Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – Sep. 20, 2012

Once again, it’s time for the Weekly Space Hangout – our round up of all the big space news stories that you should be aware of. This week we talked about the following interesting stories in space and astronomy:

Contributors: Nicole Gugliucci, Ian O’Neill, Jason Major, Amy Shira Teitel, Nancy Atkinson

Host: Fraser Cain

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Thursday morning live at 10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern as a live Google+ Hangout.

If you want to make sure you never miss an episode, put it into your calendar. Click here to see our next event on Google+.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Virtual Star Party, Sep. 16, 2012: The Dark Time Edition

No pesky Moon to drown out our view of the night sky this week, so it’s time to delve deep into the faint dark sky objects.

We were down to a single telescope this week for our Virtual Star Party… but what a telescope! Gary Gonella took us through a massive series of objects, rapid fire, with Nicole, Scott and Thad bringing the science.

Host: Fraser Cain

Telescopes: Gary Gonella, Roy Salisbury

Commentators: Scott Lewis, Dr. Nicole Gugliucci, Dr. Thad Szabo

We have a Virtual Star Party on Google+ every Sunday night when it gets dark on the West Coast of North America.

Click here to put next week’s event right into your calendar.

If you’re an astronomer with the ability to stream images from your telescope into your computer, we’d love your help. Just email Fraser Cain at [email protected] and I’ll help you connect up your view into a Virtual Star Party.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – Sep. 13, 2012

The Weekly Space Hangout is back from Summer hiatus, with a mountain of space news. This week we tackle:

Host: Fraser Cain

Panel: Jason Major, Dr. Nicole Gugliucci, Dr. Pamela Gay

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Thursday at 10 am Pacific / 1 pm Eastern. Watch us live on Google+, ask your questions to the gathered space journalists.

Here’s a link to next week’s episode so you can put it in your calendar.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Virtual Star Party for Sep. 9, 2012 – Neptune and Uranus Edition

After a brief hiatus, we’re back with our Virtual Star Parties, broadcasting our view of the night sky into a live Google+ Hangout. Last night was a special occasion, as astronomer Mike Phillips broadcast our first view of the planet Neptune. And then, just to show off, he found Uranus too. It was amazing to see those objects in our hangout for the first time. We’re now just waiting for Mercury to complete the whole set. Who will be the first to show us Mercury?

Astronomers: Cory Schmitz, Mike Phillips, John Kramer

Commentators: Gary Gonella, Pamela Gay, Scott Lewis, Emily Lakdawalla

Want to watch a Virtual Star Party in person? I’ve already posted the Event for next week on Google+. You can join the event there and add it to your calendar, so you’ll get a notification of when we’re about to go live.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Virtual Star Party – Neil Armstrong Edition

Each week we hold a Virtual Star Party on Google+, where we connect multiple telescopes into a live Google+ Hangout and showcase the night sky. To commemorate the passing of Neil Armstrong, we focused our telescopes squarely on the Moon on Sunday, August 26th and revealed the Apollo 11 landing site.

We also turned up a beautiful view of Jupiter, Venus, the Ring Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, Veil Nebula, the North America Nebula, and many other deep sky objects. We had a total of 6 live telescopes including Gary Gonella, Mike Chasin, Stuart Forman, David Riley, Cory Schmitz, and John Kramer. And then we were joined by live color commentary by Amy Shira Teitel, Thad Szabo, Scott Lewis, and Emily Lakdawalla.

Want to watch the next Virtual Star Party live? Just follow Fraser Cain on Google+, and you’ll see when we post the next event.

