STARGAZER #507 for June 13, 2009

The World Made Smaller by the Internet


The Internet is amazing, not that I'm telling you anything you don't
already know. It's just that I'm constantly reminded of it.

By posting a website -- something that requires minimal resources and
expertise -- one is stepping onto a world stage and becoming available to anyone
with access to the Internet. The "www" prefix says it all -- truly a world
wide web spanning our entire planet.

When I created and posted my Stargazer website in 2002, I knew, yet didn't
fully grasp, the scope of what I was doing. But in the past 7 years, I've
heard from people all over the world.

Just within past week, I received emails from people in two far away
places -- Eric and Tristan, a father and his teenage son who live in
Johannesburg, South Africa, and Renas, a Kurdish Iraqi. They found my website
and
email address from Internet searches. And at their request, they now receive
the free email version of this column along with others around the U.S. and
the world.

Eric and Tristan first emailed me last year with a question about
colliding galaxies -- an inquiry that inspired a Stargazer column. They're now
asking about looking for communications from other life in the cosmos, and I see
another column in their query. (I get many column ideas from readers' so
don't hesitate to write.)

This father and teenage son exemplify another thing I love about amateur
astronomy -- it cuts across the generations, being an interest that can be
shared by all ages.

Renas first contacted me in 2006, inquiring about my Learning the Night
Sky book. A 22-year old just completing a degree in geology, he and some
friends had recently organized the Amateur Astronomers Association of
Kurdistan. In one email he sent a photo of the Iraqi National Observatory
showing
damage done, according to Renas, by Iranian and U.S. air strikes in earlier
times--a sad reminder of the longstanding and tragic conflicts in Iraq.



In last week's email Renas said he is coming to the U.S.-- and
specifically to Texas -- for graduate study in geology. After spending the
summer in
Houston improving his English, he hopes to enter the University of Texas at
Austin in the fall. So I may get to meet him and even take him out to our
local astronomy club's observatory. A small world indeed, and all thanks to
the Internet.

Next Two Weeks. Avg. sunrise: 6:24 a.m.; avg. sunset: 8:36 p.m. (exact for
Waco, TX).
* This morning Jupiter is to the lower left of the Moon.
* The Moon is at 3rd quarter Mon.
* Fri. morning Mars is the upper left of much brighter Venus with the
crescent Moon further to their upper left, all low in the east before dawn.
* The summer solstice is June 21 this year.
* The Moon is new June 22.

Naked-eye Planets. (The Sun, Moon, and planets rise in the east and set in
the west due to Earth's west-to-east rotation on its axis.)
Evening: Saturn, high in the west, sets after midnight.
Morning: Jupiter is the brightest object in the south; "morning star"
Venus and much fainter Mars are low in the east; Mercury, lower in the east at
dawn, is at its best June 13-18.

Star Party. The Central Texas Astronomical Society's free monthly star
party is tonight at the Waco Wetlands beginning at 8:30 p.m., weather
permitting. For directions see my Website.

=======================================================

Stargazer appears every other week in the Waco Tribune-Herald and other
newspapers. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Write
him at 918 N. 30th St., Waco, TX 76707, call or fax at (254) 753-6920, or
e-mail at paulderrickwaco@....

Copyright 2009 by Paul Derrick. Permission is granted for free electronic
distribution as long as these paragraphs are included. Please obtain
permission from the author for publication in any other form. To be added to
(or removed from) the free e-mail distribution list, send your e-mail
address (and name) to _paulderrickwaco@..._ (mailto:paulderrickwaco@...)
.


* * See the Stargazer Web site at http://www.stargazerpaul.com. * *



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