The Bad Astronomy Newsletter

Bad Astronomy Newsletter #28

Contents:

1. Interview on MSNBC!
2. New section added to website
3. Leonids on their way!
4. Subscribe/Unsubscribe info

1) Interview on MSNBC!

I just got a phone call from someone at MSNBC: they will be interviewing Bart Sibrel about the Moon Hoax, and they wanted someone else on to be the voice of reason. They settled for me. The segment will air live on MSNBC on Friday, November 15 sometime between 3 and 4 o'clock Eastern (US) time on "The Abrams Report". I don't know when exactly and probably won't find out until Friday morning. If I get a chance I'll put a note up with the time on the front page of the website. Here is the webpage for The Abrams Report. Here is my page on Bart Sibrel.

2) New section added to website

I decided to put a new section in the website with links to everything I have written for other venues: magazines, newspapers, etc. The section is called "In Print" and includes articles for Astronomy Magazine, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and my newest gig, the Boston Globe. I'll add more as they get published, or I can find them in archives. Unfortunately, a lot of places don't archive old articles. I will have to try to talk the folks at Astronomy Magazine into putting the "Ask Astro" section online; it's arguably the most useful part of magazine! They answer readers' questions about astronomy. It is a real grab-bag of Q&A, and I wrote answers for a dozen or so a couple of years ago. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot too. The new section is now in the menu on the left-hand side of every page on my site, or you can reach it directly here.

3) Leonids on their way!

Just a reminder to watch the Leonids meteor shower, which peaks on Monday night/Tuesday morning. It used to be that no one knew when there would be strong peaks in the number of meteors, but recently there have been amazing advances in the models. Predictions are now pretty accurate, and you can see just how well things will go near you by going to the NASA Science page where they list peak counts and times by city.

I would be safe and get out at least an hour before the predicted peak. The full Moon will dim the meteors a lot, but things should still be hopping. Another good site to keep an eye on is Space Weather and an article about 2002 Leonids prediction (be ye fairly warned, it's technical).

I checked the NASA site and I see that near me, things start to pick up around 2:00 a.m. local time, so if it's clear I'll be out with my daughter watching. I prefer to lie down on a lawn chair with a blanket; that gives me the maximum view of the sky. I might even drive up into the hills to get above the fog, which is common this time of year. Last year we saw about 60 or so meteors in an hour before we went in. The fog was in a thin layer right above us. That produced an amazing illusion: it looked like there was a hole in the sky above us! That's because when we looked straight up we were looking through a thin layer of fog, but as we looked farther from the zenith (straight up) we were looking through more fog, making it harder to see the sky. This is similar to why the sunset is commonly red... here is a page explaining that with a diagram that shows what I mean: and my own page about sunsets and blue skies.

Who would think that sunsets and meteor shower observing would be tied together in such a way? But I am always amazed at how things do hang together in science. Some people tell me that science takes away the romance in life, but I feel just the opposite: it gives you insight into the machinery and orchestration of Nature, and makes everything seem even more vibrant and alive.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
badastro@badastronomy.com
http://www.badastronomy.com