Examples of Prior
Visitor Nights at the UCI
Observatory:
Dec 14, 2007 - Highlights: Orion Nebula, Mars at its closet to
Earth in the last few years. Lecture: "Dark Matter in the Universe.
Nov 2, 2007 - Highlights: Andromeda, Ring Nebula & Uranus.
Lecture: "Creating the Chemical Elements".
Aug 27, 2007 - Highlights: Moon, Jupiter and star clusters and
the total lunar eclipse that lasted from 1:50 - 5:20am. Lecture:
"What Happened to Pluto?".
Aug 3, 2007 - Highlights: Jupiter, Ring Nebula and star
clusters. Lecture: "Star Clusters in the Milky Way".
May 18, 2007 - Highlights: Venus,
Saturn, the Sombrero and Whirlpool
galaxies and star
clusters. Lecture was "Man's Place in the Cosmos".
Apr 13, 2007 - Highlights: Venus, Saturn, Orion nebula
and star clusters. Lecture was "Planets Outside our Solar System".
Sep 29, 2006 - Highlights: Ring Nebula, Moon and
Jupiter
and the lecture was "Dark Matter in Galaxies".
Aug 18, 2006 - Highlights: Perseid meteor shower,
Jupiter and Ring Nebula. Lecture: "The History of the Solar
System".
May 19, 2006 - Highlights: Saturn, Jupiter, star
clusters and galaxies. Lecture: "Galaxies in the Universe".
Feb 17, 2006 - Highlights: Saturn,
Mars, and the Orion Nebula. Lecture: "Building the Milky Way".
Nov 5, 2005 - Highlights: Venus, Mars and the Ring Nebula and the
lecture was "Mars and the
Search for Life in the Solar System". It coincided with
Earth's closest approach to Mars in the past two years. Every two years
the Earth "laps" Mars as they both rotate around the Sun, because it
takes the Earth only 365 days (1 year) to compete its orbit while it
takes Mars longer, 687 days, because Mars is farther from the Sun.
June, 24, 2005, 8-10 pm. The highlights
for
viewing
will be Jupiter, the Ring Nebulae and galaxies. The title of the
lecture
will be "The Lives and Deaths of Stars."
The Mars viewing Visitor Night on August 27, 2003 was a huge
success. We
estimate that between 5,000 and 10,000 people saw Mars through the
Observatory
telescopes! Hearty thanks go out to the Orange
County Astronomers for co-hosting the event and providing
additional
telescopes. Our apologies go out to those people who saw the size of
the
crowd and were turned away. On August 27, 2003, Mars was the closest
its been to the Earth in the last 59,620 years! The distance separating
Earth and Mars on that date was 34.7 million miles. Because of
Mars' exceptional nearness, we could easily see light/dark colored
terrain features
on Mars and the white ice cap on the South Pole of Mars even with the
smallest of our telescopes. The Earth completes one orbit around the
Sun in 1 year or 365 days while Mars takes longer, 1.9 years or 687
days, to orbit the Sun. This mean that once each year Earth catches up
to Mars and passes it, just like a faster runner on a track passes and
"laps" a slower runner. On average, when Earth laps Mars they are
separated by a distance of about 48.5 million miles. However, because
the orbital paths of Mars and Earth are actually
ellitpical in shape, not perfectly circular, in some years the two
planets get much closer than average. Approximately every 15 years,
Earth and Mars get roughly as close as they did in August, 2003, when
they were separted by only 35 million miles. But we hope you come
and visit the UCI Observatory many times before then, because there are
many other amazing things to see in the night sky on any given night!