Are you an astronomer with the ability to capture images from your telescope into your computer? We’d love to have you join us for this experiment in astronomy outreach. Just email me, and I’ll help you get started.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Join Universe Today’s Live Webcast of the Curiosity Rover Landing

The NASA team threw in every bit of data they could to model the Mars Curiosity landing. Credit: NASA

Want to be part of the Mars Science Laboratory landing event and join thousands of others in watching it live? Universe Today is teaming up with Google, the SETI Institute and CosmoQuest to provide unprecedented, live coverage of the historic landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. Starting at 8 pm PDT on August 5th (03:00 UTC August 6th) a live, 4-hour webcast will highlight the landing of the car-sized robotic roving laboratory. During the webcast, via a Google+ Hangout on Air, scientists, engineers and other experts will provide unique insight into the rover and the landing, and viewers will have the chance to interact and ask questions.

Hosted by Universe Today’s Fraser Cain, along with Dr. Pamela Gay and Dr. Phil Plait, the webcast will feature interviews with special guests, a live video feed from NASA of the landing, and live coverage from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Planetary Society’s PlanetFest by reporters Scott Lewis and Amy Shira Teitel, who will be on location to interview members of the MSL team, as well as and other scientists and NASA officials that will be on hand.

The landing itself is scheduled for 10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5 (05:31 UTC Aug. 6). Curiosity’s landing will mark the start of a two-year mission to investigate whether one of the most intriguing places on Mars ever has offered an environment favorable for microbial life.

As you know, Universe Today, in collaboration with CosmoQuest hosts weekly virtual star parties and science conversations via Google+ Hangouts on Air, and for the Transit of Venus, hosted a special Hangout event that was watched by nearly 7,000 viewers.

Those interested in watching Universe Today’s MSL landing event can find more information and also sign up to “attend” the Hangout on Air here.

The feed will also be available on Universe Today’s YouTube live feed.

You can also follow the action via Twitter from Universe Today (@universetoday) and CosmoQuest (@CosmoQuestX ) by using the hashtag #marshangout

We also have the event listed on Facebook.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Virtual Star Party – June 24, 2012

In case you missed it live, here was our Virtual Star Party for June 24, 2012. In this edition, we had live telescopes from Gary Gonella, Peter Lake and Stuart Forman. And we were joined by Dr. Pamela Gay, Scott Lewis and Ray Sanders – hosted by Fraser Cain.

We had a really great night, with views of the Moon, Saturn, and Mars, as well as several deep sky objects: the Trifid Nebula, the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, the Ring Nebula, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, the Sombrero Galaxy, and several others.

We hold these Virtual Star Parties every Sunday night, starting when it gets dark on the West Coast. It’s the summer solstice, so we start pretty late right now, but we’ll move earlier and earlier as the days get shorter.

If you want to get a reminder of the next event, follow universetoday on YouTube, or circle Fraser on Google+. We’ve also got a page just for the Virtual Star Party on Google+.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – June 21, 2012

In this edition of the Weekly Space Hangout, we welcome a new participant: Mike Wall, senior writer at Space.com. We were also joined by Alan Boyle from MSNBC’s Cosmic Log, Ian O’Neill from Discovery Space, and Amy Shira Teitel from Vintage Space.

This week we talked about using black holes as particle detectors, the recent launch of a female Chinese astronaut, the historical echoes of China and the Soviet Union launching women into space, and the newly announced asteroid telescope by the B612 Foundation.

We record the Weekly Space Hangout on Google+ every Thursday at 10 am Pacific / 1 pm Eastern. Circle Fraser on Google+, to see the show when it’s happening live.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – June 7, 2012

In this week’s episode of the Weekly Space Hangout, Universe Today’s Fraser Cain is joined by Alan Boyle from MSNBC and Amy Shira Teitel from Vintage Space.

They discussed:

  • The 2012 Transit of Venus
  • The space shuttle Enterprise’s final journey to a museum.
  • NASA’s new plans for commercializing space
  • A quick review of the new movie Prometheus

We record the Weekly Space Hangout live every Thursday at 10 am Pacific/ 1 pm Eastern. Watch us record the show live on Google+ every week. The show is also broadcast live over on Cosmoquest.