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  * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - May 27, 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 manually type the URLs
into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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SPYING ON THE NEIGHBORS

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), the oldest working spacecraft orbiting the red
planet, is taking some time to check out the newest kids in the
neighborhood. On April 20th, astronomers used the veteran's Mars Orbiter
Camera to take pictures of another spacecraft: Mars Express. The two
orbiters were about 250 kilometers (155 miles) apart when MGS shot the
picture....

The next day MGS continued its snooping game by capturing high-resolution
images of another spacecraft: NASA's Mars Odyssey. The image was captured
from about 90 kilometers away....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1519_1.asp

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AMATEURS HELP DISCOVER EXOPLANET

In a milestone event, amateur astronomers  participated directly in the
discovery of an extrasolar planet last month. The amateurs, who hail from
New Zealand, made crucial observations that helped several international
collaborations of professional astronomers nail down the existence of the
planet. Amateur astronomers have previously detected the presence of
exoplanets, but only after professionals made the initial findings.

The newly discovered planet is just the second one found by gravitational
microlensing, an effect predicted by Einstein's general theory of
relativity....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1517_1.asp

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CANADIAN AMATEURS ACCESS BIG HAWAIIAN SCOPES

How would you like to obtain observing time with the 8.1-meter Gemini
North reflector and the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
atop Hawaii's legendary summit of Mauna Kea? Sound like an amateur
astronomer's pipe dream? Well, two amateur clubs in Canada did just that,
and they have the images to prove it....

Two deep-sky objects in the constellation Taurus were selected: the
nascent star RY Tauri, proposed by the Dorval group, and the Pleiades star
cluster, suggested by the Vulcan group. The images were presented to them
during the annual meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society in Montreal
on May 15th....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1518_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Last-quarter Moon on Monday, May 30th.
* Jupiter (magnitude -2.2, in Virgo) glares high in the south to southwest
during evening -- the brightest "star" in the sky.
* Comet Tempel 1 -- which NASA's Deep Impact mission will blast with a
projectile on the night of July 3rd -- is currently glowing at about
magnitude 10.5 in the evening sky, a little fainter than predicted. Find
it near Delta Virginis using the chart in the June SKY & TELESCOPE, page
68.

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance

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DADS & GRADS! (Advertisement)

Celebrate with your Dads & Grads with these gift ideas from Shop at Sky.

Share the beauty of the northern lights with this stunning Spotlight Print
by Jay Potts.
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=414

Display lunar phases along with the date and time with our mantelpiece
Moon Phase Clock.
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=415

For younger grads, purchase and rule the cosmos with Monopoly, Night Sky
Edition.
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 þ OLXWin 1.00b þ Glory is fleeting, obscurity is forever.

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