New Years Eve Blue Moon

A blue moon occurs every 2 1/2 years but, it occurs on New Years Eve every 19 years, that's right every 19 years. 2009 is one of them.

Star Party June 2009

Our family have been members of the Astronomy Club of Santa Clarita Valley, called "The Local Group", for about a year now and have not attended one of their Star Parties, until tonight!

We packed up our telescope that we purchased at a garage sale for $20 and drove out to Vasquez Rocks to meet up with the club. There were quite a few people there with some very elaborate telescopes. We were thankful to run into 'El Presidente' Steve, who helped us set up our telescope for an AWESOME view of the moon! Several others had great views of Saturn.

It was a wonderful time and we will definitely go again!

Neil Armstrong

You all know Neil as the first person to walk on the moon. Well, it's true, he was.

Here's his whole story:

One Sunday of 1936 six-year-old Neil Armstrong had an extrodanary experience...



...his first plane ride. It was in a plane called a Tin Goose (Ford trimotor).



After that Neil wanted to fly, fly, and fly everywhere. He even got his pilots lisence before his drivers lisence-- WOW-- his pilot's lisence was one of his 16th birthday presents!


Neil won a schollarship forPurdue University in Indiana. the US NAVY paid for ALL his education. In return he joined the military.


In the Korean war he accidently flew into a trap set by the koreans. The tip of the wing broke off but he safly landed the plane anyway. His work in the Korean war earned him 3 metals and the name The pilot that can handle all kinds of danger.

Laird Wins First Place at Science Fair

For the second year in a row, Laird won a First Place ribbon for his entry in his school's annual Science Fair.

His project this year was titled: "Does Nutrition Matter?"

The scientific experiment he conducted answered the question: "Does eating a healthy breakfast on a test day make a difference?"

The Great Mars Hoax

An email circulating annually since 2003 claims that Mars will come close enough to Earth to look as large as the moon does with the naked eye. Not true.

This hoax began from a true situation: in August 2003, Mars came as close to the Earth as it had in 60,000 years. Through a moderately powered telescope, Mars would have appeared about the same size as the moon does with the naked eye.

The part about the "moderately powered telescope" was somehow dropped and the story spread that one could look into the night skies -- this year's email claimed it would happen on August 27, 2009 -- and see a red planet that rivaled the moon in its size.

In the actual 2003 event, Mars appeared about three time its normal size with the naked eye -- that is, it looked like a very, very bright star.

Every 15 to 17 years, Mars comes almost as close to Earth as it did in 2003, the next time being in 2018. But it will never appear as large as the moon to the unaided eye. If it did, we'd be in big trouble, as its gravitational pull would be so great, its effects on the tides would be unimaginable.

Here's the full scoop on Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/science/astronomy/brightmars.asp