Neptune is at opposition on August 15 and is easily located from August through October. Neptune, along with the other three gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, all have diameters over 48,000 kilometres. (The other five “small” planets, including Earth, have diameters under 13,000.) Of Neptune’s known moons, only two are visible from Earth.

Uranus, along with moons Titania and Oberon, are visible at a good mag. 6 from September to early December in Aquarius. Read more …

   Have you been seeing meteors lately? Besides the sporadics, we have been seeing meteors that are associated with any of several showers. In October we have the Draconids (Oct. 7 & 8 ) and the Orionids (Oct 20 & 21). The Draconid peak is during First Quarter Moon, so the best time to go out is after moonset. The Oriond peak is during Last Quarter Moon, so going out before moonrise is best.
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If you want a visual on size comparisons of stars, to use in your classroom or to use for fun, I’ll give you a link that a friend sent to me. He used the U-Tube video during an astronomy outreach session. I’ll pass the link to you here.

   A second MESSENGER flyby of Mercury is scheduled for October 06, 2008. The second flyby should provide images of the part of Mercury yet to be seen by humankind. Mercury will not only take thousands of images, but it will also measure the topography via lasers.

The first flyby answered questions about Mercurian terrain and gave us exciting, new details of the planet’s internal workings. The tiny planet has not been viewed all around, but with MESSENGER, we will have a glimpse of the never-before seen hemisphere.

Get ready for the images and information that should start coming soon. More information can be found at the NASA site: MESSENGER Returns to Mercury.

   The Sun has been studied in many ways, and new information comes out of each study. The recent images from the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) have provided more than scientists imagined. RHESSI is an X-ray/Gamma ray telescope sent to study solar flares, but a team of scientists using the images has determined that the Sun is not a perfect sphere.
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   Haumea is the name of another dwarf planet in our Solar System. The name comes from the Hawaiian goddess of fertility. Haumea is a Kuiper Belt object, formerly referred to as 2003 EL61 and Minor Planet 136108.

    The IAU officially name Haumea on September 17, along with its two moons, Hiiaka and Namaka. Haumea is the fifth dwarf planet discovered to orbit our Sun.

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   On September 29, the Jules Verne, full of trash that was loaded from the International Space Station, will come plummeting through Earth’s atmosphere. It will burn up as it passes through the upper layers, while it passes over the south Pacific Ocean.

    The Jules Verne is a small craft that carried supplies to astronauts in ISS five months ago. After it was emptied of its goods, astronauts used it for a variety of things, including sleeping quarters. The final task will be to carry unusable junk and trash that cannot be kept in ISS any longer, and to do a last chore of carrying the trash back toward Earth.

    For a timetable of sightings for Jules Verne, go to the Satellite Tracker.

   Another rumor is debunked. The information on this one comes from Graham Palmer, New Zealand. Palmer keeps members of the Aurora Watch Team posted on solar indices, activity, and aurora potential.

The rumor has been circulating due to the current, very quiet conditions of solar minimum. In the month of August, only one tiny spot was seen by some observatories, and many saw none at all. This low level of activity is the quietest since the minimum which occurred in the mid 1950s. That is what has sparked fears in some people regarding the Sun going quiet.
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The Full Moon for September is called the Harvest Moon. The name is appropriate for Northern Hemisphere farmers because they are harvesting crops this time of year. The Full Moon provides light so that farmers can see later into the evening so that they can continue working even after the Sun sets.
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Houston survived the powerful rath of Ike. N.A.S.A., located south of Houston, is functioning normally although the roof of the Johnson Space Center was partially removed during the storm.

Sixty five team members worked on-sight during Ike’s raging. No one was hurt and everything is working as normally as possible.

In anticipation of the storm, training preparations for mission

STS-125 were suspended at 1:00 p.m. Thursday.

Atlantis (Mission STS-125 ) is scheduled to launch on October 10, 2008, headed to the Hubble. 

Endeavour ( STS-126) will be the last launch this year, scheduled for November 12, transporting the MPLM  ( Multi Purpose Logistics Module) to the ISS.

The last time a storm whipped up trouble for the J.S.C. was in August, 1983 ( Hurricane Alicia). Damage from Alicia’s frolic through Johnson Space Center was estimated to be about $250,000 U.S.D. Alicia caused damage to the roofing of six major structures, many trees were destroyed and a few windows were shattered. Luckily there were no injuries.

The significant damage caused by Alicia did not delay mission STS-8, which was scheduled to launch the next week.

Ike just trifled with J.S.C. this morning, but may have caused several billion dollars worth of trouble for the Houston, Galveston area.