Report for 2002-10-11
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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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Big Discoveries |
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| This has been a busy week for astronomical discoveries. | |
 First...
On
Monday (10/7) astronomers announced a newly discovered body in the outer
reaches of the solar system that is the largest object found since the
discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930. It is larger than all the objects
in the asteroid belt combined. But, before you start thinking on to grand
a scale, let me tell you that it is about ˝ the size of Pluto… the
smallest planet. Located roughly 4 billion miles from the Sun or a billion
miles beyond the orbit of Pluto, this icy world inhabits a region known as
the "Kuiper Belt". The Kuiper Belt is a vast region stretching from just beyond
the orbit of Neptune out to the edge of our solar system… roughly 100
billion miles out. This new object, dubbed Quaoar, further strengthens the
theory that Pluto is not a conventional planet but rather a Kuiper Belt
object. Quaoar, pronounced KWAH-o-ar, is named after the creation
god of the Tongva people, a Native American tribe in Southern California..
I know... you were expecting another name from Southern California...
perhaps Goofy???? This would make sense to follow Pluto. But... naming of
astronomical objects is typically left to the discoverers and this is what
they came up with.
Read more at CNN.com/Space. |
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 Following
this...
On Wednesday (10/9) astronomers announced that they found the first planet in a close-knit double star system.
This discovery suggests that the galaxy possesses many more planets than previously estimated.
Unlike our sun, a rare solitary specimen, the majority of Milky Way stars have companions. The discovery means that similar binary star systems could host planets as well, astronomers announced Wednesday.
Since most stars in our galaxy are actually members of binary or even multiple systems, this result has far-reaching implications for how many planetary systems can be expected in our galaxy.
The previous consensus suggested that the intense gravity associated with
a binary or multiple star system would inhibit planetary formation.
Read more at CNN.com/Space. |
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 The
accompanying diagram depicts the orbital characteristics of such a system.
The biological clocks of any inhabitants of such a world must be pretty intricate...with times where the
entire planet is completely illuminated... and times where half of the planet gets
darkness. Sleep disorders must be fairly widespread :) |
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| Sunrise: 7:33 am | Sunset: 6:55 pm |
| Astronomical Twilight Begins: 6:02 am | Astronomical Twilight Ends: 8:26 pm |
| Moonrise: 1:49 pm | Moonset: 10:54 pm |
| We had an awesome
stretch of clear skies. Last weekend, the skies were amazing. That
continued for the first half of this week. I hope you got a chance to get
out and take a peak. I got some awesome deep sky views down in Southern
Utah last weekend. Then, I started the week off with some spectacular
views of Saturn from right here in Park City. As the weather starts to get
more "hit or miss", you really need to take the days when
they're given to you. Fall and winter weather is too unsettled to wait for
clear skies to fit your schedule. . |
 Geomagnetic
activity continues. Most recently, sunspot #139 fired off a Coronal Mass
Ejection (CME). Additionally, it now has a twisted magnetic
field that harbors energy for powerful X-class solar flares. Any eruptions
on Thursday or Friday Oct 10th or 11th would likely be Earth directed. Stay tuned!
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 Trygve Lindersen
of Toemmeraas, Norway took this shot the night of Oct. 6th
using a Canon G2 digital camera operating at f/2 for a 15 second
exposure with ISO 200 film.
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 The stars over
Turku, Finland, shine through this auroral "corona" photographed on Oct. 2nd by
Pekka Parviainen.
Checkout the Polar Images website
for an incredible collection of astronomical images
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 Food
for thought:Here's a composite image which kind of puts the size of the planets in perspective. Relative to the Sun, ALL planets are tiny. As you can see, Jupiter the largest planet is dwarfed by the Sun... As is Saturn. The two blue planets beneath them are Uranus and Neptune. They appear miniscule. The box below these two contains all the other planets... including Earth. As you can see, even solar flares are much larger than the planets. |
 The
International Space Station
will make several passes over the area this weekend. To find out when, visit
NASA's
Space Flight Website.
The ISS is orbits the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour. At this rate, it circles the Earth 16 times per day.
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 Checkout
this Artist's impression of the Darwin free-flyer model. Darwin is a new
technology being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). This technology may allow smaller, more easily
disposable satellites to replace often enormous relics in the future and may
improve spacecraft control. Darwin will use a flotilla of six 2-metre-diameter telescopes, flyingin tight formation, to simulate a single telescope up to 250 metres across. |
 Part
of the rational for the Darwin Project is the fact that over the years...
way to much space junk has accumulated. The accompanying image is a catalog
of what's up there. As you can see, the near Earth area is getting... dare I
say... crowded. Click HERE
to find out more.
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 The moon
will reach first quarter Saturday evening at 10:34 pm. In the meantime, you can expect to
see a 34% illuminated moon in the sky tonight.
