*********************************** The SOCIETY for POPULAR ASTRONOMY *********************************** ==================================================== Electronic News Bulletin No. 256 2008 November 30 ==================================================== Here is the latest round-up of news from the Society for Popular Astronomy. The SPA is Britain's liveliest astronomical society, with members all over the world. We accept subscription payments online at our secure site and can take credit and debit cards. You can join or renew via a secure server or just see how much we have to offer by visiting http://www.popastro.com/ SPECIAL MEMBERSHIP OFFER If you are not already a member of the SPA, now is a great time to join! We are offering to those who receive ENBs and are not already members a SPECIAL JOINING PRICE of only £12.00, saving £4.00 on the usual UK annual rate. (Overseas rates vary but discount still applies -- see our website for details.) Join NOW by going to our secure website at www.popastro.com and click the 'Join Online' button. To claim the your discount enter JOINPROMO when asked for your voucher reference. To join by post send your details with payment to: SPA Membership, 36 Fairway, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5DU, quoting reference JOINPROMO. Please Note -- This offer is valid only until 2008 December 31 and does not apply to renewals of membership. THE BEST LUNAR OCCULTATION OF A BRIGHT PLANET IN 2008 By Jon Harper, Occultations Section Director It takes place on Monday, December 1, low in the SSW during the late afternoon/early evening. Venus, at magnitude -4.1, will be occulted at the Moon's dark limb as the Sun sets and reappear at the bright limb about 90 minutes later. The disc of Venus is 16.6 seconds of arc in diameter and is 69% illuminated, exhibiting a gibbous phase. It will take between 45 and 50 seconds for the disc to disappear behind the Moon, and subsequently for it to reappear. The Moon itself will be a waxing crescent, 3.9 days after New, and 13% illuminated. Jupiter is in conjunction with the pair at the same time and is about 2° above Venus in eastern Sagittarius. Details including graphics are in the last issue of Popular Astronomy, and also on my web page: http://snipurl.com/6is5s Predicted timings (UT) are as follows: Place Disapp. Reapp. Penzance 15:37 17:11 Bristol 15:42 17:14 Swansea 15:40 17:12 London 15:46 17:16 Birmingham 15:43 17:13 Norwich 15:48 17:17 Manchester 15:42 17:12 Hull 15:45 17:14 Douglas 15:39 17:09 Newcastle 15:43 17:13 Belfast 15:37 17:07 Edinburgh 15:41 17:09 Inverness 15:39 17:07 Peter Grego, Lunar Director, is attempting to make a web cast of the occultation from his home in Cornwall, or in the event of overcast skies, a simulation of the event. Web: www.lunarobservers.com VIEWING THE ISS TOOLBAG By Robin Scagell SPA Vice President It should be possible from the UK to view with binoculars the toolbag lost overboard from the International Space Station (ISS), and to photograph the object as a trail in the sky. But the object is faint and you will need a reasonable familiarity with the stars in order to look at exactly the right point in the sky as it comes over. It will look like a small starlike point moving fairly rapidly through the sky, easily distinguishable from a plane because it hasn't got red and green navigation lights. The ISS is easily visible, and will make a series of evening passes over the UK during the end of November and the start of December. Instructions on how to observe it can be found on the SPA website: http://www.popastro.com/ BRILLIANT CANADIAN FIREBALL IMAGED By Alastair McBeath, SPA Meteor Section Director At 00:27 UT (17:27 local time) on November 20-21, a spectacular fireball lit up the skies over Alberta and Saskatchewan in western Canada. Sonic booms were reported from various places, and the object itself seems to have passed somewhere to the east of Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta. Meteorites claimed as having fallen from it have been recovered near the town of Lloydminster in Alberta, by the Saskatchewan border. The fireball was imaged from a number of places, and there are links to video footage of it, and images of the meteorites (see the CTV.ca link), on the Observing Forum topic at: http://snipurl.com/6xgvb . Grateful thanks go to Section correspondent Jeff Brower in British Columbia, Canada too for clarifying details on the event. Though the Section normally deals primarily with fireball- class meteors seen just from the British Isles and places nearby, some of the imaging of this event was too impressive to ignore! Anyone who has spotted a fireball - any meteor reaching magnitude -3 or brighter - from closer to the UK is welcome to send in a full report as soon as possible. Advice on what details to provide is outlined on the "Fireball Observing" page of the SPA website, at: http://snipurl.com/6xgw9 . LEONIDS 2008 By Alastair McBeath, SPA Meteor Section Director A