Skywatchers were treated to... snow. Ok... skiers were treated to snow...
and skywatchers were left out in the cold... if they even bothered to
ventured outside at all. Short of a few short breaks in the clouds, there
has not been much to see overhead here in
Park City. That's ok... we'll take
what we can get, right?
Well.. when skies do clear, the 2nd rock, Venus is approaching its
brightest for the year. The next couple of weeks will see
the planet Venus get so bright that from a dark location, it can
actually cast shadows! Look for Venus in the west, shortly after sunset.
Its so bright that if its still above the horizon when you head outside...
you just can't miss it. In fact, if you know where to look, you can even
see Venus while the Sun is still out. Those of you with a telescope will
immediately notice that Venus is now a waning crescent... with about 35%
of its visible surface illuminated. Venus will start to head for the exit
after its upcoming peak... so get out there and take a look!
While you're out... be sure to check out
the
planet Mars. It can be found high and to the southeast shortly after
sunset. Folks with access to a telescope and clear skies... are still
getting some amazing views. Mars may be a bit off its peak, but don't let
that stop you. Point your telescope towards the red planet each
opportunity that you get.
Continuing through the
solar system...
the ringed planet Saturn is now rising around 9:30pm... putting it
into a nice part of the sky well before midnight. Saturn is a perennial
crowd favorite. It's beautiful rings seem to mesmerize viewers of all ages
and experience.
Finally,
the moon is a tiny waxing crescent this weekend. The next several
nights should offer up some nice views of Earthshine... Earthshine is
sunlight reflecting off the Earth... onto the non-sunlit portion of the
lunar surface. The effect can be quite dramatic. Use these smaller phases
to follow the lunar terminator as it marches across the surface of the
moon. Subtle details on the lunar surface are often called into stark
contrast when viewed at this point. Take some time out of your busy
schedule to get to know Earth's nearest celestial neighbor.
Astronomy News From Around The World... and Beyond
Did you know that the planet Venus goes through phases
similar to those of The Moon? Its true! Checkout this awesome
sequence of images taken by Wah! over the last several months. If you have a telescope, point it
towards the 2nd rock and you can easily see it for yourself. Venus is currently about 35% illuminated... and shrinking in phase daily. Interestingly,
Venus is growing in size and apparent brightness at the same time. The reason for this seemingly strange behavior? Venus is moving towards us..
causing it to grow in size and brightness... but its showing us less and less of its sunlit side.
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
The Sun Spot
Though our Sun may be approaching its 11 year minimum, it continues to show activity. Sunspot 826 began as a small blemish, but is now almost 20 earth-diameters wide! Sunspots are relatively cool areas on the Sun's surface caused by knots in the Sun's magnetic field. Often, sunspots are associated with violent outbursts of solar plasma which, when directed at the earth, can result in aurora. These coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, pose dangers, too. The stuff of CMEs are charged particles which wreck all kinds of havoc on man and his machines. Satellites in orbit can malfunction, astronauts can get radiation poisoning, airline passengers get a dose of radiation, and communications and power transmission on the earth can be disrupted. These more drastic consequences are very rare, however, with the majority of CMEs either not earth-directed, or of a lesser intensity.
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
A Tiny Solar System
In the constellation Chamaeleon, about 500 light years away, scientists
have observed what they believe to be the smallest solar system ever
found, possibly 1/100 the size of our system, surrounding a
brown dwarf star. Take a look at
this CalTech article for more details.
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Crater Herschel Cruises In Front Of Rings
Saturn's moon Mimas can be seen here floating in front of its beautiful rings. Nicely centered in the shot is 80 mile wide crater Herschel. Checkout NASA's Planetary Photojournal for more details. The planet Saturn is currently rising before 10pm... making it a fairly easy target to observe now... and especially so in the coming months. Get out there and checkout the ringed wonder!
Saturday, November 26th, 2005
Asteroid Hideo Itokawa
A Japanese space probe has successfully landed on Asteroid Hideo Itokawa... collected a sample of surface materials and lifted back off. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE for more details.
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! This week, however, the sun is quiet; there are no large sunspots visible.
Mercury remains visible in the western sky, low on the horizon after sunset. Having reached its greatest eastern elongation on the 20th of June, it is falling back into the sun's glare and it's inferior conjunction on July 18th.
Because of its proximity to the Sun, Mercury is never really viewed against a dark background. Rather, it always struggles to be seen over the light of the setting or rising Sun. Patience (and clear skies) will reward you with some beautiful evening views of this planet.
