Action Sun Memories

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A nice find While searching  an old hard drive for some family images, I came across this photograph. Its some of the parents and children from my previous astronomy club in Bray Co Wicklow.  The Action Sun workshop involved bringing the sun to Earth  using simple materials. The children and parents were carrying the newly built sun into the school hall, all very proud of their work. May 2012 On May 4th 2012 children from St Cronans Stargazers Astronomy Club in Bray took the sun from the sky and brought it down to Earth. We used a 10ft X 8ft plastic sheet, crepe paper, acrylic paint washable glue and plenty of energy. It was a very cloudy day.  Earlier a brief look at the sun in the gave me a good view of a sunspot in Active Region 147. The rest of the data from the space telescope Nasa Solar Dynamics Observatory. ‘The sun now’ . This  website shows the … Continue reading →

Laudato Si’ Week and the passing of a good friend

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This entry is part 56 of 56 in the series Diary

I had meant to put up posts about two important events but yesterday I was trapped in a Zoom meeting all day so these are now a bit late; still, better late than never. The first is that this week is the fifth anniversary of the landmark encyclical on our relationship with nature, Laudato Si’, and as a part of its commemoration there are a number of events planned (alas, some already past) for Laudato Si’ Week – click on the link to follow up on them. Of course the message of this encyclical has been covered many times in the Sacred Space Astronomy site, and the document itself can be found (along with other relevant articles) on our Faith and Astronomy Resource site. This is in fact the inauguration of a Laudato Si’ year… The other event this week was the passing of the retired Father General of the Jesuits, Fr. Adolfo Nicolàs. Though he was originally from Spain, … Continue reading →

ⓜ A world of faith

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This entry is part 1 of 22 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… just a few months after my Georgetown gig, in December of 2014 I was invited to speak at the winter commencement of the school of arts and sciences at the University of Arizona. For reasons that will be made clear, they did not offer me an honorary degree… To Dean Ruis, Dean Cheu, thank you; honored guests, I greet you; to the University of Arizona College of Science Class of Winter 2014, I congratulate you. I am honored to share this stage with you. I am a planetary scientist and a Jesuit brother. I wear a lot of hats… or collars, as the case may be. One of those hats — this hood — I share with you. I am also a graduate of the University of Arizona, getting my PhD in Planetary Sciences here in 1978. This is an exciting time to be a planetary scientist. Just this month [remember, this was 2014], the New … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – May 19, 2020

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This entry is part 147 of 148 in the series In the Sky This Week

Mars continues to pull away from Saturn and Jupiter in the southeastern predawn sky; Saturn and Jupiter are getting a little closer with each passing day. Mercury and Venus in the west-northwestern sky are joined by a thin crescent Moon at sunset on May 23-25th.   The Moon is a waning crescent, visible low to the east before sunrise. The new Moon occurs on May 22nd. After May 22nd the Moon will be a waxing crescent, visible toward the southwest in early evening. Moon News: NASA unveils new rules to guide behavior in space and on the lunar surface As @NASA leads a coalition of nations to the Moon, safety, transparency, and coordination are paramount. Hence, the Artemis Accords:https://t.co/liHjCpTQEk — Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) May 15, 2020 The Sun has 2 spots rotating into view – you can see the active regions in the videos below – both above and below the equator on the left-hand side. Coronal holes remain open … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday Pope John Paul II

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Today would have been the 100th birthday of Pope (and now Saint) John Paul II. Pope Francis has already celebrated (click here) and of course this event will be especially noted in Poland. As part of that celebration, a Catholic newspaper in Poland, Wszystko Co Najważniejsze, asked me to write a short reflection on what Pope John Paul II meant for the Vatican Observatory. Since they are publishing it in Polish, I thought I would run my original English version here. (Anyone who reads Polish can comment in the comments about how well their translation came across! Actually, we do have two Polish speakers at the Specola… and the Polish website has their edited version of my English text.) The papacy of Saint John Paul II came at a watershed moment in the history of the Vatican Observatory. A new observatory director, Fr. George Coyne SJ, had just been named by his immediate predecessor, John Paul I; but Father Coyne … Continue reading →

Specola Guestbook: November 29, 1913 – John Parkhurst

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This entry is part 42 of 44 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is from November 29, 1913, when John Parkhurst made a visit. Next to his name, John Adelbert Parkhurst FRAS (1861-1925) wrote, “Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay Wis. U.S.A.”  He was an astronomer who had been at Yerkes Observatory since 1898. Parkhurst’s astronomical specialty was stellar photometry. Bear in mind that this was an era before C.C.D.’s or even photomultiplier tubes–you had to determine brightness based on the image of a star on a photographic plate. He published more than 100 papers over his career. In 1912, he published the “Yerkes Actinometry” in the Astrophysical Journal. This was a catalog of the magnitudes, color indices, and spectral classification of every star brighter than magnitude 7.5 between declination 73 degrees and the celestial north pole. [Author’s note: … Continue reading →

