Report for 2001-11-16
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
| Sunrise: 7:15 am | Sunset: 5:09 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Begins: 5:40 am | Astronomical Twilight Ends: 6:44 pm |
| Moonrise: 8:44 am | Moonset: 6:25 pm |
Leonid Meteor Shower
| In the wee hours on Sunday morning a very special and extraordinary astronomical event will take place. The event: The Leonid Meteor Shower. In fact, astronomers are predicting that this will be a meteor storm. Meteor Storms are extremely active events, where depending on your location, the peak rate could be in the range of 5000-10,000 meteors per hour! Here in the Park City area, forecasters are predicting rates of 800-4000 per hour. For more information on the meteor shower as well as some viewing tips, checkout our special report on The Leonid Meteor Storm of 2001 |
Utah Skies Star Party
| Last Friday nights Utah Skies Star Party was a wonderful success. Many people turned out to view some of the most amazing celestial bodies through some of the finest optical equipment available. The weather (surprisingly) held out, and the skies were remarkably clear and steady. For the information on events and astronomical happenings, be sure to regularly visit the Utah Skies website at www.UtahSkies.org. While you're there, subscribe to receive the weekly Utah Skies Report -- It's free! It'll make sure you know what's going on astronomically... And... it will be the only way to hear about Utah Skies Star Parties during the winter months! |
Viewing Outlook
| Forecasters are calling for partly cloudy skies this weekend. Let's hope for several clear hours at least, so that we can catch the Leonids. Additionally, since we're only a couple of days past the new moon, this would be a great time to search for those faint little fuzzies that we're always reporting on. |
Hubble Vision
| The Hubble Space Telescope has distinguished itself as a premier source of astronomical images. Amazing HST images have graced the covers of major magazines and newspapers worldwide. In recognition of the amazing advances in astronomy and physics which have come from Hubble discoveries, we'd like to devote a section of this report to some of these incredible images, and share some of them with you. Our latest comes directly from the Hubble Heritage Team. |
|
NGC6782
shows a spectacular, nearly circular bright ring surrounding its nucleus. The
ring marks the presence of many recently formed hot stars.
Two faint, dusty spiral arms emerge from the outer edge of the blue ring and are seen
silhouetted against the golden light of older and fainter stars. A scattering of
blue stars at the outer edge of NGC6782 in the shape of two dim spiral arms
shows that some star formation is occurring there too.
The inner ring surrounds
a small central bulge and a bar of stars, dust, and gas. This ring is itself part of
a larger dim bar that ends in these two outer spiral arms. Astronomers are
trying to understand the relationship between the star formation seen in the
ultraviolet light and how the bars may help localize the star formation into a
ring. NGC6782 is a relatively nearby galaxy, residing about 183 million
light-years from Earth. The light from galaxies at much larger distances is
stretched to longer, redder wavelengths ["redshifted"], due to the expansion of
the universe. This means that if astronomers want to compare visible-light images of very distant galaxies with galaxies in our own neighborhood, they
should use ultraviolet images of the nearby ones. Astronomers find that the
distant galaxies tend to have different structures than nearby ones, even when
they use the correct procedure of comparing visible light in distant galaxies
with ultraviolet light from nearby ones. Since the distant galaxies are seen as
they were billions of years ago, such observations are evidence that galaxies
evolve with time. The Hubble image of NGC6782 was taken with the
Wide
Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in June 2000 as part of an ultraviolet
survey of 37 nearby galaxies. The observations were carried out by an
international "Hubble mid-UV team" led by Dr. Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State
University. Additional observations of NGC 6782 were made by the
Hubble Heritage Team in June 2001. The color image was produced by
combining data from both observing programs that were taken through color
filters in the WFPC2 camera that isolated ultraviolet, blue,
visible, and infrared
light. Space Weather Update
 |
Checkout the huge sunspot in the center of the accompanying image. Labeled 9690, this is one HUGE sunspot. In fact, it stretches over 15 Earth diameters from end to end. That's over 190,000 miles if you do the math. Wow, that's big. Anyway...This sunspot is also home to what astronomers refer to as a tangled "delta-class" magnetic field, one that harbors energy for powerful X-category solar flares. Such an explosion could trigger a new round of geomagnetic storms and Northern Lights. Since this image was taken, earlier this week, the sun's rotation has carried 9690 further to the side. Essentially, this means that any Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's) that might occur from this sunspot would not be Earth directed. Oh, well. Hey... I wonder if this sunspot will make a return visit. There have been several sunspots in recent memory which circled the sun a couple of times. We'll see if this one does the same. Stay tuned. |
Aurora Update
|
Here's a really interesting view of last weeks aurora.
This is truly a view of Northern Lights OVER North America. You can just see
how
intense the display must have been at the northwestern and northeastern
extremes. I wonder why it narrowed to a thin band through the Chicago area?
This might be a good Dr. Astro question :) Anyway... as you can see, the skies were relatively clear throughout most of the affected area... Unlike here in northern Utah, which was mostly clouded over. This image was taken by the US Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), satellite F-15.
|
 |
Lunar
Phase
|
The Moon was full was new Wednesday night. As you
probably noticed on the Astronomical Times chart above, the moon is setting
early. You can catch a tiny sliver of a crescent moon setting in the west
shortly after sundown. As you might have guessed, you'll definitely need a decent
western horizon to view the moon this weekend. I got some nice views of the
waxing crescent Tuesday.