In the accompanying image, Mercury is seen following the sun toward the western horizon of southern Utah with a slender crescent moon close behind.
Still in the morning sky near sunrise, Venus marks a beginning of the "early-bird's" day. Having attained its greatest western elongation earlier in the year, Venus is continuing its inexorable journey appearing to fall into the sun towards its superior conjunction at the end of October.
If you have a telescope handy, take a peek at the love goddess' name sake; the crescent of Venus is lovely indeed. Venus was beautiful along side the Pleiades on the June 23rd , and look forward to the first of July when Venus rises with Aldebaran, the 14th of July when Venus and the Crab Nebula dance together, and the 26th and 27th of August when Venus and Saturn rise together less than a degree apart!
The ESA's Venus Express spacecraft is now in its mission phase. The ESA reports "On 3 June at 13:42 UT, after 207 days of flight, 43 orbits around Venus and many test activities, Venus Express has formally completed its commissioning phase and has entered the routine science phase...The nominal mission is scheduled to last till the end of October 2007." Venus Express will study the planet in great detail, in particular the Venusian atmosphere and clouds.
While we train our optics skyward nightly, there are visual treasures and marvels to behold earthward. Pictured here is a collection of richly colored rock in the Uinta Mountains, a massive range in Northern Utah carved by glaciers from an immense uplift of Precambrian rock. Some of this rock is exposed as colorful quartzite and shales. The main crest of the Uinta Mountains runs west to east for more than 60 miles, rising over 6,000 feet above the Wyoming and Uinta Basins to the north and south. The highest point in Utah is Kings Peak at 13,528 feet.
The Moon will be new on the 25th, and begin waxing crescent until first quarter on July 3rd, when it will wax gibbous approaching full on July 11th. Those observers that consider the moon "light pollution" look forward to this time of the synodic cycle as the moon travels with the sun, keeping the night sky dark, favoring views of distant, elusive, and faint fuzzies - galaxies, nebulae, and clusters.
Remember, as the moon waxes and wanes, you can look forward to those phases where Moon observations are most fascinating. Features appear - mountains, craters, rilles - as the sunlight casts long, defining shadows. Look along the portion of the Moon separating light from dark, known as the terminator, for the greatest contrasts.
The Red Planet is found high in the western sky at sunset as it moves to it's superior conjunction opposite the Sun later in the year. Look at this sweet shot taken by Utah Skies member Brian Jolley last year when Mars was at its closest. He took this through the historic Clark refractor at Lowell Observatory.
Even without a telescope the view of and around Mars is interesting. Having moved through the constellation Gemini, Mars is approaching a conjunction with Saturn around June 17th. On its way, it will pass through M44!
Planet Jupiter | Solar System | The Utah Skies Report
Jupiter is currently rising late in the afternoon, placing it favorably for those wanting views of the Sun's largest planet before heading off to bed.
This image is an example of what Jupiter has to offer viewers: interesting detail in the equatorial bands and, if conditions are right, swirls and festoons. Much beautiful structure can be seen through a typical telescope, but results vary depending on telescope aperture and sky conditions. Too, the Great Red Spot has some company: another storm has grow in proportion near the GRS, and has come to be known as Spot Jr!
If you have binoculars, point these towards Jupiter. While you won't be able to see any details on the planets surface, binoculars will clearly show you several of Jupiter's brightest moons, and regular observations will show them jockey for position as they orbit the giant planet. The movement is quite apparent, sometimes even in the span of a few hours.
This sweet shot of Jupiter nicely shows its great red spot and some of the incredible details just waiting your observation. Additionally, you can see one of Jupiter's moons eclipsing the giant planet. The round "ink spot" on the planet's surface is the shadow cast by its moon. Watching Jupiter's moons as they orbit and occasionally transit the giant planet is a very interesting part of observing Jupiter.
Saturn is now rising mid-morning and reaching the highest point in its path across the sky in the late afternoon; the spectacular views of the ringed planet will soon come to an end as it moves behind the sun with the passing weeks. Some truely great views of the ringed planet and its satellites are available on the Cassini Huygens pages. This sweet shot was taken by Don Brown of Utah Skies.
Uranus is currently rising in the early morning, about an hour after Neptune.. The Earth and Uranus have ostensibly achieved their greatest separation, and will soon begin to draw nearer again.
This fascinating image was taken from a ground-based telescope in the European Southern Observatory.
