dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (12/31/85)
If you`re looking for an astronomical way to celebrate the New Year, keep listening. Some ideas -- in a moment. December 31 Astronomical New Year`s Eve On this date in the year 1839, a famous family of astronomers held a New Year`s Eve party inside the tube of a telescope! Sir John Herschel -- son of Sir William Herschel -- had just had his father`s famous 48-inch reflector dismounted, and laid on its side. The tube for the telescope was 40 feet long, and five feet in diameter -- a bit cramped -- but not bad for a party if people stayed sitting down. The Herschel family made up the party, and a special song was sung| "In the old telescope`s tube we sit, And the shades of the past around us flit. His requiem sing we with shout and din While the old year goes out and the new comes in." The elder Herschel, Sir William, had used the old 48-inch telescope to sweep the skies for nebulae, or great clouds of gas between the stars. In 1789, he used it to discover a world in our solar system -- Mimas, one of Saturn`s icy moons. If you`re looking for an astronomical way to celebrate the New Year, how about this? Tonight the brighest star in the sky, Sirius, reaches its highest point in the southern sky at midnight. This event is called the "midnight culmination" of Sirius -- and it just so happens to come every New Year`s Eve. So if you`re celebrating around midnight tonight, take a moment to look outside. The brightest star up there will be Sirius -- shining faithfully from high in the south -- ringing in the New Year. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin