| |
Total Lunar Eclipse
|
Now we know what it took to end the Curse of the
Bambino: a lunar eclipse. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series on Wednesday
night under a lunar eclipse that turned the moon a vivid shade of Red
Sox red. Sox-fan Bob Colwell of Somersworth, New Hampshire, took this picture during the
game. For more awesome shots of the event, which was unseen here in Park
City :( Checkout
Spaceweather.com
|
This sweet sequence captures all the
phases up to Totality. It was taken by Erik of LiVe Eye Studios. Checkout
some of his impressive works.
|
This gorgeous shot was taken by Doug
Murray of Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Doug used a Nikon D70 set at ISO
200 for a 5 second exposure through a Celestron 9.25 SCT with a focal reducer.
Nice work!!
|
|
|
Cassini Makes Closest
Pass Ever
|
The
Cassini Spacecraft flew within 750 miles of Saturn's
moon Titan early Tuesday afternoon... snapping some truly impressive
pictures in the process This shot, taken in infrared, peers through
Titan's hazy clouds revealing significant surface detail. Click
here to view more images including an animation made from images
across various infrared wavelengths.
|
 This false-color image shows Saturn's moon Titan in ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. It was taken during Cassini's successful flyby on Oct. 26, 2004.
For more details on the image, checkout
the Cassini-Huygens website.
|
|
|
ISS To Fly Over Park City
|
 The
International
Space Station will make several flights over the Park City area this
weekend. All will come in the morning... and out of the south eastern
sky.
>> STATION approx. vis. mag. -1
Date Dur. Lit Dur. Max.
mm/dd Rise Set mm:ss mm:ss Elev.
---------------------------------------------------
10/30 07:47:38am NW SE 10:20 09:59 60 SW
10/31 06:40:51am NW ESE 10:10 07:00 46 NNE
11/01 07:09:26am WNW SE 10:23 07:59 46 SW
Checkout NASA's
J-Pass if you'd like to be notified of overflights in your area.
|
|
|
Venus & Jupiter
|
The two brightest planets in the sky Venus
and Jupiter
will make a close pass on Thursday morning, November 4th and Friday
morning, November 5th. (Wow, we're into November already!!)
Look for the two rising above the eastern
horizon around 4:30am. They'll be around 0.6' - 0.7' apart... about 2
full moon widths apart.
Here's what they looked like in June of 2003.
Click here to see more conjunctions
and alignments.
|
|
|
|
|
 Sunspot activity had ceased for a while.
Astronomers were 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 somebody forgot to tell the Sun that
it was approaching minimum. We haven't seen this much activity on our
star in quite some time. Of course, we in northern Utah haven't seen our
star in some time either ;-).
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Rising: |
|
9:20 am |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
-0.34 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
5" |
| Distance: |
|
1.35 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. Mercury will continue to distance itself
from our star... giving those with a good western horizon a nice
opportunity to spot it.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
5:00 am |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
-4.03 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
14" |
| Distance: |
|
1.23 AU |
| Constellation: |
|
Virgo |
|
 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
|
 Earthrise
as imaged by Apollo 8... shows our tiny planet for what it is.
|
| |
|
|
The moon was full on
Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll be under a waning gibbous phase with 97% of
the moons visible surface illuminated when it rises around 7:15 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.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
6:45 am |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
1.74 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
4" |
| Distance: |
|
2.57 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.
|
| |
|
|
|
| Rising: |
|
5:30 am |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
-1.70 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
31" |
| Distance: |
|
6.30 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.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
11:40 pm |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
0.12 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
19" |
| Distance: |
|
8.84 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.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
4:00 pm |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
5.79 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
4" |
| Distance: |
|
19.58 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.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
3:00
pm |
| Visual Magnitude: |
|
7.90 |
| Visual Diameter: |
|
2" |
| Distance: |
|
29.93 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.
|
| |
|
|
| Rising: |
|
11:15 am |
| Visual
Magnitude: |
|
13.99 |
| Visual
Diameter: |
|
<1" |
| Distance: |
|
31.55 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
|
| |
|
|
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.
|
 A Cosmic Searchlight
Streaming out from the center of the galaxy M87 like a cosmic searchlight is one of nature's most amazing phenomena, a black-hole-powered jet of electrons and other sub-atomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. In this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, the blue of the jet contrasts with the yellow glow from the combined light of billions of unseen stars and the yellow, point-like globular clusters that make up this galaxy.
At first glance, M87 (also known as NGC 4486) appears to be an ordinary giant elliptical galaxy; one of many ellipticals in the nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies. However, as early as 1918, astronomer H.D. Curtis noted a "curious straight ray" protruding from M87. In the 1950s when the field of radio was blossoming, one of the brightest radio sources in the sky, Virgo A, was discovered to be associated with M87 and its jet.
After decades of study, prompted by these discoveries, the source of this incredible amount of energy powering the jet has become clear. Lying at the center of M87 is a supermassive black hole, which has swallowed up a mass equivalent to 2 billion times the mass of our Sun. The jet originates in the disk of superheated gas swirling around this black hole and is propelled and concentrated by the intense, twisted magnetic fields trapped within this plasma. The light that we see (and the radio emission) is produced by electrons twisting along magnetic field lines in the jet, a process known as synchrotron radiation, which gives the jet its bluish tint.
M87 is one of the nearest and is the most well-studied extragalactic jet, but many others exist. Wherever a massive black hole is feeding on a particularly rich diet of disrupted stars, gas, and dust, the conditions are right for the formation of a jet. Interestingly, a similar phenomenon occurs around young stars, though at much smaller scales and energies.
At a distance of 50 million light-years, M87 is too distant for Hubble to discern individual stars. The dozens of star-like points swarming about M87 are, instead, themselves clusters of hundreds of thousands of stars each. An estimated 15,000 globular clusters formed very early in the history of this galaxy and are older than the second generation of stars, which huddle closer to the center of the galaxy.
The data were collected with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1998 by J.A. Biretta, W.B. Sparks, F.D. Macchetto, and E.S. Perlman (STScI). The Hubble Heritage team combined these exposures of ultraviolet, blue, green, and infrared light in order to create this color image.
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team
(STScI/AURA)
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
Stay up to date on astronomical
happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org
|
|
< | Index
| >
|
|
|
We've
gone through yet another impossible viewing week. After missing the Orionid
Meteor Shower last week... we managed to miss the total lunar
eclipse this past Wednesday night. Oh, well... :( Skies are forecast to
remain stormy and cloud filled for as long as the weatherman will
venture a guess. On a positive note... several feet ... yes feet... (up
to 6 feet in some areas)... of
the white fluffy stuff is now blanketing Utah's
Ski Areas. With a few threatening to open at almost any moment.
Perhaps we should change this to The Utah Ski Report? Just a thought ;-) 