Solar System
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Who says astronomy has no action?
Certainly not anybody who's been watching the Sun lately. In the last couple
of weeks, there have been numerous large sunspot groups... as well as
numerous solar flares. In that time, the Earth has been buffeted by a
handful of these and experienced considerable geomagnetic activity. For a
while it looked like things are finally going to settle down for a while....
Well I guess not. Another large sunspot group has swung into view. Sunspot
#375 spans an area several times the size of the Earth. Will it send
fireworks our way? Who knows... but you know where to check to find out,
right :-)
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 There
was an Annular
Eclipse on Saturday 5/31 visible to folks from Scotland to
Greenland. During an annular
eclipse, the moon will be directly between the Earth and Sun. However… due
to orbital eccentricities, the moon will not appear large enough to fully
block out the Sun…. leaving a beautiful looking ring around it instead. If
you were unable to be in Greenland Saturday… there will be a total
eclipse in November that’s equally as accessible... it will be visible from the Indian Ocean :-)
This amazing shot was taken by
Snaevarr
Gudmundsson from an airplane flying above Iceland. Some people will go
to great lengths to get a shot!
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Hans Coeckelberghs of Cape Wrath,
Scotland took this beautiful shot of Saturday's annular solar eclipse. Cape
Wrath is the northern most part of Scotland.
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| Rising: |
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5:00 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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0.39 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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8" |
| Distance: |
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0.88 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aries |
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 Mercury reached Greatest
Western Elongation on Tuesday, 6/3. This marks the furthest west of the
Sun that Mercury will get... hence it's earliest sunrise. This also marks
the time where Mercury is easiest to find. Look for the
first rock low in the ever so slightly north of due east just before
sunrise. Your search will be easier if you use a pair of binoculars.
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| Rising: |
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5:00 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-3.89 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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10" |
| Distance: |
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1.59 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Taurus |
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Venus is now rising less than an hour before the sun. If you'd like to check
it out... do it soon. Venus 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 11"... less than 1/5 of it's largest. It has
also dimmed from over mag-4.6 to under mag-3.9... This beautiful shot
of crescent Venus was taken by Brian Colville of the Maple
Ridge Observatory while Venus was about 1/2 illuminated. It is currently
over 90% illuminated.Need
to no more about Venus? Checkout this article by The
Planetary Society.
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Earth, the 3rd Planet
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Earth from Mars
This beautiful picture was captured by the orbiting Mars
Global Surveyor Spacecraft. It is the first-ever image of Earth taken from
another planet. At this point, Mars is some 70 million miles away. Wow! What a
beautiful shot. In case you're wondering, that little guy in the upper right is
our Moon.
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 The
waxing crescent
moon posed next to the 5th planet, Jupiter
on Wednesday evening. If you got the chance to view it... the moon also
displayed some Earthshine...
as it had the previous couple of nights.
I took the
accompanying shot last spring from my home in Park City.
Visit our Lunar
Information Page for even more images and information
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 The
moon is reach first quarter tomorrow... at which 1/2 of the Earth facing
surface will be illuminated.
In the meantime...
tonight we'll be under a waxing crescent moon with 38% of the moons surface
visible when it rises just before noon.
I took the
accompanying shot of the waxing crescent last spring.
Visit our Lunar
Information Page for even more images and information
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| Rising: |
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1:25 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-0.80 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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13" |
| Distance: |
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-0.72 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Capricornus |
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 Mars
continues to grow at an incredible rate. In apparent size and brightness the
changes from week to week are simply amazing.
Mars now spans over 13”… roughly 50% larger than at the start of
May. Mars has also brightened to mag –0.80… making it the brightest
object in the morning sky. I got several chances to view The Red Planet
Monday this past week. Predawn skies were fairly steady and ... details were
definitely coming into view. Most impressive (from my point of view anyway)
was that the Martian
Polar Ice Caps were clearly visible.
If
you’d like to checkout Mars for yourself, all you need to do is look high
and towards the south before sunrise. Mars is so bright that you just
can’t miss it.
