This phenomenon – while not easily perceptible by the average network news viewer – is indeed cool in that there are three reasons we see the moon as big in the sky:

- atmospheric distortion

- an effect called, simply “the horizon illusion” where things on the horizon look bigger compared to nearby houses, trees, etc..

- the Moon actually varies in distance from Earth by tens of thousands of kilometres

The last one causes the Moon to range from about 350,000 km distance from Earth in its orbit to as close as about 285,000 km (I’ll put the exact number in tomorrow morning for those who are about to complain.)

When that happens (the Moon being only about 280,000 km away, not people complaining to me) at full moon, we have a “supermoon” as seen in the photo my wife Kristina took of last year’s event of the same name.

For more information on how to catch this on the weekend (beyond just looking up when it’s clear on Fri, Sat or Sun night), check out Space.com’s coverage: “Supermoon” might outshine meteor shower this weekend

If you haven’t read the column (Wilderness Astronomer) about this incredible “Disney World of dark sky preserves”, you can grab it on news stands (including those at WalMart) subscribe, or buy an online edition here.

If you have read the column and are here to check out the as-promised web-links, here you go!:

Recommended stargazing sites:

Here are the sites I’ve researched and recommend in the magazine:

• Marmot Meadows group campground
• Pyramid Island
• Big Bend interior campground (#34 on this map)
• Icefield Parkway/Athabasca Glacier and nearby campgrounds
• also worthwhile is Maligne Lake…
• …and stargazing near the rushing waters of Maligne Canyon (pictured at right) or Athabasca Falls pictured at night, here

ALSO: Jasper is such a large dark sky preserve and is so full of amazing observing sites, it actually has its own web site to guide you through some of them, complete with 360 panoramas. Check the Clear Sky Clocks for stargazing conditions at each at the bottom of the homepage:

http://www.jasperdarksky.org

Parks Canada astronomy programming and events in 2012

Not including the October 12-14 Dark Sky Festival, there are dozens of other astronomy evening amphitheatre talks, daytime sun and moon observing sessions, and special events in Jasper National Park. Here’s your guide to each and every one in 2012.

More: http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/jasper/activ/celebrations.aspx#astro

Jasper Dark Sky Festival

Back by popular-demand, the world’s biggest astronomy park will host a world-class slate of presenters, special art and food-based events, stargazing opportunities, experiences for kids, and how-to sessions for budding polar-fleece stargazers, October 12-14, 2012.

More: www.jasperdarkskyfest.com 

Our Canadian Geographic article on Jasper Dark Sky preserve

I wrote a cover story last year as Jasper’s DSP designation was completed, and Yuichi provided the photos – We had a blast travelling through the Jasper front and back-country in July 2010 to research this love letter to the Disney World of dark sky preserves. You can read it, here.

Photos of Jasper at night

For more views of this wonder of the evening world, check out some more of my images elsewhere in this site, here

Photos from Jasper and the Dark Sky Festival, here.

AND Yuichi’s incredible HD time-lapse videos from Jasper, here.

Dark Sky hotel package

Numerous hotels in Jasper will offer special Dark Sky Festival specials in October.

Meanwhile, the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (whose canoe docks are pictured under the full moon, at right) now offers a year-round astronomy package.

Now, just last night, these planets had what NASA officials called “the best Venus-Jupiter conjunction for years to come,” in a recent skywatching alert.

Here, above, is a photo I took of all of this last night in our backyard in Port Hope, Ontario, on the evening of March 26.

The Moon can be seen at centre with Earthshine and some hints of detail in lunar “seas” in its waxing crescent phase.

Venus is the sparkling “star” to the right of the Moon, with Jupiter shining as a bright “star” below at the bottom of the frame.

The Pleiades (Seven Sisters or “Lost Boys” in some First Nations lore) is the compact group of stars twinkling with faint hints of nebular gas at the top of the frame.

The image above was taken with a Canon 60D and 17mm EFS lens during a 10 second exposure at f6

Since I (and they) were at the Peterborough Museum and Archives (2 hrs northeast of Toronto) during the first day of their March Break kids program, I figured I should bust out some science and astronomy for a little fun.

