Report for 2003-03-21

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Second Anniversary Issue

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

Contents

Second Anniversary Issue

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Comet Watch

Viewing Outlook

We haven't had much of an opportunity to observe lately... Except for last Friday night (when it was supposed to be raining) and last night when we got another unexpected break, skies have been cloudy and precipitation has been frequent. Oh, well... guess that when you're in a drought you should be thankful for any and all precipitation.

On a side note.... We recently crossed the line…. We now have over 12 hours of sunlight here in northern Utah. The days have been getting longer for quite some time now… but this weekend it’s official. We now face the trade off of warmer viewing conditions, but... not being able to view until later at night. The early part of spring and fall probably provide the optimum mix of the two. Anyway... like it or not... here comes the sun!

Mission Update

New Mars Mysteries

After a year of data collection, the orbiting Mars Odyssey Spacecraft has raised more questions than it has answered. What is the chemical composition of the Red Planet? Was there ever water on the planet? Is there any now?
Checkout Space.com for more info.

Solar System

Space Weather Update

The dark areas along the lower left side of the Sun are called coronal holes. Coronal holes were discovered when X-ray telescopes were first deployed above the earth's atmosphere revealing the structure of the Sun's corona. Coronal holes are associated with "open" magnetic field lines and are often found at the Sun's poles. The high-speed Solar Wind is known to originate in coronal holes.

This sketch comes from amateur astronomer Bill Cook of Vernon, New Jersey. Bill made the sketch last Friday 3/14 using a refracting telescope operating at 100x. Of course Bill had a quality solar filter attached to his telescope for the session.

According to Cook: "The seeing conditions were good enough to show excellent penumbral relief, and the contrast between the outer bright ring and undisturbed photosphere was sharp". 

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

On March 14th, Daryl Pederson snapped this picture of the Northern Lights near Girdwood, Alaska. According to Pederson ""There was no real intense activity, but after a long rainy winter in southcentral Alaska it was nice to see the lights again."

Also... Dennis Mammana of Skyscapes.com, whose beautiful shot of the northern lights was featured in last weeks report, put together an awesome animated gif of the aurora. The file is just over 1MB, so I did not include it in the report. If you've got a high speed internet connection... or some free time to kill click here to check it out.

Planetary Report

The accompanying image was created from a series of images made by the Mariner 10 spacecraft. Note the blank spot at the top. This represents an area not imaged by the spacecraft. 

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 Pisces.

Venus is now rising about 1.5 hours before the sun. It will disappear from the morning sky during the summer months and reappear in the evening sky this fall. As it sinks, it grows in phase and shrinks in overall size and brightness. At this point, it is considerably past its maximum size and brightness now. It has shrunk from over 1' in diameter to only 15'... less than 1/4 of it's largest. It has also dimmed from over mag-4.6 to under mag-4.1... 

This beautiful image was taken in Ultra Violet Wavelengths by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope..

Venus is currently in Capricornus.

 

This beautiful image of Delicate Arch was taken by Dale Meier of UtahPictures.com. Arches National Park is one of Utah's premier destinations and Delicate Arch is one of the parks most recognized attractions.

Would you like to see some more of Dale's incredible images, checkout UtahPictures.com.

Lunar Phase

The moon reaches last quarter on Monday. In the meantime, we'll be under a waning gibbous with 84% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated when it rises over Park City at about 11:15pm. 

This beautiful Lunar Halo was imaged by Canadian Lauri Kangas. 

Visit our Lunar Information Page for even more images and information

Is Mars safe for astronauts? Recent suggests a stronger than expected level of radiation on the surface of the Red Planet. While not beyond manageable levels, the levels would be yet another thing for astronauts and mission control specialists to track. Find out more at Space.com. 

Mars took another step towards grandeur this week. At 7", it is now almost twice as large as it was just a few months ago. No surface detail is yet visible, but that will come soon when Mars passes the critical 10" mark. That event will occur in early May. In the meantime, colors visible on the planet suggest that details will soon be appearing. I viewed the Red Planet Wednesday morning through a 6" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. Views were a bit of a tease, but... that was ok. I know that by August, Mars will be bigger and brighter than at any time in over 70,000 years! Why is this you may be wondering... Earth and Mars both orbit the Sun on different paths and at different distances. This summer, both planets will be on the same side of the Sun. This type of alignment, known as Opposition, occurs about every 26 months. No big deal, right? Well... that depends because the separation at opposition varies considerably. On August 27th, that distance will be about 35 million miles. At the previous opposition in June of 2001, the distance was 41 million miles and in 1995 it was almost 70 million miles. So... what can you expect? Well.. only the best views of the Red Planet in your lifetime! Mars will shine at mag -2.9. This is about as bright as Jupiter ever gets! Additionally, Mars will have an apparent diameter of 25". That's more than 4 times its current size. Still not convinced? Want even better views? Well, short of climbing aboard a spaceship (not completely out of the question nowadays) you'd have to wait until 2287 for a closer peak.

Dominic Cantin of Québec City captured this long-exposure image of Mars among the star clouds of Sagittarius in May 2001.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		2:10 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.38
Visual Diameter:		42"
Distance:		4.66 AU
Constellation:		Cancer

 

Jupiter's moons are currently involved in a rare dance. I'm sure you know that the moons routinely drift in front and in back of Jupiter. However, due to a chance alignment between Earth and Jupiter, for the next few months the moons will actually be eclipsing each other. For times when these events may be viewed, visit the Astronomy Magazine website.

To find Jupiter look high and towards the east shortly after dark. Jupiter is the brightest star-like object in the night sky. Need a bit more help? Checkout this star chart.

Jupiter reached opposition early in February (2/1/03). 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. 

Jupiter is currently in Cancer.

Saturn is now rising about noon 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 6th planet was taken by The Cassini Spacecraft scheduled for a July 2004 rendezvous with the ringed planet. Astronomers expect to learn much from this expedition.

Much of this "subtle" detail can be seen with an amateur telescope from the convenience of your backyard. Check it out next time the skies clear... Saturn is pretty close to it's best for the next couple of months. After that, it'll be setting too early to provide more than a quick glance.

How's this for an awesome view? This is certainly one you'll never see from Earth... a crescent view of Neptune. Since Neptune is beyond Earth's orbit, we never see it in any phase except full. This shot was taken by the passing Voyager II spacecraft. Pretty cool, huh?

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 Serpens, 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.

This image shows the approximate size of Pluto and Charon by overlaying them on an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) image of the United States of America. Pluto is about 2274 kilometers (1410 miles) in diameter and Charon 1172 kilometers (727 miles) in diameter. The image of Pluto is based upon Hubble observations taken of Pluto in June and July of 1994. The Charon image is based upon photometric measurements acquired by Marc Buie of Lowell Observatory.

This image is Copyright © 1998 by Calvin J. Hamilton.

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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