Viewing Mars will grow easier
too as Mars continues to grow throughout the remainder of the spring and into the summer...
culminating in late August, when 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 about 2 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.
Since Mars will be closest to Earth this summer...
what better time to launch a spacecraft to study the planet? Answer: There
is no better time... that's why there'll be a total of 5
spacecraft launched in the coming months to study the Red Planet. The
first of these, The Mars Express, took off on Tuesday. Carrying a space
probe known as Beagle 2, the mission will dig into the Martian surface and
analyze it's makeup for signs of life.
The accompanying image was taken by orbiting Mars
Global Surveyor Spacecraft.
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| Rising: |
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10:35 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-1.89 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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34" |
| Distance: |
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5.82 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Cancer |
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 Checkout
this beautiful shot of Jupiter and it's moons alongside the stars of The
Beehive Cluster.
Taking advantage of clear skies recently,
Don and I viewed a shadow transit. When we setup, we saw three moons... We
wondered where #4 might be... after a bit of searching, we noticed the
shadow. This of course meant that the 4th moon had to be transiting the
planet. Shortly thereafter, we noticed a little bright pimple on the
leftmost edge of the planet. Io had left the building :-) These types
of events happen fairly regularly. So, if you get out every once in a while,
you should have no trouble viewing on yourself. Let me just tell you...
viewing a shadow transit is pretty easy. Viewing one of the moons against
the background of Jupiter on the other hand requires very steady skies and a
telescope with good optics.
To find Jupiter look slightly west of overhead shortly after dark. Jupiter is the brightest star-like object in the night
sky. Need a bit more help? Checkout
this star chart.
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| Rising: |
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7:10 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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0.06 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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17" |
| Distance: |
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10.01 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Gemini |
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 Saturn's
rings are now tilted wide open to us... roughly 27° from edge-on. Over
the next 15 years, they will move from wide open.. to edge-on to wide open
revealing the other pole. This and next year will be the best time to study
Saturn's beautiful ring structure for some time, so... get out there and do
it.
Saturn is now rising before 10:00am and is already
well into the western sky by the time it's dark, making planetary observers
hurry to get in any decent views. . 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 The Cassini Spacecraft
shortly after it passed Jupiter. Cassini will reach Saturn in 2004 at which
point it will drop into orbit and begin it's study of the ringed planet.
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| Rising: |
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1:35 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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5.81 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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4" |
| Distance: |
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19:78 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aquarius |
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 Interested
in viewing the 7th planet? Now would be a great time to begin trying. Uranus
is rising shortly after midnight... putting it high in the sky just before
sunrise. It's also recently jumped from 3" to 4" in apparent
diameter. This is just about as big and bright as Uranus gets... So... take
advantage of it.
This
beautiful Hubble
Space Telescope image shows Uranus, it's rings and it's moons as
only the Hubble can.
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| Rising: |
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12:35 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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7.87 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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2" |
| Distance: |
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29.53 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Capricornus |
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 Springtime
on Neptune? Yup... that's what the latest observations seem to indicate. The
southern portion of the 8th planet is having some spring like
conditions. Spring is always a fun time of year.. and that's a good
thing, because spring last for over 40 Earth years on Neptune. 40 years?
Yup... Because it takes Neptune 165 years to orbit the Sun, seasons last
just a smidge over 40 earth years.
How's this for a cool shot of Neptune? This was taken by the
Voyager 2 spacecraft as it was passing the giant planet. Here we see Neptune and Triton
as they can never be seen from Earth... in a crescent form.
Similar to Jupiter, Neptune is
categorized as a gas giant. Neptune is
roughly 17 times more massive than the Earth. Neptune was first
observed by Galle
and d'Arrest
on 1846 Sept 23 very near to the locations independently predicted by Adams
and Le
Verrier. Special thanks to Don Higgins for pointing our some
inaccuracies which had crept into some of our previous reports on Neptune.
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| Rising: |
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8:30 pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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13.80 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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<1" |
| Distance: |
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29.66 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Ophiuchus |
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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.
This high resolution image was created
from images taken by The Hubble Space Telescope.
