Report for 2002-08-30
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Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".
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| This Weeks Issue | The Utah Skies Website | |
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| Sunrise: 6:51 am | Sunset: 8:04 pm | ||
| Astronomical Twilight Begins: 5:14 am | Astronomical Twilight Ends: 9:42 pm | ||
| Moonrise: none Last Quarter: 7:32pm |
Moonset: 2:16 pm | ||
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Utah Skies Star Party |
| We'd like to invite you to join us for an evening under the stars at Park City's Trailside Park on Saturday night, August 31st. The event will run from 9:00pm until 1:00am. We'll start the evening with views of the planet Venus which is nearing its brightest of the year. Then... and you'd expect... we'll go DEEP. We'll visit such deep sky treasures as The Hercules Star Cluster, The Veil Nebula, The Andromeda Galaxy, and much, much more. Checkout the evenings viewing guide. Click HERE for directions. Hope to see you under the stars. |
| Weekend weather
forecasts are looking pretty good at this point... and with the moon
reaching last quarter tonight you'll have plenty of time to scan nice,
dark skies. So... it looks like this holiday weekend should be a great weekend for viewing. Get out there and observe.
August nights are still nice and warm... with the possible exception of
the high country ;) So... plan your weekend accordingly. Telescopes and binoculars are absolutely required for summer
camping trips. If you've got one... you need to take it with you. The sky
views to be found in Utah's mountains and deserts are among the best in
the world. Why not take advantage of them?
The Giant Planets Are Coming: First Saturn... and then Jupiter.... The two biggest and brightest planets are rising well before sunrise and can be found high in the east in the pre-dawn sky. Since sunrise isn't until almost 7:00, you don't even have to get up that early to view them. Just have your telescope ready to roll the night before... then head out and checkout these awesome targets. The views of Jupiter and Saturn will simply blow you away! |
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Chandra Spies an Exploding Galaxy |
 Besides offering some exceptional eye candy, the enormous explosion of a
nearby galaxy provides a glimpse into the workings of massive black holes and
intergalactic relationships. Click HERE
to find out more.
Checkout this cool Chandra x-ray image of the galaxy Centaurus A. It reveals the incredible energy being unleashed in the galaxy. |
 Solar
activity has been pretty spotty lately. Giant sunspot #69 is now gone,
but... it did manage to launch a farewell CME which triggered some high
latitude auroras. In the mean time, there are a few other sunspots poised to
blow. With a new moon coming, this would be an ideal time for northern
lights.Guess what? Sunspot #87 is currently developing twisted magnetic fields... the kind that could lead to CME's. Given it's location towards the center of the Sun, any CME's would be Earth-directed. Stay tuned! |
Checkout this awesome animation.  These
SOHO images spanning August 12th - 24th show giant sunspot 69 crossing the Sun.
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Bigger Rockets |
 One of the most powerful rockets since the Saturn 5, which took the Apollo astronauts to the moon, debuted Wednesday, blasting into space from a Florida launch
pad. The Atlas 5, intended to carry twice the capacity of previous Atlases, lifted off in the evening sky from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a
European-built telecommunications satellite.
Developed at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion, the rocket was built at the behest of the U.S. Air Force, which sought a
more powerful launch vehicle to send payloads into space.
Want to find out more? Click HERE.
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 The
International Space Station
will make several brief passes over the area this weekend. To find out when, visit
NASA's
Space Flight Website.
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'N Sync 'N Space |
 'N Sync singer
Lance Bass
is headed for space. Or is he??? The Russian space agency has given
him five days to come up with payment for a trip to the international space station this fall.
Hmmm... Seems like maybe his free spending backers are having second
thoughts????
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 The moon
will reach last quarter this evening at 7:32pm(SLC). It is now rising late
enough...after midnight... to allow us deep sky fanatics to have several
dark hours to ourselves.
The accompanying image was taken be a new (to me) astrophotographer named Tan Wei Leong. Checkout his website for more awesome shots. Anyway... this shot focuses on the crater field near Mare Frigoris, Sinus Iridum and Sinus Roris. The big crater is J. Herschel and scarred on its southern rim by little Horrebow - imaged on 25th March 2002 through the Celestron C11 at F/22 with Philips ToUcam Pro. By the way... the Moon was at apogee on Monday (8/26). Apogee is the farthest point from the Earth in the Moon's orbit.
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In this section, we visit the planets in the order in
which they are currently rising. We do our best to track down the finest images
available. 
for 2002. As
an added feature, you may also click on any of the planetary images to view a
planetary reference page filled with important facts about the planet. |
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Saturn is now rising about 4.5 hours before the Sun and can be found
high in the
eastern sky before dawn. If you're an early riser, you should have now
trouble finding the ringed planet as it is brighter than any of the
surrounding stars. Did you know that the rings are visible in binoculars?
