Report for 2002-02-15
Welcome to the Utah Skies Report.
Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
| Sunrise: 7:22 am | Sunset: 6:01 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Begins: 5:50 am | Astronomical Twilight Ends: 7:33 pm |
| Moonrise: 9:12 am | Moonset: 9:22 pm |
Viewing Outlook
| We've had some beautiful, clear nights over the last couple of weeks. I've gotten out on numerous occasions to observe. |
Aurora Watch
Aurora have been spotted from northern
locations over the last couple of weeks. 
Amazing images have been pouring
in from all over the globe. Checkout this beautiful shot taken on Feb 6th
by Lyndon Anderson just outside
Bismarck, North Dakota. Pretty Cool, huh???
The folks over at Spaceweather.com have issue an aurora watch for Northern Europe, Canada, and the northern tier of US States. |
Space Weather Update
Things had been quieting down on the solar front. 
Sunspot numbers had fallen and the frequency of CME activity had slowed as
well. 
However, there have always been a few sunspots across the face of the sun as you can
see in the accompanying Big Bear Solar Observatory image.
But wait... just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water... SOHO
recorded a pair of CME's on February 13th. While not squarely
Earth-directed, they may deliver glancing blows on 2/14 and/or 2/15. The
further north you're located, the more likely you are to see some auroral
activity, so... stay alert!
SOHO also recorded a massive Earth-directed CME early on Thursday Feb 14th. It should reach us on Saturday. Stay alert! If you're interested in photographing the northern lights, you'll just need a few things.
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Lunar
Phase
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The moon was new on Tuesday and is just a tiny crescent
this weekend. Look for the moon to set shortly after dark tonight and the
next couple of nights.
I took the accompanying image last spring. From now until the moon reaches first quarter are ideal times to view the moon. It is well below it's peak brightness, so you'll be able to pick out the subtle details. Check it out. The craters of the moon look absolutely amazing... even in tiny telescopes. Go ahead.. pull your telescope out of the closet and go observe Earth's closest neighbor.
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Planetary Report
Pluto, the 9th planet, is rising at
about 2:45 am. At mag 13.92, Pluto is a tiny, faint little spec in a
telescope... any telescope.  It is currently
over 2.86 billion miles from
Earth. Located in the southeastern sky before sunrise, Pluto is also
not very well placed at this point for viewing. You'll have a much better
chance of viewing Pluto late in the spring or in the summer.
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Mercury is rising at about 6:10 am. 
This is about
70 minutes before the sun rises. You
know what that means??? Yup. Mercury will be visible "for a while"
in the eastern sky just before sunrise. Have you found it yet? Well...
Mercury is a bit south on this pass, making it a difficult object to view
from northern locations. Oh, well...The accompanying image shows the incredible amount of meteor bombardment which Mercury has gone through in its history. Since Mercury has no atmosphere, the marks of each and every strike are still visible on the planets surface. |
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Neptune, the 8th planet, is rising around 6:40. Shining at mag7.98, Neptune is a relatively easy target.  However, at only 2", it displays absolutely no surface detail. Almost
star-like in binoculars, it shows it's beautiful blue color in telescopes. Neptune gets this beautiful
blue coloring from a layer of Methane in its upper atmosphere.
Located over 2.8 billion miles from Earth, Neptune
has a huge circular orbit -- taking just over 164 years to orbit the Sun.
In fact, Neptune's orbit varies by less than 1% from circular. Neptune has
a couple of other claims to fame... It has the fastest wind speeds in the
solar system with gust at almost 1500 mph.Similar to Jupiter, it is categorized as a gas giant. Neptune is roughly 17 times more massive than the Earth. In another similarity to Jupiter, Neptune has a Great Dark Spot. William Herschel is credited with the discovery of Neptune in 1781. However, it had been recorded in several catalogs as a star as far back as 1690. |
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Uranus, the 7th planet, is rising at 7:25.  Shining at
mag5.92, Uranus is a relatively easy target. However, this is another tiny planet at only 3".
It is also rising at almost the same time as the sun. So... you'll have to
wait a few months to seek it out. Additionally, given it's tiny size, It displays absolutely no surface detail.
It does however show it's beautiful aquamarine color. Uranus also gets its
beautiful coloring from a layer of Methane in its upper atmosphere. Located
over 1.95 billion miles from Earth, Uranus
has a huge orbit -- taking just over 84 years to orbit the Sun. It is
categorized as a gas giant as is Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. Uranus is
roughly 14 times more massive than the Earth. Discovered by William Herschel in March of 1781,
Uranus was the first planet to be "discovered". All the others
are plainly visible, and hence have been known since antiquity. The name
Uranus was suggested for mythological reasons. Since Jupiter was the
father of Saturn, it made sense to name the next planet out Uranus -- the
father of Saturn.