Need more information? Checkout the Pluto
Home Page.
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Deep Sky
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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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 Embryonic Stars Emerge from Interstellar "Eggs"
Eerie, dramatic new pictures from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
show newborn stars emerging from "eggs" — not the barnyard variety — but rather dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating
gaseous globules (EGGs). Hubble found the "EGGs," appropriately enough, in the Eagle nebula, a nearby star-forming region 6,500 light-
years away in the constellation Serpens.
"For a long time astronomers have speculated about what processes control the sizes of stars — about why stars are the sizes that they are,"
said Jeff Hester of Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. "Now in M16 we seem to be watching at least one such process at work right in front of our
eyes."
Striking pictures taken by Hester and co-investigators with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) resolve the EGGs at the tip of
finger-like features protruding from monstrous columns of cold gas and dust in the Eagle nebula (also called M16 — 16th object in the Messier
catalog). The columns — dubbed "elephant trunks" — protrude from the wall of a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen, like stalagmites rising above
the floor of a cavern. Inside the gaseous towers, which are light-years long,
the interstellar gas is dense enough to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars that continue to grow as they accumulate more and
more mass from their surroundings.
Hubble gives a clear look at what happens as a torrent of ultraviolet light from nearby young, hot stars heats the gas along the surface of the pillars,
"boiling it away" into interstellar space — a process called "photoevaporation. "The Hubble pictures show photoevaporating gas as
ghostly streamers flowing away from the columns. But not all of the gas boils off at the same rate. The EGGs, which are denser than their
surroundings, are left behind after the gas around them is gone.
"It's a bit like a wind storm in the desert," said Hester. "As the wind blows
away the lighter sand, heavier rocks buried in the sand are uncovered. But in M16, instead of rocks, the ultraviolet light is uncovering the denser
egg-like globules of gas that surround stars that were forming inside the gigantic gas columns."
Some EGGs appear as nothing but tiny bumps on the surface of the columns. Others have been uncovered more completely, and now resemble "fingers" of gas
protruding from the larger cloud. (The fingers are gas that has been protected from photoevaporation by the shadows of the EGGs). Some EGGs have pinched off
completely from the larger column from which they emerged, and now look like teardrops in space.
By stringing together these pictures of EGGs caught at different stages of being uncovered, Hester and his colleagues from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera
Investigation Definition Team are getting an unprecedented look at what stars and their surroundings look like before they are truly stars.
"This is the first time that we have actually seen the process of forming stars being uncovered by photoevaporation," Hester emphasized. "In some ways it seems
more like archaeology than astronomy. The ultraviolet light from nearby stars does the digging for us, and we study what is unearthed."
"In a few cases we can see the stars in the EGGs directly in the WFPC2 images," says Hester. "As soon as the star in an EGG is exposed, the object looks
something like an ice cream cone, with a newly uncovered star playing the role of the cherry on top."
Ultimately, photoevaporation inhibits the further growth of the embyronic stars by dispersing the cloud of gas they were "feeding" from. "We believe that the stars in
M16 were continuing to grow as more and more gas fell onto them, right up until the moment that they were cut off from that surrounding material by
photoevaporation," said Hester.
This process is markedly different from the process that governs the sizes of stars forming in isolation. Some astronomers believe that, left to its own devices, a star
will continue to grow until it nears the point where nuclear fusion begins in its interior. When this happens, the star begins to blow a strong "wind" that clears away the
residual material. Hubble has imaged this process in detail in so-called Herbig-Haro objects.
Hester also speculated that photoevaporation might actually inhibit the formation of planets around such stars. It is not at all clear from the new data that the stars in
M16 have reached the point where they have formed the disks that go on to become solar systems," said Hester, "and if these disks haven't formed yet, they never
will."
Hester plans to use Hubble's high resolution to probe other nearby star-forming regions to look for similar structures. "Discoveries about the nature of the M16 EGGs
might lead astronomers to rethink some of their ideas about the environments of stars forming in other regions, such as the Orion Nebula," he predicted.
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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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Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly
checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org
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