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COROMANDEL LIFE
SUMMER 2014
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL • 07 866 5343 •
Stargazing Tours Available Most Clear Nights
Identify Constellations, Planets & Stars From Rotating Dome
Handle Meteorites Older Than The Earth
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ASTRONOMY TOURS
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392 STATE HWY 25 • KUAOTUNU • WHITIANGA
Photo by Peter Drury
Photo Credits: Jupiter and moons: NASA. Moon
phases: Keith Burns for NASA/JPL. ISON comet.
Hubble Space Telescope composite image, April
2013. NASA, ESA, & the Hubble Heritage Team.
VENUS REAPPEARS
The early months of 2014 are going to be
very interesting for planet watchers… brilliant
Venus will reappear in the morning sky as the
‘morning star’… easily the brightest object in
the east just before sunrise. Binoculars will
reveal a beautiful thin crescent that will get
wider from week to week and also a bit smaller
as Venus slowly moves away from us in its orbit
back around the sun.
JUPITER ENTERTAINS
Jupiter remains a lovely object with its 4 moons
dancing around it seen as the brightest thing in
the late evening sky. The moons are just visible
in binoculars – or better yet, a small telescope
– and are lovely to watch moving from night to
night. Try to wedge your binoculars against a
car or wall to get them as steady as possible
and stay away from bright lights. Inexpensive
tripod adapters are available for most binoculars
and greatly improve their stability and allow
many faint things to be seen that are missed
when they are handheld and shaky.
MARS BRIGHTENS
Mars is now steadily approaching the Earth and
will be at its closest a week before Easter on
April 14. It will also be at its brightest for over
7 years so well worth watching as it slowly gets
closer and bigger over the preceding months
and especially in the first weeks of April. It is
easily recognisable as the reddish ‘star’ moving
gradually from the early morning to late evening
sky from January to mid-April when it will be at
its closest. By the end of April it will already have
become noticeably smaller and dimmer. It will
be very easy to find in mid-April as the moon
approaches and passes it from April 13-15.
Photo by Ken Zhong
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON
The evening of April 15 will be extra special as
there will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible
low in the east. While not as spectacular as
a total eclipse of the Sun, an eclipse of the
moon is still fascinating to watch as the earth’s
shadow slowly moves across the full moon
which gets increasingly dark and reddish. This
occurs gradually as the moon moves into and
out of the earth’s shadow as it orbits around
us in a 28 day cycle. Lunar eclipses only
occur when the moon is full as that is when
it is directly opposite the sun and can then
sometimes move into our shadow.
The partial phase will start at 6pm with the
moon very low in the east, and by 7:08pm the
moon will be completely covered. The shadow
then starts to leave the moon and by 8:23pm
the total eclipse, which is the darkest phase,
will end and by 10:36pm it will be all over – until
October, but that’s another story!
This will be a very interesting event to watch
even with the naked eye, especially if you can
find a location with a good view of the eastern
horizon and made even more special this year
by the Moon being very close to a bright Mars.
COMET ISON UPDATE
Unfortunately Comet ISON proved to be a
bit of a disappointment as it rounded the
Sun on November 28… this was always
on the cards as it approached within a
Sun’s diameter of our nearest star, so in
the end it just melted some of the ice that
held it together and it broke up. Comets
can be described as dirty snowballs (or
snowy dirtballs) and consist of a loosely
bound aggregate of ice and rock
and this one just got too
close to the Sun! At its
closest approach it was
travelling at an incredible
300km per second…
more than 10x the speed of most shooting
stars and meteors and this, along with the
sun’s heat, proved too much for it.
In our last issue, we met Alastair
and Harriette Brickell of Stargazers
B&B and Astronomy Tours located
in the hills of Kuaotunu.
Quite the astromony buff, Alastair
has an observatory and various
telescopes including the largest
one on the Coromandel, available
for those who want to learn more
about the heavens.
For others who may not be able to
visit Stargazers for his impressive
‘tour of the skies’, Alastair has
agreed to offer a guide of what’s
worth looking ‘up’ for this Summer.
Alastair at the helm of
the ‘largest telescope
on the Coromandel’.
STARGAZERS
TREATS
FOR EARLY 2014
BY ALASTAIR BRICKELL