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Venus  is rising about
7:55 am; about 30 minutes before the sun... Still
shining at a blistering mag -3.91 Venus is being completely
overwhelmed by the Sun. Venus slowly moving to take up the rose as the Evening Star. Checkout this cool image of Venus taken
by Brian Colville of the Maple
Ridge Observatory. |
Mars is rising in the southeast around 9:35 am.  The Earth continues to pull 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 over 171 million miles. This has caused Mars'
apparent diameter to shrink. It is currently down to a measly 5"..
a fraction of it's peak of 21" in June. It has also dimmed significantly as well - currently shining at
a wimpy magnitude 1.17 down from -2.4 in June.
Mars will return for an even better pass in 2003. In the mean time, we can live vicariously through the works of astro-photographers like Robert Gendler, who takes some of the most amazing astro-images that I have ever seen. If you haven't checked out his site, I'd highly recommend it. He has many awesome planetary and deep sky image that'll blow your mind. |
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Saturn joins us now about 12:00 pm. Look for Saturn almost overhead as it gets dark. Saturn has currently spanning an an impressive 19" -- this is just shy of it's peak size and is currently shining at magnitude 0.01 -- which is also down a bit from its brightest. Don't waste any time... NOW is a great time to view Saturn. It will stick around through the remainder of the winter and into the spring, but.. your views will be best RIGHT NOW. 
The accompanying image by the European Southern Observatory is the absolute
best ground-based image of the planet I have ever seen. Pretty cool, huh?
Saturn is, as mentioned above, a gas giant. This means that it is large and composed mainly of gas. How large? Well, Saturn is over 95 times more massive than the Earth and has a diameter that is more than 9 times that of the Earth. If you throw in the diameter of the rings, that number jumps to over 20 times that of the Earth. Wow! |
Next, look for Jupiter rising around 1:45pm. 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. Not surprisingly, Jupiter also has the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede. Jupiter is currently shining at mag -2.51 and spans a whopping 44". This is just off from it's peak of 47" earlier this winter... 
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. Checkout this beautiful image by Astrophotographer Wes Higgins. Wow! This image clearly shows the interaction between Jupiter's Great Red Spot and another huge store, a large white oval. The two storm systems have been interacting for the last few weeks and will continue to do so for several more. Many of the features visible in this image are within the reach of modest amateur telescopes. Depending on the size of the telescope and the quality of your skies, you might even do better! In fact, on an amazingly steady night last fall, I did. 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 and their shadows. It's called JavaJup. I regularly refer to JavaJup to help plan my viewing sessions. |
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. |
| NGC 4622 Spiral Galaxy Astronomers have found a spiral galaxy that may be spinning to the beat of a different cosmic drummer.  To the surprise of astronomers, the galaxy, called NGC 4622,
appears to be rotating in the opposite direction to what they expected. Pictures by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope helped astronomers determine that the galaxy
may be spinning clockwise by showing which side of the galaxy is closer to Earth. A Hubble telescope photo of the oddball galaxy is this month's Hubble Heritage
offering. The image shows NGC 4622 and its outer pair of winding arms full of new stars [shown in blue]. Astronomers are puzzled by the clockwise rotation because of the direction the outer spiral arms are pointing. Most spiral galaxies have arms of gas and stars that trail behind as they turn. But this galaxy has two "leading" outer arms that point toward the direction of the galaxy's clockwise rotation. To add to the conundrum, NGC 4622 also has a "trailing" inner arm that is wrapped around the galaxy in the opposite direction it is rotating. Based on galaxy simulations, a team of astronomers had expected that the galaxy was turning counterclockwise. NGC 4622 is a rare example of a spiral galaxy with arms pointing in opposite directions. What caused this galaxy to behave differently from most galaxies? Astronomers suspect that NGC 4622 interacted with another galaxy. Its two outer arms are lopsided, meaning that something disturbed it. The new Hubble image suggests that NGC 4622 consumed a small companion galaxy. The galaxy's core provides new evidence for a merger between NGC 4622 and a smaller galaxy. This information could be the key to understanding the unusual leading arms. Galaxies, which consist of stars, gas, and dust, rotate very slowly. Our Sun, one of many stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, completes a circuit around the Milky Way every 250 million years. NGC 4622 resides 111 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The pictures were taken in May 2001 with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The science team, consisting of Ron Buta and Gene Byrd from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and Tarsh Freeman of Bevill State Community College in Alabama, observed NGC 4622 in ultraviolet, infrared, and blue and green filters. Their composite image and science findings were presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January of 2002. Image Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: Dr. Ron Buta (U. Alabama), Dr. Gene Byrd (U. Alabama) and Tarsh Freeman (Bevill State Community College) |
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 Gemini the twins. The heads of the twins are represented by the two brightest stars in the constellation; Alpha as Castor and Beta as Pollux. The constellation is rectangular in shape with each side representing one of the twins. |
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Deep Sky Report
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The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Gemini . Gemini can be found high overhead just to the northeast of the constellation Orion which we covered a couple of weeks ago. An easy way to find Gemini is to spy it's most visible visitor... Jupiter. Yup, the mighty Jupiter has been cruising through Gemini for some time now. You can't miss Jupiter. It'll be the brightest star-like object in the sky. And speaking of stars...There are several beautiful stars to be found in Gemini.
