The Astronomical League

(Kansas City, MO)--The Astronomical League is pleased to announce the top finishers in the competition for its National Young Astronomers Award Program (NYAA).

The first-place winner in the NYAA program is Justin Tieman from Lee’s Summit, Missouri. His project was entitled “Alien Worlds.” The hypothesis of this experiment is that an amateur astronomer may be able to detect an exoplanet with only a backyard telescope and using differential photometry software. His conclusions verified this hypothesis. Also a second project “Space Rocks” involved precise light measurements in asteroids.

The second-place winner is Travis Le who lives in Aica, Hawaii. His work “Determining ‘Hot Spots’ Through Correlations of CMES and Solar Flares” was able to determine five "hot spots" on the Sun where possible CMES(Coronal Mass Ejections) could occur.

Dr. Brian Siana of the University of California at Riverside, May 10, 2012

How Stars Destroyed Almost All the Atoms in the Universe

http://keckobservatory.org/news/video_how_stars_destroyed_all_atoms_in_universe

Richard Wainscoat, April 5, 2012

The Magnificent Night Sky - How to Protect It

http://keckobservatory.org/news/video_the_magnificent_night_sky_how_to_protect_it

Brian Schmidt, March 20, 2012

On the Secrets of Dark Energy

http://keckobservatory.org/news/the_accelerating_universe_on_the_secrets_of_dark_energy

Debra Fischer, Feb. 27, 2012

Hot Jupiters to Habitable Planets

http://keckobservatory.org/news/hot_jupiters_to_habitable_planets

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

I was checking the weather forecast earlier this week. The weather web-site that I consulted contained additional information, including sunrise and sunset, and moonrise and moonset. It caught my attention that in a couple of days there would be day without a moonset. Interesting. Probably most of us think of the moon rising and setting on a daily basis, and on most days it does just that. After consulting the US Naval Observatory web site showing moonrise and moonset for my location I realized that there is one day a month without a moonrise and one day a month without a moonset. Actually, there’s one day per lunar cycle without a moonrise and one day per lunar cycle without a moonset.

PDF file: 

WhatsUpWithAstroLeagueMarch2012.pdf

The March issue includes:

• NEAF 2012 April 28-29 Suffern, NY
• Eclipse Glasses
• Venus Transit and Certificates/Pins
• ALCon 2012
• Keck Observatory Upcoming Schedule
• Awards Deadlines