Laguna Trench Dig Continues
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 NASA's
Spirit Rover continued its work on "Laguna Trench"... an area it has
recently dug. Making use of sophisticated tools, Spirit used its microscopic
imager to study the walls and floor of the trench. Read the full
story... then visit the Spirit
Rover Website for the latest news.
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Comet C/2002 T7 Linear
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Checkout this recent shot of comet C/2002 T7
Linear... taken on February 14th, by Astrophotographer
Jack Newton.
The comet is now about mag6.5... making it a fairly
easy target for most binoculars and small telescopes. As we've mentioned
previously, the comet is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on May
19th, 2004 when it passes only 0.27AU from Earth. AU or Astronomical
Units are the approximate average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
The comet is expected to brighten
to between mag0 & mag1... making this an easy naked eye comet for
springtime observers. Needless to say... views
through a telescope or binoculars ought to be absolutely incredible by then!
The comet is currently cruising through southeastern
most portion of the
constellation Pegasus,
which is high in the southwestern sky shortly after dark. Now would be a great time to get
out and observe the brightening comet. Click
here for ephemeris to help you find the comet... or here
for analysis of the comets journey... or here
for a sky map.
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 Sunspot
activity on our star is on the rise again again. Rapidly growing sunspot
#564 has grown by a factor of 5 in just a couple of days. This one
definitely deserves continued attention.
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.
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| Rising: |
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7:10 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-1.18 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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5" |
| Distance: |
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1.38 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aquarius |
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Mercury has moved back into the evening sky. It will soon distance itself
from the sun and reappear in the western horizon after sunset in the coming weeks.
This beautiful image of Mercury's South Pole was taken by the Mariner
10 Spacecraft in 1974.
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| Rising: |
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8:50 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-4.19 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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18" |
| Distance: |
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0.94 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Pisces |
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 Venus
is now rising little more than two hours after the sun. You should now be able
to find it easily 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 76% 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 months. It is now high
enough that you can actually view it at a leisurely pace. 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 Saturn.
They're both about the same height above the horizon shortly after dark...
Venus in the west... and Saturn in the east.
This shows several of the
largest craters on Venus.
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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 Checkout
the action in this shot taken by Dave
Rosenfeld of Utah UFO Hunters.
In it, you can see star trails in the lake and the orange glow of nearby
campfires.
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 The
moon reaches first quarter this evening... meaning that it it's half
illuminated. At this point, it's rising near mid-day... climbing high by
sunset and
setting around mid-night.
Interested in how and why we see the lunar
phases we do? Checkout
this animation.
The accompanying image was taken on May 12th, 2002 by Anthony Arrigo
of Utah Skies. Anthony took the shot with a Canon Rebel 2000 at prime focus through a 600mm f/5 refractor
using Fuji ASA200 film.
Visit our Lunar
Information Page for even more great images and information
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| Rising: |
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9:50 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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1.08 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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6" |
| Distance: |
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1.64 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aries |
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This beautiful sequence takes
us back to Mars' close up visit in the summer of 2003. Taken by Utah
Skies own Don Brown it
catalogs the red planet's incredible growth.
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| Rising: |
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6:40 pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-2.49 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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44" |
| Distance: |
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4.43 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Leo |
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 Jupiter
can now be seen rising late at night... or high in the morning sky... just before first light is approaches.
Jupiter and it's moons are involved in a continuous dance. Views will
only be improving for the next several months, so... get out and take a peak
at the giant planet.
I took the accompanying image of Jupiter in the
southern part of Leo
on February 14th, 2004 with my Sony DSC-F717 digital camera. Jupiter is the
very bright star in the lower left of the constellation... or magnified 50x
in the lower right.
The view to the lower right is a typical view
through a telescope. Notice that 4 of Jupiter's moons are also visible... as
are some of the giant planets' cloud bands. An
annotated version of the image is also available.
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| Rising: |
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1:05 pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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-0.11 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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20" |
| Distance: |
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8.53 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Gemini |
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 Saturn
is now rising in the early afternoon. This has it well placed for
observation as soon as it gets dark out. The ringed planet can be found
currently cruising through the southern portion of the constellation Gemini.
As you can see in the accompanying shot, Saturn is brighter than any of the
surrounding stars... making it an easy target to the aided and unaided eye.
With a small telescope, the beautiful ring system can be seen and enjoyed.
I took this shot of the ringed planet on Thursday
night, February 19th, 2004 using my Sony DSC-F717 digital camera shooting at
f/2.0 for 15 seconds. Click
here for the un-annotated version..
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| Rising: |
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7:05 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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5.93 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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3" |
| Distance: |
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21.03 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Aquarius |
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 Interested
in viewing the 7th planet? You'd better get on it quick. Uranus
is rising in the early afternoon... putting it high in the sky by the time
it gets dark If you wait too far after dark, you'll have trouble viewing the
planet in the turbulent skies above the western horizon. Uranus has recently dropped back to
3" in apparent
diameter. 1" smaller than it's peak this fall. Ok.. it's only a 1"
decline, right... Well... there wasn't a whole lot to work with originally.
1" marks a 25% decline... So... don't waste any time..
This beautiful 2MASS image shows a few of Uranus' moons.
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| Rising: |
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6:10 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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7.98 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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2" |
| Distance: |
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30.97 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Capricornus |
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 Astronomers
pointed the sharp eyed Hubble Telescope at Neptune and discovered that
Neptune's Great Dark Spot (discovered by Voyager 2) had disappeared... and
then reappeared... this time in the northern hemisphere! Current thinking is
that the spot might be a hole in Neptune's methane cloud tops... potentially
allowing us to get a view lower in Neptune's atmosphere.
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| Rising: |
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2:25 am |
| Visual Magnitude: |
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13.96 |
| Visual Diameter: |
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<1" |
| Distance: |
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30.98 AU |
| Constellation: |
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Serpens |
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 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.
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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.
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 Hubble Spots Distant Supernovae in Search of Properties of Dark Energy
These are images of three of the most distant supernovae known, discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope as a supernova search engine. The stars exploded back when the universe was approximately half its current age. The light is just arriving at Earth now. Supernovae are so bright they can be seen far away and far back in time. This allows astronomers to trace the expansion rate of the universe, and to determine how it is affected by the repulsive push of dark energy, an unknown form of energy that pervaded space.
The research team members are: Adam Riess and Louis-Gregory Strolger (STScI), John Tonry (Univ. of Hawaii), Stefano Casertano, Harry Ferguson and Bahram Mobasher (STScI), Peter Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Alex Filippenko, Saurabh Jha, Weidong Li, Ryan Chornock (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Robert Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Bruno Leibundgut (European Southern Observatory), Mark Dickinson, Mario Livio and Mauro Giavalisco (STScI), Charles Steidel (Caltech), Txitxo Benitez and Zlatan Tsvetanov (Johns Hopkins Univ.).
Credit: NASA and A. Riess
(STScI)
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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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< | Index
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Astronomers announced the discovery of our solar systems newest planet-like object. Located in the far off Kuiper Belt some 4.4 billion miles away, this object is the largest solar system object discovered since the discovery of Pluto back in 1930. Checkout
CNN.com/SPACE for more details.
This
breathtaking image
of Delicate
Arch at night is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Taken by Dan Duriscoe
of The National Park Service, it shows the incredible beauty of the night sky...
as can only be seen from a truly dark sky location... like Arches
National Park, Utah.. Dan and colleague Chad
Moore are working on The National Park Services Night Sky Team which is studying
the effects of light pollution on the night sky... particularly its impact on
the skies over our national parks. If you're interested in finding out more, drop
Chad a line.
