Report for 2001-07-20
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
Star Party
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Utah Skies is proud to announce our first public star
party. Plan on joining us for an evening under the stars at Park City's
Trailside Park on Friday night
July 20th from 9:00pm until 1:00am. Take I-80 East to US-40 South. Go to the Silver Summit Exit and head west to the park's lower soccer field. If you arrive after dark, please use your low beams or better yet, your parking lights! Everybody will appreciate this. Also, if you are unable to attend this event please help us out by turning OFF your outdoor lights for the evening. This event will be a deep sky adventure you won't soon forget - guiding you to nebulas, star clusters and even distant galaxies. As you might expect, we'll be visiting several of the objects to be introduced in this weeks Utah Skies Report. Got a telescope of your own? Feel free to bring it along. Interested in the nights itinerary? Check out the events section of the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org |
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Lunar
Phase
| The moon is new tonight. Essentially,
this means that there will be no moon visible tonight. The reason for this
is that the new moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. Anyway... this
is my favorite time of the month. It
means that I'll have an entire night of DARK viewing conditions to seek out
my favorite deep sky objects. |
| Sunrise: 6:12 am | Sunset: 8:54 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Ends: 4:15 am | Astronomical Twilight Begins: 10:52 pm |
| Moonrise: 5:51am | Moonset: 9:14 pm |
The Week in Review
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I hope you got a chance to view some of the early
morning planetary conjunctions. I caught some beautiful views Wednesday morning.
At about 4:15am, I saw a tiny crescent moon rising. Above this I saw Venus,
Saturn, Aldebaran, and The Pleiades. I simply couldn't resist the view so I got
dressed and setup my camera to snap a couple of pictures. By the time I was
ready to wrap up, I noticed Jupiter climbing above the horizon, so... I ran in
the house and got more film :)
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Viewing Outlook
The weekend weather forecast is calling for warm
temperatures and clear skies. Let's hope so. The Jet Stream is still
positioned right on top of us. This will definitely put a bit of a damper on
planetary viewing due to the increased atmospheric turbulence. Oh, well...
Planetary Report
| Mars is rising in the southeast around 6:10 pm
tonight. It will be high in the south by the time it gets dark. Have I
said this before? If you happen to be outside this evening, make sure to take a
moment and glance towards the south. Better yet, setup your telescope and
check it out! Mars will be the bright, reddish star-like object. You can't miss it! The Earth is pulling away from Mars in its orbit causing Mars to continue to shrink - it is currently down to 18" from 21". Additionally, it continues to dim slightly as well - currently shining at magnitude -1.7 Mars is still by far the brightest star-like object in the night sky. But... you'd better not waste any time. Mars will be half its maximum size and setting early by the end of the summer. Mars reaches its Zenith, or highest point in the sky, around 10:15pm. Best views of the planet start around 9:15pm. The image at right was created by amateur astronomer Ed Grafton. This is, without a doubt, one of the finest images of Mars ever taken from an earth based telescope - amateur or professional! |
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An amazing image of Mars by Ed Grafton |
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Several planets are now rising early in the pre-dawn
hours. Saturn is now the first planet to visit the morning sky, rising in the east about
2:55 am. Saturn is everybody's favorite. It's rings are clearly
visible in even the most modest telescopes. It'll remain a morning object
for the next several months before it moves into the nighttime sky this
fall. The Hubble Space Telescope image to the left has been "enhanced" to show variations in the planets cloud top.
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| Next, look for Venus to rise about 3:25am in the northeast just a degree
or two south of where Saturn rose. Look for Jupiter to rise 2 or 3 degrees further north by about 4:15am. Jupiter is an amazing object to observe. It's size and brightness reveal a wealth of details. The colorful cloud bands display lots of intricate detail as is visible in the HST image at right. Moving on, we still have Mercury rising just to the south at about 5:05 am. We'll lose Mercury within the next week or so as it races around the sun towards the night sky later this summer. |
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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 Sagittarius. Sagittarius is due east of the constellation Scorpius, which we covered a couple of weeks ago. To find Sagittarius, simply face towards the southeast after dark look towards the horizon. Sagittarius resembles a teapot with the summer Milky Way steaming out it's spout.
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Deep Sky Report
The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of
Sagittarius. The constellation Sagittarius is one of the most important regions of the sky to be known by those wishing to understand the cosmos. The Sun lies against those stars when it reaches the winter solstice, and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is in that direction. Although Sagittarius does not have any of the brightest stars, it is decorated with some of the most beautiful and interesting deep-sky objects. Many great gaseous clouds called nebulae and both small and gigantic clusters of stars are there, making it the prime part of the sky to browse with binoculars or telescope.
