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First Public Show of 2015

“The Sky this Month” – well, month plus a week – is coming up at the Hatter Planetarium: Sunday, January 25, at 4:00 PM and Tuesday, January 27, at 7:00 PM. We’ll be wrapping up the surprising Comet Lovejoy and looking ahead to a close conjunction of Mars and Venus as well as the opposition of Jupiter and the stars and stories of the winter skies.

All shows are free and last about 50 minutes. Directions, more information, and our complete Spring 2015 schedule are on our web site.

Spring ’15 Show Schedule

Photo: Gettysburg College PR

Greetings, friends of the Hatter Planetarium! We have set our schedule of public shows for the Spring 2015 semester. The schedule itself is below along with a couple of other ways to access it. It includes our long-running (but always different!) Sky this Month series. We are keeping the Sunday at 4:00, Tuesday at 7:00, but note that will not always be the first Sunday and Tuesday of the month.

As with last yer, we are doing one special production. This year it will be “The History of Astronomy at Gettysburg College.” It’s a great show – not just for local interest but for a fascinating look at how the teaching of astronomy has changed over 150+ years.

All shows continue to be offered free of charge. (Thank Gettysburg College for making this possible.) Directions and parking information can be found on our main web page, as well as a request form for school and community group field trips, which are also free.

Below is the schedule. You can also see it as a PDF and a public Google Calendar link.

The Sky this Month
Ø Sunday, January 25, 4:00 PM
Ø Tuesday, January 27, 7:00 PM
The Sky this Month
Ø Sunday, March 1, 4:00 PM
Ø Tuesday, March 3, 7:00 PM
The History of Astronomy at Gettysburg College
Ø Friday, March 20, 3:00 PM (refreshments served)
Ø Sunday, March 22, 4:00 PM
The Sky this Month
Ø Sunday, March 29, 4:00 PM
Ø Tuesday, March 31, 7:00 PM
The Sky this Summer
Ø Sunday, May 3, 4:00 PM

Ø Tuesday, May 5, 7:00 PM

Mercury and Venus, Comet Lovejoy this week

5:40 PM, Jan 9. Venus (brighter) and Mercury near Fairfield PA

We’re looking forward to getting our Spring 2015 shows going with “The Sky this Month” on Jan 25 (4:00 PM) and January 27 (7:00 PM). Meanwhile, here are a couple of sky sights to be aware of.

  • Comet Lovejoy is outperforming expectations, easily visible in binoculars now, though it will soon begin to fade. Finder chart and more info here. I saw it for the first time 1/7 with 8×40 binocs.
  • Venus and Mercury are close in the evening sky just after sunset. They’ll be closest on January 11, after which Venus will continue to climb while Mercury drops back into the sun’s glare over the next two weeks.

December Sky this Month Shows Coming Up

Venus (L) and waxing crescent moon (R). Photo by Ian Clarke.

Sunday, November 30, 4:00 PM
Tuesday, December 2, 7:00 PM

Yes, that’s right – we scheduled a show on Thanksgiving weekend. Oops! But we hope a few people can make a family event of it and enjoy our preview of the winter skies. If not then, come Tuesday night for the encore. The show will include recent astronomy news, for example what’s next for the Rosetta probe at Comet 69P. We’ll go over the local almanac and the reasons for the seasons. Then we’ll use the planetarium to point out the sky sights you can enjoy over the next several weeks. The Hatter Planetarium is located in Masters Hall on the Gettysburg College campus. All shows are free and open to the public and last about 50 minutes. Note: there is no monthly skyshow for January as it would fall during the college’s winter break.

Late November Astrominute

The late November Hatter Planetarium / WZBT astrominute is on the air and on line. Text below the link:

http://public.gettysburg.edu/~iclarke/hatter/podcasts/astrominute111414.mp3

Here is your Gettysburg Astrominute for late November, 2014. The evening skies will be moonless the week of the 16th but look for a growing crescent moon in the west after sunset the following week. On Thanksgiving night, a 23% crescent will be shining just above Mars in the southwest. Official winter is still a month away, but with the sun now setting in before 5:00 PM, it feels like it’s here now. The true harbinger of the season – Orion, the great hunter – is now rising due east by 9: PM. Look for it earlier and earlier as the weeks go by. Just as Orion is rising, look for the Pleiades – or seven sisters – half way up in the east. At midinight they will be almost directly overhead. (This was the time of year the ancient Celts celebrated Samhain, one of the predecessors of Halloween.) And at midnight, with the Pleiades overhead, turn back to the east to see Jupiter rising. It is not at its brightest now, but it’s still brighter than any star in the sky. The astrominute is a production of Gettysburg College’s Hatter Planetarium and WZBT.
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