March has been an amazing month for planet-watching and it’s not over yet. Over the last few days we’ve had the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the west-south-western sky. The two planets approached their closest this Tues, 13 March at just over 2 degrees apart (although still of course separated by a few hundred million miles of space).
Saturn, Mars and Mercury are also clearly visible this month. Mercury is making its best evening showing of the year, visible near the western horizon just after sunset. Mars, near its closest approach to the Earth, shines brightly in the sky all night long. And even distant Saturn is as bright as the brightest stars, visible in the south-eastern sky in the later evening.
Daytime Skywatch: Venus
Come and take a look through the Royal Observatory’s enormous 28-inch telescope at the planet Venus, as it approaches its greatest apparent distance from the Sun on 30 March.
Dates: 17, 24-25, 31 March 2012; further dates in April
Times: 16.30, 17.10, 17.50; cost :£5 | £15 family ticket
Find out more
Venus remains in an excellent position for observing for the whole of March. It then appears to gradually move closer to the Sun, heading towards the historic transit of Venus which begins on 5 June. This won’t occur again for another 105 years. Come and see our Measuring the Universe exhibition which celebrates past transits and what we’ve learnt from them.
The Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is back! Now in its fourth year, the competition continues to showcase incredible images from amateur astrophotographers all around the world, featuring beautiful objects from within our solar system and far into deep space.
Anyone can enter – whether you’re new to astrophotography or a seasoned amateur, and whatever your age. We’ve had a huge range of images in previous years, from amazing landscape photography that captures the Moon and the Sun to stunning deep space images taken by robotic telescopes. Find out how to enter and what you could win.
Overall winner 2011: Jupiter with lo and Ganymede,
September 2010 by Damian Peach (UK)
To enter the competition you will first need to add your photos to the Astronomy Photographer of the Year group on the photo-sharing website Flickr. Once you have done this, please fill in the relevant online application form on the Astronomy Photographer of the Year website.
The four main competition categories are Earth and Space, Our Solar System, Deep Space and Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year. The judges will also be awarding three additional special prizes: People and Space, Best Newcomer, and Robotic Scope Image of the Year. Find out more about the categories and prizes.
Entries to the competition close at midday (BST) on Friday 29 June 2012.
The winning images will be displayed at the Royal Observatory Greenwich from September in the free Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. There’s still time to see the winning images from 2011 (closes 12 February).
Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012!
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is famously the home of the Prime Meridian of the World (0° Longitude) where each day and year officially begins, and of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), as well as of the celebrated Harrison timekeepers.
Now the Royal Observatory is also home to OMEGA‘s London 2012 Countdown Clock. Installed on the Prime Meridian Line by OMEGA, the Official Timekeeper of the Games, the clock will tick away the seconds, minutes, hours and days until the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games – some of which will be hosted in Greenwich Park.
The clock was unveiled yesterday (27 July 2011) in time to celebrate ‘One Year to Go’ to the start of the Games.
This year the Royal Observatory will be taking part in Obscura Day, an international ”day of expeditions, back-room tours and hidden treasures” developed by the people behind Atlas Obscura. On Saturday 9 April there will be two different curator-led tours on offer. Further details can be found on the NMM events list (here) and should be booked on the Obscura Day website (here - put ‘Greenwich’ in the search box). Because both tours will include a visit to the object stores of Flamsteed House, numbers are limited – book your place now!
Tour 1: 10.30: Go back in time at the Royal Observatory Greenwich
Take a tour back in time with Dr Rebekah Higgitt, Curator of History of Science and Technology, through the astronomy, buildings and collections of the Royal Observatory. Learn to tell your altazimuth from your equatorial, spotting Victorian terracotta and Tudor vaults on the way.
Tour 2: 13.00: Charting Greenwich Mean Time
Come to the Prime Meridian of the World and explore the collections at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich with Rory McEvoy, Curator of Horology. Discover how Greenwich Mean Time was determined and kept throughout the years and why an observatory should be so closely connected with precision timekeeping. The tour will include a rare opportunity to see some unusual time related objects from the Museum’s reserve collection
Meeting place for tours: Shepherd’s Gate Clock, main gate, Royal Observatory. Tours start promptly. Please arrive at least 5 minutes before start.
21 December 2010 – UK viewers will be able to catch the start of a total lunar eclipse this morning, the first for three years, with totality starting at 07.41 GMT and lasting a little over an hour. Within the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland will get the best views.
Lunar eclipses occur when the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. During eclipse, the Moon may turn blood red or pink, with indirect sunlight giving the Moon a ghostly hue. Find out more in our eclipses fact file.
The last time a total lunar eclipse occurred on the winter solstice was in 1638, and the next time will be in 2094.
20 December 2011 – At 23.38 UTC (GMT) tomorrow, 21 December, the solstice will occur when the poles of the Earth align with the Sun. In the Northern hemisphere, the North pole will point directly away from the Sun (the winter solstice), while in the Southern hemisphere, the South pole will point directly towards the Sun (the summer solstice).
At the solstices the Sun is at its furthest from the celestial equator (the projection of the Earth’s equator onto the sky). The world ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin solstitium meaning ‘Sun stands still’ because the apparent movement of the Sun’s path north or south stops before changing direction. At the winter solstice, the apparent position of the Sun reaches its most southerly point against the background stars.
Shortest day and sunrise/sunset times
The winter solstice also marks the shortest day (and longest night), but not the earliest sunrise or latest sunset. The earliest sunset occurred on around 12 December 2010 (15:51 in London) and the latest sunrise will occur around 30 December (08:06 in London).
