Report for 2003-01-10

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Comet Watch

Comet C/2002 X5 Kudo-Fujikawa:

As is often the case in astronomy, initial estimates and predictions of comet orbits and brightness may not be entirely accurate.  This was true with Comet C/2002 X5 Kudo-Fujikawa, where nearly 40 independent observations confirmed that the comet isn't as bright as it was predicted to be.  Go to Utah Skies' Kudo-Fujikawa page to find out more!.

This image was obtained by Utah Skies own Don Brown. Don was shooting through a Takahashi FS-102 refractor hooked to an SBIG STV video ccd camera.

Big Discoveries

Einstein was right... again!

The speed of gravity matches the speed of light, according to astronomers who took advantage of a rare planetary alignment to measure one of the fundamental forces of nature. Astronomers used this alignment to measure the rate at which light coming from a distant quasar was BENT by the force of Jupiter's gravity. So... if our Sun instantly disappeared... we would not leave our orbit instantly... we would do so about 8.5 minutes later... the amount of time it would take for the loss of gravity to make its way to Earth. We're not talking rocket science here... we're talking several chapters beyond. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE to find out more!.

It's raining... iron?

Using a new technique that will be used to search for Earthlike planets, astronomers have found a distant extrasolar planet, a bizarre place of torrid heat, with clouds and raindrops made of iron. This certainly makes the old BJ Thomas song "Rain drops keep falling on my head" sound far less appealing. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE to find out more!. 

Viewing Outlook

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.

The International Space Station continues to grow. In late November, a new truss system was installed. Visit the Astronomy Picture of the Day to find out more. 

Liftoff of the Space Shuttle Atlantis

This was the scene on July 12th, 2002 as the Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off for a rendezvous with the International Space Station

For more info, checkout the NASA website.

Solar System

Space Weather Update

Sunspot activity on our star seems to have picked up again... As you can see in the accompanying image, several sizable sunspot groups are currently visible. Interestingly, sunspot #251 on the left edge of the image unleashed an M5-class solar flare on Tuesday. So... after numerous clear, moonless evenings we're faced with increasing cloud cover... an increased lunar phase... and... of course... increased solar activity. Hmmm....

The Sun reached Perihelion on Saturday 1/4. Perihelion marks our planets closest annual approach to the Sun. Did you notice? Did the Sun look any bigger than usual :)

Want to view the sun for yourself? Follow these Safe Viewing Techniques.

Solar Analemma

This beautiful image is referred to as a Solar Analemma. It represents an image of the Sun as it travels through the sky. It was taken at the same time each day for a year. Why isn't the Sun in the same spot at the same time? Well, the Earth is tilted 23.5° on it's axis... and it has an elliptical orbit. The result is that the Sun is never in the same location. 

This image is particularly interesting for several reasons.

• it is only the 7th time that someone has imaged the solar analemma as a multi-exposure on a single piece of film.
• it is the first analemma ever imaged on the southern meridian
• it is the first analemma ever imaged in Greece
• it is the first analemma ever imaged during a single calendar year

Want to find out more? Checkout Anthony Ayiomamitis's website at www.perseus.gr.

Planetary Report

Mercury is leaving the night sky and headed east. It will shortly join fellow solar system members Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus in morning sky.

The accompanying image shows the planet Mercury cruising in front of the Sun. This event happened November 15, 1999. I can remember the event well. 

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 is currently in the constellation Sagittarius and can now be seen above the south western horizon shortly after sunset. Best views of the fleet footed planet will be had towards the end of the month.

Mercury is currently in the constellation Sagittarius.

Venus is now rising over 3.5 hours before the sun. It is considerably past its maximum size and brightness now. It has shrunk from over 1' in diameter to under .5' and has dimmed from over mag-4.6 to about mag-4.4.

Venus continues to change it's appearance as well. No, it doesn't dress differently, but... it does look considerably different over just a few weeks time. The ploy... it changes its Phase of illumination... very similar to what we see the moon throughout the course of the month. When the planet is near the Sun (as it was a couple of months ago) 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 that point, it was only about 1% illuminated. Venus is currently about 47% illuminated. What a difference a couple of months makes.

