Complilation of things for the Lyra Magazine for Richard Chilvers......

2008 An Astronomical year in Space: This year so far has been a very good year in space with 3 successful missions to the I.S.S delivering the kibo space laboratory as well as the European Columbus laboratory and a new cargo freighter called Jules Verne which successfully docked with the I.S.S to deliver 10.000 pounds of supplies to the complex-the system worked very successfully after a month of testing, on April 3 Cosmanauts took off for the I.S.S from Baikonur Cosmadrome in Kazakhstan riding on a Soyus space rocket bound for the I.S.S and successfully docked although their return back to Earth was a little shaky when their descent back to Earth was a little steeper than planned and landed almost 300 or so miles from where they intended to in Kazakhstan-however they all survived the descent although the media had a story to tell that many of us got to hear about.

Comets in 2008 this year so far and upcoming ones: Comet 17/P Holmes was good one to see at the begginning of 2008 and into the new year but was fading into the background sky after its cataclismic outburst in late 2007 a good comet overall and well placed for Northern observers to see even in small Binoculars the nebulus round shape that made the constellation of Perseus look out of shape for a while-good one, since then the skies were much devoid of Comets with 8/P Tuttle only being around for a few nights before fading rapidly-only got about one glimpse of it overall other Comets around were for the professional observers to glance at, Comet Boattinni 2007 W1 was seen in the late evening twilight in may but was sharply lost until the Summer Solsice had past to appear in the early morning skies of July although now august has past and Autumn is almost upon us now this one is also fading from view now attaining a good magnitude of around 7.5 to 8

Comet lulin should become a Binocular object during mid November and into December of the latter part of this year but is mainly a Comet for the early part of 2009 during late Feburary when it shoul attain a good Magnitude 4 so that will certainly be one to look out for next year.

Astronomical Events in 2008 and upcoming events: No more Eclipses are schedualed for the rest of 2008 although there is the Taurid and Geminid Meteor showers to look out for in December, an Occultation of Venus during the early evening on December 1st.

The Planets for the rest of 2008: Mercury: will be best seen in the Evening skies during December as it will reach magnitude -0.7

Venus: will also be in the December evening and morning skies at magnitude 4.1

Mars: will be lost to the Evening skies and won't appear in the morning skies until December but will mainly stay in the twilight of the suns glare.

Jupiter; will gradually edge to the South West during the rest of the year and set during December.

saturn will return to the morning skies to be a winter object and into 2009.

Uranus and Neptune will be on view for most of this period.

Future NASA Missions including the I.S.S and Hubble Space Telescope upgrade Mission: At this time of writing the space shuttle has been held back from being rolled out onto the launch pad due to storm warnings-it will be blasting off for a HST upgrade service mission and this will be one of the last 10 Space Shuttle missions-1 more shuttle flight is planned for this year during November, Five in 2009 and the final Three Missions during 2010 to bring the space shuttle program to a close-over 20 rocket launches worldwide are planned before the end of 2008

Lighting up times for the rest of 2008:

September 1st 20.15 BST

September 15th 19.43 BST

October 1st 19.07 BST

October 15th 18.36 BST

Clocks back one hour on October 26th at 02.00 Hours

November 1st 17.02 G.M.A.T

November 15th 16.40 G.M.A.T

December 1st 16.25 G.M.A.T

December 31st 16.31 G.M.A.T

Looking forward to 2009: 5 space shuttle launches are schedualed for this year and also sees the return of several Comets to observe and 3 that may become within Binocular range-N3 Lulin may reach 4 to 6 Magnitude-the best one predicted so far for 2009, P/Christensen (2003 K2) may reach Magnitude 9 or less, 22P/Kopff may reach around Magnitude 9, 88P/Howell to reach around Magnitude 9 next year so there are some good ones to look out for in 2009.

Artistic Launch^

The I.S.S Diagram^

The I.S.S^

Lunar Eclipse^

Comet Holmes^