Report for 2002-09-06
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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: 6:58 am | Sunset: 7:53 pm | ||
| Astronomical Twilight Begins: 5:23 am | Astronomical Twilight Ends: 9:28 pm | ||
| Moonrise: 6:10 am New Moon at 9:09 pm |
Moonset: 8:10 pm | ||
| Weekend weather
forecasts are looking less than rosy at this point. It seems that in spite
of the approaching new moon, we're going to get some much needed
precipitation. Oh, well... timing is everything.
As long as we're speaking of timing, last weekends Utah Skies Star Party was perfectly timed. Skies were clear and steady all night long.... with the last observers calling it quits at close to 2:00am. The highlight of the night was undoubtedly a rogue Perseid meteor which blazed so brightly in the northeast that it cast shadows and caused people facing in the other direction to turn around to check it out. It was an awesome sight... starting as a blue streak then splitting into two... turning red and yellow and finally exploding into many tiny particles and fading into the night. |
 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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 Checkout
this awesome shot by Lyndon
Anderson. It was taken just after sunset on August 29th looking across
the North Dakota plains. Very low and just left of center you can see the
planet Venus. Towards the top and in the middle you can see the bright star
Arcturus. And... of course... you can see one heck of a lightning strike.
Ouch!
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 Checkout
this cool aurora by Alan Stankevitz
taken near La Crosse, Wisconsin on the night of September 4th. According to
Alan, "Around 11pm local time, a bright diffuse glow appeared on the northern horizon
and by 1am it was going pretty good with curtains dancing in the sky all
the way to the zenith. Not much red color, but a lot of bright green."
Photo details: Canon Digital SLR - D60. Various exposures (mostly 6 to 20 seconds), ASA 400 and ASA 800 settings. |
 The
International Space Station
will make several brief passes over the area this weekend... including one
billed as a "Space
Station Supernova". The reason for this is that the ISS will come
from the dark side of the planet into the light of the soon to be rising
sun. See if you can find it. The ISS look like a bright, but slow moving
meteor. While it is traveling slower than a meteor which moves at speeds
approaching 100,000 miles per hour, the ISS is traveling a respectable
17,000 miles per hour. At this rate, it circles the Earth 16 times per
day.
To find out when the ISS will be overhead, visit NASA's Space Flight Website.
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'N Sync 'N Space |
 Well..
it looks like the Russian Space Agency has pulled the plug on 'N Sync singer
Lance Bass.
After repeated requests for payment, the Russians finally scrapped the
plans. Instead, he's being replaced by a cargo box for the next trip to the International Space Station.
Seems like maybe his free spending backers got silent when it was time to
put up or shut up???? Lance would have become the third person to pay his
way onto the International Space Station... and... the youngest person ever
in space. Oh, well...
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 The moon
will be new tonight at 9:09pm(Park City). It is now rising at sunrise and
setting at sunset... allowing us deep sky fanatics to have the entire
evening to ourselves.
I took the accompanying image from my campsite at 9400' in the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah last month. What an awesome observing weekend that was. Skies were about as clear and steady as I remember seeing is quite some time :) 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 six hours before the Sun and can be found
high almost overhead just 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 awesome shot of Saturn by last month's Utah Skies Astro-Photographer of the month, Robert Gendler. Notice how quickly the Cassini Division jumps into view... plus the varying colors in the planetary disk. Very cool! |
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Checkout this beautiful image of Jupiter
taken by Robert
Gendler. Would you be happy with views like this? You might be
surprised at what a half-way decent telescope could do for you. Jupiter is
fairly well positioned for viewing in the mornings now. Perhaps you should
dust off your telescope and see what it's capable of doing? |
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| Checkout this sweet image captured by
Ed Grafton.
It clearly shows why most of the detail on the surface of the Red Planet
was invisible to amateur telescope last year. A huge, planet-wide dust
storm was engulfing the planet... just as it was moving into it's best
viewing position in years. 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 1.79 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 also continues to brighten. Checkout
this cool shot by B. Colville of the Maple
Ridge Observatory. These were taken using a special Bessel U Filter which allows the transmission of ultra-violet light. Note the detail captured in the clouds of Venus' upper atmosphere.
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 cool Voyager 2 shot of Neptune. Clearly visible is Neptune's "Great Dark Spot", a large hurricane-like storm similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. 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. |
 The Hubble Deep FieldGalaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Deep Field - one of humanity's most distant optical views of the Universe. The dimmest, some as faint as 30th magnitude (about four billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided eye), are very distant galaxies and represent what the Universe looked like in the extreme past, perhaps less than one billion years after the Big Bang. To make the Deep Field image, astronomers selected an uncluttered area of the sky in the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear) and pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a single spot for 10 days accumulating and combining many separate exposures. With each additional exposure, fainter objects were revealed. The final result has been used to explore the mysteries of galaxy evolution and the infant Universe. |
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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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Let's
begin by observing this week's lone Messier object, Globular
Cluster M71(mag8.3). At a distance of only 13,000 light years,
this globulars visual appearance more closely resembles a dense
open cluster. You'll find M71 located midway between Gamma and
Delta Sagittae, this cluster spans about 7'. 
Next
up is the Planetary Nebula NGC6886(mag12). This is a small
nebula with a diameter of about 6'. The tiny little dot in the
center is what you're looking for :) In fact, it appears almost stellar
even at high power. You're best bet to confirm your finding is by
comparing the nebula with nearby stars.
We'll
wrap up our journey through Sagitta with a visit to this weeks
Utah Skies Challenge Object, Planetary Nebula IC4997(mag12).
This small nebula also has a diameter of about 6'.
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Next Weeks Report |
| Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos and focus on the constellation Capricornus. |
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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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