strong return from the Leonids, producing Zenithal Hourly Rates, ZHRs, up to 100 or so, happened overnight for Europe on November 16-17, probably peaking around 02:00 UT. Unfortunately, UK watchers seem to have missed out thanks to some very poor weather that night, apart from the problems posed by the bright Moon. Details on the "live" International Meteor Organization (IMO) Leonid results page, at: http://www.imo.net/live/leonids2008/ have suggested ZHRs from the shower were 35 or above from at least 23:20 UT on November 16 to 03:40 UT on the 17th, and for much of that time, seemed to have been running at more than 50. The very best activity, ZHRs 90-110, appeared to last for perhaps 20 minutes or more to either side of 02:00 UT. The actual values and timings are subject to revision as more data comes through, and need to be treated with a degree of caution because of the moonlight, but video data posted on the IMO- News e-mail list and elsewhere also supported the highest Leonid rates as happening close to 02:00 UT. A healthy number of brighter meteors was reported as present during this near-maximum activity, but it is not possible yet to say whether this was because of more bright Leonids than normal, or simply because their activity was so good. Assistant SPA Meteor Director David Entwistle has made a preliminary analysis of the radio meteor results he recorded in England, along with data from colleagues Enric Fraile Algeciras (Spain), Andy Smith (England), Dave Swan (England) and Felix Verbelen (Belgium) - full details should be in November's Radio Meteor Observation Bulletin (RMOB), via http://www.rmob.org , before mid December - plus combined results from several observers in Japan kindly provided to David by Hirofumi Sugimoto. Jeff Brower in Canada also sent in some notes from an initial survey of his own radio results from British Columbia. Activity pushed beyond that seen on days to either side due to the Leonids only from about 00h-01h UT onwards on November 16-17, but then lasted at an elevated level through till 05h-06h UT. There was a clear echo-count peak in most of the systems around 02h-03h, and a suggestion that brighter meteors may have been somewhat more prevalent from about 02h-04h UT overall. One dataset also indicated there may have been more bright Leonids again towards the "traditional", or nodal crossing-point, time, around 07h-09h UT on November 17. It is not clear if the predicted minor Leonid peak around 21:35 UT on November 18-19 was detected too. The Japanese results hinted at a possible small Leonid peak around 20h-21h then, perhaps at best close to 20:05, but no visual or video results are yet available from a similar interval for comparison. Grateful thanks are due to these contributing observers, and commiserations to all those who missed-out. Leonid rates were thus well above the usual ~15-20 at best, but interestingly, the timing of the main peak was significantly later, by between 0.5 to 1.5 hours, than any of the predictions (see ENB 254, http://snipurl.com/6xh1s ). One of the professional analysts most closely involved, Jeremie Vaubaillon at the California Institute of Technology, has since circulated some notes on IMO-News (on November 25) about what this may mean for the Earth's even closer encounter with the same meteoroid trail, laid down by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle at its 1466 AD return, next year. He suggested the timing could be 30 to 60 minutes later than the predicted peak, due around 21:43 UT on November 17-18. This could mean the maximum then might fall not far from the ~23h UT radiant-rise time for the UK, and given that ZHRs may be up to 500, it is possible something of the event may be seen from here. Further updates on this prediction are likely - see http://snipurl.com/6xhir for more. One thing is certain for the 2009 Leonid return. New Moon is on November 16! TAURID 'SWARM' RETURN UPDATE By Alastair McBeath, SPA Meteor Section Director Conflicting reports regarding the possible Taurid "swarm" return (on which see the notes in ENBs 253, at http://snipurl.com/6xh2h , and 254 - address above), perhaps including better than usual brighter meteor activity, have continued to appear since the previous ENB. The most convincing evidence remains the IMO's pair of "live" Taurid results webpages, which have still indicated elevated combined ZHRs, perhaps up to 20 on November 5, were present in the first few days of November. However, the magnitude distribution for these meteors appeared to be quite normal. Some of the late October RMOB data hinted at perhaps marginally more bright to fireball-class meteors generally for a few days near the end of the month, though this cannot be confirmed as due to the Taurids. SPA correspondent Bob Lunsford of the American Meteor Society, AMS, has recently reported an exceptionally busy November thanks to a large number of fireball reports from across North America, though as with the SPA late October fireballs