1. OCWC General Meeting
April 11th, 2019
Please join us for our next bimonthly meeting for Oak Creek Watershed Council from 9:30am to 11:30am April 11, 2019. We will meet in the Hummingbird Room at the Red Rock State Park Visitor Center, 4050 Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona, AZ. Let the gatekeeper know that you are there for the OCWC meeting and receive free admission to the park.
Our April meeting will cover:
- Upcoming Volunteer Cleanups, Earth Day, & Fundraiser Events
- Presentation from Arizona Department of Environmental Quality: “Status of ADEQ’s
- Recent Activities in the Verde River-Oak Creek Watersheds”
Please view our detailed meeting schedule below:
NOTICE OF MEETING
April 11th, 2019
9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
RED ROCK STATE PARK, Hummingbird Room
Meeting Agenda:
9:30 Welcome and introductions
9:40 Round table status reports
10:05 Call for volunteers and upcoming events…Kalai Kollus, Executive Director 10:20 Short break
10:25 “Status of ADEQ’s Recent Activities in the Verde River-Oak Creek Watersheds”- Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
11:25 Next Meeting is on June 13th, 2019 from 9:30 – 11:30am, at Red Rock State Park, Hummingbird Room
11:30 Adjourn.
We hope to see you there!
2. The night sky in April is more about stars than planets, unless you want to stay up very late or get up very early.
The only planet readily visible is Mars, as a point of reddish light in Taurus to the west. Aldebaran is the other bright-red object in Taurus, and it outshines Mars. But it stays put, while Mars floats across the constellation throughout April, passing close to the Pleiades star cluster at the beginning of the month.
On April 1 and 2 before sunrise, an old crescent moon sets not far from brilliant Venus and neighboring Mercury. Then on April 8 and 9, it passes through Taurus and near the Pleiades, Mars, and V-shaped Hyades cluster. April’s full moon will look most full first thing in the morning on April 19 as it’s setting and the sun is rising. By evening, the full moon will rise in the east and be slightly smaller as it begins to wane. The bright star Spica in Virgo keeps the full moon company all night on the 19th.
Around midnight on April 23, the moon rises alongside Jupiter. In the wee hours of April 25, the moon, paired with Saturn, drifts across the night sky. On the same night, Pluto, invisible except with extra-large telescopes, lurks about as far from Saturn to the lower left as the moon is to Saturn’s lower right. As an added bonus for staying up past the witching hour, you might even spy some Lyrid meteors—the shower’s peak occurs between April 16 and 25.
The Future of Stargazing
Astronomically speaking, April is a quiet month, so now is as good a time as any to take a step back and examine the big picture.
In 1 billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy will become a large feature in the night sky, no longer requiring perfect darkness to see without optical aid. In 4 billion years, as it looms
bigger and bigger on the horizon, the outer bands of its arms will mingle with the Milky Way, and the distinct outline of the two galaxies will no longer exist. As the two giant spirals mesh together, the sky will be filled with exploding clusters of stars being born. In 7 billion years, Andromeda and the Milky Way will become one giant elliptical galaxy, with the central core glowing brightly in the sky and changing the definition of “night.”
Although it’s fair to feel a little cheated that we won’t be around to see this amazing show, we’re still viewing the sky at a unique time in history, just by getting to see stars at all. One day in the unfathomably distant future, the expanding universe will spread the stars so far apart that they’ll slip beyond the observable horizon, blinking out one by one until we’re floating alone in the dark expanse of space. Of course that’s assuming that somehow Earth survives the fate of an expanding red giant sun in 7 to 8 billion years. And it definitely won’t survive the cosmos’s continuing expansion, which is predicted to end with the heat death of the universe and the big rip, when even subatomic particles and spacetime itself is destroyed. So maybe now is not such a bad time to be stargazing after all.
