing with Comet Hale-Bopp. Indeed this will be a night to remember
because no human eyes will have seen this poetic pairing since one night
over 4200 years ago...that's over 1 1/2 million nights ago. Let me show
you: O.K., we've got our skies set up for any night for the next two weeks
and if you go outside just after it gets dark out and look west you will
see our old friend, Orion the Hunter with his 2 bright shoulder stars, his
knee stars and three belt stars lines up in a row getting ready to set.
And the if you shoot an arrow through Orion's belt down toward the horizon
it will land almost directly on the red star, Aldebaran, that marks the
eye of Taurus the Bull, and just above it, Comet Hale-Bopp. And although
it is now racing away from the Sun, its multi-million mile long tail
now preceding it like a headlight on a car, doomed to lose both its million
mile wide head and its multi-million mile tail, it is still capable of inspiring
awe and wonder in the eyes and hearts of those who inhabit the third planet.
And fittingly, the Moon, in one of its most exquisite phases visits the
comet in fond farewell. To see this, simply go outside Thursday , May 8th,
just after it gets dark out, look west and there, hanging in the sky, you
will see an exquisite two day old Moon complete with the pale light of Earthshine,
nestled right under the comet. And as you gaze up at this perfect pairing,
transport yourself back in time over 4,000 years ago to the one night this
pairing last occurred. Imagine Pharaoh and his court and his priests waiting
for the Sun to set, their backs to the newly built pyramids, with their
surfaces polished and shining in the light of the setting Sun, the last
of the Sun's rays glinting off the burnished metal caps atop each pyramid.
Then as it darkens, the same crescent Moon worshiped by these people as
the Moon/Cat Goddess, perhaps because a cat's eye, like the Moon, mysteriously
changes from a narrow slit to full orb; imagine Pharaoh gazing in wonder
at the ghostly apparition hovering just above. And perhaps as everyone looks
up one of the high priests steps forward and chants a hymn to the Moon and
its visitor from the holy Book of the Dead. " Beloved art thou as thou
passeth over Egypt. When thou riseth, thou sendest forth light from thy
beautiful eyes. Beloved art thou, pleasant art thou, thy beauties seize
and carry away my heart." Indeed, may your heart be carried away on
this one night that hasn't occurred for over 4,000 years. A cosmic evening
to remember if you remember to Keep Looking Up!
* This week's Sky At A Glance and Planet
Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only.
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