noted last time, it has not been possible to identify their origins with certainty very often. The AMS fireballs listing can be found via their homepage at: http://www.amsmeteors.org . The IMO's Video Commission Director Sirko Molau reported in his monthly video review for October on IMO-News (posted on November 24) a hint of somewhat brighter Taurids near the end of October only. Regular SPA video contributor Enrico Stomeo in Italy has provided data from various better nights between October 25-26 and November 1-2 recently which also suggested slightly brighter Taurids may have been present from October 26-27 to November 1-2, but the overall Taurid numbers were small enough to make this most uncertain. Hopefully, November's complete radio and video results will reveal more. OCTOBER 5-6 FIREBALLS UPDATE By Alastair McBeath, SPA Meteor Section Director The clutch of four single-observer fireballs on October 5-6, noted in ENB 254, which were earlier suggested as possibly connected to the video-detected bright-meteor shower radiating from near Draco's tail- tip found in both 2005 and 2006, now seems less likely to have been linked to it after all. One, at 20:08 UT, had already been discounted as possibly associated from the initial report, and further information from the witness of the ~03:10 UT event has now allowed it to be excluded as possibly radiating from this Draco source too. No video confirmation of the shower was made in 2008 from Europe either. MAIN METEOR PROSPECTS FOR DECEMBER By Alastair McBeath, SPA Meteor Section Director After being full on December 12, the Moon will pass through Gemini, a few degrees south of the Geminid radiant around the shower's maximum, expected on December 13-14, within about 2h20m of 23h UT. Consequently, both Moon and radiant will be visible all night, and will be very well on-view from Britain by the predicted peak time. The radiant reaches a usefully-observable elevation for meteor watchers by about 20h UT in the UK, after which it remains nicely-placed for the rest of the night, culminating around 02h. Highest ZHRs should be ~120 judging by recent returns, a strength that means something of the peak should still be visible under clear skies despite the Moon, and Geminid rates often remain near maximum levels for 6-10 hours to either side of their best too. Geminids are medium speed and often bright meteors, though few leave persistent trains after them. Much lower Geminid rates may be seen away from the maximum night in any darker skies available between December 7 to 17, judging by activity in past years. Although the shower's parent object, Apollo asteroid 3200 Phaethon (possibly a dormant or extinct comet) passed closest to Earth since its 1983 discovery on 2007 December 10, it seems not to have affected Geminid rates then (it was not anticipated it would), nor is it expected to this time. Ursid activity usually lasts from December 17-26, but is typically low to undetectable early and late in this spell. The shower's radiant at maximum is near Kochab, the brighter of the two "Guard" stars in Ursa Minor, so is consequently circumpolar from the UK, though highest towards dawn. The shower has been greatly under-observed, thanks to its proximity to the festive season, and frequently unhelpful winter weather. This year, the peak is scheduled to fall between ~07h30m- 10h UT on December 22, in strong early morning twilight to full daylight for Britain. Maximum ZHRs can be between 10-50 or so (they were ~30 for a time in 2000, 2006 and 2007 recently), though only at very rare previous returns had the activity exceeded ~10-15. The last strongest enhancements were in 1945 and 1986, with other lesser events in 1988 and 1994. If the peak timing is unfavourable for Britain, at least there will be little moonlight, with the Moon waning to new on December 27. It is worth noting though that some of the recent enhancements have happened at times other than this predicted maximum interval. The 2007 event happened about twenty hours after the equivalent interval then, for instance. The proximity of the shower's parent, Comet 8P/Tuttle, at perihelion on January 26 this year seems to have helped produce the unusual activity in 2006-2007, and may do so again in 2009, so it would be worthwhile keeping watch throughout both December 21-22 and 22-23 this year in any better skies, just in case something happens this year too. Typical Ursid meteors are faint, and of slow to medium speed. For more information and a Geminid radiant chart, see the December meteor activity webpage at: http://snipurl.com/6xh31 . HUBBLE OBSERVES EXTRASOLAR PLANET DIRECTLY Science Daily The Hubble telescope has taken the first visible-light photo of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet-hunting ever since an excess of dust (supposed to be a sign of planet formation) was discovered around it in the early 1980s by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite. In 2004 Hubble produced a visible- light