Venus has just moved into western Scorpio.

Lunar Phase

The moon reaches first quarter tonight... meaning that it will be 1/2 illuminated. At first quarter, the moon rises at midday, is high overhead by dark... and sets around midnight.

I took the accompanying image in May of 2002 as the moon was approaching first quarter.

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

Mars continues to brighten. While still small, Mars is giving hints of things to come. I viewed Mars last weekend through the big scope. Mars is currently 5" in diameter. While no surface detail is yet visible, there are subtle hints that that will be changing soon. Colors visible on the planet suggest that details will soon be appearing 

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 meantime, here's an awesome shot of the last pass by a former Utah Skies Astrophotographer of the Month, Ed Grafton. 
Checkout the Mars Global Surveyor Website for more details.

Mars is currently in Libra.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		725 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.54
Visual Diameter:		45"
Distance:		4.40 AU
Constellation:		Cancer

 

And speaking of Jupiter's moons... an astronomer using an observatory on top of a Hawaiian mountain peak, has detected a small moon orbiting Jupiter, bringing the number of known satellites around the king of planets to 40. How many can you see? Well, it depends mostly on aperture.  For more info, checkout CNN.com/SPACE.

Here's an awesome shot of Jupiter taken by Utah Skies own Don Brown on Wednesday night, 1/8/03. That evening, there was a double moon-shadow transit on Jupiter  -- Ganymede's and Io's. This image was created from RGB exposures captured with an SBIG STV through a Takahashi FS-102 at f/24. The sky was rather turbulent during this event, though conditions improved later in the evening...

Jupiter is currently in Cancer.

Saturn recently cruised past The Crab Nebula. In fact, on Saturday night, it actually crossed right in front of The Crab.

Saturn is now rising before 4:00pm and is well positioned for observing by about 8:30pm, giving planetary viewers a nice bedtime treat. 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.

Here's another beautiful shot taken by Utah Skies own Don Brown on 2003/01/08 in Park City, UT.
Don used a Takahashi FS-102 refractor and an SBIG STV CCD video camera. It was shot at f/24 and post processed with a high-pass filter using MaxImDL

Saturn is currently cruising through the constellation Taurus.

This awesome shot was taken by Delphi Kwok of Hong Kong. The bright planet Saturn (mag-0.4) was getting ready to drift across The Crab Nebula mag(8.4). Saturn being roughly 3800 times brighter than The Crab made viewing the event a bit tough. I managed to view the event on Wednesday... with Saturn about 1/3 of a degree away from the faint Crab. By Friday night, the Crab had all but disappeared in the glare of the bright planet.
Checkout Sky & Telescope for more information.

Is this image labeled incorrectly? Nope! The planet Uranus has rings just like Saturn. Well.. maybe not exactly like Saturn, but... it does indeed have rings. The rings were not detected until 1977, when they were observed during a stellar occultation event. Just before and after the planet moved in front of the (occulted) star, the surrounding rings caused the starlight to dim for short intervals of time. Photos obtained from the Voyager-2 spacecraft in 1986 showed a multitude of very tenuous rings. These rings are almost undetectable from the Earth in visible light. And that's the key... this image shows a near-infrared view of the giant planet Uranus with rings and some of its moons, obtained on November 19, 2002, with the ISAAC multi-mode instrument on the 8.2-m VLT ANTU telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile).

The recent discovery of Uranus' 21st moon solidified its number three position in the moon count behind Saturn with 30 and Jupiter with 39. Uranus is currently about 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.

Uranus is another relatively easy target to find. It is just about at its highest as darkness falls. So... checkout Neptune and then move on the Uranus. Uranus is another tiny planet at only 4"... and 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.

How's this for a cool shot? The passing Voyager 2 spacecraft zoomed in and snapped this amazing shot of Neptune's Great Dark Spot. Neptune has a huge spot similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Neptune's spot, however, is thought to be a hole in the methane clouds which surround the planet... very similar to the hole in the Earth's ozone layer.

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. 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.

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 Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Need more information? Checkout the Pluto Home Page.

Deep Sky

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.

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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