Science adventures on spring break

Up first was an interactive presentation on the latest science stories in the news (though it was tailored for 7-11-year-olds, said 7-11 year-olds could have been watching an episode of NOVA or The Nature Of Things and still have detailed questions!)

Our next adventure was to (safely) observe details on the surface of the Sun. Though it was cloudy and what breaks there were were barely breaks, I came ready with the right tool for the job – a colossal-aperture 12-inch wide telescope, which (I hoped) would grab enough photons to project out of its eyepiece onto a piece of paper.

Pencil subs and flaming suns

Fortunately, for 20 kids (and one very excited parent who stayed for part of the morning) a dozen sunspots larger than the Earth showed up, including a semi-circle-shaped sunspot group.

After that, we moved on to our pièce de résistance for the day – a new idea for working model submarines made out of pencils and rubber-bands: A risky endeavour, but and exciting one that paid-off, as you can see in the image above.

I’ll be filing the idea for future kids programming, as well as in notes for an upcoming book in my Machines of the Future series.

From astronomy to medical science, to paleontology, to materials science, to research oddities, to Canada’s biggest science projects and beyond, we looked at some of the most fascinating aspects of the universe of discovery.

Peter, Learning Unlimited's Bob Lee, and another participant perform "robotic heart surgery" on a bowl of Jell-O during Extreme Makeover: Medical Robot Edition week

Here below – mostly for participants of the series, but also for anyone else interested – are links to some of the hundreds of things we looked at from January to March of 2012:

Weird Science (January 10)

AvroCar flying saucer-mobile

Edison’s concrete obsession

Flying cars

Humorous driving contraptions

Ford “Nucleon” Atomic Car concept

Ornithopter

Snake-bot video

The “New” solar system

“Blueberries” on Mars

Jupiter’s moons Io and Europa

Saturn’s Moon Titan

The Largest Stars in the Universe (that we know of)

Black Holes

Faster-than-light-travel

Particle accelerators

Underground labs

Liquid mirror telescopes

Blue whales

Hummingbirds

Tardigrades (i.e. “Water Bears”: the most indestructible-known-animals)

Anglerfish

The “Prehistoric Shark” alive today

Weirdest dinosaurs ever (Peter’s blog post based on this part of his lecture)

Dinosaur Season in Canada (January 17)

What were the dinosaurs? (and what constitutes a dinosaur?)

When did they live and what did they do?

Types of dinosaurs

Ages and Periods of the Earth

How did the dinosaurs die

Going on a dino dig

Top dino discoveries in 2011 and 2012

Buying a dinosaur (a great source in Canada)

Jurassic Forest (animatronic dinosaur park near Edmonton) video

Scary Science (January 24)

Dionosis, Lead & Wine

Asbestos use

Opium and Heroin as household products

A little radiation anyone?

Mercury (Nuts! Who knew it was poisonous…?)

DDT

The infamous macaque experiments

Killer-asteroids (and video)

Explosive decompression (and other ways to die in outer space)

Monster volcanoes

Algol, the Demon Star

The facts behind “The end of the world” in 2012

Extreme Medical Robot Makeover (January 31)

Minimally-invasive surgery

Robotic surgery

Medical robots

The daVinci system

U Calgary’s neuroArm

Cyberknife

Western University’s CSTAR

Nanomedicine

“It seemed like a good idea . . .” Fumbles and Failures in Science (February 7)

Penicillin (it actually remains a good idea)

The “Aether Wind”

Worst cars of all time

Biosphere 2

The Banff Merman

The Archaeoraptor hoax

Science Road Trip 2012 (February 14)

Atlantic

NRC Institute for Ocean Technology

Mistaken Point – oldest complex life on earth

L’Anse aux Meadows - Land of the Vikings

Whale watching in St Anthony, NL

Fundy National Park

Reversing Falls

Alexander Graham-Bell house

Bluenose II refit

Quebec

Mont Megantic

Manicouagan Crater

Hydroelectric projects (and tours of them)

