Report for 2003-08-08

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

The Perseid Meteor Shower

Mark your calendars... the 2003 Perseid Meteor Shower is now under way. The event, which peaks in the wee hours this coming Wednesday August 13th, typically produces about 100 meteors per hour. The Perseids are everybody’s favorite meteor shower. What’s not to like? They arrive in the middle of the summer when night time lows are relatively comfortable. And… They’re like clockwork… routinely peaking at upwards of 100 meteors per hour. This years Perseids will have to work a little harder due to the almost full moon that’ll be up, but… hey… the moon will be getting lower in the western sky while the Perseid radiant will be climbing higher in the northeast. So… set your alarm for about 2 or 3am… grab a lawn chair and maybe a blanket and see what kind of show the Perseids have in store for us this year. For more information on meteor showers, checkout our Meteor Page . 

Crepuscular Rays

This gorgeous shot of Crepuscular Rays was taken in the Central Adirondacks of New York on Thursday 8/7/03. Awesome Shot Marc!!! 

Viewing Outlook

Solar System

Space Weather Update

Planetary Report

Mercury, the 1st Planet

Mercury reaches greatest eastern elongation on Thursday, August 14th. This is the point where Mercury is furthest east of the Sun... and so hangs longest in the western sky after sunset.. Mercury is also well positioned for northern observers this time around. Don't expect too much though... since Mercury is so low above the horizon, skies are almost always turbulent. Merely spotting Mercury is an accomplishment.

This is one of the best shots of the first rock ever taken from Earth. It was made by the the Imaging Science Team at Boston University,

Venus, the 2nd Planet

Venus is now rising little more than a half hour before the sun. You'll have an extremely tough time finding it now in the bright morning sky. It will soon disappear completely from the morning sky and reappear in the evening sky by late summer or early fall. As it sinks, it grows in phase (currently 98%) and shrinks in overall size and brightness. At this point, it is considerably past its maximum on all counts. 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 Venus was taken by the Galileo Spacecraft. It nicely show the beginning and ending phases of Venus' orbit.

Need to no more about Venus? Checkout this article by The Planetary Society.

Earth, the 3rd Planet

This beautiful, intensely colored rainbow popped out after an evening downpour in Park City Saturday night.

Lunar Phase

I took the accompanying image Tuesday evening using a Sony DSC-F717 digital camera shooting through my Orion Argonaut, a 150mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. This setup was mounted on a Losmandy G-11. 

Visit our Lunar Information Page for even more images and information

Mars, the 4th Planet

The accompanying amazing was taken by Utah Skies own Anthony Arrigo from his home in Park City.
Mars has grown another 2". That's a 10% increase since last week. It now spans an incredible 23”… It's already considerably larger than it got on it's last fly-by of Earth. If you'd like to get a feel for the growth, checkout our own Mars Observations Page. Utah Skies own Don Brown has been capturing images of the Red Planet since May. The growth is simply incredible. Mars has doubled in size in that period.. 

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... and far brighter than it's been in quite some time Additionally, Mars will have an apparent diameter of 25". That's about 50 percent larger than 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.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		7:30 am
Visual Magnitude:		-1.72
Visual Diameter:		31"
Distance:		6.36 AU
Constellation:		Leo

 

Jupiter is way low above the western horizon... pretty much gone for the season. While all the good views are past, you can take a quick peak early in the evening if you'd like to say goodbye.

Saturn, the 6th Planet

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 about 5:00am and is pretty much lost for the season at this point. Saturn will return to the morning sky later this summer. Be sure to stay tuned.

This beautiful image of the 6th planet was taken on January 8, 2003 by Utah Skies own Don Brown. 

Uranus, the 7th Planet

Neptune, the 8th Planet

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 NASA image clearly shows the cloud tops of the 8th planet.

Pluto, the 9th Planet

Astronomers made a surprising discovery about Pluto recently. As Pluto begins to move away from the Sun... towards the beginning of it's winter... things are actually heating up on the distant planet instead of cooling down. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE for more details

Take this bit of planetary information either as an interesting side note, or an observing challenge. Pluto is in the constellation Ophiuchus, less than °1 southwest of NGC6309 aka The Bug Nebula. I viewed The Bug this past weekend, so... photons from Pluto must have hit my retina :-) At magnitude 13.9, Pluto is basically out of reach of smaller telescopes... Even in the big scope... it's difficult to be sure that you've seen Pluto. 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  image was created from The Hubble Space Telescope.

Need more information? Checkout the Pluto Home Page.

Deep Sky

Hubble Vision

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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