First up is Alpha Geminorum better known as Castor. This first magnitude star is
actually made up of six stars! Two of these stars make up a beautiful visual
binary. The components are mag2.0 and 2.8 and are separated by about 5".
Both are greenish-white in color. Splitting these should be challenging,
but achievable in telescopes down to about 80mm. Castor is about 49 light years
distant and is the 22nd brightest star in the sky.
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for
2002. We've
added high resolution star charts for all of our deep sky objects. Along with
the map of the constellation which we've always had, clicking on any of the deep
sky objects will bring up a high resolution star chart centered on that object.
Hope this helps.
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Ok, let's start things off with
the only Messier object in the list Open Star Cluster M35(mag5.1). The accompanying shot taken by astro-imaging wiz Jerry Lodriguss shows M35 (large open cluster towards the upper left) and NGC2158(lower right). What a beautiful pair they make. NGC2158 will appear as a relative faint smudge in telescopes under about 6" or so. As you increase the aperture and magnification, each object move from beautiful to spectacular. |
Next we'll hit a neighboring Open Star Cluster NGC2158(mag8.6).  This
delicate beauty is actually in the same low power, wide angle view of M35.
Home to about 150 tightly grouped, faint stars, NGC2158 really requires a
bit of aperture to appreciate. It's visible in the 6", looks nice in
the 10" and is beautiful in the 25".
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Moving on we come to on of my favorite planetary nebulas NGC2392(mag8.6).  This
beautiful nebula was made famous by a Hubble Space Telescope image. We
recently viewed the Eskimo through the ObDob from a campsite in southern
Utah. It was spectacular. The nebula is fairly bright and benefits greatly
from increased magnification. You can find the Eskimo about 2.5° ESE of
Delta Geminorum. This is a fun object to view in telescopes as small
as about 8-10". Push the power and see how much detail comes into
view! You'll quickly see how this object received it's name.
I got some awesome views of this the other night. Skies were clear and dark. I pushed the magnification to about 300x and saw several distinct elements in the object. The 8th magnitude central star was a point source of light. It was surrounded by two distinctly different portions of the nebula. An inner portion enclosed within a diffuse outer halo. It was pretty cool. |
Continuing, we come to a beautiful Open Star Cluster, NGC2420(mag8.3). 
This is a sweet cluster which spans about 10' in diameter. Home to several dozen
stars, this cluster will look nice in telescopes from about 4" and up.
You'll find NGC2420 about 6.5° south of Pollux.
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| Let's wrap things up with this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object, another fine Open Star Cluster NGC2266(mag9.5). 
Given it's relative brightness, and great position overhead, this should
be a piece of cake.
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 Update
Summit County Development Plan
What follows are a few excepts from the draft of the Summit County Development Plan. As you'll see, considerable attention is being paid to dealing with this issue.
Establish lighting regulations for the amount, intensity, type, and location of all outdoor artificial illuminating devices to ensure that all such lighting is minimum, protective of the night sky, and in harmony with the resort and mountain values, while appropriately addressing safety concerns.
Architecture and other design elements shall:
Promote an aesthetic character that is fitting to the mountain environment by using a palette of building and landscape materials and forms, lighting,
signing, and other streetscape features that are generally compatible with the surrounding mountain environment.
Exterior lighting shall be minimal and must be directed down and shielded in accordance with County standards.
Because of the potential amount of commercial development in this area, the cumulative impact of lighting is a community concern. Development
shall use all reasonable measures to minimize lighting impacts, including full cut-off devices, timers, and other security devices that minimize the
need for exterior lighting.
Exterior lighting shall be minimal on hillsides.
These are all great. If we follow these simple guidelines, we'll make huge strides towards protecting the beautiful skies overhead.
Checkout the Light Pollution Section of the Utah Skies website at www.UtahSkies.org for more information on the harmful effects of improper lighting or for ideas on how to improve your lighting. Please contact us with any questions you may have or to Volunteer to help us in the fight to curb light pollution.
Next Weeks Report
Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos
and focus on the constellation Lynx.
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Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org |