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A tiny day old crescent moon |
Report for 2001-06-22
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
Lunar
Phase
| The moon is only one day old at this
point. See if you can see a tiny, tiny crescent moon setting shortly after
sunset this weekend. Each night it will stay out a bit later, and grow a
bit in size. Due to its small size and early departure from the night
sky, we will basically have all night to
seek out our favorite deep sky objects. |
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| Sunrise: 5:56 am | Sunset: 9:02 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Ends: 3:49 am | Astronomical Twilight Begins: 11:09 pm |
| Moonrise: 7:05 am | Moonset: 10:34 pm |
The Week in Review
Last weekend was without a doubt the best weekend
of observing so far this year. We packed up the ObDob and headed for the high
country. From our campsite at 9400' overlooking the Strawberry Reservoir, we had
unrivaled viewing conditions. Skies were clear and dark. If you're going to be
doing any camping this summer, make sure you take your binoculars or telescope. You will get
the best views your instrument is capable of providing if you take it out of
town.
I spent Friday night
traversing through the visible Messier objects. These included M51 -The
Whirlpool Galaxy, M13 - The Hercules Cluster, M57 -The Ring Nebula. Saturday
night, I moved on to the Caldwell Objects. For those of you who are not familiar
with the Caldwell Objects, here's a brief description. The Caldwell Objects are
a list of deep sky objects assembled by David Ratledge and published in his book
"Observing the Caldwell Objects". In this book, Ratledge visits 109 of
the most amazing non-Messier Objects in the sky. Include are galaxies, star
clusters, nebulas, etc. If you're an avid amateur astronomer, you have to pick
up this book and begin seeking out these amazing objects.
| The following image of the Moon and Mars rising over Kimball Junction was obtained at a recent Utah Skies Star Party. Conjunctions like this are fairly common events. In fact, there will be several in the coming months. During July for example, we'll find the moon passing closely by such old favorites as Jupiter and Saturn as well as Mercury and The Pleiades star cluster. Stay tuned for more details! |  |
Viewing Outlook
This weekend is filled with the shortest nights of
the year. As you can also see from the table above it doesn't really get dark until
about 11:00pm
and then it only stays dark for a few hours. You'll definitely need to stay up
late to observe any of this weeks objects. Fortunately, this weeks report is
chock full of amazing deep sky objects.
Mars is clearly the star of the show at this point. It size and brightness are
providing us with the best view of the red planet in over a decade. I hope
everybody will get a chance to view it now. Additionally, we are moving
into the summer constellations. Included in these are some of the most amazing
objects we'll talk about.
Astronomy 101
In our last lesson, we spoke about star clusters. This week, we'll
focus on nebulas. "A Nebula is a huge cloud of gas and dust". Nebulas
are both the birthplace and the graveyards of stars. Nebulas come in several
distinct flavors -
Reflection, Emission, Planetary and Dark. Reflection nebula are visible because of
light from nearby stars reflecting off of it. Emission nebula are illuminated
by the stars within in. Planetary nebula are the expelled remains of aging
stars. Dark nebula are clouds of gas and dust which obscure
the light of stars beyond it. It is this darkness against an illuminated
background which we see.
Note the differences between the nebulae below.
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| Reflection Nebula Merope in Ophiuchus | M42 The Orion Nebula is an emission nebula |
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| M57 The Ring Nebula is a Planetary Nebula | The Pipe Dark Nebula |
Ok... Enough science class... Let's get out and do some observing!
Planetary Report
| Mars is rising in the southeast around 8:20pm
tonight. It will be high and to the southeast by the time it gets dark
between 10:30 and 11:00. If you happen to be outside this evening, make sure to take a
moment and glance towards the southeast. Mars will be the bright, reddish
colored star-like object. You can't miss it! Mars has grown to 21". This is the maximum it will achieve on this pass of the Earth. By the way, this is the largest Mars has appeared in over a decade! Mars has also brightened to magnitude -2.29 making it by far the brightest star-like object in the night sky. We got some spectacular views of Mars again last weekend. The details on the planets surface were impressive. I'll say it again... If you own a telescope, or know someone who does, take it out and use it. This is what you bought it for. Objects like Mars are visual treats. Mars reaches its Zenith, or highest point in the sky, around 12:30am. Best views of the planet start around 10:00pm. |
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Mars with several Messier objects in Sagittarius. Image by Michael Cole |
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Venus is rising in the east about 3:30am. While it has dimmed slightly to about magnitude -4.2, it is still by far the brightest star-like object in the sky. |
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| 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 on the constellation Ophiuchus. Ophiuchus, The Serpent Wrestler is a symbol of health and healing because of the connection with the serpent, which was a symbol of rebirth in the classical culture. It was thought that the serpent was reborn when it shed its skin each spring. |
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Deep Sky Report
The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of
Ophiuchus.
| For lack of a better strategy, lets go through this weeks objects in
numeric order. We'll therefore start with the Globular Cluster M9 (mag
7.8). Located about 3.5 degrees to the southeast of mag2.5 Eta Ophiuchi.
This globular appears as a smudge of light in binoculars. At low power in
a telescope, M9 begins to hint of the brilliance of some of the more
spectacular globulars to come.
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And, speaking of brilliant globulars, our next stop is exactly that. At mag 6.6, Globular Cluster M10 is an impressive site. Under dark skies, this object can be glimpsed with the naked eye and is an easy binocular target. Moving to a telescope reveals an incredible number of stars. Each increase in aperture seems to reveal several times more stars than the previous view. With a diameter of about 15.1 arc minutes, M10 is more than half the diameter of the full moon |
| Moving on about 3.5 degrees to the northwest we come to another impressive globular M12 (mag 6.6). These can be viewed together with a pair of binoculars or a rich field telescope. You'll immediately notice some interesting color contrasts within this cluster. Additionally, the interior does not appear to be as densely packed as its larger and brighter neighbor. |  |
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Next up is a rather unassuming globular M14(mag7.6). This object has a slightly elliptical shape. Current estimates place it about 23,000 light years away |
| Moving on, we come to Globular Cluster M19(mag6.8). M19 is fairly rich and densely packed. The brightest stars of M19 are about 14th magnitude requiring a fairly large aperture to resolve them individually. |  |
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Our final Messier object in Ophiuchus is M62(mag6.6) M62 is one of the most irregularly shaped globular clusters. This deformation may be a result of the fact that M62 is one of the closest of Messier's globulars to the Galactic center (only about 6100 light years), our galaxy's strong gravitational tug may be altering its shape. |
| Next up we come to our Utah Skies Challenge of the week, NGC6384(mag10.5). Located 5.5 degrees south of Rasalhague, the alpha star, this spiral galaxy is viewed face on. |  |
| A beautiful image of spiral galaxy NGC6384 by Dan Eldredge |
If you are able to find this object, you may be one of the few, the proud, the Deep Sky Obsessed. E-mail your findings to DeepSkyObservations@UtahSkies.org.
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Check out our updated light pollution section. In it, you'll find ways to cut your outdoor lighting bill dramatically. At the same time, you'll be helping to preserve our environment. While you're there, use our new, automated e-mail generator to send an e-mail to your government officials. Tell them that you want to see them move Utah to the forefront in combating wasteful light pollution. |
Next Weeks Report
Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos
and focus on the constellation Hercules.
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. While you're there, sign up to receive the free, fully illustrated Utah Skies Report. Many of our up coming star parties will only be announced to people on our e-mailing list. Sign up today.
