ASTRONOMY CLUB NEWSLETTER

1) RED MOON. The full moon will rise at approximately 6:16 p.m., will begin entering the Earth's shadow (or 'umbra') 42 minutes later at 6:58 p.m., and Mid-eclipse will occur an hour and 41 minutes later, at 8:39 This eclipse will be "partial"--all but the "top" 8 percent of the lunar disk will be darkened. By 10:21 the reddish dark coloring will be gone and the full Moon will be dazzling white again.

2) COMET HALE-BOPP. While the Moon is being eclipsed, we will observe comet Hale-Bopp, which will be setting in the northwest around 10 p.m. Binoculars will help detect any gas or dust tail. Hale-Bopp will be approaching the sun, and be at its closest to the sun (around 90 million miles) on March 31. From this night on, Hale-Bopp will be at its brightest, an evening object in the northwest, so get out and observe it!

3) MARS, tiny in the telescope, but large in our imagination, will also be the target of our telescopes. The Red Planet will be about 10 degrees above and to the right of the Moon, and we may be able to see the northern ice cap which will be shrinking as summer comes to the northern hemisphere for Mars.

The School Is Located at 1212 Anderson Road. Wear Warm Clothing. Bring a Flashlight in a Paper Bag to Keep Lights Dim. Also, Bring Something on Which to Sit or Lie. Telescopes and Binoculars Are Welcome

Hale-Bopp Up Close

Below left is a grey-scale image of Hale-Bopp made on February 23 at 5:55 a.m. Bob used an ST-7 CCD camera attached to a 300 mm telephoto lens stopped down to f/4.5 for 5 minutes. The image covers approximately 1 square degree, or approximately an area of sky equal to that of your fingernail when viewed at arms length. The image shows the "coma" or glowing halo of gas and dust surrounding the 15 to 24 mile wide nucleus of the comet.

Below right is a small, color (20K) image of Comet Hale-Bopp
A much larger color image of the comet (147K and 1164 pixels wide and 1735 pixels high)
will take most people a while to download. The colorful image of Comet Hale-Bopp was taken by Bob Thompson at Cottonwood, CA on Monday March 10 at 12:30 UT. Comet dust and the comet's dust tail appear red, while the gas tail glows blue. This guided exposure lasted 25 minutes using a 150 mm lens at f/3.5 on Kodak P1600 film. It was printed on vericolor slide film and digitized using a Nikon slide scanner. The final image spans a field measuring 5 by 7.5 degrees.