Notice the clarity of the details visible in this image. Orbiting the earth at some 200+ miles means that Hubble does not have to deal with the distortions caused by our own precious atmosphere.)
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
Weekend Viewing Conditions Outlook
| Sunrise: 6:52 am | Sunset: 8:04 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Ends: 5:14 am | Astronomical Twilight Begins: 9:41 pm |
Aurora Alert!
We're definitely in the groove now!
Yet another Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejection was detected Thursday morning.
It happened at 1025 UT (6:25 am EDT). Yet another powerful X-class solar flare exploded near sunspot group 9415. The blast triggered
an hour-long radio blackout across the Atlantic Ocean, Europe and parts of Asia, and hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth.
That makes two such clouds currently heading for our planet. A renewed episode of geomagnetic
or auroral activity could begin late
Friday or Saturday when the CME's arrive.
Aurora are a spectacular sight. If at all possible, make sure you get outside
and take a look a couple of times each of the next couple of nights. If we experience
aurora or the northern lights, and clear skies of course, you'll be
glad you did.
Additionally, this could be a major photo op. Get your cameras ready.
For best results, use a fast film (ASA 400 is good, ASA 800 would be ideal)
Set you camera on tripod or other stable base.
Use a cable shutter release if you have one. This will keep your star images nice and sharp.
I'd recommend that you take multiple exposures ranging from 2-20 seconds (longer with slower
films).
Set your camera to use the lowest available f-stop setting.
If you'd like, e-mail us your images and we'll put some of the best images up on the Utah Skies web site.
Lunar Phase
The moon will be approaching last quarter this weekend.
At this point, the moon is said to be waning, or shrinking from full back to new.
As the moon shrinks in size, it also dims noticeably. Whenever the moon is less
than half illuminated, viewing conditions are at their best. Additionally, the moon will rise later and later each night, giving us more time to enjoy
some of our favorite deep sky objects.
Planetary Report
In our planetary report today we move on to the red planet, Mars.
|
Notice the clarity of the details visible in this image. Orbiting the earth at some 200+ miles means that Hubble does not have to deal with the distortions caused by our own precious atmosphere.) |
Mars can be seen rising in the east shortly after midnight. It will continue to rise earlier and earlier. By mid June, Mars will be rising shortly after sunset. Mars is also moving closer to us. More accurately, the Earth is moving closer to Mars. Since we have a smaller orbit than Mars, we are essentially passing Mars on the inner lane. The distance between Earth and Mars will be cut in half over the next several weeks. Additionally, Mars' apparent diameter will more than double and it will brighten by almost a factor of 7. This should make this summer one of your best opportunities to observe Mars in years. It has long been noted by astronomers that once Mars exceeds 10'' in diameter, it begins to reveal significant surface detail. Well, that event occurred just a couple of weeks ago. Mars will continue to grow to over 21'' this summer.
| A view of Mars through a telescope is captivating. On nights of very good seeing Mars offers up views of "continents" and polar ice caps. The image at right was taken through a Takahashi refractor by astro-photography wiz Robert Gendler of Connecticut. Views like this will be readily attainable in small amateur telescopes all summer long. |  Views like this are readily achievable in quality amateur telescopes. |
| And speaking of telescopes...Previously, we've spoken about reflectors and refractors. This week we'll briefly discuss catadioptric or compound telescopes. These telescopes are essentially a mix between reflectors and refractors having both a lens and mirrors. The most popular implementations of this style include Schmidt and Maksutov Cassegrains. These are some of the most popular telescopes available to amateur astronomers, providing both high quality images and an extremely portable design. Utah Skies is fortunate enough to have an Orion Mak-Cass(called the Argonaut). The 6" version of this design fits easily in the overhead bins on planes or the backseat of your car, making it an ideal "travel" scope. This scope also produces nice sharp images of the planets or the moon as well as having enough size to use it for deep sky observing. Objects such as the Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy and the Hercules Cluster look spectacular in it. This scope is an all-around performer. |  |
Constellation Report
Our Constellation report is an easy way for people to become familiar
with the nighttime sky. We’ll discuss myths associated with the various
constellations as well as describing the numerous deep sky objects residing
in the area. No equipment is required to view the constellations, though
a star chart can be quite helpful. This ease of observing makes constellations
a natural place to begin your journey to the stars. This weekend we’ll
focus in on the constellation Cancer.
Cancer
To find Cancer, turn to the west. Cancer is quite dim, so you'll need
to make sure that there are no lights hindering your effort. Cancer sits between
Gemini, which we discussed last week, and Leo, which we'll be discussing
shortly.
Cancer, the crab, is the most invisible of the constellations. Your main
challenge in studying this constellation will be finding it. Not a single star
in cancer is brighter than mag 4. In fact, one of our deep sky objects,
discussed below, is brighter than the brightest star in Cancer.
Deep Sky Report
Our Deep Sky report examines Cancer in more detail.
| First stop, the beautiful open star cluster M44 (mag3.1). M44, also known as the Beehive Cluster, appears as a fuzzy star to the naked eye. The ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus referred to M44 as "Little Cloud". There are some 200 stars which are visible in a telescope. M44 is located approximately 515 light years away. (Remember light years? The distance light travels in a year. A light year is approximately 6 trillion miles). We'll leave the conversion to miles as an exercise for the reader ;) I viewed M44 late Tuesday night when I happened upon a clear chunk of sky. The brightness of the cluster contrasts greatly with the dark background of the night sky in that area. |  |
 |
The next stop on our tour of Cancer is another open star cluster, M67 (mag 6). M67 sits just 2* west of alpha Cancri making it another easy find. If you're using a telescope, you'll want to make sure that you have a telrad finder. These function like an illuminated gun sight and make finding deep sky objects a snap (sort of;). M67 is considerably more distant that M44 at 2600 light years. M67 is one of the oldest known star clusters. Estimates place its age at between 4 and 5 billion years. |
| Our final stop in Cancer is our Deep Sky Challenge of the week, spiral galaxy NGC2776 (mag 10.1). This galaxy is beyond the reach of binoculars, but should be readily visible in a telescope. It has a bright central core, with a distinctly fainter outer area. Deep sky images reveal an additional outer layer, but this is surely beyond the reach of all but the largest amateur telescopes. |  |
If you are able to find these object, you may be one of the few, the proud,
the Deep Sky Obsessed. E-mail your findings to DeepSkyObservations@UtahSkies.org.
Light Pollution Update
Let's look at motion detectors in more detail. Motion
detectors ensure that your outside lights are turned on whenever there is
someone outside and off when they're not needed. Most homes, however, do not
make use of such energy efficient technology.
Take for example this typical looking house which by day looks just like any other house. At night however you'll notice huge quantities of light emanating from the property. The photo at right was taken at 12:30 in the morning. Also notice the huge flood lights beaming in all directions from a local business. |
 |
 |
The effect of all this wasted energy...Global light pollution. This
image, which was composed from a series of defense department
satellite photos, shows the scope of the problem.
Virtually every city and town on the planet is represented here. Estimates place the cost of this waste at over $2 billion for the US alone! |
Next Weeks Report
Next week, we'll focus on double stars and high end refractors.
Closing
This "Star Cast" has been presented by Utah Skies.
View-tah’s Astronomy Home. Utah Skies can be found on the World Wide Web
at http://www.UtahSkies.org. Visit
our site and discover the cosmos. We have numerous images of deep sky objects
such as galaxies, nebulas and star clusters. We also have lots of astronomy-related
information as well as links to other astronomy sites. Utah Skies is also
your best source of information on light pollution.