The reason for this is the slight variation in the length of ‘natural’ days throughout the year, resulting from a combination of the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the planet’s rotation axis. For clocks to work all days need to have an equal length, which is therefore fixed at the average length of a natural day (hence the ‘mean’ in Greenwich Mean Time). This has a knock-on effect on sunrise/sunset times, and the earliest sunrise occurs several days before the longest day and the latest several days (about 9) after the shortest.
Opinion is divided over whether the solstice marks the start of winter or the middle of winter, or whether winter actually starts on 1 December (as reckoned by most meteorologists).
Marking the solstice
Under the early Julian Calendar, the winter solstice occurred on 25 December. When the more accurate Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, the solstice slipped to the 21st, but the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ has continued to be held on 25 December. This date is also associated with the Roman Saturnalia festival, and ‘Dies Natalis Solis Invicti’ (the birthday of the unconquered sun), as well as Nordic pagan festivals.
Solstice shorts: Yuletide stargazing
For an alternative way to celebrate the solstice, why not join us for our 25-minute Yuletide stargazing sessions, daily at 16.30 and 17.00 on 20-23 December? These offer a unique opportunity to look through our historic 28-inch diameter refracting telescope, and to view one of the more striking double stars.
Places are limited and tickets are £6 per person. You can book online or call 020 8312 6608 between 10.00-16.00. (Please note: If adverse weather conditions prevent viewing through the telescopes, an alternative programme will be offered. We are not able to offer refunds under such circumstances.)
Whichever way you choose to celebrate this time of year, we hope you will enjoy yourselves and have a very happy festive season!
Part public
lecture, part planetarium show, the Royal Observatory has joined forces
with research scientists in three of the most exciting fields of modern
space science to bring you a new experience in astronomy talks. With a
mixture of stunning telescope images and full-dome visuals our trio of
experts will show you the Universe and the science behind it as
you’ve never seen it before. All of our guest speakers are accomplished
science communicators and their talks are suitable for a general
audience.
Astrobiology: the new science of life in the Universe
Dr Lewis Dartnell (University College London)
Thurs 17 June, 19.00
Cost: £8/£6
Astrobiology is a brand new field of science, bringing together
biologists, astronomers and planetary scientists to investigate the
origins and limits of life on our planet and discover where life might
exist beyond the Earth. Join Dr Lewis Dartnell on a tour of the planets
and moons of our Solar System – and further afield to alien worlds
orbiting distant stars - to explore one of the greatest questions ever
asked: are we alone?
Violent birth: a Universe of star formation
Dr Mark Westmoquette (University College London)
Weds 14 June, 19.00
Cost: £8/£6
The birth of new generations of stars has shaped the evolution of
our Universe for billions of years. Starbursts are one of the most
extreme examples of this process: entire galaxies convulsed by a frenzy
of new star formation that can blast clouds of gas thousands of light
years into intergalactic space. Dr Mark Westmoquette guides us through
these violent cosmic neighbourhoods and explains how such colossal star
factories can help us to unravel the complex history of the Universe.
Our place in the Universe
Dr Rita Tojeiro (University of Portsmouth).
Thurs 19 August, 19.00
Cost: £8/£6
Over the last few decades astronomers have made enormous leaps in
charting the Universe around us. Now, with accurate positions for
millions of galaxies, we are finally able to trace the Cosmic Web in
which we live. But these cosmic maps do far more than simply catalogue
the contents of our Universe – they can help us to understand its
origin and evolution as well as its ultimate fate. Cosmologist Dr Rita
Tojeiro takes us on a voyage to the furthest reaches of space and
explains how astronomers are unlocking some of the fundamental secrets
of the Universe.
Did you know that today – 25 March – used to be New Year’s Day in England right up until this country’s very late adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752?
25 March in the western church’s calendar is the Feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. It is also of course near the date of the spring equinox as well as of Easter.
As there’s no compelling scientific reason for choosing any particular day as the start of the year, it at least makes poetic and emotional sense to celebrate the New Year at the same time as we’re celebrating spring and new life than in the cold midwinter dark of January.
Other notable New Year’s Days this year include last month’s Chinese New Year, and Al Hijra (Islamic New Year’s Day) on 7 December 2010 (1 Muharram, 1432 AH).
Whichever way you reckon these things, since yesterday’s equinox it’s undeniably spring now in the northern hemisphere (see earlier post on the debate over when spring starts). Here in Greenwich at least, it even actually feels like spring today.
Then this coming Sunday residents of the UK will lose an hour’s sleep to gain an extra hour’s daylight in the evenings. Longer evenings are not of course good news for everyone – amateur astronomers will have to stay up later and later to get the darkness needed for observing.
So at 1.00 am GMT on Sunday 28 March clocks in the UK officially move forward by an hour as civil time changes from
Coordinated Universal Time (almost identical to Greenwich Mean Time) to
British Summer Time or BST.
Which means that though it’s definitely now spring, as of next week we’ll be in British Summer Time, which this year lasts until 31 October when by most counts we’ll be in mid-autumn… it’s no wonder we get confused about the seasons.
In search of a bit more clarity, why not listen in to David Rooney discovering more about British Summer Time or have a look at our Spring Forward: 100 Years of British Summer Time page?
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich has just launched Solar Season, running until 9 May.
Come
and see the Sun in a whole new light with new exhibition Solar Story, planetarium
show Secrets of the Sun and a programme of talks, tours and workshops. Speakers include solar physicist Dr Lucie Green and ROG Curator for the History of Science and Technology Dr Rebekah Higgitt.