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19-percent-illuminated crescent. He has taken several more images since
then, stacking 100 eight-second exposures to make each one....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1266_1.asp

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MYSTERIES OF THE NORTH STAR

William Shakespeare couldn't have been more wrong. In his 1599 play Julius
Caesar, the English bard had the Roman ruler declaim, "I am as constant as
the northern star." Since then astronomers have learned not only that
Polaris is a variable star (in fact it's the closest and brightest Cepheid
variable), but also that its period and amplitude are changing. Now,
astronomers at Villanova University in Pennsylvania say that even the
variation in Polaris's variability is varying -- and that, moreover,
Polaris's average brightness is on a slow increase....

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1265_1.asp

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ASTRO NEWS BRIEFS

Itsy-Bitsy Galaxy

German astronomers have identified the dimmest galaxy ever seen. It
probably contains a mere one million stars, spread out over an area 3,000
light years wide. According to Daniel Zucker (Max Planck Institute for
Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), this is "a singularly unimpressive
galaxy."

The new record holder is a dwarf companion of the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5
million light-years away. Zucker and his colleague Eric Bell detected
Andromeda IX, as it is called, as a slight overdensity of stars in images
from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They presented their results at last
week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver, Colorado.

Bell says there could be more of these ultra-faint satellites hiding out
there, with even lower surface brightness. That would be good news for
cosmologists. Current theories about galaxy formation predict many more
small satellite galaxies than are actually being observed.


Maunder Mysteries

The "Little Ice Age" that froze the northern hemisphere in the late 17th
century coincided with a period of extreme solar inactivity known as the
Maunder Minimum. Climatologists have often wondered whether the two had
any connection. If so, it's up to astronomers to determine if the Sun
might undergo such a minimum again. To answer that question, they are
studying other Sun-like stars to see if other objects regularly undergo
Maunder Minima of their own. One group presented its results last week in
a poster presentation at the AAS meeting.

Using their observatory's 1.1-meter telescope, Lowell astronomers Jeffrey
C. Hall and G. Wesley Lockwood checked various stars for magnetic activity
variations by measuring the brightness of calcium emission lines in the
stellar spectra. They found that many Sun-like stars show no sign of
cyclic activity over periods of 6 to 9 years, suggesting possible minima.
They also found the same stars have widely varying, constant magnetic
activity. Thus it isn't clear if the stars they observe are undergoing
true "minima."

> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1270_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Jupiter's Great Red Spot should cross Jupiter's central meridian (the
imaginary line down the center of the planet's disk from pole to pole)
around 12:03 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, June 5th.
* Transit of Venus, Tuesday, June 8th. The transit happens after sunrise
for eastern and central North America and most of South America; during
the height of the day for most of Europe, Africa and Asia; and before
sunset for Japan, Korea, parts of China, and Australia. Maps, timetables,
and much more information available on our website.
* Last-quarter Moon, Wednesday, June 9th.

For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

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

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REMEMBER DAD THIS FATHER'S DAY (Advertisement)

This June, be sure to get the shining star in your life the gift he wants
from Shop at Sky!

The Modern Moon: A Personal View
by Charles Wood
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=377
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___
 þ OLXWin 1.00b þ No sense being pessimistic.  It wouldn't work anyway.

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