Report for 2002-11-29

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Holiday Gift Giving Ideas

Viewing Outlook

Space Weather Update

Looks like our star is virtually free of sunspots at this point. This should indicate a period of relatively low solar activity. While we received a small burst the other day from a recent CME, there doesn't appear to be anything pointed in our direction at this point to even discuss.

This beautiful shot was taken by Juha Ollila Ruukki, Finland on Nov. 26. As indicated above, the aurora were not widespread... only those living in the far north were treated to the display.

Photo details: Nikkor 17-35 mm f2.8 Fuji Provia 400 F, 20 seconds.

Mission Update

The International Space Station will make numerous passes over our area 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.

Spacewalkers hook up $390 million beam: Astronauts used cranes to attach another expensive piece of latticework to the international space station Tuesday, and then a team of spacewalkers went out and wired it up. 
For more info, checkout CNN.com/SPACE 

Lunar Phase

The moon reached last quarter on Wednesday at 8:46am. In the meantime, we'll be under a waning crescent moon with 27% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated in the sky tonight.

I took the accompanying image in May of 2002 using a Canon Rebel 2000. 

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... in it, you can see the progress of the Martian dust storm which ruined views of the planet as it approached it's maximum size and brightness. Lets hope this type of event does not repeat itself during the even better pass this coming summer.

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 about20% 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!

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.

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 into the constellation Ophichus.

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 was taken by Calvin J. Hamilton and the Voyager spacecraft imaging team.

Saturn is now cruising through the constellation Taurus.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		10:20 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.29
Visual Diameter:		40"
Distance:		4.88 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 shot is Jupiter's most obvious feature... the Great Red Spot, which can be seen slightly to the right 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 Supermassive Black Holes of NGC 6240

The Hubble optical image on the left shows NGC 6240 in the throes of a titanic galaxy - galaxy collision 400 million light-years away. As the cosmic catastrophe plays out, the merging galaxies spew forth distorted tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust and undergo frantic bursts of star formation. Using the orbiting Chandra Observatory's x-ray vision to peer within the bright central regions of NGC 6242 astronomers believe they have uncovered, for the first time, not one but two enormous orbiting black holes, by detecting the characteristic x-ray radiation from the interstellar debris swirling toward them. In the false-color close-up view at right, the x-ray data clearly show the black hole sources (shaded blue) separated by about 3,000 light-years. Einstein's theory of gravity predicts that such a pair of black holes must spiral closer together, and ultimately coalesce into a single, even more massive black hole after several hundred million years. In the final moments the merging supermassive black holes will produce an extremely powerful burst of gravitational radiation. 

Credit: Optical: R.P.van der Marel & J.Gerssen (STScI), NASA;
X-ray: S.Komossa & G.Hasinger (MPE) et al., CXC, 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  

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