Report for 2003-01-24

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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!.

C/2002 X5 (Kudo-Fujikawa) continues to speed toward the sun and perihelion, "rising" later each morning. Appearing above the east-northeastern horizon in Park City, Utah by about 5:45am MST, the comet is photograph-able for only about 45 minutes before being obscured by twilight. At a disappointingly dim mag 6.8, Kudo-Fujikawa is only visible through binoculars and telescopes, and unless your fortunate enough to live under extremely dark skies, this will continue to be the case when the comet is its brightest at mag 6.5. Using a 4" Takahashi refractor at f/8 and the SBIG STV, 15 60-second images were captured and combined into the accompanying animated GIF.

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.

Viewing Outlook

Mission Update

The Space Shuttle Columbia roared into space on Thursday 1/16. According to NASA officials, this mission is dedicated solely to science. For more information, checkout CNN.com/SPACE

The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Columbia will make numerous passes over our 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.

Solar System

Space Weather Update

Sunspot activity on our star seems to have picked up again... And while none of the sunspots look incredibly large, there have been at least three solar flares since Tuesday. In fact, the explosion on January 21 hurled a CME out into space. Checkout the image below... it's a CME from a couple of weeks ago. Look at the size of that thing!

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.

Huge Solar Flare

A solar flare erupted on Monday, January 13th. The orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory captured this image of the huge flare. How big was it you may be wondering? Well, the blue dot represents the size of planet Earth.

Planetary Report

Mercury  passed inferior conjunction on January 11th. Inferior Conjunction occurs when a planet passes between the Earth and the Sun. Mercury is now visible in the east. It recently  joined fellow solar system members Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus in morning sky. Best views of the fleet-footed planet will be had starting about now... and for the next couple of weeks. To spot the planet, you'll need an unobstructed view towards the eastern horizon. Head out as it is scheduled to rise and scan the east-southeastern horizon. A pair of binoculars would be helpful at this point. The next couple of weekends, will see Mercury rising by about 6:15am This will put it higher in the sky as dawn approaches making observation a bit simpler.

The accompanying Voyager 10 image shows Mercury to be seriously scarred, much like our Moon. The reason it is so scarred is because it has no atmosphere to protect it. Whereas Earth's atmosphere causes most space debris to burn up on impact... creating beautiful meteor streaks, Mercury has no such atmosphere. Because of this anything headed for the planet scores a direct hit on the surface. Additionally, since Mercury has no atmosphere or active weather systems, any marks made on the surface are left untouched for ages. This picture essentially shows billions of years worth of Mercury's history... all etched into the surface.

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.

Venus reached greatest western elongation at 10pm on January  10th. Greatest Elongation marks that point in a planets orbit where it reaches the greatest angular distance from the Sun. Also at that point, it was exactly 50% illuminated. Venus is now rising a little over 3 hours before the sun. It is considerably past its maximum size and brightness now. It has shrunk from over 1' in diameter to only .20'... less than 1/3 of it's largest. It has also dimmed from over mag-4.6 to about mag-4.3... 

This gorgeous image was taken by Japanese photographer Sho Endo on Jan. 5, 2003, at 3:45 a.m. JST. Sho used a Canon EOS D60 camera @ 50mm and f2.5 for a 60 second image made possible by mounting his camera on a motorized telescope. Wow!

Venus has just moved into western Scorpious.

Lunar Phase

The moon will reach last quarter tomorrow night. So... tonight we'll be under a waning gibbous moon with 56% of the lunar surface illuminated. This month's full moon, the first of the year is referred to as the Full Wolf Moon. "Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages." -- from the Farmer's Almanac, the meaning behind the name given the first full moon of the year. 

The moon reached perigee on Thursday 1/23. Perigee marks the smallest distance between the Earth and the Moon. Apogee marks the greatest distance. This proximity made this past weekends full moon just a little bit larger than usual. Did you notice the difference?

I took the accompanying image in May of 2002. 

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... the views were interesting, but... more of a tease than anything. 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. 

So... Get your telescopes ready, we are in for a treat!

In the meantime, here's an awesome shot of the Red Planet taken by The Hubble Space Telescope.

Checkout the Mars Global Surveyor Website for more details.

Mars is currently in eastern Scorpius.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		6:20 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.58
Visual Diameter:		45"
Distance:		4.34 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.

Jupiter will pass within 4° of the moon on Sunday 1/19. This could be a good opportunity for a wide angle shot of the two.

Here's an incredible shot of Jupiter's moon Io, taken at sunset by the Galileo Spacecraft. Look at the long shadows cast by the extremely tall mountains on the upper left side of the image. These mountains would rival anything on Earth.

Jupiter is currently in Cancer.

Saturn is now rising before 2:30pm and is well positioned for observing as soon as it's dark, 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.

This beautiful image of the planet Saturn was taken in August 1981 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft when it was 21 million kilometers from the planet. Saturn is one of the giant outer planets in our solar system, made mostly of liquid and gas. It has the most dramatic ring system among the four in our solar system. Such rings are made of large numbers of small icy and dusty pieces. Three of Saturn's icy moons (Tethys, Dione, and Rhea) are visible as small dots of light at the bottom of the picture. The shadow of Tethys can be seen under Saturn's rings. (Courtesy of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA)

The moon passed just 4° to the north of Saturn on Wednesday 1/15. 
Saturn is currently cruising through the constellation Taurus.

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.

For more information, checkout the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

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.

On Monday, 1/13 astronomers announced the discovery of three new moons orbiting the planet Neptune. This brings the total of satellites orbiting the 8th planet to 11.
The accompanying time-lapsed image shows one of those moons as it drifts across the face of the giant planet. These are the first moons orbiting Neptune detected  from Earth since 1949. No doubt it required incredible optics to pull this off. The moons are only about 18-24 miles in diameter. At a distance of almost 3 billion miles away that's some sharp shooting.

For more information, checkout MSNBC.com

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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