Report for 2003-10-24

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Special Thanks To All Summit County Residents

So... We need to savor the victory... enjoy it for what it is... the first of many to come. Given the overwhelming support that we received, we'll follow up by pushing the county to move up the timetable for updating the county lighting codes... and publicly committing that they'll aim for 100% enforcement.

Aurora Watch

Jupiter and The Moon

The planet Jupiter posed with the Moon Wednesday morning (10/22) in this image by Utah Skies own Anthony Arrigo... These last few morning before daylight savings end were a great time to see the Moon and the morning planets. Hope you got out.

Aurora Borealis

Jouni Jussila of Oulu, Finland took this beautiful shot of the northern lights dancing under the constellation Ursa Major... aka The Big Dipper.

If you're getting jealous of all the aurora shots from up north.. join the club. Perhaps a road trip is in order?

Viewing Outlook

Solar System

Space Weather Update

After a couple of weeks of relative inactivity, things are cranking up again on our star. Sunspot #484 pictured here approaching the Sun's center has grown quite rapidly. Almost invisible as it came into sight, the sunspot has grown to the size of Jupiter in just a couple of days. It has also hurled a couple of Coronal Mass Ejections out into space. Unfortunately, due to it's early edge location, the CME's were not all Earth-directed. One smaller one was though... and... hopefully, it'll keep up it's activity... and throw us a bone.. so to speak. We mid-northerners are seriously in need of some geomagnetic activity.

Tonight and tomorrow night are looking pretty good for geomagnetic activity... keep your eye on your northern horizon both nights.

By the way... if you're interested in viewing this massive sunspot, make sure you employ Safe Solar Viewing Techniques.

Planetary Report

Mercury, the 1st Planet

Mercury is now swinging back into the evening sky..

Venus, the 2nd Planet

Venus is now rising little more than an hour after the sun. You should now be able to find it in the evening sky shortly after sundown. In fact, now would be a good time to start watching Venus. Why? Well, because Venus is getting ready for some major changes. It is currently 97% illuminated. As it climbs higher in the sky over the coming months, it will grow considerably in size and brightness... while shrinking just as considerably in phase. 

The accompanying image show the scope of the changes which we'll be seeing.

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

Earth, the 3rd Planet

This just may be the most reproduced astrophotography of them all. This was the first time that our tiny planet was seen by humans for what it is... a small, beautiful little rock traveling through space. Entitled Earthrise, this shot was take by the astronauts aboard Apollo 8 as they came out from behind the dark side of the moon.

Lunar Phase

We get a new moon tomorrow at 6:25am. In the meantime, we'll be under a waning crescent with 1% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated. 

I took the accompanying image in this past Thursday morning (10/23/03) using a Sony DSC-F717 digital camera shooting eyepiece projection to 45x. At this point, the moon was only 5% illuminated. It'll be a mere 1% by Friday 10/24... As of this writing, I'm hoping to snag a snot if I can.

Earthshine

When the moon is in these smaller phases, it's usually pretty easy to view a phenomenon astronomers refer to as Earthshine. Essentially, earthshine is the lighting of the non sun-lit portion of the Moon from light reflecting off of the surface of our own planet Earth. I took the accompanying shot Thursday morning from my home in Park City. Whereas the preceding shot aimed for a proper exposure of the sunlit portion... about 1/25th second... this shot was aiming to overexpose that portion... and capture detail in the earthshine section... 2 full seconds.

Mars, the 4th Planet

Utah Skies own Don Brown took this beautiful shot from his home in Park City, Utah on Wednesday evening (10/08/03). I've got to tell you... views have been really nice lately. I hope you've gotten a chance to get out and see Mars. It's really quite impressive... even without a telescope. I try to make it a habit of at least poking my head out the window before going to bed.
Mars continues to shrink... at a barely noticeable rate, but...... it now spans 19”...  roughly 25% off it's peak. If you haven't seen it yet through a telescope, don't fret.. but don't waste a whole lot more time. Break out your telescope and checkout the red planet. Mars is still incredible to look at... and will continue to provide great views well into the fall. 

If you'd like to get a feel for the rise and fall of Mars, checkout our own Mars Observations Page. Utah Skies own Don Brown has been capturing images of the Red Planet since May. The change is simply incredible. 

If you’d like to checkout Mars for yourself, all you need to do is look high and towards the southeast around 9pm or so.. Mars is so bright that you just can’t miss it. Mars is still fairly close to it's peak... when it was bigger and brighter than at any time in over 60,000 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:		4:30 am
Visual Magnitude:		-1.77
Visual Diameter:		32"
Distance:		6.14 AU
Constellation:		Leo

 

This beautiful shot was taken by former Utah Skies Astrophotographer of the Month, Ed Grafton. Have you checked out Ed's website lately? 

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 before midnight and should make a good target for several hours before the Sun puts it to sleep. Saturn will continue to improve through the fall and into the winter.

I took the accompanying shot Saturday morning (10/18/03) from my home in Park City. While this shot is one of my best (yea.. I know.. I've got more practicing to do)... the view in the eyepiece was far better. I was viewing & imaging through a 6" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. I was able to push the magnification up to 250x without any image degradation... 

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.

The accompanying image shows the various cloud formations which inhabit Neptune's upper atmosphere.

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 Nordic Optical 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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