Report for 2004-01-02

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

Contents

Astronomical Times (Mountain Standard)

Catch A Comet By The Tail

After traveling over 3 billion miles, NASA's Stardust Spacecraft has officially entered the tail of comet Wild 2. The craft will catch and analyze particles from the comet to study our solar systems formative years. Once it's work is done, the craft will return to Earth and drop its scientific cargo in the Utah desert for further analysis. Checkout the Stardust website for more information. 

Mars 'Spirit' Lander Set For January 4th Landing

NASA's Spirit rover spacecraft fired its thrusters on Friday (12/26/03), to make what flight controllers expect will be the final correction in its flight before landing on Mars. Checkout NASA's Mars Rover website for the latest information

Viewing Outlook

Quadrantid Meteor Shower Peaks

Saturn At Opposition

Comet C/2002 T7 Linear

How's this for a beautiful shot? G. Rhemann and M. Jäger captured this gorgeous image of Comet C/2002 T7 Linear on 12/20/03. At that point, the comet was about mag8.5 or so. It will reach perihelion on April 23rd, 2004 and is expected to brighten to between mag0 & mag1... making this an easy naked eye comet. Views through a telescope or binoculars ought to be absolutely incredible! 

Click here for a map to help you find the comet.

Comet Encke

G. Rhemann and M. Jäger captured this beautiful image of Comet Encke on 11/12/03. The comet reached perihelion on December 29th, 2003. At that point, it was approximately mag4... making it visible to the naked eye... and a beauty in a small telescope or binoculars. The comet can be found in the morning sky... just above the eastern horizon in the constellation Ophiuchus. Checkout the Ephemeris for specific dates & locations.

Beagle 2 Quiet, Mars Express in Orbit

Mars Express flight controllers recently reported all systems go and  on Christmas Day, 12/25/03, the Mars Express Spacecraft was inserted into Martian orbit. On the same day, the Beagle 2 Lander was scheduled to touch down on the surface of the red planet. Visit the Mars Express Website for up to the minute details.

Christmas brought mixed results to European Space Agency efforts to study the planet Mars. The Mars Express Spacecraft successfully entered Martian orbit, while communications with the Beagle 2 Lander have not taken place after is planned Christmas landing. Checkout The Mars Express and The Beagle 2 Lander websites for up to the minute information.

Solar System

Space Weather Update

The number as size of the sunspots on our star has increased again lately. While none seem willing to begin the tirade of CME's we experience a couple of months ago, they are impressive in their restraint. I took the accompanying shot of Sunspot #528 on Saturday 12/20/03... shortly after it came into view along the eastern edge of the Sun.

The sun is a fascinating subject. It's appearance changes from day to day. In fact, it is the only star in the sky that we can see any details on at all! If you'd like to observe our star, make sure you do so safely. Checkout these Safe Viewing Techniques.

Planetary Report

Mercury, the 1st Planet

Here's one of the most spectacular Mercury shots of 2003... just inside the limb of our star. This shot of the May 7, 2003 transit was taken by the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope (SST) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

On Monday evening (12/08/03), Mercury reached greatest elongation… it’s largest angular distance from the sun. For the next week or so… Mercury was a relatively easy target for those with a clear view to the west. Mercury has since dropped significantly though... so I hope you took a peak when you could. If not, it will be visible in the morning sky before sunrise in the coming weeks.

Venus, the 2nd Planet

Venus is now rising little more than two hours 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 about 88% 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. By late winter / early spring Venus will only be 1/2 illuminated, but will be almost half again as bright.

I've been catching Venus above the western horizon about 30-45 minutes after sunset for the last couple of weeks. It'll only get easier at this point. Slowly but surely, Venus will come to dominate the night sky. If you have a nice wide sky horizon to horizon, compare Venus with Mars. Ok... there's no comparison, but... it does make an interesting point. With all the talk about how bright Mars got... it pales in comparison with Venus... which blows them all away!

This beautiful Hubble Space Telescope image shows us some fine detail in Venus' dense cloudtop.

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

Earth, the 3rd Planet

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.

Lunar Phase

The moon will be full on Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll be under waxing gibbous phase with 80% of the moon's visible surface illuminated when it rises around 1:45pm.

The accompanying image shows the lunar terminator running through Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows. Sinus Iridum is the little bay along the northern edge of Mare Imbrium. Mare Imbrium is one of the Major "Mare" or seas visible on the lunar surface. Tonight, weather permitting, you'll be able to view the area similarly illuminated. This is a gorgeous area to explore with a telescope.

This shot was taken Wednesday evening (12/03/03) with a Sony DSC-F717 digital camera using eyepiece projection to 75x through a 25" Obsession Dobsonian Reflector. 

Mars, the 4th Planet

Mars is just a shadow of its former self (from our perspective anyway). This beautiful Hubble Space Telescope shot harks back to it glory days this summer.

Jupiter, the 5th Planet

 

Rising:		10:45 pm
Visual Magnitude:		-2.22
Visual Diameter:		40"
Distance:		4.94 AU
Constellation:		Leo

 

The accompanying image taken as the Cassini Space Craft headed for Saturn shows a view of Jupiter which we can never see from Earth, a side view. Orbiting the Sun far beyond Earth, we can only see the lit side of the planet. This view certainly gives us a different perspective. Also, notice the tiny moon Io suspended out in front of giant Jupiter. 

Saturn, the 6th Planet

Saturn reaches opposition on New Years Eve. Opposition occurs when the Sun and Saturn appear in opposite directions as viewed from Earth. So, on December 31st, as the Sun is setting, Saturn will be rising. This opposition should provide us with some of the best views of Saturn in quite some time. Saturn always looks great, right? What makes this year so special? Well... first off, Saturn recently reached perihelion... it's nearest distance to the Sun. This makes it seem just a little brighter than usual. Second, Saturn's rings are tipped about as much as they can be... roughly

So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and checkout the ringed planet. This winter will be the best absolute time to study Saturn's beautiful ring structure for some time, so... get out there and do it. If you find yourself under incredibly good skies... with incredibly good optics... see what kind of detail you can tease from the eyepiece.

Check this shot out!!! Taken just last month (11/03) by the approaching Cassini Spacecraft, this is one of the sweetest shots of Saturn I've ever seen. Look at the incredible detail within the ring system... and throughout the body of the giant planet. You can even see a few of Saturn's moon. Sweet!

Ok... here's an interesting note... Saturn's shadow... visible in these images on the rings... to the upper left of the planet... will switch to the opposite side in the coming months. Make a mental note next time you're out viewing. In the coming weeks, the shadow will get smaller and smaller... until it disappears and then slowly reappears on the opposite side of the planet.

Uranus, the 7th Planet

Neptune, 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 taken by 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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