image of the region around the star and clearly showed a ring of proto-planetary debris approximately 20 billion miles across and having a sharp inner edge. That large debris disc is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles the Solar System and contains a range of icy bodies from dust grains to objects the size of dwarf planets such as Pluto. Astronomers proposed in 2005 that the ring was being gravitationally modified or 'shepherded' by a planet lying between the star and the ring's inner edge. Now, Hubble has actually photographed a point source of light lying 1.8 billion miles inside the ring's inner edge. Observations taken 21 months apart show that the object is moving along a path around the star, and is therefore gravitationally bound to it. The planet is about 10 times the distance of the planet Saturn from our Sun and is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter masses. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight. Astrometric measurements of the planet's orbit should in due course yield an accurate mass. BETA PICTORIS PLANET FINALLY IMAGED? ESO Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have imaged an object located very close to the star Beta Pictoris, and which apparently lies inside its disc. At a projected distance from the star of 8 times the Earth-Sun distance, the object is probably the giant planet that has already been suspected. If so, it would be the first directly observed planet that is as close to its host star as Saturn is to the Sun. The hot star Beta Pictoris is one of the best-known examples of stars surrounded by a dusty 'debris' disc. Debris discs are composed of dust presumed to result from collisions among larger bodies like planetary embryos or asteroids. They are bigger versions of the zodiacal dust in our Solar System. The Beta Pictoris disc was the first to be imaged, in 1984, and remains the best-studied one. Earlier observations showed a warp of the disc, a secondary inclined disc and infalling comets onto the star. Those are considered to be signs of the presence of a massive planet lying between 5 and 10 times the Earth-Sun distance from the host star. Observing such a planet so close to its star is difficult. In 2003, the team used one of the 8.2-m Unit Telescopes of the VLT to study the immediate surroundings of Beta Pictoris. Recently, a member of the team re-analysed the data in a different way to seek the trace of a companion to the star. The principle was to identify and subtract as accurately as possible the bright stellar halo. There remained a feeble, point-like source well inside the halo. To reduce the probability that it was an artefact and not a real object, suitable tests were made, and several members of the team, using three different methods, did the analysis independently, always with the same result. Moreover, the companion was also discovered in other data sets. The observations point to the presence of a giant planet, about 8 times as massive as Jupiter and with a projected distance from its star of about 8 times the Earth-Sun distance. The fact that the candidate companion appears to lie in the plane of the disc also implies that it is bound to the star and its proto-planetary disc. Moreover, it has the right mass and distance from its star to explain the disc's properties. RED SPIRAL GALAXIES RAS Most galaxies are either blue spiral ones like the Milky Way or Andromeda, or red elliptical ones. Now astronomers have noticed some red spiral galaxies that could be the missing link between the two classes. Because blue stars are generally younger and hotter, while red stars tend to be older and cooler, most bluish spiral galaxies are thought to be young compared to the reddish ellipticals. Astronomers think that spirals are actively forming stars, with the newly born stars giving the galaxies their blue colour. Astronomers at the University of Nottingham claim that in order to have spiral arms, the red spiral galaxies must have been normal, blue, ones until fairly recently, but for some reason their star formation has been stopped, and they have turned red. Whatever caused them to stop forming stars cannot have been particularly violent, or it would have destroyed the delicate spiral pattern. The red spirals tend to be found near locations crowded with other galaxies, and the scientists suspect that their environment may have played a role in slowing down star formation, although no mechanism has been identified. A galaxy's mass also affects how it ages. The red spirals tend to be more massive galaxies, and the scientists suggest that smaller galaxies cannot retain their spiral arms for long after star formation shuts down, and transform more quickly into smooth, lens-shaped galaxies. To complete the changeover into full-blown ellipticals, a violent event such as a collision between galaxies is probably also needed. A large galaxy is more resistant to disturbance by its local environment, so it is presumed that the