Hope you’ve had a restful New Year’s break/holiday (assuming you got one). I’m back in the office this week, though classes at the UA don’t start until Jan. 14. In the interim, there’s plenty of campus-related activities for people to enjoy.
The Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, for one, continues to offer its astronomy viewings/dinners/awesome evenings out. But beside the normal offerings, the center’s officials have several upcoming events, including:
“Moon Impact,” Jan. 12, Feb. 10, and March 12. Adam Block, program coordinator for the SkyCenter, will host guest observers in taking images of the moon that will help NASA select a target for a 2.2-ton projectile that will be fired into the moon next spring in a search for water. The target is for a shadowed crater in a polar region, where the moon is most likely to have water. SkyCenter images will support NASA’s “LCROSS” mission, or the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission. LCROSS is piggybacking on the upper stage of the Atlas V rocket scheduled to launch NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter toward the moon in April 2009.
“Our Place in the Universe,” Jan. 16 and April 18. Which stars and galaxies are close to Earth, and which are farther away? What stars are about to explode? Block will show SkyCenter guests many objects through the telescope in answering those questions, illustrating both our place in space as well as the dynamics and motion of the universe at large.
“Diamonds in the Sky,” Feb. 8. Scheduled to coincide with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the SkyCenter offers rock hounds and gem enthusiasts a SkyNight focused on the mineralogy of outer space.
“Valentine’s Day Special,” Feb. 14. What more romantic night could there be during IYA 2009 than a first-ever Valentine’s Day dinner at the SkyCenter, where you dine high above the city, among the stars? It never gets top billing, but Arizona Statehood Day is also on Feb. 14.
“Great Observatories IYA Image Unveiling,” Feb. 21. The SkyCenter and Biosphere 2 are partners in a NASA-sanctioned IYA event scheduled for this date. Biosphere 2 will unveil new images and exhibit new posters of the spiral galaxy Messier 101 as seen by NASA’s different great observatories – the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory. As speaker for this event, Block, who is a renowned astrophotographer, will explain what goes into creating these images. Block operates the SkyCenter telescope, which was installed less than a year ago. Already he has used the SkyCenter telescope to produce three images selected as “Astronomy Image of the Day.”
The evening events cost $48 per person and reservations are required. To schedule a trip to the top of Mount Lemmon, call 626-8122. For more information about the events, check out this press release.