One of the unique sights we get to see now that won’t exist in 600 million years is the total solar eclipse. The moon is approximately 400 times smaller than the sun, but it also happens to be 400 times closer to us, so that when the two align just right, the moon makes the sun briefly wink out. Every year, the moon moves almost four centimeters farther from Earth, so in 600 million years, it will be too small in our sky to completely block the sun, leading to the end of total solar eclipses.
The sky’s topography is changing all the time—at any moment, one of the distant stars above our heads may go supernova, flaring brightly and then fading down to nothing. So go outside tonight and look up at the stars while you can.
3. Arizona Historic Dates In April.
April 9, 1959, architetect Frand Lloyd Wright dies in at St. Josephs’s Hospital in Phoenix at age 89.
April 13, 1937, in the face of opposition from miners and ranchers, President Franklin D Roosevelt establishes organ Pipe National Monument, along Arizona’s border with Mexico.
4. We Recently Celebrated The Traditional Goofy Spoofing of April Fool’s Day. What’s Behind The April Fools Pranks.
April Fools’ Day is a yearly observance on the first of April during which pranks and silly behavior are socially sanctioned and merriment is supposed to reign. Customary practices range from simple practical jokes played on friends, family, and coworkers to elaborate media hoaxes concocted for mass consumption.
April Fools’ Day Origin
The origins of April Fools’ Day are obscure. The predominant theory holds that it dates from about 1582, the year France adopted the Gregorian Calendar, which switched the beginning of the year from what is now the end of March (around the time of the vernal equinox) to the first of January.
According to popular lore, some folks, out of ignorance, stubbornness, or both, continued to ring in the New Year on April first and were made the butt of jokes and pranks (“poissons d’avril,” or “April Fish”) on account of their “foolishness.” This became an annual celebration which ultimately spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world.
However, the earliest known historical reference to April Fools’ Day occurs in a Dutch poem published in 1561, which predates the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by some 21 years.
Another problem with the calendar-change theory is that it doesn’t account for a historical record replete with traditions linking jollity and tomfoolery to springtime dating all the way back to antiquity—and not just in the West.
The ancient Romans, for example, celebrated a festival on March 25 called Hilaria, marking the occasion with masquerades and “general good cheer.”
On April 1, 1976, famed British astronomer and radio presenter Patrick Moore announced over the BBC that a rare alignment of the planets Pluto and Jupiter would occur at exactly 9:47 a.m. during which the effects of gravity would be nullified and everyone on earth would feel weightless for a brief moment. “At 9:47, Moore declared, ‘Jump now!'” writes Alex Boese of the Museum of Hoaxes. “A minute passed, and then the BBC switchboard lit up with dozens of people calling in to report that the experiment had worked!” But it was all a complete prank, of course, one of the most famous in history.
Mexican Independence
Some of the best-known pranks in more recent years have been mounted by advertising agencies. In 1996, Taco Bell ran a full-page ad in the New York Times announcing it had purchased the Liberty Bell and would rename it the “Taco Liberty Bell.”
Burger King pulled off a similar prank in 1998, announcing the rollout of its “LeftHanded Whopper” supposedly designed so that condiments would drip from the right side of the burger rather than the left.
Internet Cleaning Day On the Internet, hoaxes are such standard fare that April Fools’ Day is barely distinguishable from any other, though a few notable pranks stand out and tend to be reposted year after year—e.g., a 1996-vintage announcement to the effect that every computer connected to the World Wide Web must be turned off and disconnected for Internet Cleaning Day, a 24-hour period during which useless “flotsam and jetsam” are flushed from the system. Don’t forget to power off!
5. EnviroInsight Provides Aloe Vera To Hundreds.
Last Sunday, EnviroInsight provided free Aloe vera plants and planting instructions/assistance to hundreds of people of all ages, who participated in the City of Glendale sponsored “Family Bike Ride”.
Over 1,000 people registered for the bike event and over 350 plants were distributed to riders. A great time was had by all.
