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The blogs and news about Abu Dhabi Astronomy was transferred to it's own website. Please follow us at abudhabiastronomy.com

OCTOBER 2015 TRIVIA

The longest night month of 2015 starts at the new moon of October 13, 00:06 hour UTC to the new moon of November 11, 2015  that last for 29 days 17 hours and 41 minutes. It is longer by 4 hours and 57 minutes than the mean lunar of 29 days 12 hours and 44 minutes.

ASTRONOMY DAY CELEBRATION

The Picture speaks by itself.

The first celebration of Astronomy Day in Abu Dhabi or even the entire UAE was successful. The aim of the activity was make people more aware about astronomy. To my surprise as the organizer of this event, I didn't not expect that much people's respond to the advertisement of celebrating with the entire world the Astronomy Day.

We, from Abu Dhabi Astronomy wants to thank the management and staffs of The Mall at World Trade Center Abu Dhabi. They accommodate as and help us a lot with the event.

Children and adults enjoyed as they participate in dancing and astronomy trivia games. The excitement and enjoyment added when the winners received their prize. Thank you for the generosity of Night Sky LLC astronomy shop in helping as make the event possible.

"We are looking for a next event..." that's what most of the parents comment after the event. And we from Abu Dhabi Astronomy encouraged to work more to introduce astronomy in the land of Abu Dhabi.

SUMMER SOLSTICE FALLS ON FATHER'S DAY

The Summer Solstice

The summer solstice heralds the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The timing of the summer solstice depends on when the Sun reaches its northernmost point of the equator.

This 2015, the summer begins with the solstice on June 21 at 12:38 P.M. EDT. and on this year, Father's Day is also celebrated!

Where the word solstice came from? It is from the Latin solstitium, from sol (sun) and stitium (to stop), reflecting the fact that the Sun appears to stop at this time (and again at the winter solstice).

In temperate regions, we notice that the Sun is higher in the sky throughout the day, and its rays strike Earth at a more direct angle, causing the efficient warming we call summer.

This summer solstice is the day where we have the most hours of sunlight during the whole year. 

At the winter solstice, just the opposite occurs: The Sun is at its southernmost point and is low in the sky. Its rays hit the Northern Hemisphere at an oblique angle, creating the feeble winter sunlight.

                                

                                                                   timeanddate.com

In Abu Dhabi June Solstice falls exactly on June 21st 2015, 20:39 GST with a total day length of 13 hours, 39 minutes and 11 seconds. On this day it is 3 hours, 2 minutes longer than on December Solstic.

The sun rises at 05:34 and sets on 19:14

STRANGE SOUNDS HEARD AROUND THE WORLD... WHAT IS THE MEANING?

The Map shows different places where people heard an strange sound from the sky. 

One of the hottest topic over the internet/social media this past few months or even years is when someone posted video that contain a strange sound. Initially people didn't pay attention about it not until someone collected all these videos and put them together and posted over the internet and became viral. Some sounds are creepy in nature and some sounds like a trumpet.

Many speculations and interpretations was made to give answer to this mysterious sounds from the sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q6sweWwFGg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71rGrS6k-cI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9qipbtjQlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iG-MofmHPw

Then I remember during the Abu Dhabi Science Festival 2014, I saved and recorded the sounds from the outer space recorded by NASA which is resembled to these sounds that are circulated over the internet. This different sounds was used as part of our exhibit during the festival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MmWeZHsQzs
The sounds recorded from different planets.

You’ve probably heard that there’s no sound in space, but technically that’s not true. Now yes, space is a virtual vacuum….. However, sound does exist in the form of electromagnetic vibrations that pulsate in similar wavelengths. What NASA did was design special instruments that could record these electromagnetic vibrations, and transferred them into sounds that our ears could hear.What you’ve heard is actual sound in space, nothing has been added. It’s a beautiful, yet creepy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfc8_1b890U
The upper link shows the sound of our very own sun.
Our Sun lies 93,000,000 miles away, surrounded by the vacuum of space. Sound won't travel through space, of course. But with the right instrument, scientists can "hear" pulsations from the Sun.

The entire Sun vibrates from a complex pattern of acoustical waves, much like a bell. If your eyes were sharp enough, you could see a bell's surface jiggle in complex patterns as the waves bounced around within it. Likewise, astronomers at Stanford University can record acoustical pressure waves in the Sun by carefully tracking movements on the Sun's surface. To do this, they use an instrument called a Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI), mounted on the SOHO spacecraft, circling the Sun 1,000,000 miles from Earth. The Sun's acoustical waves bounce from one side of the Sun to the other in about two hours, causing the Sun's surface to oscillate, or wiggle up and down. Because these sound waves travel underneath the Sun's surface, they are influenced by conditions inside the Sun. So scientists can use the oscillations to learn more about how the structure of the Sun's interior shapes its surface. The Sun's sound waves are normally at frequencies too low for the human ear to hear. To be able to hear them, the scientists sped up the waves 42,000 times -- and compressed 40 days of vibrations into a few seconds. What you'll be hearing are just a few dozen of the 10 million resonances echoing inside the Sun.

Now we know, even in the stellar space there an actual sound but cannot be heard by human ear. The past years to the present more and more people heard same sounds from out there. Are sounds showing us of something danger in the future, it is an apocalyptic warning, or it just shows that the universe is changing.....

ABU DHABI ASTRONOMY PHOTO OF THE WEEK

M8 LAGOON NEBULA

Photo taken by an Astrophotographer from Abu Dhabi Wajih Uddin

follow him on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/wajihu

The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, and as NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as a H II region.

The Lagoon Nebula was discovered by Giovanni Hodierna before 1654 and is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the naked eye from mid-northern latitudes. Seen with binoculars, it appears as a distinct oval cloudlike patch with a definite core.

The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 light years from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulas, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006 the first four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, also including HH 870.

ABU DHABI ASTRONOMY PHOTO OF THE WEEK

The whirlpool galaxy (M51), taken from Abu Dhabi desert on 24/04/2015. The temperature was too high for my camera. The image processing was very tricky! - David Attie

Telescope: C11+focal reducer 0.63x (focal length=1764mm

Camera: EOS 450d modified +CLS-CCD filter

Exposures : 10x5 minutes (800 iso)

11 darks

11 flats

50 bias

The Whirlpool Galaxy (also known as Messier 51a, M51a, or NGC 5194) is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Recently it was estimated to be 23 ± 4 million light-years from the Milky Way, but different methods yield distances between 15 and 35 million LY. Messier 51 is one of the best known galaxies in the sky. The galaxy and its companion (NGC 5195) are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may even be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is also a popular target for professional astronomers, who study it to further understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.

WEEK END STARGAZING WITH GAA

May 21, 2015 at Al Wathba, Al Qaissieh private farm, Abu Dhabi Astronomy and GEMS American Academy joint together and spent a Thursday night with Faculty and Students. The weather favored us and allowed us to enjoy the trip. Two students amazed to see the moon in real for the first time and added their excitement when they saw planet Venus through telescopes.  

We are lucky to have the crescent moon, Planet Venus, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its moons and Binary Stars right through the eye piece. The experience was great and what makes it more wonderful is to have the two groups tightened it's relationship to promote Astronomy to the people of Abu Dhabi.