ⓜ May daze… Diary of 16 May, 2020

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This entry is part 54 of 56 in the series Diary

I do two different kinds of “subscriber only” posts nowadays. The “And then I wrote” articles that come out on Thursday mornings are little bonuses to thank the people who subscribe. The other kind are diaries like this one, kept behind the firewall since that material is often “inside baseball” kind of stuff, or my own personal diary/blog, which would not be of interest to most people… just those friends of mine who are already interested enough to sign up. Of course, being a subscriber also gives you the chance to comment on what you read here. Sometimes people try to comment about our different articles by posting replies to Twitter. That doesn’t work, though, since most of the authors will never see what they had to say. In order for the author to read and reply, you need to sign in and comment in the comment section on this site! Lately, there have been people who subscribed but then … Continue reading →

Science and Water, Then and Now

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You find science everywhere.  During the early eighteenth century Spanish Franciscans established a series of missions along the San Antonio River in what is now the U.S. state of Texas.  They ministered to the native Coahuiltecan people who lived there.  The San Antonio Missions are today active Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, while also being part of the San Antonio Missions National Park, and a UN World Heritage Site.  Thus, the missions are still there.  And, as a film that introduces visitors to the San Antonio Missions emphasizes, so are the Coahuiltecans who built the missions with the Franciscans; their descendants live all over the area. One of the missions, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción de Acuña, appeared in this blog last year (click here for that post) because the sun illuminates that church in an interesting way every Feast of the Assumption.  However, as I noted in that post, while arranging that sort of … Continue reading →

Cruinniu na nOg – 2019 Apollo 11 Drawing Workshop revisited

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  I really enjoyed taking part in Cruinniu na nOg last year. The preparation, the fun, the smiles,and the work produced. This year because of COVID 19 the events that can be held  online are online.  I have found myself unprepared for it and will miss out this time. However, I am working on some online ideas and hope that these efforts will be useful in the future.  Here is what happened in two of the venues during that festival in  2019. Cruinniu na nOg  means the meeting of the young in the Irish language. Creative activities are funded on that special day by the local authorities all over the country. The overarching body is  called Creative Ireland. Ireland as a country therefore  backs creativity nationwide for all her children. My drawing workshop Let’s Go To The Moon – Apollo 11 became part of this government initiative to stimulate creativity. Cruinniu na nOg is aimed to encourage children to get … Continue reading →

ⓜ A world of surprises

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This entry is part 2 of 22 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… in 2014, I was honored with an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University. Of course, they made me sing for my supper… To the president, the provost, the dean, I thank you; honored guests, I greet you; to the Georgetown College Class of 2014, I congratulate you. I am honored to share this stage with you. As you have heard, I am an astronomer; I am also a Jesuit brother. And I work at the Vatican Observatory. A lot of people are surprised to hear that the Vatican City State has its own national observatory. That’s one of the reasons we have it: to surprise people.  But there’s a long and honored history of the Church supporting astronomy. Jesuit astronomers helped Pope Gregory reform the calendar in 1582, and one of those Jesuits, Christopher Clavius, wrote a letter of recommendation for a young Galileo. There’s a crater on the moon named for Father Clavius, along with dozens … Continue reading →

The Blanchinus “X”

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This entry is part 23 of 24 in the series Lunarcy

Our best observing weather is when the days are hot, the evenings warm and still. The colongitude was just right so this was a good night toget a look at the famous “X” on the moon. Can you see it on the terminator? It only lasts for and hour or so. Here’s how you get there. The area below center of this image is dominated by the two circular pools of darkness that are Aliacensis (82km diameter), lower, and Werner (71km) above. A line between the centers of these two craters lead to the “X” formed by the walls of Blanchinus, La Caille, Purbach and several smaller features. Above Aliacensus and Werner is a nice flat floored crater, Apianus (65km) and further above that is a smaller crater Playfair (49km). Near the top of the image is a pair of craters Azophi (49km) and above it is the irregular Abenezra (43km) with Geber (46km) partially cut off by the edge … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – May 12, 2020

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This entry is part 146 of 148 in the series In the Sky This Week

When it comes to astronomy, asteroids are pretty much my favorite subject; the Sun comes in #2 by a wide margin. I have a presentation about the Sun that I’ve given numerous times – I’m modifying it to present remotely to my wife’s middle-school science students, and creating a worksheet based on my presentation. Here’s me giving my Sun presentation to the Warren Astronomical Society before the total solar eclipse of 2017: I’ve also suggested to my wife that she show the following videos to her science students: Mars continues to pull away from Saturn and Jupiter in the southeastern predawn sky; the Moon joins the early morning planets from May 12-15th. Mercury appears low on the northwestern horizon at sunset this week. Venus appears a bit lower each evening on the northwestern horizon after sunset.  Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) will be north of Venus and the star Capella, but may require binoculars or a telescope to see.   The Moon … Continue reading →