Planet Neptune | Solar System | The Utah Skies Report
The planet Neptune, is currently rising several hours before the sun, leaving you precious little time to view the 8th rock. To speed up your acquisition of the planet, look just east of south before first light. Find Deneb Ageldi; Neptune is just about 4.5° west and north of "the water goat's tail". At just a touch brighter than mag 8, Neptune should be visible as a faint star-like object in binoculars or as a bluish object in a telescope. Once you've found it, higher powers will clearly reveal the disk of the planet .
This beautiful image of Neptune and its moon, Triton, was taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft from a perspective that will never be had from Earth. Interesting to note is the gray hue of the planet in this image. The atmosphere of the planet preferentially scatters the light forward from this vantage and so removes the bluish tinge, and reddens the color.
Planet Pluto | Solar System | The Utah Skies Report
Pluto is rising before midnight, giving you the time you'll need to seek this faintest of planets. To know you've seen Pluto is going to require observations over several nights, carefully noting star patterns until you see one point of light move relative to the others: that's Pluto!!! But don't try this at home kids, unless you have some serious aperture, because at mag 15+, you're gonna need it!
This image of Pluto and its moon Charon was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the improved performance of a space-based observational platform over ground-based telescopes.
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 Giant Hubble Mosaic of
the Crab Nebula
This is a mosaic image, one of the largest
ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, a
six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova
explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent
event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly,
Native Americans.
The orange filaments are the tattered
remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly
spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the
dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue
light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light
around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron
star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that
appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's
rotation. A neutron star is the crushed ultra-dense core of the
exploded star.
The Crab Nebula derived its name from its
appearance in a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in
1844, using a 36-inch telescope. When viewed by Hubble, as well as
by large ground-based telescopes such as the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Crab Nebula takes on a
more detailed appearance that yields clues into the spectacular
demise of a star, 6,500 light-years away.
The newly composed image was assembled
from 24 individual Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 exposures
taken in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. The colors
in the image indicate the different elements that were expelled
during the explosion. Blue in the filaments in the outer part of
the nebula represents neutral oxygen, green is singly-ionized
sulfur, and red indicates doubly-ionized oxygen.
For more information, contact:
Jeff Hester, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.,
(phone) 480-965-0741, (e-mail) jhester@asu.edu
Jesper Sollerman, Dark Cosmology Center,
Copenhagen, Denmark,
(phone) 011-46-8-5537-8554, (e-mail) jesper@astro.su.se
Lars Lindberg Christensen, Hubble
European Space Agency Information Center, Garching, Germany,
(phone) 011-49-89-3200-6306, (cell phone) 011-49-173-3872-621,
(e-mail) lars@eso.org
Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science
Institute, Baltimore, Md.,
(phone) 410-338-45144, (e-mail) villard@stsci.edu
Credit:NASA,
ESA,
J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
Our Constellation report is an easy way for people to
become familiar with the nighttime sky. We’ll discuss myths associated
with the various constellations as well as describing the numerous deep
sky objects residing in the area. No equipment is required to view the
constellations, though a star chart can be quite helpful. This ease of
observing makes constellations a natural place to begin your journey to
the stars.
This weekend we move on to the constellation
Pisces
the Fishes. Pisces can be found to the south and east of The
Great Square of Pegasus. As the name indicates, Pisces is the
fishes...plural. One fish runs north/south to the east of Pegasus. The
other runs east/west just to the south of Pegasus. These fish are tied
together using some fishing line with the knot being Alpha Piscium or Al-Rischa,
"The Cord". The constellation is not excessively bright, but it
is not invisible either. Under reasonably dark skies you should have no
problem finding it.
To start things off in Pisces, we'll return to Alpha
Piscium. This is not only the brightest star in the constellation at
mag3.8, it is also a nice double star. This won't be the easiest to
split... with only 1.8" of separation, but... it is well worth your
effort if you've got at least 4" of aperture.
Next up is another fine double, Zeta Piscium.
This will be a much easier pair to split with about 23" of separation
between the mag4.2 & mag5.3 components. This pair has been listed as
"yellow/lilac" in color. I've never quite
Ok, let's start things off with one of my absolute favorites,
Spiral Galaxy M74(mag9.2). This weeks only Messier object is located about 1.5° east-northeast of 3.6 magnitude eta Piscium, M74 is a classical spiral galaxy viewed
face-on. This galaxy is highly photogenic, but somewhat illusive visually. Locating it is not the problem as it is a short star-hop from an easily identifiable star. The problem is that M74 is fairly large, but faint. The resulting low surface brightness means that you'll want to search for this object under reasonably dark skies. Otherwise, it'll be overwhelmed by sky glow.