Bombardier Museum

Canada Aviation Museum

Ontario

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Science North

Dynamic Earth

SNO Lab neutrino observatory

Bruce Peninsula National Park dark sky preserve

Fox Observatory

Bluewater Astronomical Society

Gordon’s Park on Manitoulin Island dark sky preserve

Swim with the polar bears in Cochrane Ontario

Manitoba

Land of the prehistoric marine animals

Gimli – largest Icelandic settlement outside of Iceland

Polar Bear tours at Churchill

Saskatchewan

Grasslands National Park and dark sky preserve

The Canadian Light Source synchrotron (particle accelerator)

Grey Owl’s Cabin

T-Rex Centre

Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park and dark sky preserve

Alberta

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta Badlands

Jurassic Forest (animatronic dinosaur park near Edmonton) video

Banff cosmic ray station

Jasper National Park, the world’s largest, darkest dark sky preserve

Jasper glacierwalk

Oilsands “Discovery Centre”, Fort McMurray

British Columbia

Burgess Shale

TRIUMF Canada’s Nuclear and Particle Physics lab

University of Victoria’s NEPTUNE underwater science network

Vancouver Aquarium

Pacific Rim National Park

Legacy of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics

Yukon/NWT/Nunavut

Beringia Centre museum, Whitehorse, YK

Kluane National Park

Northern Lights Centre

Dredge # 4, Dawson City, YK

Eagle Plains and a drive up to the Arctic Circle

Aurora Village, Yellowknife

Narwhal watching, Baffin Island

Zero to 24,000 in 60 Seconds: Transportation’s Next Big Thing (February 21)

Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner”

Airbus A380 – the largest pasengerliner in the world

EasyJet’s “Ecojet”

Blended wing concept

Maglev trains

Transatlantic maglev idea

Maglev cobra (video – description text is in Spanish, video is in English)

MiG 31 fighter jet “Edge of Space” tour

Zero-G “Vomit Comet” flights

Suborbital spaceflight vacations

Orbital vacations

The New Astronomy: Stargazing in an Age of Light Pollution (February 28)

Dark sky preserves across the globe

Dark sky map of the world

Dark sky preserves in Canada

Peter’s dark sky column

Traditional Knowledge in the Modern World (March 6)

Lost Library of Alexandria

New Library of Alexandria

First Nations star chart

Spirit Bear video

Reflecting telescopes

Japanese tea “robots”

Hippocratic Oath

First syringes

“Biosteel”

Biomimicry

Ornithopters

Batteries

How the Internet works

Canada’s Biggest Science Projects (March 13)

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

All about Quantum Theory/Quantum Mechanics

SNO Lab neutrino observatory

Level 4 bio-containment lab in Winnipeg

The Canadian Light Source synchrotron (particle accelerator)

TRIUMF Canada’s Nuclear and Particle Physics lab

University of Victoria’s NEPTUNE underwater science network

Gemini North observatory

Atacama Large Millimeter Array

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope

About the presenter:

Peter’s web site

Peter’s books

Peter’s science blogs for Telescopes.ca

Where to get all the cool stuff you saw during the series (toys, gear & gadgets) EfstonScience, at Dufferin & 401 (the store with the giant telescope on the roof)

Specific products:

Telescopes

Telescopes shown on-stage

mechanical bird

robotic arm

Don’t see something here you wanted to know about? Drop Peter a note below and ask to have it posted!

Over several clear moonlit nights this winter, Ron, Serena, Angela (age 10 ), and Emma (age 8 ) used this portable 5″ diameter scope (pictured) to check-out details on our Moon, cloud layers and moons of Jupiter, phases of Venus, and ice caps on Mars this past weekend, during its closest approach to Earth in two years.

Below – as chronicled by Ron – is the family’s look at what they saw and what they thought of the gear they saw it with

(read the rest in the original post, at Telescopes.ca…)

With this gear, I recently took several families out to some Eastern Ontario conservation areas to have them put this gear – and the views it yielded – to the test.

