January Surfin' English - Internet Astronomy
COMET MCNAUGHT, photographed after sunset on January 7 from Bad Mergentheim, Germany.
This picture is copyright Jens Hackmann and I found it on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website. Click on the picture to see a larger version.
Here is our first supplemental Surfin' English blog. Remember, this blog will sometimes be a little harder to read than the article in the Asahi Weekly. I will use more detail to describe things, and maybe some longer words. But if you look on the right side of the page, you will find links to dictionaries and a thesaurus that will help you understand. Also, you can ask me questions about the topics you are interested in. I would love to help you learn more about the topics, and about English grammar in general.
For our January article on Space websites, I have a couple of extra websites to show you. Here are some words that might help you understand.
Comet - 彗星
Planet - 惑星
Solar System - 太陽系
Astronomy - 天文学
supplemental - 補足
discouraged - 落胆させた
latitude (lat) - 緯度
longitude(long) - 経度
Easy Links
Wikipedia has a section that is written in simple English. The simpler words make difficult topics easier to understand. Visit this site to read about astronomy, and maybe you can come back here and let me know what you thought.
This is called Astronomy for Kids, but it is actually for everyone. I love this website. You can learn about the planets, interesting events in the sky, and you can even send email postcards to your friends with great pictures of the sky. It's a great introduction to Astronomy and the words we use.
Intermediate-Advanced Links
If you are interested in amateur astronomy, you might find this site interesting: The Night Sky Map.
This site shows a map of the night sky for the Tokyo region. To use it, just go to the website on a clear night, print out the page, and then take it outside with you.
How to use the map
When you get outside, face south, and then look at the bottom of the map. What you will see in the sky is the same as on the bottom of the map you just printed out.
What are those funny looking letters?
The funny letters are how astronomers label the planets. All the symbols are described on NASA's website right here at NASA's Solar System Page.
But I don't live in Tokyo!
No problem, you can use this map in most of Japan. But, if you live in the far North (Hokkaido) or the far South (Okinawa or even Kyushu), you can change the map to match your city by finding out what latitude and longitude your home is at.
Go to Lat-Long Finder and zoom the map in by double clicking on Japan and then clicking the “+” button a couple of times. Then double-click on your area, and look below the map to find your latitude and longitude.
For example, I clicked on 福岡 and found this:
Latitude = 33.6512, Longitude = 130.6055
Lat = 33 degrees, 39.1 minutes North
Long = 130 degrees, 36.3 minutes East
Then I went back to the Night Sky page, and I scrolled down the page to “observing site”. I typed in the numbers I just found for my latitude and longitude if I lived in Fukuoka, (33.6512 North, 130.6055 East), and pressed “Enter”. Then I received the Fukuoka night sky map!
Are we finished yet?
One last thing. If you live in an apartment building or in the countryside, you have a chance to see the comet in the picture above. Comet McNaught is really close to the sun right now and very bright. In fact, it is one of the brightest comets in decades (according to APOD). (Click on the picture at the top of the post to see it clearly.) You can see the comet from about 6:00AM-6:20AM in the east-southeast, and from about 5:15PM-5:35PM in the west-southwest. You should be able to see it for most of this month.
I found all of this information about Comet McNaught at Space.com. But their article is a bit difficult to understand because they use many special astronomy words (jargon). If you don't understand the article, don't be discouraged. Most English speakers wouldn't understand either.
So. We had a difficult topic this month, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. That's my job. (And astronomy is my hobby.)
Public Observatories in Japan
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office
Misato Observatory in Wakayama
Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory
Ayabe Astronomical Observatory in Kyoto
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
