Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Aug 5

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - August 5, 2005 * * *

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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided. (If the links don't work,
just manually paste the URLs into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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HERE COME THE PERSEID METEORS

The most familiar annual meteor shower, which comes during many
people's vacation times, should reach its peak on Thursday and Friday
nights, August 11-12 and 12-13. The first-quarter Moon will set in mid-
to late evening, leaving the sky nicely dark for the prime
meteor-watching hours from about midnight until the first glimmer of
dawn.

During those hours the shower's radiant point, located between Perseus
and Cassiopeia, will be getting high in the northeast -- so meteors
should flash across all parts of the sky at a rate of about one a
minute as seen by a single observer. That, anyway, is the prediction if
your sky is good and dark....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing...cle_1557_1.asp

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NEWS BRIEFS

Another Short Gamma-Ray Burst Nailed

NASA's Swift satellite continues to catch and pinpoint gamma-ray bursts
(GRBs) like no instrument before. On July 24th it observed another
mysterious short GRB well enough for ground-based astronomers to follow
up rapidly. Their findings strengthen the idea that short bursts,
unlike the more common long ones, come from the mergers of binary
neutron stars....

Dawn of a Cosmic-Ray Observatory: Astrophysicists have laid eyes on
the first data from the Pierre Auger Observatory, an array of
cosmic-ray detectors dotting 1,500 square kilometers of the Argentine
pampas. Released in July, the Pierre Auger Collaboration's inaugural
scientific publication plots the energy spectrum of 3,525 cosmic-ray
events....

Messenger Buzzes Earth

NASA's Messenger spacecraft flew within 2,350 kilometers (1,460 miles)
of Earth's surface on August 2nd on its roundabout way to Mercury. The
craft will make its first flyby of Mercury in January 2008, and after
three more loops around the Sun, it will settle into Mercury orbit in
2011....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1561_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* The waxing crescent Moon shines with Venus at dusk on Sunday August
7th, then with Jupiter on Tuesday the 9th.
* First-quarter Moon August 12th.
* Jupiter and Venus are closing in on each other low in the west at
dusk.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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Copyright 2005 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is
provided as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors
of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is
encouraged as long as our copyright notice is included, along with the
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Stuart Goldman
Associate Editor http://SkyandTelescope.com
Night Sky Magazine http://NightSkyMag.com
49 Bay State Rd.
Cambridge, MA 02138