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.

Satellite feed for September 1996 is as follows: The feed will be September 30 from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Telstar 401, transponder 7-U.

Satellite feed for October 1996 is as follows: The feed will be October 28 from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Telstar 401, transponder 7-U.

Satellite feed for November 1996 is as follows: The feed will be November 25 from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Telstar 401, transponder 7-U.

Notice : These are working drafts of the scripts for STAR HUSTLER. Changes may well be made as production requires.

STAR HUSTLER Episode #376-I

983rd Show

To Be Aired : Monday 10/7/96 through Sunday 10/13/96

"A Tail of Two Comets: One Of Which Is At Its Brightest This Week!"

Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings, fellow star gazers, and yes indeed, we have two comets visible to the naked eye right now and one of them is at its very brightest this very week. Let me show you: OK, we've got our skies set up for just after it gets dark out, facing southwest, where you'll be able to see a brilliant white light just above the teapot-shaped portion of Sagittarius, and that bright light is the planet Jupiter. Catch it now, especially through a small telescope because it will be disappearing soon. And notice too, that the Teapot is in such a position that it is pouring tea directly on the ground below. And then if you have absolutely clear dark skies, far away from city lights, you will be able to see with the naked eye a very, very dim fuzz ball about 2 & 1/2 fists away from Jupiter, which is Comet Hale-Bopp, the comet that will be the super goody this upcoming April. And although it's very dim now to the naked eye, if you look at it through a pair of binoculars you will see that it is indeed a comet, racing toward planet Earth. We'll keep you updated as it gets closer and closer and brighter and brighter. But a much better comet right now, which was discovered only a few weeks ago in August, is Comet Tabur and although you need clear dark skies to find it, it is nevertheless, easy as pie to locate because of all the familiar celestial goodies around it. OK, we've got our skies set up for Thursday morning, October 10th from 5 o'clock to sunrise facing due East where you will immediately see the planet Venus out-dazzling everything else in the sky and just above it, Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion and just above Regulus the reddish planet Mars. Then if you take a look over to the Northeast, that is to the left of all these beauties you will see our old friend The Big Dipper. And if you have clear dark skies you'll see a tiny fuzz ball just above the front of the cup of the Big Dipper and that is Comet Tabur which is much brighter than Hale-Bopp. You'll actually be able to watch its very fast movement from morning to morning because if you go out the next morning, Friday the 11th, from 5 to sunrise you will see that Tabur has moved much closer to the star Merak at the end of the cup. And on the next morning, Saturday the 12th, will be snuggled up next to the star. And on Sunday the 13th at the same time it will have moved past it. Once again: Thursday morning the 10th, Friday the 11th, Saturday the 12th, Sunday the 13th. Of course you will see the comet much better through a pair of binoculars. Now even though Comet Tabur was discovered only six weeks ago, scientists have been able to deduce that it was last seen in 900 B.C., 2900 years ago, and that it was much brighter then because it was much bigger. You see, 2900 years ago as it passed our Earth and Sun it broke up into twin comets and one piece, Comet Tabur, fell just slightly behind its twin. Indeed, we now know that its twin was a comet seen just 8 years ago in 1988, Comet Liller. How's that for a Tail of Two Comets? So get thee out and look for Tabur the tardy twin as 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.

STAR HUSTLER

THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Notice : These are rough drafts of the scripts for STAR HUSTLER. Changes may well be made as production requires.

STAR HUSTLER Episode #377-I

984th Show

To Be Aired : Monday 10/14/96 through Sunday 10/20/96

"A Kitchen Cosmos : Recipe For A Universe"

Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and you know, probably 99.999 etc. percent of all human beings who have ever looked up at the stars and the planets have had no concept whatsoever of either their sizes or their substance. And even though in this age of science and technology we have easy access to this knowledge, nevertheless many people still do not relate to the size of things when it comes to the night sky. I mean, when you go out and look up at the stars, how often do you think of them as other suns like our own Sun which appear as mere pinpoints of light only because they are so far away? And how often do you think of the different sizes of the planets as we watch them slowly change positions against the stars? Oh yes, we can easily look up the fact that we could fit 1,300 Earths inside the largest planet, Jupiter, or that we could fit 1,300,000 Earths inside our Sun, or that driving a car at 60 miles per hour it would take 177 years to drive from the Earth to the Sun. But numbers are easily forgotten so if you really want to relate to the cosmos perhaps it's better to think of it in everyday terms, and what could be more everyday than things you find in your kitchen? So the next time you pick up an orange pretend that it is the Sun and on that scale our Earth would be the size of just one grain of table salt circling that orange 30 feet away. The planet Jupiter, however, would be one small cherry pit circling it at a distance of one city block away, and Saturn another cherry pit with a Cheerio around it 2 city blocks away. And Pluto, the smallest and farthest planet from the Sun would be a mere speck of pepper 10 city blocks from the orange. But our Sun, that orange, is just one of billions of stars in a family of stars we call our galaxy. So on this same scale our Sun's closest neighbor would be another orange 1300 miles away. And all the other billions of stars would be fruits of all different sizes and on the average would be 2,000 miles apart. And our entire galaxy would consist of 200 billion oranges, lemons, limes, tomatoes, grapefruits, canteloupes, pumpkins et cetera occupying a space 20 million miles in diameter. And that's just our galaxy. There are at least 200 billion more. But to show the number of stars in all the galaxies would take more oranges, grapefruits, pumpkins et cetera than have ever grown since the beginning of time. So, the next time you're in your kitchen remember that our Sun is just one of those oranges and its nine planets mere specks of salt, pepper and cherry pits circling it all less than 10 city blocks away. Or, think of it like this: if we could fit our entire solar system, that is our Sun and all its planets, including the distances between them, inside a coffee cup, our Milky Way galaxy would then be the size of North America. Now that's a real wake up cup to think about as you 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

THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Notice : These are rough drafts of the scripts for STAR HUSTLER. Changes may well be made as production requires.

