hi all,

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the nice start to the Spring.

Our next meeting is this Thursday, March 4th at 8pm in Gonzaga College, Ranelagh and is a joint lecture with the Irish Astronomical Society ( www.irishastrosoc.org ) Terry Moseley, our featured speaker, is well known to many of us as one of the top amateur astronomers in Ireland and will travel from Belfast to talk about ancient astronomy. We hope to see you along on the evening and admission is free.

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While browsing the notes for March in the 2003 edition of Guy Ottwell’s indispensable “Astronomical Calendar” some time ago I came across a suggestion that the saying “March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb” may relate to Aries (the Ram) setting during the late evening at this time of year while Leo, the Lion, approaches the meridian.

It’s an interesting observation but the true quote, author unknown, runs;

As amateur astronomers we should be privileged to be so in tune with the world around us. Our hobby makes us wonderfully aware of not just all things astronomical but aware of nature in general. There is a wonderful and rich seam of lore about the sky that many of us should mine, if only to enhance our adventures in astronomy.

The classic book on the subject is Richard Inwards “Weather Lore”, first published in 1893, though the edition I have was reprinted in 1994 by Senate.

Another lovely little tome worth adding to your bookshelf is “Weather Wisdom” by Albert Lee and published by Congdon & Weed, Inc. while “It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes” (Jerry Dennis and Glenn Wolff) is a book packed with information for naturalists and sky watchers. Reader’s Digest recently published “The Essential Book of Weather Lore” by Leslie Horvitz which is another nice introduction to the subject of reading weather signs.

Finally, “Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind” by Lyall Watson and “An Ocean of Air” by Gabrielle Walker are both rewarding insights into the blanket of air that wraps our planet.

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The International Space Station is currently making a series of evening passes and predictions can be generated for your location through the www.heavens-above.com web site (the following link is set to Terenure village … http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=53.300&lng=-6.283&loc=Terenure&alt=65&tz=GMT )

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The Irish Astronomical Society has organised a series of public observing nights during March. The first is in the Wicklow Mountains National Park on March 6th, while the rest are at Sandymount Martello Tower on March 19th and Bray sea front on March 20th. All will be held between 8pm and 10pm. More details are at www.irishastrosoc.org

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Tune in to Dublin City FM between 8pm and 8:30pm (on 103.2FM) when Ben Emmett, John Dickson and Christy Creely present a half-hour programme on astronomy. The show contains interviews, news and notes on what’s up in the skies. More details at http://dublincityfm.ie/programmes/special-interest/astronomy-show/

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I recently came across www.nightsky.ie which is run by DIT Kevin Street lecturer Paul Doyle. The site features the latest astronomy news and lots of useful information on the hobby. Do drop by and sign up to Paul’s Facebook page for the site too.

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I’ve finally got around to organising the mailing list properly and setting up a phone group to text people about meetings, etc. If you don’t get a text from me by Thursday evening then drop me a line if you would like to be added to the phone group.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 17:44 and is filed under Astronomy News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.