The Bad Astronomy Newsletter

Bad Astronomy Newsletter #7

Contents:

1. Newsletter reaches 1000 readers
2. The book is selling briskly
3. TV appearance about the Moon hoax
4. Astronomy Tidbit: The return of Venus
5. Subscribe/Unsubscribe info

1) Newsletter reaches 1000 readers

As of Tuesday night, March 5, this newsletter has 1000 people subscribed! My thanks to everyone for caring enough not to hit the "unsubscribe" button. ;-)

2) The book is selling briskly

"Bad Astronomy", the book, is selling pretty well right now. After I announced it here on the newsletter, sales at Amazon rocketed up. I am not sure if that is directly because of this letter or not, but it seems like a good correlation. Anyway, it peaked around a ranking of 500, meaning it was their 500th best-seller for a while. They sold out by Friday night, but have since ordered more. Not bad for a book that isn't even due out officially for another two weeks!

If you ordered it that first night, then you probably already have your copy. If you haven't, then you can order it here. Again, I want to know what people honestly think of the book. Join the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board and talk about it.

3) TV Appearance about the Moon Hoax

In my never-ending quest to take over all media, I will be appearing on TV on Sunday, March 17 (check your local listings for the exact time; it is also on the Pax website linked below). The show is called "Encounters with the Unexplained" on the Pax TV channel. This is a religious station, and the program does tend to have such questions as "Was Noah's Ark Real?" or "Is the Bible Real?" as the topic. This one will be about the Moon Hoax. I take the side of truth, science and All That is Good, and the other side (the wrong one) will be handled by Bill Kaysing and Ralph Rene, two noted conspiracy theorists. Kaysing thinks space travel itself is impossible, though most people tend not to bring that up when they interview him. I can't imagine why. Rene is a self-taught scientist, who needs to go back to school. He doesn't have even the most basic grasp of physics, astronomy and math (he thinks pi=3.146264, not 3.14159...). I have not seen the episode yet, and have no idea how it will play. The producers may edit me liberally, or it may actually be fair. We'll see on the 17th.

In the meantime, you can check out the "Encounters with the Unexplained" website here, and my Moon Hoax website links page here.

4) Astronomy Tidbit: The Return of Venus

I was driving home the other day at sunset, and turned west on a long road. There, just above the horizon, was a bright dot. I watched it for a moment to make sure it wasn't an airplane, but it was relatively motionless. My suspicions were confirmed when I got home and checked on the web: Venus has returned to the night sky! If you face west just after sunset, Venus will be pretty much unmistakable as a bright white "star" a few degrees above the horizon. It will continue to get higher each day for the next few weeks. With a telescope it also shows a distinct phase which changes with time like the Moon's, so take a look!

Check out the Heavens-Above website to track Venus and learn everything you could possibly want about the second planet from the Sun at the Nine Planets website.

5) Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information

If, for some weird reason, you want to unsubscribe to this newsletter, just send email to badastronomy-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com with no body text. Make sure you send it from the address to which the newsletter is sent! Alternatively, you can unsubscribe from the Yahoo!Groups website. Go to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html for more info.

Remember, the newsletters will be archived on the website at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/badastronomy so even if you unsubscribe you can still read them there. I suggest staying subscribed so you get them as soon as I send them.

Also, I do not sell your email addresses and neither does Yahoo! Take a gander at the Yahoo!Groups privacy message if it makes you feel better: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/ Note that the email addresses are visible to me, but I have no prurient use for them. If that makes you nervous for whatever reason, feel free to unsubscribe and simply read the archived newsletters at the website listed above.

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