I took the accompanying image this
past spring. Checkout our "Moon
Pics" page for even more shots. |
 The
moon was a beautiful site at the start of the week. Sporting a tiny
crescent, it sat nicely above the western horizon shortly after sundown.
Checkout this awesome shot of the tiny crescent moon peeking through the
clouds taken on Monday 10/7 by Canadian Lauri Kangas. |
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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Checkout this beautiful image of Jupiter
taken by The Cassini
Spacecraft. To
the right of Jupiter is it's moon Eurpoa.
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? 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. |
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| Mars has moved into the constellation Virgo. Mars has also reached its greatest separation from Earth at this point .The distance between the two planets is slowly beginning 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 1.81 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.Checkout this sweet image captured by Marc Sylvestre. It shows an incredible amount of detail on the surface of the Red Planet. | |||||||||||||
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| The accompanying image series was taken by Juan Carlos Cansado in Spain. It depicts the path that Mercury's orbit takes it through the sky. Notice that even at its highest... Mercury is never far above the horizon. The reason for this... Mercury is the innermost planet. It has the tightest orbit and never gets too far away from the Sun. | |||||||||||||
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| Venus
reached it's greatest brilliancy on Thursday (9/26). At mag-4.6, it outshines
Sirius (the brightest star in the sky) by a factor of 18. While Venus has
peaked in brightness, it continues to grow in apparent diameter and will
be at it's largest by the end of October. Venus continues its journey
through the constellations and is now in Libra. 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 3.5 hours after the sun. Many of
you have no doubt seen it blazing away low in the western sky after sunset.
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 a mere 19% illuminated. |
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Occasionally, a planet in our Solar System will pass in front of a bright star. Since stars and planets take up so little space on the sky, such events are quite rare. Two months ago, however, Pluto and its large moon Charon passed in front of a comparatively bright triple star system known as P126. By noting how P126 A dimmed, the event was useful for studying Pluto's relatively unknown atmosphere. A Very Large Telescope in Chile using a deformable mirror to counter the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere captured the above image.
Pluto is currently over 2.8 billion miles from Earth. Located in the southwestern sky before sunset, Pluto is also not very well placed at this point for viewing. If you haven't viewed it recently, you'll have to catch it on the next go round. |
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Two hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored
cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. Most of Neptune's atmosphere is made
of hydrogen and helium, which is invisible. Neptune's blue color therefore comes from smaller amounts of atmospheric methane, which preferentially absorbs red
light. Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System, with gusts reaching 2000 kilometers per hour.
Speculation holds that diamonds may be created in the dense hot conditions that exist under the clouds-tops of Uranus and Neptune. Neptune is a relatively easy target when viewed at the right time... and that time is now! It is best viewed now and through the fall, when it will high in the sky for hours late at night and into the 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, Neptune 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. I saw Uranus recently. While sweeping for it using low powers
Uranus looked like a strange star. The reason for this is that Uranus
resolves to a disk... not just a point source of light like a star. As I
increased the power I was able to determine without a doubt that I was
observing the 7th planet. It appeared as a very pale blue disk. As it was
less than an ideal night for observing, none of its faint moons were
visible. I suspect that on a better night... from darker skies that I
would have been able to spy at least the brightest moon Miranda... though
at mag 16.5 it would certainly be a stretch. Checkout this shot of Uranus. You can clearly see several of it's moons and it's delicate ring system. At almost 2 billion miles away, this is one tough shot to make from Earth! Uranus is a relatively easy target to find though. However, this is another tiny planet at only 4". 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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Saturn is now rising about six hours before the Sun and can be found
high almost overhead just before dawn. I got some truely spectacular views
of the ringed planet Monday morning. I was able to push my 150mm Mak-Cass
to just a smidge past 250x without any loss of image quality. It was
really cool. 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. Simply look about 15° north of Orion. 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 "up close and personal" shot of Saturn taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. |
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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. |
 Odd Couple Widely Separated by Time and SpaceAppearances can be deceiving. In this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, an odd celestial duo, the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 [center] and a quasar called Markarian 205 [upper right], appear to be neighbors. In reality, the two objects don't even live in the same city. They are separated by time and space. NGC 4319 is 80 million light-years from Earth. Markarian 205 (Mrk 205) is more than 14 times farther away, residing 1 billion light-years from Earth. The apparent close alignment of Mrk 205 and NGC 4319 is simply a matter of chance. Astronomers used two methods to determine the distances to these objects. First, they measured how their light has been stretched in space due to the universe's expansion. Then they measured how much the ultraviolet light from Mrk 205 dimmed as it passed through the interstellar gas of NGC 4319. The Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image shows the inner region of NGC 4319. In addition to the galaxy's inner spiral arms, an outer arm is faintly visible at lower left. The unusually dark and misshapen dust lanes in the galaxy's inner region are evidence of a disturbance, probably caused by an earlier interaction with another galaxy, NGC 4291, which is not in the photograph. At a distance of 1 billion light-years, Mrk 205 is a relatively nearby quasar. Many quasars reside much farther away. Quasars, once known only as mysterious point-like objects, are now known to be distant galaxies that have extremely bright cores. These powerhouses of light are probably fueled by massive black holes. With powerful telescopes like Hubble, it is often possible to see the quasar's surrounding halo of faint starlight, as is clearly visible around Mrk 205. Mrk 205 has a companion, a compact galaxy just below it. The objects appear to be interacting. The compact galaxy may be responsible for the structure in Mrk 205's halo. The Hubble image shows that interacting galaxies and disturbances within galaxies are a rich source of information about galaxy structure and evolution. Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: R. Knacke (Penn State Erie) |
| Our Constellation report is an easy way for people to
become familiar with the nighttime sky. We’ll discuss myths associated
with the various constellations as well as describing the numerous deep
sky objects residing in the area. 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 Pegasus -- The Winged Horse. A large northern constellation included by Ptolemy in his list of 48 (c. AD 140). It is noted for the prominent square - the Square of Pegasus - formed by its three brightest stars and Alpha Andromedae (Alpheratz), all of which are second magnitude.
