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Mission Update
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 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.
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Solar System |
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Space Weather Update |
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 On
March 31st, the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
(SOHO) captured this busy image of our star covered in sunspots throughout
it's middle latitudes. Solar activity has been on the rise lately, with
northern observers reporting numerous aurora sightings.
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 Stephane Levesque
of Quebec, Canada snapped this beautiful image of the northern lights on
April 1st. To make this shot, Stephane used a 28mm lens and ASA 800 speed
film for a 25 seconds exposure. Nice job!
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Planetary Report
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Mercury, the 1st Planet
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| Rising: |
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6.40 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-1.10 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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6" |
| Distance: |
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1.17 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Pisces |
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 The accompanying
image is one of my favorites... as I clearly remember the afternoon this
occurred. Skies were clear as I setup my new reflector to watch. Many of my
neighbors were amused to see a telescope out during the day.
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.
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Venus, the 2nd Planet
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| Rising: |
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4:55 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-3.97 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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13" |
| Distance: |
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1.27 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aquarius |
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 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 by the Galileo Spacecraft.
Venus is currently in Aquarius.
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Earth, the 3rd Planet
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A View of Zion Canyon - Zion National Park, Utah
This image captures some of the beauty which fills Zion
National Park in southern Utah.
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Lunar
Phase
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 We'll
got a new moon on this past Tuesday. In the meantime, we'll
be under a waxing crescent moon with a mere 8% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated
when it rises over Park City at about 7:35 am.
This beautiful shot was taken by Utah Skies own Don
Brown using an Olympus D-340R Digital Camera shooting through an Orion XT8 Newtonian Reflector (8" f/8)
and eyepiece projection (25mm/49x)
Visit our Lunar
Information Page for even more images and information
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Mars, the 4th Planet
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| Rising: |
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2:30 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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0.46 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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8" |
| Distance: |
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1.22 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Sagittarius |
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 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 8", it is now
twice as large as it was just a few months ago. No surface detail is yet
visible except under the absolute finest viewing conditions. 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.
The accompanying image gives you an idea of what Mars watchers can expect to see shortly.
And who knows.. in all likelihood the views will be better by mid summer.
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Jupiter, the 5th Planet
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| Rising: |
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1:15 pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-2.28 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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41" |
| Distance: |
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4.86 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Cancer |
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 Miguel, a sky watcher in New York City
captured this beautiful image of the planet Jupiter alongside The
Beehive Cluster. Never seen the beehive? Use Jupiter as your guide to
this beautiful Messier Star Cluster. M44 is a beautiful sight in a pair of
binoculars. Check it out next clear night you get?
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 almost directly overhead shortly after dark. Jupiter is the brightest star-like object in the night
sky. Need a bit more help? Checkout
this star chart.
Jupiter is currently in Cancer.
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Saturn, the 6th Planet
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| Rising: |
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9:50 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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0.09 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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18" |
| Distance: |
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9.34 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Taurus |
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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 orbiting Hubble
Space Telescope. Wow! What an incredible shot. Take a look at the upper
portion of the Cassini
Division. You can easily see the planet through the rings. Wow! 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.
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Uranus, the 7th Planet
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| Rising: |
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4:35 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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5.91 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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3" |
| Distance: |
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20.74 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aquarius |
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 This
beautiful 2MASS image shows Uranus and it's moons. 2MASS or
The Two Micron All Sky Survey recently completed the largest high resolution
imaging project ever undertaken. The 4 year 2
Micron All Sky Survey contains over 500 million celestial
objects. Checkout the 2MASS
website for more info and incredible
images.
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Neptune, the 8th Planet
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| Rising: |
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3:45 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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7.95 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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2" |
| Distance: |
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30.55 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Capricornus |
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 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.
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Pluto, the 9th Planet
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| Rising: |
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11:50 pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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13.89 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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<1" |
| Distance: |
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30.21 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Serpens |
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 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 series at right was
captured by Gordon Waite. This series depicts how Pluto was originally discovered. After years of searching for a planet beyond Neptune, Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 came upon Pluto. His was not a simple discovery. He didn't just scan the sky with his telescope and see Pluto. Nope. He took countless images of the sky. Each image would be compared to an image taken days or weeks earlier. While the stars are essentially motionless over short periods of time, solar system objects would appear to move. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh compared images taken on January 23rd with images taken on January 29th. While blinking the images, a technique which alternates the images from one side to the other, he noticed that one of the stars moved. That star was actually the planet Pluto. And so on that fateful day, the population of our solar system increased by one. No other planets have been found in our solar system since!
