Report for 2002-11-22

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Brought to you from beautiful Park City, "View-tah".

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

2002 Leonid Meteor Storm

2002 produced a pair of meteor outbursts. One which favored European viewers and one, several hours later, which favored North American viewers. Were you one of the lucky ones weatherwise??? Those of us in the Park City area certainly were not :( 
I saw 4 or 5 meteors although I was out for about as many hours. Oh, well...

Checkout our Special Report on the 2002 Leonid Meteors.

Checkout this cool shot by Patrick Bornet of Saint Martin, Nièvre, France. Patrick was obviously in the right place at the right time.
This image shows a faint Leonid streaking above the smokey debris of a fireball that exploded before the exposure began. The smokey trail is twisted by high-altitude winds.

Big Discovery

Astronomers have spotted two supermassive black holes in the crowded center of a distant galaxy. And it's only a matter of time, they say, before the pair collide. The discovery marks the first time, scientists have found proof of two supermassive black holes together in the same galaxy. These black holes are orbiting each other and will merge several hundred million years from now. The event will unleash intense radiation and gravitational waves ... and leave behind an even larger black hole than before.  NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory spotted the two black holes in the galaxy NGC 6240. The observatory was able to "see" them because the black holes are surrounded by hot swirling vortices of matter called accretion disks. Such disks are strong sources of x-rays. The accompanying image was made from images taken by both the Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescopes.

For more information, visit Science@NASA

Holiday Gift Giving Ideas

Viewing Outlook

Space Weather Update

Scientists say they have made the unprecedented discovery of solar flares erupting almost simultaneously on opposite sides of the sun. The flares -- massive eruptions of hydrogen from the sun's surface -- were observed by researchers at the National Solar Observatory in southern New Mexico on the morning of October 31. For more info, click on CNN.com/SPACE

This stunning image shows remarkable and mysterious details near the dark central region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever of the surface of the Sun. Just released, the picture was made using the adaptive optics enabled Swedish Solar Telescope now in its first year of operation on the Canary Island of La Palma.
For more info, visit the APOD 

Mission Update

The International Space Station will be absent from our skies this weekend.  To find out when it will make its next pass, 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.

The developing International Space Station (ISS) has changed its appearance yet again. Last month the Space Shuttle Atlantis visited the ISS and installed the third of eleven pieces that will compose
the Integrated Truss Structure. The new S-1 Truss is visible on the right, below the extended solar panels across the top. The world's foremost space outpost can be seen developing over the past few years by
comparing the above image to past images. Also visible above are many different types of modules, a robotic arm, several wing-like solar panels, and a supply ship. Construction began on the ISS in 1998 and the
core structure should be in place before 2005. Yesterday, the ISS celebrated its second anniversary of continuous human habitation. 

Lunar Phase

The moon was full on Tuesday at 6:34 pm. In the meantime, we'll be under a waning gibbous moon with 93% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated in the sky tonight.

I took the accompanying image in January 2000 through a 6" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. 

Visit our Lunar Information Page for even more images and information.

Planetary Report

Mars has begun to brighten. While only a small step, this week marks the second small step in Mars return to grandeur. By the summer of 2003, Mars will be bigger and brighter than at any time in the last 5000 years. Get your telescopes ready, we are in for a treat!

 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 Ed Grafton this month's Utah Skies Astrophotographer of the Month.

Venus has made the shift... It is now rising about 1 hour and 45 minutes before the sun. It has taken up the role as the " morning star".  Look for it shining brightly low in the eastern sky just before dawn. Given it's incredible brightness, it an easy target for observers. Now that Venus is in the morning sky, you can see four planets before sunrise: Venus and Mars and Jupiter and Saturn.

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 2% illuminated. When the planet is near the Sun (as it is now) it looks like a thin crescent. Javier Ruiz Fernández of Santander, Spain, captured this image of Venus through an 8" telescope on Nov. 5th. At this point, Venus is pretty cool to look at in a telescope. So... get out there and check it out!

The accompanying image of the planet Mercury is one of the highest resolution images every taken from Earth. Taken by the Imaging Science Team at Boston University, this images seriously pushes the envelope. Anybody who's ever viewed Mercury through a telescope knows what I mean.

Mercury is quite the illusive object for amateur astronomers. Since it is the innermost planet, it never gets far enough away from the Sun to be seen in dark skies. Additionally, views along the horizon are typically the most turbulent. So... simply seeing Mercury is about the best you can hope for.

Mercury has recently moved from eastern Libra into western Scorpius.

Take this bit of planetary information either as an interesting side note, or an observing challenge. Pluto is in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 15 degrees north of Mars. At magnitude 13.9, Pluto is basically out of reach of smaller telescopes. One way to verify that you have found Pluto is to sketch the star patterns over several nights. If you have actually found Pluto, one of the the faint star-like objects will have moved over the course of a few nights. This is Pluto.

Pluto orbits the Sun at about 30 times the distance of the Earth - nearly 2.75 billion miles away. The image at right is one of the best ground based images I have ever seen so don't expect to see any surface detail. Merely seeing Pluto is an accomplishment.

The accompanying image was taken by the Nordic Optical Telescope.

How's this for a cool shot of Neptune? Clearly visible is Neptune's Great Dark Spot..

Neptune is a relatively easy target when viewed at the right time... and that time is winding down! Neptune has been at its best throughout the fall. It is high in the western sky at dark, so... get on it early. 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.

Saturn is now rising before 7:00pm and is well positioned by about 10:00pm, giving planetary viewers a nice bedtime treat. It can be found high, almost overhead just before dawn. Given that it's dark until almost 6:30am, you should have no problem getting out to view the ringed planet when you wake up. You'll find it fairly high in the western sky... though best views are now had in the evening. Saturn can be found about 15° north of Betelgeuse... the alpha star in 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.

The accompanying picture of Saturn is the first release by NASA created from images taken by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft en route to the ringed planet. What an awesome shot! If you look closely, you can see the shadow of the rings falling across the top of the planet. You can also see the shadow of the planet being cast upon the lower portion of the rings. Finally, you can see Saturn largest moon Titan near the upper edge. Wow!

Saturn is now cruising through the constellation Taurus.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		10:45 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.24
Visual Diameter:		40"
Distance:		4.98 AU
Constellation:		Leo

 

WOW!!!!!
This incredibly detailed image shows the beautiful cloud top of Jupiter. Many of these features are visible in amateur telescopes on nights of good seeing. Also visible in the image is Jupiter's moon Io.. seen here drifting in front of the giant planet. And, behind that is Io's inky black shadow.

Also visible in the shot is Jupiter's most obvious feature... the Great Red
Spot, which can be seen slightly to the left of center.

Jupiter is currently in western Leo.

Hubble Vision

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 NASA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M57). In this October 1998 image, the telescope has looked down a barrel of gas cast off by a dying star thousands of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula; the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.

The colors are approximately true colors. The color image was assembled from three black-and-white photos taken through different color filters with the Hubble telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Blue isolates emission from very hot helium, which is located primarily close to the hot central star. Green represents ionized oxygen, which is located farther from the star. Red shows ionized nitrogen, which is radiated from the coolest gas, located farthest from the star. The gradations of color illustrate how the gas glows because it is bathed in ultraviolet radiation from the remnant central star, whose surface temperature is a white-hot 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees Celsius).

Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)  

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.

IDA-Utah Light Pollution Update

Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org