Sky Guide Africa South 2011 on the shelves

Sky Guide Africa South 2011

The Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa

Sky Guide Africa South is an invaluable practical resource for anyone who has even a passing interest in the night skies of southern Africa.
Prepared yearly by the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa as a reference work for the novice, amateur and professional astronomer, it continues the tradition of the well-established Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa.
It presents a wealth of information about the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors and bright stars in a clear and accessible way, accompanied by a number of diagrams to support the text.

 Comprising 128 pages in A5 size, it is published and distributed by Struik Nature and is available from bookshops or on-line bookshops such as Loot.co.za or

• Kalahari.net
• Loot
• Exclusive Books

The recommended retail price is R85.

Ns. Ek was so bietjie teleurgesteld in die kopie wat ek as ASSA-lid ontvang het. Van die bladsye het swak gedruk - die registrasie was uit en dubbelle geblurde letters was die gevolg. So blaai eers mooi deur voor jy koop. (Hannes Pieterse)

Icy Particle Spray - Comet Hartley 2.

This movie made from images obtained by NASA's EPOXI mission spacecraft shows an active end of the nucleus of comet Hartley 2. Icy particles spew from the surface. The specks move as the movie toggles back and forth. Most of these particles are traveling with the nucleus. They are fluffy "snowballs" about 3 centimeters to 30 centimeters (1 inch to 1 foot) across.

The images for the movie were obtained by the Medium Resolution Imager on Nov. 4, 2010, the day the EPOXI mission spacecraft made its closest approach to the comet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Michael A'Hearn. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

For more information about EPOXI visit http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi and http://epoxi.umd.edu/.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/Brown

NASA Nanosatellite Studies Life in Space, Demonstrates Technology

O/OREOS Nanosatellite Inspection

From left, Charlie Friedericks and Giovanni Minelli, with the NASA’s Ames Research Center inspect the Ames-managed O/OREOS nano satellite at Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, Oct. 17, 2010, in advance of the satellite's planned launch into orbit.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force/Lou Hernandez


 NASA Nanosatellite Studies Life in Space, Demonstrates Technology

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA is preparing to fly a small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread that could help answer astrobiology’s fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The nanosatellite, known as Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS, is a secondary payload aboard a U.S. Air Force four-stage Minotaur IV rocket planned for launch on Nov. 19, 2010. 

• Read more...