(Just in case you're having trouble, you should see Pluto dancing towards the lower left corner of the image. If you don't, hit your browsers "Reload" button.)
Need more information? Checkout the Pluto
Home Page.
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Deep Sky
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Hubble Vision
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The Hubble Space Telescope
has distinguished itself as a premier source of astronomical images.
Amazing HST images have graced the covers of major magazines and
newspapers worldwide. In recognition of the amazing advances in astronomy
and physics which have come from Hubble discoveries, we'd like to devote a
section of this report to some of these incredible images, and share some of them with you. Our
latest comes directly from the Hubble
Heritage Team.
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.
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 Hubble Watches Light from Mysterious Erupting Star Reverberate Through Space
In January 2002, a dull star in an obscure constellation suddenly became
600,000 times more luminous than our Sun, temporarily making it the brightest star in our Milky Way galaxy.
The mysterious star has long since faded back to obscurity, but observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of a phenomenon
called a "light echo" have uncovered remarkable new features. These details promise to provide astronomers with a CAT-scan-like probe of the
three-dimensional structure of shells of dust surrounding an aging star. The results appear tomorrow in the journal Nature.
"Like some past celebrities, this star had its 15 minutes of fame," says Anne Kinney, director of NASA's Astronomy and Physics program,
Headquarters, Washington. "But its legacy continues as it unveils an eerie light show in space. Thankfully, NASA's Hubble has a front row seat to this
unique event in our galaxy."
Light from a stellar explosion echoing off circumstellar dust in our Milky Way galaxy was last seen in 1936, long before Hubble was available to
study the tidal wave of light and reveal the netherworld of dusty black interstellar space.
"As light from the outburst continues to reflect off the dust surrounding the
star, we view continuously changing cross-sections of the dust envelope. Hubble's view is so sharp that we can do an 'astronomical cat-scan' of the
space around the star," says the lead observer, astronomer Howard Bond of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Bond and his team used the Hubble images to determine that the petulant star, called V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) is about 20,000 light-years
from Earth. The star put out enough energy in a brief flash to illuminate surrounding dust, like a spelunker taking a flash picture of the walls of an
undiscovered cavern. The star presumably ejected the illuminated dust shells in previous outbursts. Light from the latest outburst travels to the
dust and then is reflected to Earth. Because of this indirect path, the light
arrives at Earth months after light coming directly toward Earth from the star itself.
The outburst of V838 Mon was somewhat similar to that of a nova, a more common stellar outburst. A typical nova is a normal star that dumps
hydrogen onto a compact white-dwarf companion star. The hydrogen piles up until it spontaneously explodes by nuclear fusion — like a titanic hydrogen bomb. This
exposes a searing stellar core, which has a temperature of hundreds of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.
By contrast, however, V838 Mon did not expel its outer layers. Instead, it grew enormously in size, with its surface temperature dropping to temperatures not much
hotter than a light bulb. This behavior of ballooning to an immense size, but not losing its outer layers, is very unusual and completely unlike an ordinary nova
explosion.
"We are having a hard time understanding this outburst, which has shown a behavior that is not predicted by present theories of nova outbursts," says Bond. "It may
represent a rare combination of stellar properties that we have not seen before."
The star is so unique it may represent a transitory stage in a star's evolution that is rarely seen. The star has some similarities to highly unstable aging stars called
eruptive variables, which suddenly and unpredictably increase in brightness.
The circular light-echo feature has now expanded to twice the angular size of Jupiter on the sky. Astronomers expect it to continue expanding as reflected light from
farther out in the dust envelope finally arrives at Earth. Bond predicts that the echo will be observable for the rest of this decade.
The research team included investigators from the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore; the Universities Space Research Association at the U.S. Naval
Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.; the European Space Agency; Arizona State University; the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory at the University of Arizona at
Tucson; the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in Spain's Canary Islands; and the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova in Asiago, Italy.
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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.
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IDA-Utah Light Pollution Update
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Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly
checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org
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< | Index
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The amazing clarity of
Hubble Space
Telescope images is causing astronomers to rethink some long held beliefs.
Put simply, the images are just too clear. The vast distances traveled by
light should cause more blurring than is evident in Hubble images.