This island universe of about 100 billion stars, 30 million light-years away presents a gorgeous face-on view to earthbound astronomers.
Incidentally, astronomers believe this galaxy to be similar in many respects to our own home galaxy, the
Milky
Way.
Next up is Irregular Galaxy NGC502(mag14). This is one of the dimmer galaxies we've thrown at you. It's only saving grace is its small size. This object actually has much higher surface brightness than M74. Lest you feel your time in finding this object has been wasted, let me also note that this galaxy is over 100 million light years away! To help put this in perspective, remember that 1 light year equals 6 trillion miles. Do the math... we're talking really, really far away.
Next up is a neighbor of NGC502, Elliptical Galaxy NGC524(mag10.6). This galaxy is slightly brighter, but slightly larger than the previous galaxy. So, I'll venture to say that you'll face similar issues. As the accompanying image shows, there are quite a few galaxies located in the same field of view as this one. How many others can you spot. Like NGC502, this galaxy is also about 100 million light years away. In case you were wondering, that means that the light which you are seeing in your telescope left the galaxy 100 million years ago. Now that's a long time coming!
Next up is Spiral Galaxy NGC7541(mag11.7). Located a degree or so north of gamma Piscium (the western-most star in the constellation) , this beauty of a spiral continues our trend deeper into space residing some 125 million light years away.
Our final stop in Pisces leads us to this weeks Utah Skies Challenge Object, Elliptical Galaxy NGC7562(mag11.5). This tiny galaxy spans only 2.3'x1.6'. Again, its relatively high surface brightness is what will help you out. This is the most distant galaxy in our report -- located 47.7 MPC (mega parsecs) or roughly 155 million light years away. To find this object, create an equilateral triangle by adding NGC7562 above gamma and theta Piscium. Good Luck!
Good Luck!
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.
Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting
Big news: A groundbreaking book on the impact of artificial night
lighting. It's entitled, "Ecological
Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting"... and is due to be released
sometime in November. Published by
Island
Press, this book is sure to shed some light (pun intended) on the very
important, if somewhat mis-understood, topic of
light pollution.
While certain ecological problems associated with artificial night lighting are
widely known-for instance, the disorientation of
sea turtle hatchlings by beachfront lighting-the vast range of influences on
all types of animals and plants is only beginning to be recognized. From nest
choice and breeding success of birds to behavioral and physiological changes in
salamanders, many organisms are seriously affected by human alterations in
natural patterns of light and dark.
Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting is the first book to
consider the environmental effects of the intentional illumination of the night.
It brings together leading scientists from around the world to review the state
of knowledge on the subject and to describe specific effects that have been
observed across a full range of taxonomic groups, including mammals, birds,
reptiles and amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, and plants.
Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting provides a scientific basis
to begin addressing the challenge of conserving the nighttime environment. It
cogently demonstrates the vital importance of this until-now neglected topic and
is an essential new work for conservation planners, researchers, and anyone
concerned with human impacts on the natural world.
Starry Night Lights
This weeks Light Pollution Update is brought to you by the folks at Starry Night Lights... The First & Only Night Sky Friendly Outdoor Lighting Store. Checkout their wide selection of ordinance compliant, night sky friendlyoutdoor lighting products such as this
Dark Sky Friendly Outdoor Light called The GlareBuster.
Here's the latest addition to Starry Night
Lights growing collection of night sky friendly
outdoor lights.
Manufactured by
Hadco
Lighting, the
HCO-CUL9 is a night sky friendly pathway light. It'll put the light on
the ground... where its needed... and nowhere else. What a concept, huh?
Lighting the way... without marring the view.
As you'd expect, you can find
this gorgeous, dark sky friendly outdoor light in the
deck and pathway
lighting section of your favorite outdoor lighting retailer, Starry Night Lights!
Stay up to date on astronomical happenings by regularly checking the Utah Skies website at http://www.UtahSkies.org
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! This week, however, the sun is quiet; there are no large sunspots visible.
Next up is Spiral Galaxy NGC7541(mag11.7). Located a degree or so north of gamma Piscium (the western-most star in the constellation) , this beauty of a spiral continues our trend deeper into space residing some 125 million light years away.
