Star Party A Big Hit
Showing that persistence can pay off, star party attendees were treated to some awesome deep sky views as cloudy skies gave way to a beautiful star filled sky. Thanks to all who make this another great season especially Bonnie Park and the folks at Basin Recreation!
Total Lunar Eclipse
We've got quite a treat for you next week... a total lunar eclipse... the last until sometime in 2007. Skywatchers everywhere except Australia will get to see a least a piece of it. For us here in Park City, the event is pretty close to perfectly timed. Checkout Science@NASA for more details including viewing times in your area.
On Wednesday evening, October 27 there will be a total lunar eclipse. Shortly after rising, the moon will glide through the shadow cast by the earth and darken significantly. If we’re lucky, well get to see the moon turn a deep reddish color. Interestingly, the October full moon is called the Hunter’s Moon or sometimes the Blood Moon from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead. When the eclipse reaches totality, the moon can in fact look as red as blood. No special equipment is required to view the event... all you need are clear skies. Just head outside. Here in Park City, the event will be just starting as the full moon rises around 6:15pm. If you've got binoculars, break them out. Besides the naked eye, binoculars provide some of the most spectacular lunar eclipse views. You might even try to record the event with your camera. Digital cameras are great for this since the exposure times required change rapidly as the moon passes through the various phases. They provide you with instant feedback to make required corrections. A tripod will certainly come in handy during the darker phases. If you get some good images be sure to send them in and we’ll try to use them on the Utah Skies website.
This interesting shot, taken by the Mir 27 crew, shows what a lunar eclipse looks like from space.
Here's
a view of what you can expect... taken in November 2003 by Anthony Arrigo
of Utah Skies. This shot was taken moments before totality... and moments
before clouds rolled in and shut us down :(
Let's hope for clear skies!!
Orionid Meteor Shower
The annual Orionid Meteor Shower peaked in the wee hours on Thursday morning 10/21 The Orionids are so named because their meteors appear to radiate from a point within the constellation Orion. The Orionids typically peak with about 15 meteors per hour. As always, some pretty spectacular ones were reported.
Two ISS Crews
The International Space Station (ISS) is currently home to two crews. Incoming crew members Yuri Shargin, Leroy Chiao, Salizhan Sharipov, pose with outgoing crew members Michael Fincke and Gennady Padalka. They are in the middle of an 8 day turnover process designed to acquaint the new arrivers with their orbiting home. Checkout Space.com for the full story.
Study Confirms Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
Earth's mass warps the fabric of space-time surrounding it... this has been known for some time. A new study has shown than Earth's rotation adds an additional distortion. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE for all the details.
Solar System
Sunspot activity had ceased for a while.
Astronomers are saying this is a sign that "solar
minimum" may be coming a bit early. Let's hope that "solar
maximum" comes early too! Looking at this SOHO
shot of our star... we can see that it hasn't quite hit bottom yet.
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
| Rising: | 8:50 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | -1.51 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 5" | |
| Distance: | 1.40 AU | |
| Constellation: | Libra |
Mercury has moved to the evening sky. Look for Mercury above the western horizon just after sunset. You'll find it setting just south of where the sun set an hour earlier. Binoculars can be quite helpful in pulling the planet out of the glare cast by the setting Sun.
Venus, the 2nd Planet
| Rising: | 4:45 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | -4.05 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 14" | |
| Distance: | 1.18 AU | |
| Constellation: | Leo |
Venus
is now
rising just about 3 hours before the sun. This makes it an easy
target high in the eastern sky. Those of you with any kind of view at
all to the east should be able to find the morning skies brightest
planetary object.. Venus is now well passed the half-way point... and
is currently 77% illuminated. Venus is also starting to sink towards
the horizon.. slowly at first.. but it'll pick up the pace as fall
progresses. Those of you who have been monitoring Venus with your
telescopes will have noticed that Venus' phase is increasing while its
size is decreasing. This is because Venus is moving away from us... and
will disappear behind the Sun in the coming months. Venus has
recently moved into the constellation Leo.
Ever wonder why Venus has phases? Checkout this great animation to find out.
This beautiful image of the second rock was taken by B. Colville of the Maple Ridge Observatory
Need to no more about Venus? Checkout this article by The Planetary Society.
Earth, the 3rd Planet
Fall
is in the air.. and in the leaves. This gorgeous shot captures the fall
colors
at The
Park City Mountain Resort.
Lunar Phase
The moon reached first quarter on Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll be under a waxing gibbous phase with 70% of the moons visible surface illuminated when it rises around 4:20 pm.
The moon is starting to take over the night sky. At this point, the best deep sky views are had in the wee hours... say from about 2:30am until first light (about 6:30am here in Park City).
The accompanying shot of a waxing gibbous Moon was taken in
March of 2002 using an Olympus OM-1 with Fuji ASA400 film. The camera was
setup for prime focus astrophotography through a 6" f/12
Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope. The shot required a TeleVue ParaCorr Coma Corrector to reach back focus.
Mars, the 4th Planet
| Rising: | 6:50 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | 1.74 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 4" | |
| Distance: | 2.60 AU | |
| Constellation: | Virgo |
Mars has finally
turned the corner... it is no longer
moving away from us. Mars has reached its faintest... and will begin to
steadily grow in apparent size and brighten. Next summer it will be
well placed for viewing again :-) While
this next approach won't be as close as the last one was, it will be
much further north... and therefore better positioned for viewers at
mid-northern latitudes... like us here in Park City :-).
This beautiful image of the red planet was taken by The Hubble Space Telescope.
