Astronomy at Augustana College - Rock Island, Illinois

Augustana Observatory The Carl Gamble Observatory shown above features a Celestron C14 computer-driven 14-inch reflector telescope. In addition to being used by various classes, the observatory is open to the public on special occasions such as our annual Spring open house and Fall open house. It was also open for viewing Comet Hyakutake, Comet Hale-Bopp and a lunar eclipse.
John Deere Planetarium A free illustrated program about the nighttime sky and the solar system is provided, by appointment, during the academic year for school classes (beginning with Grade 3) and other groups of up to 100 persons. The program, which lasts about 45 minutes and is in the dark, is presented by Dr. Lee Carkner, Director, using the Spitz A-3-P planetarium instrument. Dr. Carkner is a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In December the Planetarium is open for the annual "Season of Light" program. Program appointments can be arranged by calling Gail Parsons at the Planetarium, (309) 794-7327, or you may request information by e-mail at GailParsons@augustana.edu. The observatory and planetarium are located on the college campus at 820 38th Street.
Public Lectures We continue to convey the excitement of astronomy to our students and to the public in various ways. Some of our guest lecturers have been David Levy (2001), Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (2003), Brian Greene (2004), Donald Gurnett, "Fifty Years of Space Research at the University of Iowa" (2008), Jason Steffen, "Finding Other Earths" (2010), and Craig Kletzing, "The Van Allen Radiation Belt Storm Probes" (2013).
Astronomy Information Aurora. There was an intense geomagnetic storm on Dec. 14, 2006. Check out the aurora gallery and the local pictures.		Eight Planets. The International Astronomical Union has defined planets. Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet.
	Partial Solar Eclipse - May 20, 2012 This picture of a partial solar eclipse was taken at 7:52 pm on Sunday, May 20, 2012. The location was Sunset Park, adjacent to the Mississippi River in Rock Island, Illinois. Photographer, David Renneke, used a digital camera zoomed to 30X with the lens covered by one half of a pair of inexpensive Eclipse Shades designed for direct viewing of the Sun. Many other people were at the gazebo enjoying the eclipse. Near the end several barges floated down the river. The sunset at Sunset Park occurred at 8:18 pm.
	The International Space Station. This view is from the Space Shuttle Discovery at the conclusion of a 12 day visit in 2006. To see the space station from your own backyard, check the general and Rock Island viewing schedules.		Cassini-Huygens This is a mission to Saturn and Titan. The spacecraft is now in orbit around Saturn. Here is an excellent PowerPoint summary of the mission. Check out this Flash presentation.
	Mars Curiosity Rover The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012. It is designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes.		Stardust This is a NASA mission that flew to Comet Wild 2 (vilt 2), photographed it, captured interstellar and comet dust, and returned to Earth (Utah) on Jan. 15, 2006. Mission details.

StarDate
SkyNews
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This week's sky
Picture of the Day
Science at Augustana

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Official time
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Our CCD camera
Favorite Links - Part 1
Favorite Links - Part 2

The photo on the left is of the first quarter moon taken by Mel Peterson on Mar. 21, 2002. He used a digital camera placed on the eyepiece of the 14" telescope.

International Space Station - The first module, Zarya, was successfully launched on Nov. 20, 1998. In December, 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour installed the Unity module. In July, 2000, the service module, Zvezda (star) was added. In February, 2001, the U.S. Destiny Laboratory module was installed. If you wish to see the space station from your own backyard, here are the general and Rock Island viewing schedules.

Aurora Borealis - A set of photographs were taken by Donna and David Renneke at 10:30 pm on Nov. 5, 2001, northwest of Davenport, Iowa. The one on the left is a 16 second exposure using a 2 megapixel digital camera. Larger image (59 K). Original photo (291 K). Plot of the estimated planetary K-index. Details about the interplanetary magnetic field. For the latest information on solar activity go to SpaceWeather.com. Here is their spectacular aurora gallery.

Another aurora gallery - Dec. 14, 2006. K-index. Local photographs.

Horsehead Nebula. This photo was taken on the morning of October 5, 2000, at Kitt Peak Observatory as part of the Advanced Observing Program. The telescope was a Meade 16 inch LX200 (f/6.3) with an SBIG ST-8E CCD camera. Adam Block, lead observer, Betty Peterson and Mel Peterson were the photographers. This picture was processed using LRGB color production with exposures of 48 minutes for the luminance (greyscale), 10 minutes for the red component, 10 minutes for the green component, and 20 minutes for the blue component. The full size image is 1522 x 1006 pixels. Kitt Peak is the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. See Astronomy, October, 2000, page 80, for an article on this program by Adam Block.