Aloha! Enjoy!

You will find wonderful websites with many helpful resources like quizzes, projects, and physics games for teachers, parents, and students. We are grateful for your feedback and support of our venture. Feel free to send us an email.

Contents:

• CFHT Community Outreach
• Online Schools: Space and Science
• Asteroid Discoveries from 1980-2010
• Astronomie 2-Wonderous
• Physics Games
• Upcoming Astronomical Events

Recent Past Events

October 2th, 2010: CFHT took part in the American Cancer Society Walk for Life being held in the Anderson Arena in Waimea. The event began at 6pm and ended atg6am on Sunday morning. It was a very comfortable and enjoyable event.

November 18th, 2010: CFHT staff participated in the Girls in Engineering, Math and Science (GEMS) program held on the UH, Hilo campus. We enjoyed to talking with the girls about Astronomy on the Big Island.

December 4th, 2010: CFHT hosted its annual Christmas Star Party after the Christmas parade in Waimea. It was a great event with clear skies and telescopes set up on our front lawn in Waimea. We also premered our new Remote Observing room as it will be used in the future for obervations. We had a good crowd this year for the event and fun was had by all.

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Upcoming Events

January 22nd, 2010: CFHT will take part in the Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day celebration, at the University of Hawaii, Hilo campus from 8am to 3pm. Registration begins at 7:45am on the UHH Theater Lanai. Opening general assembly will be at 9:30am. Lunch will be provided for all registered students provided by American Savings Bank. The registration form may be found at: Onizuka Day

February 16th, 2010: CFHT will be sending several staff members to the Science Fair at Kohala Middle School in Kapaau. The science fair begins at 3pm.

February 19th, 2010: CFHT will be sending a few staff members to the East Hawaii Districk Science Fair in Hilo at the Imiloa Astronomy Center. The science fair exhibits will be displayed from February 16-25th in the Moanahoku Hall and viewing the exhibits is free of charge.

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Online Schools: Space and Science

Thanks to Eva Valo at Momument Charter School for sending us this reference that one of her 4th grade students found.

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This video is a wonderful display showing all the discoveries in real time over the last 20 years. Watch as the Asteroid belt comes to life as more and more are found in large surveys, and individually. It will amaze you to find out how many for which we now have good orbits.

Asteroid Discoveries from 1980-2010

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This is a wonderful power-point presentation with images from the Hubble Space Telescope, artists renditions of various phenomenon, and a glimpse at the relative sizes of planets and stars.

English Astronomie

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Here are some interesting games to play which help students understand building skills, strategy, and hopefully will teach some of the fundamentals of physics.

Physics Games

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1. Eclipses - There will be a Total lunar eclipse on the evening of December 20st. It will be completely visible from Hawaii if the skies are clear. It will be starting at 7:29pm and going until 1:04am on the 21nd. If you stay up to watch this, you will see a bite out of the moon covered as it enters the earth's shadow at 8:32pm. At totality, the moon will look blood red in the earth's shadow. Totality will last for 1 minute 11 seconds. There is a partial solar eclipse coming up on January 4th but it will not be visible from Hawaii.
2. Meteor Showers - Watch for the Geminid Meteor shower peaking in the morning of December 14th at 1am. With 120 per hour predicted, this will be worth getting up early that morning. The moon will be just past first quarter and so will not interfere with this event and the constellation Gemini is one of the easiest to find. Also look for the Quadrantids the morning of January 3rd, and 4th in the constellation Bootes. The peak is actually at 3pm on the 4th but both mornings should be good. Estimates are 120 meteors per hour at the peak. The moon will be new and will not interfere with observations. This will be the best show of the year since the moon will be interfering with all the rest of the bright ones this year. All these meteor showers best viewing time is midnight to sunrise. Meteors should be visible for 1-2 days either side of the peak also. For more about watching meteor showers, check out the site for The American Meteor Society.
3. Comets - There are several challenging objects to find in the sky so check out updates at the Sky Hound site: Comet Chasing. You will need binoculars or a small telescope to see many of these objects.
4. Planets - The Moon will be 1.2 degrees south of the Pleiades on the evening of December 18th. There will be an opportunity to view a double-shadow transit on Jupiter, be watching on December 29th at 1:56am. Look for Jupiter and Uranus to be close together at 3am on January 2nd. This will be the last conjunction of these 2 planets until 2024. Venus's greatest elongation W will be at 6am on January 8th. Mercury's greatest elongation W is at 5am in the morning of January 9th. Look for Mercury to be 2 degrees away from Jupiter on March 16th at 7am in the morning so take a look before sunrise. Also Venus and Neptune will be 0.1 degrees apart at Noon on March 26th so look for them together in the morning before sunrise.
5. Equinox - The spring equinox will occur at 1:21p on March 20th.

All times listed above are HST unless otherwise indicated. The link below contains many calendars and includes a nice section on astronomical events. Check it out!

Calendars

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