Web Between the Worlds
(With apologies to Charles Sheffield)

With the explosion of astronomy related Internet sites (22 000 when I stopped my WWW search program in despair!) I often get asked which sites are actually worthwhile. I’ll answer that question in the form of a monthly column in which I will examine a few sites of interest. While it is true that many will be familiar with the sites I choose, many will not, so I beg your indulgence. In time I will examine the less popular, but worthwhile sites. For this edition, however, I will be looking at only a few basic sites, aimed towards a more general audience.

The first site I will focus on is belongs to "The Planetary Society". To anyone who does not know what The Planetary Society is, allow me to quote: "The Planetary Society was founded in 1980 by Drs. Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman to encourage the exploration of our solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life. The Society is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, funded by dues and donations from individuals around the world." The site itself is well laid out, and has many interesting little nooks and crannies. They also have a almost daily "Headline" of topical value. They claim to have over 550 pages of information about space exploration and more than 480 images, artwork and other graphics, and I can believe them. Their links section, called "Spacegate", is especially worth looking at.

Their address is: http://planetary.org/

Most of my observing is severely hampered by a great big street light placed conveniently in front of my house. If I didn’t know better I would think that the Crux only had three stars! This problem is called light pollution, and besides being the bane of every astronomers life, is the primary concern of the "International Dark Sky Association". Their site is simple, but effective, and allows for "less capable browsers".

Point your browser at: http://www.darksky.org/

The last site I will consider in this brief first edition is a neat little online "Messier Catalogue". Though I question the usefulness of online catalogues, a good old-fashioned book is more useful, I suppose they have their place in the world too. This particular site, part of SEDS, has a lot of neat pictures of the entire Catalogue, coordinates, a history of the Catalogue and it’s founder, and a whole lot more.

The address is: http://www.seds.org/messier/

Feel free to send me your Web discoveries at evyn@global.co.za, and I will include them in the next edition of "Web Between the Worlds".

Evan Dembskey

In The Sky This Month - August 1997

Date Time Event

3/8 10h NEW MOON.

4/8 02h Mercury greatest elongation E. (27 deg.)

This is one of the best times to see Mercury in the evening sky

5/8 21h Mercury 1.0 deg S of Moon. And the moon even shows you

which is Mercury!

8/8 21h 24m Occultation of 5.9 mag star by the moon.

16/8 18h Neptune 4 deg S of Moon.

17/8 07h Uranus 4 deg S of Moon

18/8 13h FULL MOON.

19/8 07h Moon at perigee. Being so close to Full Moon this means that

the high and low tides will be a little higher and lower than usual.

22/8 04h Saturn 0.008 deg N of Moon. This should be an interesting sight.

Check them during the course of the evening and you will get a

feel for the moons’ motion in the sky. Moon rise is at 22.20.

In The Sky This Month - September 1997

Date Time Event

2/9 02h NEW MOON. Eclipse not visible from S.A.

5/9 14h Venus 3 deg S of Moon. You should be able to see Venus with the naked eye during the day.

13/9 03h Neptune 4 deg S of Moon.

13/9 16h Uranus 4 deg S of Moon

16/9 21h FULL MOON. Eclipse - See below for more details.

16/9 17h Moon at perigee. Being so close to Full moon this means that

the spring tides will be a little higher and lower than usual.

23/9 02h Equinox. The sun crosses over into the southern hemisphere.

Lunar Eclipse September 16th 1997.

Moonrise is at 17h50m from Johannesburg.

Moon enters penumbra 18h 11.0m

Moon enters umbra 19h 08.0m

Moon enters totality 20h 15.4m

Middle of eclipse 20h 46.6m

Moon leaves totality 21h 17.9m

Moon leaves umbra 22h 25.2m

Moon leaves penumbra 23h 22.2m