October 2009 Extra - show notes

In this show we find out about Autumn Moonwatch from Steve Owens and we hear all about the rings and moons of Saturn from Prof. Carl Murray. We put your astronomical questions to Dr Tim O'Brien, get a summary of recent news and events and round-up the feedback we've received since the last show.

Autumn MoonWatch

Stuart talked to Steve Owens (UK International Year of Astronomy coordinator) about Autumn MoonWatch (24 October - 1 November). The event follows on from the international Galilean Nights (22-24 October) and will give an opportunity to experience of a wide range of public outreach activities, live science events, observing with telescopes, research observatory webcasts and sidewalk astronomy events. If you have an event make sure you register it. If you have a Twitter account make sure you follow #MoonWatch.

Saturn

The Cassini spacecraft arrived in orbit around the planet Saturn in July 2004. Two years ago, in late 2007, we talked to Professor Carl Murray (Queen Mary University of London) of the Cassini spacecraft imaging team and found out about the discoveries that Cassini had made whilst looking at the rings and moons of Saturn. Stuart caught up with Carl again to get the latest news on Saturn. To start they talk about the recent news of a new ring discovered in observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The new ring is huge but very tenuous with material spiralling in towards two-faced Iapetus. They also discuss the F-ring and other interesting features such as edge waves near Daphnes. The ciclops website is a great source of Cassini images.

Ask an Astronomer

Tim O'Brien answers listener questions.

Richard Jarrold says "I live near Jodrell bank and see it most days. I often wonder whether your radio telescopes operate day and night? And also what difference does the weather make to radio obervatons?"
Geoff Mutton asks "How old is Sirius?". In answering the question, Tim refers to this paper.
Paul Gibson says "As far as I can understand, matter that falls into a black hole takes an infinite amount of time to do so, according to a far away observer. Does that mean that all active galactic nuclei will always appear as accretion discs to outsiders?"
Sean Mulcahy says "Since ancient times when constellations where first imagined by our ancestors, have any of them changed shape so much the perhaps they wouldn't be recognised today if somehow somebody from the past was catapulted forwards 2000 or so years?" Tim describes how asterisms such as The Plough (Big Dipper) can change over time.

Odds and Ends

NASA are having a live tweetup with astronauts on the ISS on the 21st October. It will be too late to register but if you're already signed up let us know how it goes.

NASA's LCROSS imitated the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as it approached impact with the lunar surface.

On 30th September/1st October MESSENGER had a fly-by of Mercury and has returned images of parts of Mercury not seen in this amount of detail before.

National Geographic have produced a representation of Fifty Years of Space Exploration (also on Flickr).

The Vatican is opening an exhibition about Galileo.

During MoonWatch (which is also the same week as Manchester Science Festival) From Earth To The Universe exhibition will be on at the Museum of Science and Industry Manchester. There will also be astronomers from Jodrell taking to the streets of Manchester with telescopes!

Show Credits

Interview:	Steve Owens and Stuart Lowe
Interview:	Prof Carl Murray and Stuart Lowe
Ask An Astronomer:	Dr Tim O'Brien
Presenters:	David Ault, Adam Avison, and Jen Gupta
Editors:	Stuart Lowe
Segment voice:	Cormac Purcell
Website:	Stuart Lowe
Cover art:	Saturn at Equinox Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Comments

Comment by Jen Gupta on Oct 20 2009:
Apologies for the late release of this edition - we were waiting on an interview that could only be done on Friday (16th) and then Stuart slaved away with the editing over the weekend to get everything ready asap!
Comment by EarthUnit on Oct 20 2009:
Worth waiting for Jen, yet another excellent show folks,
Great interviews, and some really nice in depth answers from Dr Tim, (more like that please).
It's definitely worth having a look at the show notes this month, I particular like the links to national geographic one, and the ones of Saturn's rings.
Personally I think the Jodcast would not be the Jodcast with out that theme music, but as this question keeps coming up, how about testing some different ones out on the extra shows? OR who ever is doing the anchoring has their own theme tune :-~
Just out of idle curiosity, does any one know if you have to pay copy right if you just play a small part of a song ?
Comment by Jodatheoak on Oct 21 2009:
I really enjoyed this months extra edition as I have seen a lot of the images of Saturn (Lord of the rings '" LOL) and the Cassini mission and was able to visualize as the interview was progressing, I especially like the history on why they are looking into different aspects or mysteries.
NO DON'T change the intro it will never be the same again if you do :-(
I think that ask an astronomer does work both ways, but it could be a little dry and tedious for one person to do all the time.
I thought Copyright was anypart of a song...
Comment by Stuart Lowe on Oct 21 2009:
@EarthUnit I think @Jodatheoak is right; we would have to get a license to play any music. That is why we haven't used music other than the copyright-free music we use for the intro and outro. A listener was generous enough to make the music we used for the video episodes.
Comment by jr_edge on Oct 21 2009:
Excellent piece on the age of the binary stars which make up Sirius. It really brings out the elegance which is maybe why Astronomy is so engaging. Great combination of theory (eg stellar evolution) and observation which ends up telling a bigger combined picture.
Probably prefer the dialogue style of Ask an Astronomer, but not complaining either way.
Comment by Stuart Lowe on Oct 22 2009:
Via Twitter @Paul_Barnard pointed out that the audio quality of the low-bandwidth version of the podcast sounded very distorted. He was right. Following his suggestion, I've dropped the low-bandwidth version to mono (rather than stereo) and that does seem to improve things. If you listen to the low-bandwidth versions, drop us a line to let us know if that makes things better.
Comment by RapidEye on Oct 23 2009:
At first, I thought the music was kind of annoying, but after a short while, it sort of grew on me.
Now, it wouldn't be the same without that Janky, Schmarmy, Whimsical Intro! =-)

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The whole episode [Duration 65:04]:
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Interview with Steve Owens (UK IYA coordinator) [Duration 05:49]:
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Interview with Prof Carl Murray (Queen Mary University of London) [Duration 29:56]:
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Ask an astronomer - weather, the age of Sirius, black holes and changing constellations [Duration 19:57]:
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October 2009 Extra: Moon Watching