Editorial
I have been following the progress of the First African in Space with a variety of emotions over the last several months - originally starting out with a little cynicism ( well after Dennis Tito who can blame me??) and finally ending up with tonnes of admiration for Mark as the full scope of what he is attempting, became apparent. Let's hope that the experiments that he has taken up with him to the ISS are successful and that the results are useful to the various bodies involved in the design and implementation thereof.
The "original" five planets are currently putting on a bit of a show for us Earthlings, clustered together in the evenings just after sunset in a fairly small area of the western sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn are quite close together with Jupiter just a little further away than the others. I suppose that it could be considered a good Kodak opportunity! Also, in the mornings, go out and have a look at Delta Scorpii, it still seems to be getting brighter and is probably the 2nd brightest star in the constellation by now.
Eben van Zyl tells us about techniques used by a group of Astronomers for measuring the rotation of Mercury (always difficult being so close to the Sun), and Wolf Lange supplies the next in his series, "The A to Zee of Astronomee" which introduces us to a few interesting words starting with the letter "F".
Brian Fraser gives us some pointers to a few heavenly happenings for the next 2 months, including a table of the rising and setting of the Sun and the 5 "original" planets. Remember, if you need the tables for the Sun, Moon and Planets - just dive into the website where they will shortly be loaded covering the whole year.
ECLIPSE chasers - remember we have a solar eclipse on 4th December. If you would like to be there, contact a committee member, or Brian Fraser for further details on how to get to the area of interest.
A bit of sad new for the Jo'burg Centre members. Dess Fourie passed away at the beginning of April, and Chris Stewart has supplied an obituary to him in this issue.
The Editor - chris@penberthy.co.za