It's true. You'll have to hold it extremely steady... or maybe even mount
it on a tripod, but.. they are visible.
Checkout this absolutely amazing mage of Saturn as captured by Ed Grafton. This is a very cool shot. Notice the innermost ring. It's called the Crepe ring and it's almost transparent. |
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Checkout this beautiful image of Jupiter and it's Great Red Spot taken by
Ed Grafton. This image
clearly demonstrates that persistence pays off. The image on the right is
a single exposure. The center is 3 stacked exposures. The image on the
left is a compilation of 29 exposures. Wow! Ok... now look closer at the
image. The arrow indicates where two of Jupiter's White Ovals
are merging. At 50degrees South latitude ( just below the great red spot in this image) a pair of tiny ovals are in the
process of merging and can barely be detected as separate in this high resolution image. From this and other images it appears that the two ovals circled one another in a
spiral "dance" as they began converging. Taken with a C14 @ f/27 and a ST5c CCD from Houston Texas on March 28th 2002. |
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| Checkout this sweet image captured by
Ed Grafton.
It shows some serious detail on the surface of the Red Planet. Mars has now reached its greatest separation from Earth at this point .The distance between the two planets will slowly begin to shrink. Visually, Mars has shrunk down to a measly 4".. a tiny fraction of it's peak of 21" in June 2001. In fact, this is just about as small as Mars ever gets. It has also dimmed significantly as well - currently shining at a wimpy magnitude 1.57 down from -2.4 in June. But... don't you worry. Mars will return for an even better pass in the summer of 2003. At that time, Mars will make it makes it's closest pass in over 5000+ years. Get your telescopes ready! In the mean time, we can live vicariously through the works of some of the finest astrophotographers on the planet... and even beyond the planet. In case you didn't notice, Mars has now moved into the morning sky. We should begin picking it up in the east in the coming weeks. |
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| The accompanying Mariner 10 image of Mercury was taken as the spacecraft passed the planet. This, essentially, was it's "over the shoulder" view. It reveals the incredible amount of destruction brought upon the planet by comets and meteors through the years. Since Mercury has no atmosphere, every object coming its way is able to score a direct hit. | |||||||||||||
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| Venus continues its journey
through the constellation Leo. It
continues to brighten.
Venus is now rising about four hours after the sun... it has slowly but surely moved to take up its role as the Evening Star. Many of you have no doubt seen it blazing away in the western sky after sunset. Watch as it climbs higher and higher over the next few months. By late spring and through the summer and Fall, 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. Venus is currently around 50% illuminated. As it climbs higher in the sky (larger angular separation from the Sun) the illuminated portion shrinks. By the time Venus is only 1/4 illuminated towards the end of September, it will have brightened to mag -4.6. It will continue to brighten to about mag -4.7 late in the fall when it reaches its greatest elongation (angular separation from the Sun). At that point, Venus will have grown to over 44"... almost twice it's current size. |
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Checkout this awesome image from the Hubble Space
Telescope.
Pluto has brightened another whopping .01! But don't get too excited, it's still a tiny, faint little spec in a telescope... any telescope. It is currently over 2.8 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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Neptune passed 4° north of the moon on Tuesday
(8/20) making it another easy find. Checkout the sweet "passing" shot of Neptune and it's moon Triton. Neptune is a relatively easy target when viewed at the right time. That time, however is not now. Neptune is rising just before astronomical twilight begins. In other words, Neptune never really gets high enough in the sky for optimal viewing before the sky starts to brighten. It'll be best viewed in late summer and the fall, when it will high in the sky for hours before dawn. 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 2.84 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 reached opposition on Monday 8/19. This means
that the planet is opposite the sun in the sky. Opposition brings Uranus closest to us for this year at 2.6 light-hours away.
That's right... Light hours... the distance light travels in 2.6 hours.
Uranus is just about visible to the naked eye... depending on how dark
your skies are of course. This means its an easy target for binoculars or
a telescope. Checkout this shot of Uranus. You can clearly see several of it's moons in this image. At almost 2 billion miles away, this is one tough shot to make from Earth! 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 1.92 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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| 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.
