On Saturday, May 29th, dozens of Guam residents turned out for the War in the Pacific's Star Gazing event with Pam Eastlick. This event was sponsored by War in the Pacific and the Arizona Memorial Association.
People from many different villages came to look in the telescopes and use the star charts provided by the "star lady", Pam Eastlick, who works at the University of Guam's planetarium. As park visitors watched the gorgeous tropical sunset, they saw four bright stars in a long gentle sweeping curve emerge in the darkening western sky. The brightest one was Venus, speeding toward its transit on 8 June at 75,000 mph. The second brightest was the star on the left end of the curve, Sirius.
The red one between Venus and Sirius was Orion’s right shoulder star, Betelgeuse. If you skimmed over the word because you didn’t know how to pronounce it, you are not alone. The English speakers who first saw the Arabic word didn’t know how to pronounce it either, so they called it Beetlejuice and that’s how we pronounce it today. The star to the right of Venus was Capella, the sixth brightest star but Pam informed the visitors that they will all disappear into the glare of the Sun in the next couple of weeks.
Mars and Saturn have become a new sword for either Castor or Pollux in Gemini the Twins. They were a little less than two fist-widths above Venus in the 11:00 position but Mars was above Saturn. Saturn and Mars were less than two degrees apart. (Your clenched fist held at arm’s length spans ten degrees.) Upon looking straight up people saw the Moon and a very bright star. The Moon was, as it always is; half lit up. First quarter Moon was visible at 5:58 p.m.
Pam said she had been receiving many calls and e-mails about the transit of Venus. She said the transit of Venus is big news and that yes, it was visible from Guam. Pam informed the visitors that the transit started here at 3:09:13 p.m. (13 seconds after 3:09 p.m.) and that the Sun will set here on Guam while the transit is in progress. Venus was large enough (just barely) to see on the projected Sun. Pam stated that an easy way to view the transit is to take an ordinary flat hand mirror and project the Sun’s image onto a shaded white surface (like a wall) . The image will be roughly one inch wide for every ten feet it’s projected.
The National Park Service sponsored this event to thank the communities of Guam for the many years of support and patronage.
Star informormation was provided by Pam Eastlick who was the speaker and instructor at the park sponsored event.
In the photo above, Catriona Brunnemann, 5, left, looks at the moon through a telescope as her father, Eric Brunnemann, the Superintendent of the National Park Service for Guam and Saipan, holds it in place.
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of the publisher of the Pacific Daily News, Guam.
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