reason that the red spirals tend to be the larger galaxies is that the smaller ones are transformed more quickly. ASTRONOMERS DETECT MATTER TORN APART BY BLACK HOLE ESO Astronomers have observed violent flares from the centre of the Milky Way. They used the VLT and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope to study light from Sagittarius A* at near-infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths respectively. Sagittarius A* is located at the centre of our Galaxy at a distance of about 26000 light-years. It is thought to be a black hole with a mass about four million times that of the Sun. Its emission is supposed to come from gas thrown off by stars, which then orbits and falls into the black hole. After several nights' waiting at the two observatory sites, astronomers at the VLT noticed that Sagittarius A* was active, and getting brighter by the minute. They immediately alerted colleagues at the APEX telescope who were able to observe the flares. Over the next six hours, the team detected violently variable infrared emission, with four major flares from Sagittarius A* . The sub- millimetre observations also showed flares, but they occurred about one and a half hours after the infrared ones. The researchers think that the time delay may be caused by the rapid expansion, at speeds of about 1500 km/s, of the clouds of gas that are emitting the flares. Although 1500 km/s sounds fast, it is only 0.5% of the speed of light. To escape from the very strong gravity so close to the black hole, the gas would have to be travelling 100 times as fast -- half the speed of light -- so the researchers believe that the gas cannot be streaming out in a jet. Instead, they suspect that a blob of gas orbiting close to the black hole is being stretched out, and that is what constitutes the expansion. INDIA'S MOON PROBE HITS MOON Science Daily The Moon Impact Probe is the first Indian-built object to reach the surface of the Moon. It hit the Moon near the south pole. Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch on board Chandrayaan-1, the MIP carried three instruments -- a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the Moon's surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface; such instruments will be necessary for future soft-landing missions. JUNO MISSION TO JUPITER NASA NASA is planning a new study of Jupiter. Called Juno, the spacecraft will placed in a highly eccentric polar orbit around Jupiter to investigate its formation, evolution and structure. Underneath Jupiter's dense cloud cover, there may be clues to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our early Solar System. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in 2011 and to reach Jupiter in 2016. It will orbit Jupiter 32 times, skimming about 4800 km above the cloud tops at perijove passages, for approximately one year. The mission will be the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from the Sun. LHC REPAIRS TO COST £14m BBC Repairing the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva is expected to cost almost £14 million. An electrical failure shut the machine down in September. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) thought it would be out of action only until November, but the damage was worse than expected. It is hoped that repairs will be completed by May or early June; the machine will not be able to be re-started until at least the end of June. The failure occurred just nine days after the LHC was turned on, with CERN blaming it on a single badly soldered electrical connection in one of its super-cooled magnets. The collider operates at temperatures colder than those of outer space for maximum efficiency, and experts needed gradually to warm the damaged section to assess it. The cost of the work will fall within the existing budget. 1000 SCHOOLS GET FREE TELESCOPES RAS >From next year pupils in 1 in 4 secondary schools will get views of the Moon, planets and stars, in one of the largest astronomical outreach projects ever seen in the UK. The Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA), Royal Astronomical Society and Science and Technology Facilities Council have collaborated to give free telescopes to 1000 secondary schools from early in 2009. The project -- Telescopes for Schools -- is part of the effort to celebrate the designation of 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy, which commemorates the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope for astronomy, work that led to a scientific revolution. Four centuries later, astronomers hope to achieve a different kind of revolution in UK schools -- using the 1000 telescopes to enthuse students about science. The project aims to attract them to astronomy and space science as well as to the underpinning subjects like physics and mathematics. The participating schools will receive a DVD with clips explaining how to use the telescopes and what they can look at. Space scientist and SPA