Well.. it seemed like solar activity was thinking of subsiding... Perish the thought! Late Sunday night (2/17), a huge solar filament collapsed near the Sun's south pole. This caused an HUGE CME to be hurled into space.  Checkout this amazing SOHO extreme ultraviolet image of the a huge magnetic loop of superheated solar material. 

Additionally, on Wednesday(2/20), sunspot 9825 hurled no less than three CME's into space. While none of these were squarely earth-directed, there are indications that they might deliver glancing blows to the Earth's magnetosphere when they  pass on Friday. Let's hope so. 

Additionally, the Earth was in the midst of a series of solar wind gusts for most of last weekend. Unfortunately, the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) was tilted towards the north at that time. This is it's most northern light resistant position. Oh, well... let's hope that's changed by the time the CME's arrive ;)

Checkout www.Spaceweather.com for up to the minute information on solar activity. 

 Hey.. wanna checkout some neat images from the last series of auroral activity?  

On February 1st, a new visitor to our solar system was spotted low on the western horizon. Discovered independently by Kaoru Ikeya of Shizuoka prefecture, Japan, Daqing Zhang in Henan province, China,  Comet Ikeya-Zhang is currently cruising north through the constellation Cetus. Astronomers believe that the comet (currently around mag8.5) will brighten significantly in coming months... possibly even to naked eye levels. You can be sure that we'll be following this one closely as it's peak of brightness is expected to be towards April... Just in time for the start of the 2002 Utah Skies Star Party Season.

If you want to get an early jump on viewing Comet Ikeya-Zhang, checkout this ephemeris page. 

The moon reached first quarter on Wednesday. It is again growing larger and staying up later each night. Don't fight it. Add the moon to your list of observing targets. It is, after all, the closest celestial object to be viewed... offering up far more detail than any other celestial object. In fact, it looks impressive in virtually any telescope. So... You might as well get to know our closest neighbor.

The accompanying image of the Ray Craters Tycho and Copernicus was taken by Steve Mandel and the Hidden Valley Observatory. Take note of the incredible amount of detail captured in the image. You can see stuff just like this with a modest telescope. So... what are you waiting for????

Mercury is rising at about 6:05 am. This is about 75 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...

Mercury is always difficult to view. Typically, I'm happy just to see it at all. If I can get a decent telescopic view of it... that's a bonus. What makes Mercury so difficult to view? Well, because it is the innermost planet, Mercury never gets more than 28° away from the Sun. Because of this, Mercury is usually too close to the Sun to be seen at all. On those times when it is further away from the Sun, it is always low on the horizon... the worst part of the sky to view through.

The accompanying image of the Degas Ray Crater 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.

Venus is rising about 7:50 am; almost 40 minutes after the sun... Still shining at a blistering mag -3.91 Venus is being completely overwhelmed by the Sun. But, Venus is slowly moving to take up its role as the Evening Star. Watch as it climbs higher and higher in the western sky over the next few months. By late spring, Venus will dominate the night sky. 

Did you know that Venus goes through phases? No... not those kind of phases... Phases of illumination, like the moon. It's true.

Checkout this Ultra Cool... Ultra-Violet image of Venus taken the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mars is rising in the southeast around  9:20 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 175 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 1.23 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 the Hubble Space Telescope which takes the most amazing astro-images ever seen. If you haven't checked out the Hubble Heritage site, I'd highly recommend it. It's loaded with many awesome planetary and deep sky image that'll blow your mind.

Checkout how much dust is in the air in this image. This is a "planet wide" dust storm. Whole continents all but disappeared. Let's hope for clearer Martian skies on the next pass. 

Saturn joins us now about 11:35 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 0.04 -- 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.   

We replaced the previous, absolutely amazing image taken by the adaptive optics enabled European Southern Observatory with this even more spectacular Hubble Space Telescope image. Pretty cool, huh?  Look at all the detail captured in the image. Look at how many splits in the ring system have been captured.  What a beautiful image!

Saturn and the moon have been playing a continual game of hide and seek. That's right, Saturn was involved in yet another lunar occultation. This makes the 10th time in less than a year! Saturn will hide behind the moon four more times before May. These events are interesting for more than the chance nature of the event. As Saturn drifts out from behind the dark side of the moon, astronomers are given the opportunity to see some of Saturn's hidden rings. That's right... hidden rings. There are some very extremely faint rings which extend beyond the main rings. NASA spacecraft have photographed them. Occultations offer special opportunities for earthbound residents to observe them. Unfortunately, this event will be missed my residents of northern Utah, with Provo being just inside the grazing limit.

Next, look for Jupiter rising around 1:15pm. It'll be rising along side a beautiful gibbous moon. That ought to make an interesting pairing in the sky. 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... 

On Friday night(2/22) we've got a special treat for you. Jupiter will and the Moon will be separated by less than 1/2° (one moon width). To view this, simply look high and towards the southeast, shortly after sunset. These two objects are the brightest in the night sky, so.. you should have no problem finding them.

Checkout this beautiful image by Astrophotographer Peter J. Garbett from Sharnbrook, England. 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. Also visible in the image just below the GRS is the shadow of Jupiter's moon Callisto and along the right edge of the image is one of Jupiter's other moons, Ganymede. This is a very cool shot! If you're planning on viewing Jupiter's Great Red Spot, you'll want to checkout this Sky and Telescope article which contains a list of Great Red Spot Transit Times. 

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.

This weekend we move on to the constellation Lynx. This is a faint constellation of stars around mag 6. Even Alpha and Beta Lyncis are magnitudes 3.5 and 4.5 respectively. The remainder of the constellation requires good eyesight and very dark skies to make out it's shape. The Lynx is a modern constellation created by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687. There is no classical mythology associated with the constellation.

The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Lynx. The Lynx can be found (with good eyesight) due east of the constellation Auriga which we visited a few weeks back and west/southwest of Ursa Major (the big dipper) which we'll visit again in the next few weeks. Don't look for any bright stars to guide you.. there aren't any. A lynx is a sly, secretive creature... and so is this weeks constellation.

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.