Sagittarius contains more Messier objects than any other constellation(15) as well as a
bunch NGC objects.
| Due
to the overwhelming number of Messier objects in Sagittarius, we'll
"limit" the focus of this weeks deep sky report to that group
only. We'll
start things off in a big way though with a Messier trio M8 - The Lagoon
Nebula(mag3.0-6.0), M20 - The Trifid Nebula(mag6.5) and an open star
cluster M21(5.9). I got several estimates on the brightness of M8. The
only thing that didn't vary was the beauty of this object. As you can see
by this beautiful Russ Dickman image, all three of these objects can fall
within the same low power field of view. M8 is the red object toward the
bottom of the image while M20 is the red and blue object above and to the
right, while M21 is just above and to the left of M20. To find these objects, I usually start at the base of the triangle which makes up the teapot's spout and then bisect the upper two stars. These objects are on this line if you extend it slightly longer than the height of the triangle. If this sounds complicated, refer to the star chart provided above.
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Continuing along the line described above brings us to another open cluster M23(mag5.5). Here again is an object which is best viewed at low power. A pair of large binoculars or a rich field telescope would be an ideal viewing instrument. |
| Moving about 5 degrees to the east, we come to the beautiful Sagittarius Star Cloud M24(mag4). Covering an area over 2 degrees across, M24 is typically surfed with a telescope. It is not a true cluster - more like a sea of stars. Aim you telescope into M24 and simply go for a ride. You'll find yourself getting lost in it's beauty. Try to count the stars... they are uncountable. |  |
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Continuing another 5 degrees or so to the east-southeast brings us to another fine open star cluster M25(mag4.6). This grouping of a few dozen stars seemingly superimposed against the Milky Way is actually much larger. Estimates place its membership at nearly 600 stars. |
| Moving up and to the west about 2 degrees brings us to our next object, the open star cluster M18(mag6.9). This object covers a large chunk of sky and is best viewed at low power. |  |
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Continuing up another degree brings us to the Omega Nebula M17(mag6.0). M17 is second only to the Orion Nebula in brightness for viewers in the north. In fact, it should be visible to the unaided eye from a nice dark sky location. Don't expect to see as much red as this picture contains. To view The Omega Nebula like this requires a long duration image. |
| Dropping down just a couple of degrees to the south brings us to a sweet globular cluster M22(mag5.1). M22 is one of the nearer globular clusters at 10,000 light years. It actually outshines the mighty Hercules cluster. Were it not for this clusters far southern location, it would undoubtedly be a much more popular object. |  |
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Moving about 4 degrees to the west we come to another globular cluster M28(mag6.8). This beautiful cluster forever lives in the shadows of it's bigger neighbor to the east, M22. It has a dense core and it's outer stars should be resolvable in a 4-6" telescope. |
| Next, we drop down into the body of Sagittarius. Along the bottom row, about 1.5 degrees west-southwest of Zeta Sagittarii, the southernmost star of Sagittarius' teapot, we come to globular cluster M54(mag7.6). In 1994, it was discovered that M54 was probably not a member of our Milky Way at all, but of a newly discovered dwarf galaxy! This galaxy is now called SagDEG, for Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, and is one of the most recently discovered Local Group galaxies. |  |
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Continuing along this line about 3.5 degrees, we come to another globular cluster M70(mag8). This cluster which is estimated to be about 28,000 light years distant is located very close to the galactic center. As you observe M70, you'll notice that the core is extremely dense. |
| Moving west another 3 degrees brings us to yet another globular cluster, M69(mag7.7). M69, similar to its neighbor M70, is one of the smaller and fainter globular clusters in Messier's catalog. Estimates place it's diameter at roughly 55 light years across and its distance at 27,000 light years. |  |
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To find our next object globular cluster M55(mag6.4) we need to jump towards the eastern edge of Sagittarius. M55 is located about 8 degrees east-southeast of Zeta Sagittarii. Its total luminosity is estimated to be around 100,000 times that of the Sun. |
| Our final stop takes us to this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object
globular cluster M75(mag8.5). Located on the extreme eastern edge of
Sagittarius, in an area with few stars to guide by, M75 is a bit of a
challenge to locate. Lets try anyway. Star at the star 40 Sagittarius and
move east-northeast to the star 52 Sagittarius. Continue along this line
for the same distance and you should be sitting on M75. Good luck :). At a distance of nearly 60,000 light years, M75 is one of the more remote of Messier's globular clusters. M75 is also one of the more compact, concentrated globulars. Because of this and its distance, larger scopes are required to resolve it into individual stars. |
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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. Recently, 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 Scutum.
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Utah Skies is proud to announce our first public star
party. Plan on joining us for an evening under the stars at Park City's
Trailside Park on Friday night
July 20th from 9:00pm until 1:00am. We'll take you on a deep sky adventure
you won't soon forget - guiding you to nebulas, star clusters and even distant
galaxies. As you might expect, we'll be
visiting several of the objects we introduced in this weeks Utah Skies
Report. Got a telescope of your own? Feel free to bring it along. Stay tuned for more details on this and other upcoming events by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org |