We've got a special treat for you in this weeks Hubble Vision section. These are the first shots made public from the new camera installed in the Hubble Space Telescope. I'm sure you'll agree that these shots are even more impressive than previous Hubble products. |
 "X" Marks the Spot: Hubble Sees the Glow of Star Formation in a Neighbor Galaxy The saying "X" marks the spot holds true in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image where Hubble-X marks the location of a dramatic burst of star formation, very much like the Orion Nebula in our Milky Way galaxy, but on a vastly greater scale. Hubble-X is a glowing gas cloud, one of the most active star-forming regions within galaxy NGC 6822. The name Hubble-X does not refer to the shape of the gas cloud, but rather is derived from a catalog of objects in this particular galaxy. The "X" is actually a Roman numeral designation. The galaxy lies in the constellation Sagittarius at a distance of only 1,630,000 light-years and is one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors. The intense star formation in Hubble-X occurred only about 4 million years ago, a small fraction of the approximate 10 billion year age of the universe. Giant gas clouds in NGC 6822 have held a special attraction for astronomers since their discovery by the visual observer E. E. Barnard in 1881. Edwin P. Hubble, after whom the HST is named, used the then-new 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1925 to make the first detailed photographic investigation of NGC 6822. The Hubble image reveals details too fine to be resolved from telescopes on the ground. Stars form in groups from enormous clouds of gas and dust called giant molecular clouds. Once star formation begins in a molecular cloud, its rate accelerates until the process is stopped when one or more very massive hot stars are formed. At that point the clouds change from near darkness into the brightly glowing objects such as seen in Hubble-X. It is the intense ultraviolet radiation from the massive stars that causes the residual gas to glow. Radiation and gas outflows, called stellar winds, then cause the gas to disperse, bringing further star formation to an abrupt end. The Hubble-X image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in September 1997, by astronomers C. Robert O'Dell of Vanderbilt University, Paul W. Hodge of the University of Washington, and R. C. Kennicutt, Jr. of Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. The image shows a nearly circular bright cloud at the core of Hubble-X. The cloud's diameter is about 110 light-years, and contains many thousands of newly formed stars in a central cluster. The brightest of these young stars are easily visible in the Hubble image, where they appear as numerous bright white dots. Hubble-X is many times brighter and larger than the Orion Nebula, the brightest nearby star formation region in our own Milky Way galaxy. In fact, the tiny cloud just below Hubble-X, barely resolved even by HST, has about the same size and brightness as the Orion Nebula. Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: C. R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University) |
| 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 Vulpecula the Fox. |
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The focus of our efforts this week will be the deep sky objects of Lyra. Lyra is
located on the western edge of the Milky Way due east of the constellation Hercules, which we covered a couple of weeks ago. To find Lyra, simply face towards the east after dark and look overhead. Lyra resembles a parallelogram of stars.
To be certain that you've found Lyra, simply verify that you've found it's most prominent member star, Vega. With a magnitude of 0.0 Vega is the 5th brightest star in the entire sky and by far the brightest star in this region. You can't miss it. Estimates place Vega's distance at about 27 light years and it's
actual luminosity about 58 times greater than that of our Sun. Vega is actually
an optical double star as well. It's companion star is quite faint and can only
be seen with a telescope. While we're checking out double stars, lets visit
the famous "Double-Double". Located about 1.5 degrees to the northeast of Vega, this multiple star system looks like a single star when viewed with the
naked eye. Binoculars will reveal this star to be a pair of stars and a telescope will further split each of the stars into another beautiful pair. |
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 To
begin, let's check out one of my favorite deep sky objects - The Dumbbell
Nebula M27(mag7.6). M27 is located about 3° due north of Gamma
Sagitta. This large planetary nebula spans about 1/4° - roughly half
the diameter of the full moon. Once you figure out it's location, M27
should be an easy target in anything larger that 10x50 binoculars. In
larger aperture instruments, the Dumbbell is awesome. When I'm sweeping
towards the Dumbbell, I am always startled as it explodes into view. M27
is believed to be about 815 light years away, making it one of the closer
planetary nebulas. Astronomers estimate that around 48,000 years ago, the
gaseous material which makes up the nebula was cast away from it's central
star in several colossal events. The nebula is actually made up of two
shells, each expanding at different rates.
This awesome shot was taken by Al Kelly.
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 Next up is open star cluster
NGC6830(mag8.5). Located almost due west of M27. This small open cluster
is made up of about 20 stars to mag 11. Given the number of stars in this
area, you may have trouble spotting it.
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 Next up is open star cluster
NGC6885(mag6). Located about 4°
north of M27, this cluster is home to about 35 stars ranging from mag 6 to
mag 11 including the bright star in the center of the image 20
Vulpecula. Estimates place this cluster about 1900 light years distant.
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 We'll wrap up our journey through
Vulpecula with a visit to this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object
NGC6940(mag 6.4). Located about 4.5°
northeast of NGC6885, this rich open cluster is made up of roughly 100
stars to mag 9. NGC6940 has a diameter about the size of the full moon
(31'), and is approximately 2600 light years away.
Good Luck!
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If you are able to find all of these objects, you may be one of the
few, the proud, the Deep Sky Obsessed. |
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Next Weeks Report |
| Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos and focus on the constellation Sagitta. |
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Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org
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