Welcome to the Observatory's Front Page. Included here are some of the latest news and articles that may be of interest to our visitors.
FAU's Astronomical Observatory is housed under a four meter diameter dome on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University. We welcome students, faculty, staff and members of the general public to join our scheduled observations or our public viewing events. Our telescope is mounted on a small platform, at the top of stairs, looking out of the roof of our building, over Boca Raton, to space and beyond!
Updated: Feb. 25th, 2025.
There are a variety of events coming up for the month of March.
Aria Rudnick, I am very glad to be a source of inspiration to you with your frequent visits to our Observation sessions and thank you for mentioning the FAU Astronomical Observatory in your TEDx talk about your passion and quest to unite the arts with science! I also feel that people can learn science better when presented in a story-like setting, especially when it includes its historical background. To learn more about Aria’s vision and hear her talk, use this link:
The Stage Is My Lab: Using Theatre To Share True Science | Aria Rudnick | TEDxNBPS Youth
i – Imaginary Number Day
You may have heard of Pi Day – March 14th (as in 3/14 as the first 3 digits of the mathematical constant of π). That day is also Albert Einstein’s birthday, the day that Steven Hawking died, and the anniversary of Uranus’s discovery, too. Well, I came across a Reddit discussion about an idea of days for the other mathematical constants. A day to represent the imaginary number was proposed by Putty Putman on his webpage ( https://www.puttyputman.com/post/imaginary-number-day ). His argument seems quite reasonable, so I decided to follow his lead on this and mark the day to be declared so, too. What could one do on such a day? Well, people could dress up in fantasy inspired clothing or like the mathematician Leonhard Euler (though I’m not certain how to wrap that hat-cloth of his!) or play complex games or eat imaginary food! Others could offer up even better ideas. Would it be silly? Of course it is! And why not have such a day? It would give mathematicians chances to have fun with it and provide them a “teaching moment opportunity” to talk to others about this difficult to ponder concept for most folks, and yet show how we actually use it, such as the discovery of anti-matter. Have you ever had a PET scan done? That is an example of medicine capturing and imaging anti-matter positrons that are emitted out of your body!
Target Observations for Friday Apr. 4th's Public Viewing Session:
Now that the vernal equinox has passed, we look up to see the night sky quickly change as the winter night’s wonders keep shifting westwards and disappear into the quickly growing daylight. This will be our last chance to see bit of the outer Milky Way Galaxy before they return by Nov. This region is chock full of interesting things to see, such as the distant "intergalactic wandering" globular cluster (NGC 2419), the "UFO Galaxy" (NGC 2683), Castor (a triple binary star system) and Pollux (the closest red giant star to us), the "Eskimo Nebula" (NGC 2392), "Cluster 37" (NGC 2169), the complex Xmas Tree OC & Cone Nebula (NGC 2264), the open cluster NGC 2244 seen through the Rosette Nebula, Orion's Running Man (NGC 1977) and Great Nebulae (M42), the triple dividing open cluster M48, Messier's Lost Cluster (M47), Caroline's Cluster (NGC 2360), the Butterfly Cluster (M93), the Tau Canis Major Cluster (NGC 2362), the syzygy of the 2 open clusters in NGC 2451, and one of the best open clusters in the sky: NGC 2477.
There will be a first quarter Moon that night which will be in the constellations of Gemini less than 10° away (a fist’s diameter held at arm’s length) from Mars. The planet will start by showing a good view of Syrtus Major Planum (near where Perseverance is exploring) and the Hellas Basin, two of the most easily recognizable features on the red planet. Jupiter and Uranus and their moons will appear in Taurus. At 7:44 pm, Jupiter will have its moon Io at mid-transit just north of its Great Red Spot.