Jupiter, the 5th Planet
| Rising: | 5:55 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | -1.68 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 31" | |
| Distance: | 6.35 AU | |
| Constellation: | Virgo |
Jupiter has
quietly slid into the
constellation Virgo after many, many months cruising through Leo.
Jupiter is now rising early in the
morning... about 1 hour before the sun. Jupiter can be found low above
the eastern horizon just before sunrise. You'll need Jupiter's
incredible brightness to be able to pull it out of the glare of the
sun. Jupiter will start providing nice morning views in the coming
weeks.
Checkout this awesome shot of the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter.
Saturn, the 6th Planet
| Rising: | 12:05 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | 0.15 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 19" | |
| Distance: | 8.96 AU | |
| Constellation: | Gemini |
Saturn is now rising around midnight. This leaves it very well placed for viewing in the hours before sunrise. This image of Saturn was taken by Anthony Arrigo of Utah Skies.
If you'd like to see more images of the ringed planet, checkout the Photo Essay created by the Cassini Team. It contains some of the finest astronomical images ever released.
Uranus, the 7th Planet
| Rising: | 4:25 pm | |
| Visual Magnitude: | 5.78 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 4" | |
| Distance: | 19.49 AU | |
| Constellation: | Aquarius |
Interested in viewing the 7th planet? Now
would be a great time to try. The planet reaches opposition
tonight. Opposition is the point where the Earth sits exactly between
the planet and the sun. This is also the time that our two planets will
be at their very closest... roughly 1.7 billion miles away. Uranus is
rising as the sun is setting... putting it in view all night long. This shot of Uranus was taken by former Utah Skies Featured Astrophotographer, Ed Grafton.
Neptune, the 8th Planet
| Rising: | 3:25 pm | |
| Visual Magnitude: | 7.89 | |
| Visual Diameter: | 2" | |
| Distance: | 29.83 AU | |
| Constellation: | Capricornus |
This
beautiful trio of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope captures
some of the intricate detail within Neptune's clouds. From these
images, astronomers have gained insight into the composition and
structure of Neptune's upper atmosphere.
Pluto, the 9th Planet
| Rising: | 11:35 am | |
| Visual Magnitude: | 13.99 | |
| Visual Diameter: | <1" | |
| Distance: | 31.48 AU | |
| Constellation: | Serpens |
With an early evening rising, Pluto
should be visible all night long. Can you find it?
This image was taken
by The
Hubble Space Telescope.
Need more information? Checkout the Pluto
Home Page.
Deep Sky
Hubble Vision
A Bright Supernova in the Nearby Galaxy NGC 2403The explosion of a massive star blazes with the light of 200 million Suns in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The arrow at top right points to the stellar blast, called a supernova. The supernova is so bright in this image that it easily could be mistaken for a foreground star in our Milky Way Galaxy. And yet, this supernova, called SN 2004dj, resides far beyond our galaxy. Its home is in the outskirts of NGC 2403, a galaxy located 11 million light-years from Earth. Although the supernova is far from Earth, it is the closest stellar explosion discovered in more than a decade.
The star that became SN 2004dj may have been about 15 times as massive as the Sun, and only about 14 million years old. (Massive stars live much shorter lives than the Sun; they have more fuel to "burn" through nuclear fusion, but they use it up at a disproportionately faster rate.) A team of astronomers led by Jesus Maiz of the Space Telescope Science Institute discovered that the supernova was part of a compact cluster of stars known as Sandage 96, whose total mass is about 24,000 times the mass of the Sun. Many such clusters — the blue regions — as well as looser associations of massive stars, can be seen in this image. The large number of massive stars in NGC 2403 leads to a high supernova rate. Two other supernovae have been seen in this galaxy during the past half-century.
The heart of NGC 2403 is the glowing region at lower left. Sprinkled across the region are pink areas of star birth. The myriad of faint stars visible in the Hubble image belong to NGC 2403, but the handful of very bright stars in the image belong to our own Milky Way Galaxy and are only a few hundred to a few thousand light-years away. This image was taken on Aug. 17, two weeks after an amateur astronomer discovered the supernova.
Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki discovered the supernova on July 31, 2004, with a small telescope. Additional observations soon showed that it is a "Type II supernova," resulting from the explosion of a massive, hydrogen-rich star at the end of its life. The cataclysm probably occurred when the evolved star's central core, consisting of iron, suddenly collapsed to form an extremely dense object called a neutron star. The surrounding layers of gas bounced off the neutron star and also gained energy from the flood of ghostly "neutrinos" (tiny, almost non-interacting particles) that may have been released, thereby violently expelling these layers.
This explosion is ejecting heavy chemical elements, generated by nuclear reactions inside the star, into the cosmos. Like other Type II supernovae, this exploding star is providing the raw material for future generations of stars and planets. Elements on Earth such as oxygen, calcium, iron, and gold came long ago from exploding stars such as this one.
Astronomers will continue to study SN 2004dj over the next few years, as it slowly fades from view, in order to gain a better understanding of how certain types of stars explode and what kinds of chemical elements they eject into space.
This color-composite photograph was obtained by combining images through several filters taken with the Wide Field Camera of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The colors in the image highlight important features in the galaxy. Hot, young stars are blue. Older stars and dense dust lanes near the heart of the galaxy are red. The hydrogen-rich, star-forming regions are pink. The dense concentration of older stars in the galaxy's central bulge is yellow.
In addition to the visible-light image shown here, ultraviolet images and spectra are being obtained with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Astronomers are also using ground-based telescopes to study the supernova.
Credit: NASA, ESA, A.V. Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley), P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), et al.
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