I took the accompanying image of a 1 day old moon down in Salt Lake City this past spring.
|
|
Planetary Report
| Venus is rising at about 6:10 am. It is still the brightest planet in the sky at mag -3.93, I see Venus frequently in the morning sky and it still looks quite impressive. If you're out before the sunrise, which is coming later and later, take a glance to the east. You'll see Venus blazing away. |  |
| Mercury is rising at
about 6:25 am. It has reached its maximum brightness now,
shining at mag -0.80. If you've been watching Mercury and Venus recently,
you will have noticed just how fast Mercury moves. It was not even visible
in the east two weeks ago. Then it came up quickly and passed Venus. Now,
its on the downward slope of its orbit and will be gone in the next few
days. Get out there and take your last couple of looks at Mercury.
Did you miss the conjunction between Mercury and Venus a week or so back? If so, you can live vicariously through my camera. I took this image a couple of days prior to the actual conjunction. Venus is the brighter object. |
| Mars is rising in the southeast around 12:55 pm. It will be high in the south-southwest by the time it gets dark. We're rapidly losing Mars. The Earth has pulled away from Mars in it's orbit. In fact, the distance between the two planets has grown from about 40 million miles this summer to almost 110 million miles. This has cause Mars' apparent diameter to shrink. It is currently down to a measly 8" as compared to its 21" in June. It has dimmed significantly as well - currently shining at magnitude 0.25 down from -2.4 in June. We had some really sharp and steady views of Mars at the Utah Skies Star Party last weekend. Unfortunately, the planet has gotten so small at this point that surface details are virtually non-existent. We'll have to wait until its next approach in the spring/summer of 2003 before we get nice views again. |
|
Saturn joins us now about 6:15
pm. Look for Saturn in the
east-northeast. Saturn has grown to an an impressive 20" -- this is
as large as it ever gets. It is currently shining at magnitude -0.36.
I took the accompanying image earlier this fall
using eyepiece projection through my 10" f/4.5 reflector at about
75x. Yeah... I know... it took me long enough to scan the image and get it
cleaned up :) Not too shabby though???
|
| Next, look for Jupiter rising around
8:25pm. Jupiter is the king of the Planets. It is more massive than
all the other planets combined. In fact, Jupiter is over 300 times more
massive than the Earth. Jupiter is currently shining at mag -2.55
and has grown to a whopping 44". Jupiter will grow to over 47"
-- just shy of it's maximum possible size of 50"..
Jupiter is the second most reflective (a quality know as albedo) planet in the solar system. Only Venus reflects more of the sun's light. Add this fact with Jupiter's immense size, and it's no wonder that Jupiter shines so brightly. I'll remind you again. You have to check out the tools section of the Utah Skies website for a cool java applet which depicts the relative position of the four major Jovian moons. It's called JavaJup. I regularly refer to JavaJup to help plan my viewing sessions. This accompanying image captures aurora on Jupiter. Even though it's over 5 times further away from the sun than the earth, it is not beyond the limit of our stars influence.
|
|
Constellation Report
| Our Constellation
Report is an easy way for people to
become familiar with the nighttime sky. We’ll discuss myths associated
with a particular constellation as well as describing the numerous deep
sky objects residing within its boundaries. 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 Triangulum the Triangle.
|
 |
Deep Sky Report
|
The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Triangulum. Triangulum is almost directly overhead if you face towards the south around 10:00pm. Triangulum is east of Andromeda and Pisces -- constellations which we've looked at in previous reports, |
|
|
Ok, let's start things off the
only Messier object in this weeks report, Spiral Galaxy M33. Also known as
the Pinwheel Galaxy or the Triangulum Galaxy, this mag5.7 galaxy is a
photographic beauty. Due to its huge size, M33 suffers from low surface
brightness -- meaning that you'll need a decent sized telescope and dark
skies to view it properly. |
| Our final stop in Triangulum
leads us to
this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object, Irregular Galaxy
NGC978(mag14). At mag 14, this is one of the dimmest objects we've ever
thrown at you. This is also a small galaxy -- less than 2' long. This,
however, might be what helps you find it. Due to its small size, it has a
fairly high surface brightness. Don't expect to see a whole bunch of
detail... Just be happy you found it. The key to finding it? Dark
skies...
and aperture. Also, you'll want to search for this object at medium power
as you might not even notice it at low powers. Once you've found it, crank
up the magnification. Good Luck! |
 |
If you are able to find all of these objects, you may be one of the
few, the proud, the Deep Sky Obsessed.
E-mail your findings to DeepSkyObservations@UtahSkies.org.
Light Pollution Report
|
The Affects of Light Pollution
on your Health Yes. Serious health risks. Consider the following findings from some of the world's preeminent medical researchers. Did you know that sleeping in a room that is not totally dark suppresses melatonin production and disturbs your natural circadian rhythm? A recent article in the Journal of Neuroscience (August 15, 2001) discusses this very connection. Even more disturbing, sleeping in a room that is not totally dark has been linked to breast cancer. In an article published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (October 17, 2001). Researchers found that "Exposure to light at night may increase the risk of breast cancer by suppressing the normal nocturnal production of melatonin...." They went on to state that "There was an indication of increased risk among subjects with the brightest bedrooms." And then concluded that "The results of this study provide evidence that indicators of exposure to light at night may be associated with the risk of developing breast cancer." So.... why wouldn't a bedroom be totally dark at night? Very often street lights or a neighbors porch or security lights shine into peoples homes from dusk to dawn. This is the case in my neighborhood, how about yours?. Do you have lights shining into your home? Are you concerned that this could have a negative impact on your health? Remember,
|
|
But, don't lose hope; Light Pollution is easily cleaned up. All we need to do is act intelligently. Here are a few, simple principles to keep in mind:
|
Next Weeks Report
Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos
and focus on the constellation Cassiopeia.
|
Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org |