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M15 is rather easy to find. Just extend a line from Theta through Epsilon Pegasi about 1/2 the distance and you'll have found it.
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 Next up is the beautiful spiral galaxy NGC7331(mag9.5)
. The accompanying Robert Gendler image displays an incredible amount of
detail throughout the galaxy, even revealing several companion galaxies in
the background. Notice the bright central region and the beautifully
arching spiral arms. This is a "classic" spiral galaxy! |
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 Next up is a fine example of a barred
spiral galaxy, NGC7479(mag11). This beauty has a prominent central bulge
with arms wrapped around it. Viewed almost face-on, this galaxy should be
visible in instruments as small as 8". Ideally, you'd want 12"
and dark skies to fully appreciate this object. |
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 Moving on, we come to the edge-on spiral
galaxy NGC7814(mag10.45). This beauty should be fairly easy to spot in an
8". However, viewing the central dust lane is another story
altogether. Reports I've heard indicate that a 16" is required
to clearly identify this feature.
To find this object, start at Gamma Pegasi (the south-east corner) and move 2.5° WNW. This amazing shot of NGC7814 by Robert Gendler image clearly captures the galaxy and its dust lane.
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 Our final stop in Pegasus leads us to
this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object, NGC 7320 -- better known as
Stephan's Quintet. With a visual magnitude of around 12.65, finding this
object is not for those who fear a challenge. Dark skies and larger
apertures are the preferred route. There is considerable debate as to weather these galaxies are gravitationally bound, or just located in a chance visual alignment. At a distance of roughly 12.9 Mpc (Mega Parsecs) or over 42 million light years, this galaxy cluster is quite remote. Remember, 1 light year is equal to over 6,000,000,000,000,000 (6 trillion miles). So...doing the math (correctly I hope:) places this object 252,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. Somebody please check my math. This many zeros is hard to look at, never mind read. Anyway... Enough of that. The deep sky obsessed among you fears no challenge. You'll be out there looking for this in your binoculars :) 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. |
| We need your help!
Utah Skies is beginning to get some serious traction on the issue of light pollution right here in Summit County. Recently, we met with officials from the Summit County Planning Department to discuss the issue of light pollution. We spoke for quite some time about the current issues and how these might be addressed. There was a general agreement that the county had dropped the ball in the past and that better procedures were required at all phases of the development cycle. We left feeling pretty positive about future prospects. Of course, without continued public support this issue could be left to wither. To that end, we are requesting that you take a minute out of your day to send an e-mail to some of the people listed below. Don't feel that you have to create a major literary or political statement. (You can if you want to of course). All that is required is that Summit County officials realize that this is an issue that they must deal with. This can be achieved by simply sending an e-mail requesting that they address the growing problem of light pollution in the county. Period. That's it. If enough people take one minute out of their day and send an e-mail the problem will be solved. Simple as that. So... what are you waiting for :) We also need letters to the editor of the Park Record demanding that the county enforce and even strengthen its outdoor lighting ordinances. You might want to contact the other media sources in town. Specifically, KPCW radio and PCTV television. We get some light pollution information out through all of these sources periodically, but... if they hear from the wider community, they will make this one of the issues they monitor more closely. Any time and effort you can expend now would be quite helpful.
Below is the contact information for some key political and media figures in
the area. Please contact these individuals. Let them know your concerns.
We can achieve our goals and protect and preserve one of the unique aspects of this
beautiful area we call home... our star filled skies.
Thanks for your continued support. If you don't know what to say... why
not start with our pre-written
e-mail. It gets the point across...
or at least its a good starting point. |
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Next Weeks Report |
| Next week, we'll continue our journey through the cosmos and focus on the constellation Equuleus. |
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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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