President Dr. Helen Walker sees that as a great way to liven up science in schools. "The UK has a flourishing community of amateur and professional astronomers. Through Telescopes for Schools they can share their enthusiasm with our young people -- we hope to reach tens of thousands of pupils each year. We think every pupil should have the chance to look through a telescope, an experience to remember for the rest of their lives." MT. WILSON CELEBRATES TELESCOPE'S 100th YEAR Topix The 60-inch reflecting telescope that ushered in the modern age of cosmic exploration has marked its 100th anniversary. When it was commissioned on Mount Wilson, which overlooks the Los Angeles basin in southern California, in 1908, the revolutionary 60-inch telescope was the largest in the world and the first to explore (rather than map) the Universe. It was the brainchild of George Ellery Hale, who founded the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904 with money from Andrew Carnegie and was a pioneer in the then new field of astrophysics. Acknowledged as the forerunner of every modern research telescope -- including the Hubble -- the telescope is now retired from active science, but is the largest telescope available in the world exclusively to the public for astronomical viewing. It took only four years to build and was the first designed primarily for photographic and spectrographic use. The observatory, with its telescopes and solar towers 5,700 feet up in the San Gabriel Mountains, was once a popular tourist attraction, but many people now seem unaware of its existence and historic importance. HUNT FOR COPERNICUS' TOMB IS OVER Science Daily DNA studies on two strands of hair and a tooth have ended a centuries- old hunt for the tomb of Nicolas Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer who shocked the world by declaring that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe. The tests confirmed that remains found in Frombork Cathedral in northern Poland in 2005 are those of the man considered to be the father of modern astronomy. Born in Torun, northern Poland, in 1473, the mathematician and clergyman is celebrated for his heliocentric theory of the Universe. Polish, French and German researchers have tried for two centuries to find the tomb of Copernicus. He was a canon of Frombork, a Gothic cathedral on the Baltic-Sea coast of Poland, and was thought likely to have been buried beneath its floor. In 2005 archaeologists found the remains of a 70-year-old man in the main Holy Cross altar of the cathedral. The skull was taken to the Central Forensics Laboratory at Poland's National Police Headquarters, where computer graphics were used to create a facial reconstruction, which proved to be of an old man who bore a striking resemblance to portraits of the young Copernicus -- including a scar above his right eyebrow. Recently, scientists have compared genetic material from two strands of hair found in Calendarium Romanum Magnum, a book by Johannes Stoeffler published in 1518 and owned by Copernicus for many years, to a tooth from the skull found in Frombork. The two strands of hair found in the book have the same genome sequence as the tooth from the skull and a bone from Frombork. The Calendarium and other books that once belonged to Copernicus were taken to Sweden during the 17th-century Polish-Swedish wars and are now held by Uppsala University. Bulletin compiled by Clive Down (c) 2008 the Society for Popular Astronomy Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for a budding young astronomer? Then how about a gift subscription to the SPA's Young Stargazers' club? For just £10 a year, Young Stargazers receive an A4 file packed with information, from how to choose a telescope or binoculars, to an A-Z of astronomical terms, night-sky observing projects, and a guide to the world's biggest telescopes. The welcome pack also comes with a badge, pen and stickers, and all members receive the main SPA publications too, such as Popular Astronomy, which has dedicated Young Stargazer pages, four times a year. In January, we'll be featuring a competition to win a Meade MySKY worth £300 -- another great reason to join up! Sign up by December 15 to receive the pack in time for Christmas. The Young Stargazers section is open to anyone under the age of 16. To subscribe click on http://snipurl.com/5bre5 The Society for Popular Astronomy has been helping beginners to amateur astronomy -- and more experienced observers -- for more than 50 years. If you are not a member then you may be missing something. Membership rates are extremely reasonable, starting at just £16 a year in the UK. You will receive our bright quarterly magazine Popular Astronomy, regular printed News Circulars, help and advice in pursuing your hobby, the chance to hear top astronomers at our regular meetings, and other benefits. The best news is that you can join online right now with a credit card or debit card at our lively website: http://www.popastro.com/