Excitement is building with respect to planets in Earth’s sky. Jupiter and Venus are edging toward a spectacular conjunction in early March,  Mercury is about to make one of it's rare appearences while Mars is getting bright! Begin looking for planets now, and you have several months of planet-watching heaven ahead. Venus and Jupiter are the sky’s two most brilliant planets. In February 2012, they are the first “stars” to pop out at evening dusk. You might not be able to resist wishing on them. The fact is that Venus and Jupiter both shine more brilliantly than any star. They rank as the third-brightest and fourth-brightest celestial bodies to light up the sky, after the Sun and moon. The close coincidence of Venus and Jupiter in conjunction, the steep angle of the ecliptic and Venus’ greatest evening elongation keeps these worlds up for several hours after dark – and ensures the Northern Hemisphere of a beautiful gathering of worlds in the western evening sky in March. They are well worth getting outside to see. This is the best evening Venus-Jupiter conjunction for years, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. Venus and Jupiter stay out for nearly four hours after sunset. Venus and Jupiter are close throughout the month of March 2012. They are like twin beacons – two very bright planets – near each other in the west as soon as the sun goes down. Photo to the left taken during a  conjunction of the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter.

The other planet that will “wow” you in early 2012 is Mars. It is now gearing up for its opposition to the sun in early March 2012. In other words, in the coming months Mars will become extremely noticeable in our sky – more noticeable than it’s been for two years. Mars will come closest to Earth for this two-year period and shine most brightly in our sky in early March 2012. This is the wonderful Martian opposition, which takes place when Earth flies between this outer planet and the Sun. Although this 2012 opposition will be a rather distant one for Mars, any Martian opposition is a grand event. It’s when we remember why we love this planet! So be sure to watch for Mars. Because Venus – the sky’s brightest planet – sets in the west-southwest by around mid-evening, that leaves Jupiter to lord over the late evening sky all through February. Jupiter transits – that is, reaches its high point in the sky around sunset during February and sets in the west around midnight by the end of the month. As Jupiter sets in the west, look for a yellow star which is actually the Planet Saturn rise in the east.

Galway Astronomy Festival

A theme  "New Horizons of the Universe" was the question posed at Galway Astronomy Festival last held last Saturday, January 21st at the Westwood House Hotel. The event was opened by the distingushed Proffessor Dick Butler, formerly Director of the Chemistry Department at NUI Galway and a long serving member of the Galway Astronomy club. In his opening address he questioned the new evidence that certain particles can travel faster than the speed of light and looked to the beginning of time from Physics to Quantum Physics in the search for the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.

The first talk was presented by acclaimed astrophotographer; Carl O'Beirnes. Carl takes spectacular images of the universe that look like they’ve been taken by the Hubble space telescope, but are actually the view from his back garden in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. He is one of many back-garden astronomers whose images, taken from back gardens across Ireland, produce breathtakingly beautiful images of the Universe. In his spare time he also gives talks to schools and astronomy clubs across the country and also takes pictures of near Earth asteroids for the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts. The second talk was given by Irish Spaceflight expert and author of several books; Brian Harvey. In his talk he looked at "Future Missions to The Moon and Mars" from a human and robotic perspective. He also looked to the far East, and China. When China became only the third nation in history to fly a man into orbit aboard their own spacecraft a year ago, the rest of the world took notice. But China had been carrying out impressive space feats for more than three decades - perhaps far fewer flights than the US and Russia, but in many respects, with impressive but generally unappreciated levels of technology and reliability. China is the emerging Space power and may well put men on the Moon and possibly one day even Mars. During the lunch break Jan Kotek, an expert amateur astronomer and member of the Galway Astronomy club brought visitors on a tour of astronomical vistas from the Southern Hemisphere, notably Chile, home to some of the darkest skies in the world and the largest telescopes.

In the third session we greeted Dr Niall Smith who is Head of Research at Cork Institute of Technology since 2006. He talked about becoming a founding member of Blackrock Castle Observatory, where his astrophysics research group are now situated and how the observatory houses an international award-winning science center which has the aim of educating young and old about the importance and benefits of science to our society. He explained his excitement how since opening in late 2007 it has received over 60,000 visitors. He also examined a new Big Dish Project at the National Space Centre’s (NSC) Elfordstown Earthstation facility at Midleton, Co Cork, making it the largest radio dish available for educational purposes in Europe.

The final talk was presented by Dr Ronan McNulty of University College Dublin. A huge crowd over over 100 people were in attendance for this spellbinding talk about the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100m underground. He explained that it is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles and he was involved with researching the Higgs Boson or so called ‘God Particle’ at the Large Hadron Collider. The Higgs Boson is hypothesized to give mass to particles, but has remained unproven to date, while the latest research from CERN has offered ‘intriguing hints’ of a Higgs Boson. Questioned about the dream applications of the research at the astronomy festival on Saturday, Dr McNulty said, “the dream application of anything is understanding our place in the universe and understanding what makes up our universe.”While that was enough for him, he said, other applications to come out of particle physics over the last hundred years are all around us. 

Dr McNulty said that when Michael Faraday was trying to investigate electricity in 1850s, he got a visit from the Finance Minister in the UK, William Gladstone, who demanded, ‘What damn use is your experiment of this stuff called electricity?’ Faraday replied, “Well, sir, you never know, one day you might be able to tax it.” Overall we were very happy with the event as many young people came from ages 10, 14 , 18 , 20, we signed up several new members from athlone and other regions to become new members and we had a fantastic raffle with more than 200 tickets sold. We wrapped up the event with a festival dinner at the Hotel. Thank you to everyone who attended and we hope to see you nest year.

See a recent paper article on the Astronomy Festival HERE