Report for 2003-01-31

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Comet Watch

Introducing Comet C/2002 V1 NEAT:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab announced the discovery of comet C/2002 V1 NEAT on November 6, 2002. It was discovered by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program (NEAT). At that point, the comet was estimated at about mag17. This is beyond the visual limits of all but the very largest amateur telescopes. It has brightened steadily though... and is now approaching mag6... just about naked eye visible. You can find the comet cruising through the constellation Pisces. To do so, you'll need a clear view towards the western horizon. It is located about 7.5° due south of Alpha Pegasi, the southwestern most star in the Great Square of Pegasus. 

The accompanying image was taken by Michael Jäger using a 200/300 Schmidt camera on 2003 January 28.  It is a combination of two 6-minute exposures obtained with E100S film and one 7-minute exposure obtained with Kodak TP film..

For more info on comet NEAT, checkout Gary W. Kronk's Cometography Website.

Comet C/2002 X5 Kudo-Fujikawa:

Comet Kudo-Fujikawa reached Perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on January 29th. It is now too close to the Sun to be seen from Earth. Fortunately, we have eyes in the sky as well :) The orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has the ability to block out the intense brightness of the Sun. 

The accompanying image shows the comet cruising past the Sun. The circular object in the center of the image is an artifact of the imaging system. It is designed to block out the bright light of the Sun so that it can image objects otherwise too close to the Sun. 

Comet Kudo-Fujikawa will soon be visible to southern hemisphere observers in February's evening skies. It will return for northern hemisphere observers later in February and March, but it will be significantly decreased in brightness by then.

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 continues... 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!

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 will reach it's Greatest Elongation from the Sun on 2/4 and is now visible in the southeast just before dawn. To spot the planet, you'll need an unobstructed view towards the southeastern horizon. Head out as it is scheduled to rise and scan the east-southeastern horizon. Mercury can be found to the lower left of Venus... about the same distance away from Venus as Mars... but in the opposite direction.

The accompanying Boston University image is one of the finest I have ever seen of Mercury. It shows surface detail typically only seen in images taken from space.

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. I did just that on Wednesday when  Mercury was just east of the crescent Moon. To find it for yourself, use the planets Mars and Venus as guides. Draw a line from Mars through Venus and continue for about the same distance along that same line and you should come to Mercury. The next few days will provide you with your best views of Mercury for several weeks. 

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 be new tomorrow morning. So... if you saw the moon this morning.. .which is highly doubtful... we were  under a waning gibbous moon with a mere 1% of the lunar surface illuminated. 

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 August of 2002 from a campsite at 9400' in Utah's Uinta Mountains. At that point, the moon was a mere 32 hours old... this is what it will look like should you see it Sunday evening.

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 orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. This picture clearly shows a spring dust storm in the northern regions of Mars. Do you see it? It's along the lower right portion of the ice cap. Temperature changes and moisture picked up from the melting ice cap pick up dust and swirl around in giant storms. Checkout the Mars Global Surveyor Website for more details.

Mars is currently in eastern Scorpius.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		5:45 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.59
Visual Diameter:		45"
Distance:		4.33 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 reach opposition tomorrow night. Opposition, as you might have guessed, means that Jupiter will be opposite the Sun in the sky. So, as the Sun is setting in the west, Jupiter will be rising in the east. Jupiter will be almost directly overhead by midnight. Jupiter is at it's biggest and brightest at opposition... so get your telescope and checkout Jupiter. 

Here's an incredible shot of Jupiter's moon Io drifting across the face of the giant planet. An inky black shadow is visible as well. These events are easy to view on a clear night with a small telescope.

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 ringed planet was taken by the approaching Cassini Spacecraft. 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. One of Saturn's icy moons is visible as a small dot at the bottom of the picture. 

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 Hubble Space Telescope image shows a near-infrared view of the giant planet Uranus with rings and some of its moons.

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 took this shot as it cruised past the giant planet.

Neptune is a relatively easy target when viewed at the right time... and that time has passed! Neptune had been at its best throughout the fall. It was high in the western sky at dark, so... you could 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 Nordic Optical Telescope.

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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