The setup

I met our second test-group (you can see the results of the first “Family Test Drive” here) of six families south of the Northumberland Forest – about an hour east of Toronto – to show them views of Venus, Jupiter, Mars, a waxing first-quarter Moon, the  Orion Nebula, the Pleiades star cluster, and the Andromeda Galaxy through a 5.1″ Sky WatcherHeritage P130 reflector, Sky Watcher Black Diamond ED80 3″ refractor, Sky Watcher 12.5″ reflector, and a pair of Canon 15×50 image-stabilized binoculars.

Also on-hand were an iPad with a variety of astronomy apps and a Celestron Sky Scout GPS-based “star-finder” personal planetarium.

The reviews are in:

In their own words, unbiased and unedited, here below is what the group thought of the gear and the views it provided:

Paul:

“What I really thought was neat was to be able to see the moons (read the rest in the original post, at Telescopes.ca…)

In addition to the fabulous features of the Bruce Peninsula and surrounding area chronicled in Sky News Magazine, I’d like to share with you an aspect of the region’s dark-sky success story we didn’t have space to get into in the print edition.

A magic bullet for dark sky success

More and more across Canada and North America, astronomy club members are being joined coast to coast by families, environmentalists, business leaders, marketing experts and more.
For years, local astronomy club members and observatory owners have pushed for the municipality, ferry operator, and Parks Canada to make a good thing even better and go beyond a responsible lighting plan to encourage landowners and business operators to go dark.

In the case of the Bruce, on the shores of Ontario’s Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, Bruce Peninsula Biosphere Association Chair Elizabeth Thorn has exemplified the benefits of such collaborations, bringing decades of business savvy to the table in the campaign to turn out the lights in one of the continent’s most exciting “astronomy parks.”

Getting results

When I visited the area and met some of the personalities responsible for astronomy outreach in the Bruce Peninsula this past summer, the overwhealming consensus was that critical mass after 11 years of work by amateur astronomers such as Doug and Paula Cunningham and Rod Steinacher was reached when such stalwart stargazing crusaders teamed up with the business, marketing and communications talents needed to effectively discuss change with local stakeholders.

Among other wins, this collaboration between longtime astronomy buffs and interested newcomers with skills to share has resulted in grants for light pollution audits and lighting replacement programs, as well as funds to develop a boardwalk with telescopes that will  be mounted there for the enjoyment of groups and the general public.

A big win for concerned citizens (and for great views of the night sky)

After the initial dark sky community – and later dark sky preserve – designation for the Bruce, Elizabeth, along with Rod and others, has also been a key communicator in convincing the Owen Sound Transportation authority (which operates the ferry between the peninsula and Manitoulin Island and associated docks) to dim and replace much of their polluting lighting at the ferry docks in Tobermory.

The secret ingredient…

“Indeed, the project really took off when the  Bruce Peninsula Environment Group embraced the concept and really blossomed when Elizabeth Thorn brought her amazing organizational skills to the project,” Doug Cunningham recently told me. “I can’t say enough good things about Elizabeth’s and Rod Steinacher’s substantial contributions  to the successful achievements of our Dark Sky Committee.”

As local observatory owners such as Doug and Paula and telescope-weilding landowners such as Rod  suggest, this truly sets the stage for Bruce Peninsula becoming known as one of North America’s true crown jewels – not just for its world-renowned diving, shipwrecks, lush biosphere, and gorgeous sunsets – but also for the down-to-the-horizon starscapes that families and groups of all ages can enjoy above it all.

Come this summer, and those that follow, I can’t wait to see an updated set of sky quality metre readings and light pollution maps taken after this change – scheduled for before the 2012 tourist season – takes effect, as well as some changes Parks Canada and local businesses are implementing on the Peninsula to make the skies above the Bruce truly world-class.

**MORE: Links to tourism and accommodation for a stargazing trip to Bruce Peninsula**

Recently, I (centre, in the image above) took several families out to some Eastern Ontario conservation areas (The Ganaraska Forest in Northumberland County, in this case) to have them put this gear – and the the views it yielded – to the test.

(…more in the full post at telescopes.ca…)

On the flip-side, if you know what you want to see (and it’s in the sky), you can select it from a menu (the menu arrows are built like a TV remote – so for e.g…

(…more in the full post at telescopes.ca…)