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| How close can You get? |
Report for 2001-06-29
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
Lunar
Phase
| The moon is a couple of days past 1st
quarter on its way to full next Wednesday. Due to its brightness and
relatively late departure, well into the wee hours, we will basically be fighting
the moon if we seek out our favorite deep sky objects. So... why
fight it? Given
the increasing brightness of the moon, I'd actually focus a good deal of
my efforts on the moon The moon is a great place to discover or
rediscover a love of astronomy. See how many of the craters you can identify
on the moon. Views like the image to the right are readily achievable in
amateur telescopes. There are many books which show the names of all the visible
features on the lunar surface. |
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| Sunrise: 5:58 am | Sunset: 9:03 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Ends: 3:52 am | Astronomical Twilight Begins: 11:09 pm |
| Moonrise: 3:21 pm | Moonset: 2:15 am |
Viewing Outlook
After a cranky start this week, the skies have
cleared. The weekend forecast is calling for dry and clear. Let's keep our
fingers crossed.
Astronomy 101
In previous lessons, we've spoken about stars and star
clusters and nebulas. If we compare our journey to the farthest galaxies to a
flight around the world, our airplane has not yet traveled 1000 feet! This week,
we leave behind the familiar Milky Way and penetrate deep into space, out among
the vast clouds of galaxies. A Galaxy is a vast island universe. In fact,
galaxies are so far away and so faint that they went undetected until telescopes
had grown large enough to gather significant amounts of light. As you might expect, there are many different types of galaxies. Each type of
galaxy is also classified by how closely it conforms to the "standard"
of that type.
The main types of galaxies are Spiral, Barred Spiral, Elliptical and Irregular.
Spiral Galaxies are some of the most beautiful objects in the sky. They
typically display a bright central region with graceful spiral arms.
Barred Spiral Galaxies are similar to Spiral Galaxies except for the fact that
they have elongated central regions.
Elliptical Galaxies are the most common type of galaxy. They are typically round
or elliptical in shape and do not have any distinct arms.
Irregular Galaxies have no obvious core or arms. Additionally, they tend to be
relatively small and faint.
Note the differences between the various types of galaxies below.
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| Spiral Galaxy M63 as imaged by the Subaru Telescope | Barred Spiral Galaxy - NGC1365 |
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| Elliptical Galaxy M87 | Irregular Galaxy M82 as imaged by the Subaru telescope |
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| Warped Spiral Galaxy ESO510-13 | A collection of edge-on spiral galaxies as imaged by Robert Gendler |
Ok... Enough science class... Let's get out and do some observing!
Planetary Report
| Mars is rising in the southeast around 7:45pm
tonight. It will be high and to the southeast by the time it gets dark. 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
is falling behind us in our orbital race and has
already started to dim slightly - currently shining at magnitude -2.19
Mars is still by far the
brightest star-like object in the night sky. 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. You may want to get a good chart of Mars. This will help you identify features visible on the surface of the red planet. Mars reaches its Zenith, or highest point in the sky, around 12:00am. Best views of the planet start around 9:30pm. |
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This image shows the entire surface of mars as recorded by the Mars Global Surveyor |
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Venus is rising in the east about 3:25am. While it continues to dim slightly to magnitude -4.16, it is still by far the brightest star-like object in the sky. See if you can notice it's changing phase. |
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| We've got some newcomers on the planetary scene now.
Old favorites Saturn and Jupiter are beginning to rise shortly before
sunrise. Look for Saturn to
rise about 4:10am in the northeast and Jupiter to rise slightly further
north by about 5:15am. As if this wasn't enough, Mercury rises between the
two at about 5:05 am. The month of July will provide us with several conjunctions like the one to the right. |
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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 move on to the constellation Hercules, the most famous hero of them all. Hercules was born of immortal Zeus following one of his many affairs with a mortal woman. |
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Deep Sky Report
The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of
Hercules. The constellation Hercules is an astronomical treasure chest.
Hercules contains 2 of the finest globular clusters in the sky as well as a huge group of galaxies, perhaps more than a thousand of
them.
The most distant members of this group are estimated to be in excess of 8
billion light years away!
| We'll
start things off with the biggest and brightest Globular Cluster in
northern skies M13 - The Hercules Cluster (mag7.8). Visible to the naked
eye as a “fuzzy” star, this object is absolutely breathtaking in a
telescope. Typical reactions of viewers range from “Oh, my god!” to
“Wow! They look like diamonds”. This is an object that handles
magnification well, with each increase revealing additional layers of
stars. M13 is located about 2.5 degrees south of Eta Herculis. I usually tell people to look about 2/3 of the way up the western side of Hercules torso to find this object.
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Next up is
another fine globular cluster, M92 (mag6.5). Burnham noted that if M92
were located in any other constellation, it would be considered a
showpiece. Instead, it plays second fiddle to M13. Oh, well. Such is
life J M92 appears considerably more compact than M13. |
| Moving on,
we come to yet another globular, NGC6229 (mag9.4) Located about ½ degree east of Tau Herculis, this tight cluster will challenge your telescopes resolving powers. You’ll probably need at least 8” to begin resolving the stars in this cluster. |
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Our final
object is the Utah Skies Challenge Object of the Week, Planetary Nebula
NGC6210 (mag9.3), also known as the Turtle Nebula. This Hubble Space Telescope image captures in detail the shrouds of gas surrounding dying, sun-like stars (called planetary nebulae). |
| A Hubble Space Telescope image of the Turtle Nebula |
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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Utah Skies has been busy combating light
pollution. During the past week we helped residents of Draper City
deal with some obnoxious lights in their neighborhood. The meeting, which included residents
and representatives of both Draper City and Utah Power and
Light, focused on the area's excessive, wasteful use of light and how
to more efficiently and effectively handle the area's lighting
requirements. In the end, light shields were tested to see how
effectively they channeled the fixture's light. Additionally, it was
discovered by all that the bulbs which had been installed were far too
powerful for this area. So, the Utah Power and Light representative
promised to replace all of the offending bulbs with lower powered
bulbs. In the process, it was discovered that this remedy would also
save the city a considerable amount of money. All in all, it was a winning
situation for all involved. Do you have annoying lights in your neighborhood? If so, realize that you can do something about it. Call your local government and tell them that you expect them to use lighting intelligently. Let Utah Skies know what your issue is; perhaps we can help. We're going to reclaim our skies... one star at a time. |
Next Weeks Report
Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos
and focus on the constellation Scorpius.
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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. |