STAR HUSTLER Episode #378-I

985th Show

To Be Aired : Monday10/21/96 through Sunday 10/27/96

"A Bull's Eye Moon and The Swiftness of Our Nearest Neighbor"

Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings, fellow star gazers and for all those of you who have wondered how to find the constellation of Taurus the Bull with its wonderful red bull's eye star Aldebaran, next week is the week for you because next week you'll be able to use the Moon as a Taurus and Aldebaran finder as the Moon tries to make a bull's eye with the eye of the Bull itself. Let me show you. OK, we've got our skies set up for this Sunday evening, October 27th facing East around 7 PM your local standard time where you'll see a beautiful rising Full Hunter's Moon. And if you look just up and to its left, even though the bright moonlight will wipe out much of their beauty, you will see the 7 daughters of Atlas riding the shoulder of Taurus the Bull, the 7 stars clustered in a group known as the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Now take note of the Moon's position in relation to the Pleiades because the next night it will be in a much different position. You see although our Moon appears to slowly travel across the sky with the stars during the course of any given evening, in reality, if you go out hour after hour for an entire night you will see that the Moon itself travels quite swiftly across the background of fixed stars. Indeed, its actual speed around our Earth is 2300 miles an hour which causes the Moon to move the width of its own diameter against the background of fixed stars every single hour. And you will be able to see this best for yourselves on Monday night the 28th and Tuesday AM the 29th. OK, now let's set up our skies for Monday the 28th about an hour after sunset, about 7 PM you local time. And look how far the Moon has travelled in less than 24 hours. Indeed the Moon is getting ready to zero in on Aldebaran, the bright red eye star of the Bull. So remembering that the Moon travels approximately its own diameter every single hour, let's go through the entire evening, keeping in mind that as each hour goes by both Taurus and the Moon will rise higher and higher in the heavens and will travel completely across the sky and be in the West by dawn. But for illustration's sake let's freeze Taurus and all the stars so that we can better watch the incredible dramatic change in the Moon's position against them. Now take notes of the differences in times for each time zone. We'll start with 9 PM Eastern which is 6 o'clock Pacific. One hour later, 10 Eastern, 11 Eastern, Midnight Eastern, 1 AM, the 29th Eastern, 2 AM Eastern and Ta Da! at 3 AM Eastern the Moon almost makes a bull's eye with the Bull's eye. Then 4 AM Eastern, 5 AMEastern, 6 AM Eastern and there you have it. Once again! An incredible live outdoor demonstration of the Moon's swift 2300 mile per hour speed as it zips around our planet Earth. Don't miss this fun trying to hit a cosmic bull's eye with our nearest neighbor. It's easy 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.

STAR HUSTLER

THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Notice : These are rough drafts of the scripts for STAR HUSTLER. Changes may well be made as production requires.

STAR HUSTLER Episode #379-I

986th Show

To Be Aired : Monday 10/28/96 through Sunday 11/3/96

"The Pleiades Hour and The End of The World!"

Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and once again it's Hallowe'en . And although we in the Western world associate the full Harvest or Hunter's Moon with Hallowe'en because it rises looking so pumpkin-orange with its markings reminiscent of a jack-o-lantern, many cultures have associated Hallowe'en and the many different celebrations of the dead which occur at this time of the year, not with the full Moon, but with that lovely, exquisite group of stars we call the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. You see, although we think of Hallowe'en as a secular celebration of witches, black cats and trick or treating, to many cultures years ago and even today the end of October and beginning of November mark the time of the year when all sorts of commemorational ceremonies were and still are, held in honor of the dead. And although we of Western cultures speak of midnight on Hallowe'en as the Witching Hour, other cultures often viewed midnight at the end of October and beginning of November as the Pleiades Hour, because if you go out on Hallowe'en night at midnight, or any night the last week of October or the first week of November and look up overhead you will see the Seven Sisters announcing to many peoples past and present that this is the time to honor the dead. Now astronomically speaking whenever the Seven Sisters, The Pleiades, reach their highest point in the heavens we call this their 'culmination' and whenever the Pleiades culminated at midnight ancient cultures as far apart as ancient America and ancient Persia held great ceremonies. The 19th century astronomer, W.T. Olcott, suggested these universal memorial services commemorated a great cataclysm that occurred in ancient times which caused a great loss of life. And that this great ancient cataclysm occurred when the Pleiades culminated at midnight. People have speculated for centuries that this might have been the great Biblical Flood, the Ten Plagues of Egypt or the Sinking of Atlantis. Even Chaucer and Milton called The Pleiades the Seven Atlantic Sisters. Indeed, so great was the idea that a great cataclysm occurred when the Pleiades culminated at midnight that the ancient Aztec and Maya conducted spectacular ceremonies every year at the time of the Pleiades' midnight culmination, our Hallowe'en. And every 52 years, when their two great calendars coincided, they had a very special midnight Pleiades culmination sacrifical ceremony because they truly believed that the world would come to an end on one of these nights. In fact they were convinced that the world had already been destroyed and recreated 4 times before on the very night of the Pleiades midnight culmination. This belief was so firm that the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan was oriented to the setting of the Pleiades as were all the city's west-running streets. In fact, several ancient Greek temples were also lined up with the setting or rising of the Seven Sisters. So every Hallowe'en if you go outside at midnight and look up you will see them there, the Seven lonely sinister Sisters marking the night and the hour of the dead and, perhaps, even the end of the world itself. That is if you believe that kind of spooky stuff. At any rate, 'til the end arrives, fellow star gazers, 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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