Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Sep 30

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - September 30, 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 paste them into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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The OCTOBER 3RD ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE

Just six months after it cast a part-annular, part-total eclipse onto
the Pacific Ocean and Central America, the Moon will again pass across
the face of the Sun on Monday, October 3rd, 2005 -- this time creating
an annular eclipse for parts of Spain, Portugal, and North and East
Africa. The eclipse will be partial across all of Europe, most of
Africa, and much of South Asia.

The center of the Moon's shadow will first touch Earth at sunrise in
the Atlantic. It crosses the Iberian Peninsula in early morning,
crosses the Sahara and East Africa during the height of the day, and
leaves Earth at sunset in the Indian Ocean.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing...cle_1593_1.asp

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GIANT AFRICAN SCOPE SEES FIRST LIGHT

On September 1st the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) -- the
largest single telescope in the Southern Hemisphere -- recorded its
first light from the stars. Modeled after the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at
McDonald Observatory in western Texas, SALT's hexagonal 10-by-11-meter
mirror consists of 91 hexagonal segments and has an effective aperture
of 10 meters. The support structure is fixed in altitude, limiting the
telescope's declination coverage but also its cost -- to just $18
million. The telescope is located at an elevation of 1,800 meters
(5,900 feet) in an extremely dark location near Sutherland, South
Africa, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1600_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

$4.5 Million Offered for Yerkes

On September 26th, Aurora University (Illinois) announced that it had
just offered the University of Chicago $4.5 million dollars for Yerkes
Observatory. Aurora's growing George Williams campus abuts the
observatory's site on the shore of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Its proposal
(publicly available in PDF format at www.aurora.edu/yerkes) came in
response to an August 18th request that the University of Chicago sent
to Aurora, a private group of local would-be buyers, and a developer
whose original, unsolicited bid for the property fueled speculation
late last year that Yerkes - home to the world's largest refractor -
might be mothballed or dismantled....

A New Caroline Herschel Comet?

Caroline Herschel, the first female professional astronomer and
discoverer of eight comets, might have bagged a ninth unknowingly. In
the November Journal for the History of Astronomy, Michael Hoskin
(University of Cambridge, England) describes a pair of entries 10=B0
apart that appear in Herschel's logs on July 30 and August 24, 1783, in
which she identifies "a rich spot." No objects currently exist in those
locations. "It seems likely, therefore, that Caroline's bright spots
were a comet," says Hoskin....

Another Two Years for Mars Express

The European Space Agency's tremendously successful Mars Express
mission has been extended and is now fully funded until late 2007.
Highlights from the spacecraft, which entered Martian orbit in December
2003, include global mineral maps from its visible and infrared
mineralogical mapping spectrometer (OMEGA), and stunning
three-dimensional views of the Martian landscape from the High
Resolution Stereo Camera....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1601_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Mars is well positioned high in the east by midnight, and it's now 18
arcseconds wide -- larger than it almost ever appears.
* New Moon on October 3rd.
* On October 3rd an annular eclipse of the Sun crosses parts of Spain
and North and East Africa. The eclipse is partial for all of Europe,
most of Africa, and much of South Asia.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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On 1 Oct 2005 06:08:22 -0700, "SJG" wrote:


GIANT AFRICAN SCOPE SEES FIRST LIGHT

On September 1st the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) -- the
largest single telescope in the Southern Hemisphere -- recorded its
first light from the stars. Modeled after the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at
McDonald Observatory in western Texas, SALT's hexagonal 10-by-11-meter
mirror consists of 91 hexagonal segments and has an effective aperture
of 10 meters. The support structure is fixed in altitude, limiting the
telescope's declination coverage but also its cost -- to just $18
million. The telescope is located at an elevation of 1,800 meters
(5,900 feet) in an extremely dark location near Sutherland, South
Africa, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1600_1.asp

Who paid for this telescope? South Africa's economy and social
structures are now very thread-bare so I doubt they footed the bill.
-Rich

Rich wrote:

On 1 Oct 2005 06:08:22 -0700, "SJG" wrote:



GIANT AFRICAN SCOPE SEES FIRST LIGHT

On September 1st the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) -- the
largest single telescope in the Southern Hemisphere -- recorded its
first light from the stars. Modeled after the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at
McDonald Observatory in western Texas, SALT's hexagonal 10-by-11-meter
mirror consists of 91 hexagonal segments and has an effective aperture
of 10 meters. The support structure is fixed in altitude, limiting the
telescope's declination coverage but also its cost -- to just $18
million. The telescope is located at an elevation of 1,800 meters
(5,900 feet) in an extremely dark location near Sutherland, South
Africa, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1600_1.asp


Who paid for this telescope? South Africa's economy and social
structures are now very thread-bare so I doubt they footed the bill.
-Rich

Well since the University of Wisconsin has an interest in the instrument
it would be my guess that an International Consortium has footed the bill.

Wishing SALT clear skies

Dave N

This is what the SALT website says:
50% SA govt.
50% will be provided to international contributors.

I guess at the moment SA is servicing 100% of the loan.

I hope that it all works out for them.

Roger