Message from CFHT Librarian, Liz Bryson:

Aloha!

We are grateful for your feedback and support of our venture. Feel free to send us an email.


Contents:


CFHT Community Outreach

January 20, 2006: A group of students from a College in Washington toured the Headquarters in Waimea.

January 26, 2006: Waimea Middle School held a stargazing party which was clouded out though there were activities indoors.

January 28, 2006: Onizuka Day at UH in Hilo was a great success. Many people stopped by to check out the booths set up by all the observatories.

February 25, 2006: The Hilo Science Fair was held at the newly opened Imiloa Center. CFHT was well represented sending 4 staff members to be judges.

March 8, 2006: The Women in Science Day was a career fair at the University of Hawaii, Hilo for 7th and 8th grade girls in which 5 women of the CFHT staff participated. The girls asked questions to try to discover what job each person worked and then the CFHT staff members shared a secret about their work.


Upcoming Events

Deadline April 1, 2006: The Astro Day Institute will present an "Excellence in Teaching" Award to a Hawaii Island K16 educator who makes a difference by engaging students in science curricula in innovative and exciting ways. Nominations may be submitted to the AstroDay Institute before noon, April 1, 2006. They may be sent to: 105 Puhili Place, Hilo, HI 96720. Faxed to 969-9101, or emailed to fujmon@mac.com.

April 29, 2006: The 7th Annual Waimea Healthy Keiki Fest scheduled for April 29th, 2006 from 10am to 2pm at the Parker Ranch Shopping Center. If you are interested in having a booth, contact Laura Dierenfield at 885-6777 or email her at laura@tutushouse.org. CFHT, Keck and VIS center are planning on having booths.

May 6th, 2006: AstroDay will be held from 10 am to 5 pm at Prince Kuhio Plaza, Hilo, Hawaii 5th. Annual anniversary of the celebration of Astronomy and Hawaiian culture.

* Featuring Hawaiian slack key music by Grammy Award Winners George Kahumoku Jr and Keoki Kahumoku

* Contact Gary Fujihara for information at 640-9161

* Astroday Website

June 26-30, 2006: "Future Flight Hawaii", a program overseen by Art Kimura, has left the Big Island. It will now be occurring on Maui. In lieu of this loss, Gary Fujihara is beginning a new program entitled "Hilo Youth Robotics", a summer, educational enrichment program. A LEGO mindstrom Robotics camps will be available for Hilo youngsters ages 9-13 from June 26-30 and will be facilitated by a capable staff of experienced Hilo educators and students. For more information, please visit: Future Flight Site or email fujmon@mac.com, or call 932-2328.

Various Tours of the summit coming up for teachers and students.

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Astronomy for *Kids*: Asteroids

This site includes information and two pictures related to asteroids.

Asteroids


Asteroids Game from National Geographic

This site has an educational game allowing the user to play a secret agent for the Dept of Extraterrestrial Phenomena, investigating a series of asteroid cases.

Asteroids Game

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NeoDys: Near Earth Objects

NeoDys, a project developed at the University of Pisa in Italy, supplies data and services for all Near Earth Asteroids. Updated daily, researchers can find links to all NeoDys objects and observatories as well as data on Earth Impact Possibilities. Educators and students will find instructive explanations of Near-Earth Asteroids and three dimensional visualizations of the objects' orbits. Although at first glance some of the data may appear difficult to interpret, each page has a Help icon that thoroughly and clearly describes the information presented.

Near Earth Asteroids

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The Space Place: Make Asteroid Potatoes

Make asteroid potatoes. Find out about asteroids. Create your own odd-shaped asteroids out of plain old mashed potatoes. Bake them in the oven to turn ...

Make Asteroid Potatoes

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Asteroids: Zoom Astronomy

This is a great introduction to asteroids.

Asteroids: Zoom Astronomy

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Creative Movement for Children - ESL lesson

Learn about bumping asteroids. Children pretend balloons are asteroids floating in space. Great for children of all ages.

Creative Movement for Children

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Asteroid Blaster - Games from the British Council

This is a game for young learners. You are in a spaceship and you are travelling through space,...

Asteroid Blaster Game (May not work on older versions of NetScape.)

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Asteroid Movie

We sit here, typing our fingers to the bone, and some fly-by-night asteroid has its own movie. There is no justice. Ah well, it probably received even less compensation than we do. A pair of Yale students used Kitt Peak National Observatory to take a series of still shots of this near-earth asteroid as it approached our planet in the middle of August. The shots were converted into a brief digital movie that not only shows how fast the thing was moving, but also provides some decent scientific information in regard to the object's rotation. That means something to astronomers, but you might enjoy the QuickTime movie anyway. It's really short. The asteroid sped up to some 20 times faster two nights after the photos were taken, when it shot past us. Imagine the effects had it actually hit the planet. This thing was only discovered July 14, and a month later, it was whizzing past our windows. Think things like snails and slugs move slowly? Guess what? In the great scheme of things, we aren't exactly fleet of foot either.

Asteroid Movie

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Upcoming Astronomical Events
  1. Eclipse - There is a Total Solar eclipse on March 29th moving over the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, Russia, and China. It will not be visible from Hawaii, however, if you are in Europe or Africa, they are prime viewing regions. The event will start at 7:36am Universal Time on March 29th, and will continue until about 12:45pm Universal Time. For Hawaii those times are beginning at 9:36pm, and ending at 2:45am. In Europe it will be partial but there should be a noticable darkening of the sun should you be in a part of the world where it is visible. Europe will see it 80% or less covered by the moon on this day.
  2. Meteor Showers - Watch for the Lyrid Meteor Shower coming up in April. Peak is on the morning of the 22nd of April. Best viewing time is midnight to sunrise. Predictions are 20 meteors per hour. Unfortunately the moon will be just past last quarter so it will be bright, hampering good viewing of the shower. It is best to bring along a sky chart to identify the constellations in this case Lyra and then look in that direction. The eta-Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the morning of May 4th and May 5th. Go out before sunrise in the wee hours of the morning and look toward the constellation Aquarius. For more about about watching meteor showers, check out the site for The American Meteor Society.
  3. Planets - On Monday March 27th in the early morning sky before sunrise, look for Uranus to come 1.4 degrees N of the moon and Mercury will be 2 degrees north. These events are separated by 2 hours however, all three should be visible close together before sunrise. On April 23th, Uranus is 1.2 degrees N of the moon with an ocultation. And in the wee hours of the morning of April 24th, Venus will be 0.5 degrees from the moon. Look for these 3 all close together just before sunrise on the morning of April 24th. Saturn will be very close to the behive cluster of stars on the evening of May 5th.
  4. Solstice - The spring solstice will be occuring on March 20th at 8:26am.

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

Calendars

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We gratefully acknowledge the following online sources: Yahoo's Search Engine, Blue Web'N, and the Librarian's Index to the Internet.
This page is compiled by Liz Bryson, CFHT Librarian
This page is designed by Tito Jankowski, maintainted by Lisa Wells, CFHT Observing Assistant