The Sky is Waiting.
On sale now!
History is filled with “What Ifs”. What if Einstein had never immigrated to the US? What if Lincoln had never gone to Ford’s Theatre? While many decisions in history might have been inconsequential, others may have radically altered the course of history and our role in it today.
Mercury as seen by Messenger during its
3rd flyby in 2009.
(Credit: NASA/JPL).
I SEE IT! Catching a glimpse of fleeting Mercury can be an unforgettable experience; orbiting the Sun once every 88 days, the innermost planet never strays far from its perch low in the dawn or dusk sky. February offers your first shot at catching the world low in the dusk as it approaches its first of six elongations in 2013. Though not the best of 2013 for most viewers worldwide (see below), this month’s elongation does offer roughly equal prospects for both northern and southern hemisphere observers as the ecliptic approaches near-perpendicular to the horizon headed towards the March equinox. And as you’ll see, this apparition will set us up for some of the best prospects for catching Mercury later this spring. [Read more...]
Comet Lemmon (arrowed) passes through
the Southern Cross on January 20th.
Photo by Luis Argerich. Used with permission.
Astronomy in 2013 already has one great thing going for it; the potential for several bright comets. While the astro-pundits debate the potential for comets C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS later this Spring and C/2012 S1 ISON later this year, we’d like to turn your attention southward to what could become the first naked eye comet of 2013. [Read more...]
The January 26th path of the 106 Dione
occultation over the US SE.
(Created by the author using Google Earth).
You asked, and we answered. No sooner than our “Astronomy Top 100” hit the cyber-doorstep than we received “what about event X?” from several astute readers and lovers of the cosmos. We love the feedback. That what makes this site tick and makes every year’s list of must-see events ever more weird and wonderful, just like the cosmos itself. [Read more...]
Jupiter & moons + shadow transit.
(Photo by Author).
These next few weeks are a great time to keep an eye on the largest planet in our solar system. The planet is fresh off of opposition, which occurred on December 2nd of last year, and resumes direct motion eastward through Taurus towards quadrature on February 25th. In fact, Jupiter doesn’t even reach opposition this year, something that hasn’t happened since 2001 and won’t happen again until 2025. This is because Jupiter orbits the Sun once every 11.9 years and thus successive oppositions occur approximately every 400 days apart. [Read more...]
Artist’s conception of a flare star in action.
(Credit: NASA).
It’s ironic that the most common type of star also lies hidden from view in the night sky. Our Sun and others like it make up a paltry ~20% of the fusion-burning stellar engines in the Milky Way; the vast majority of stars are red dwarfs with less than %50 the mass of our Sun. And although Alpha Centauri’s C companion Proxima lies just over 4 light years distant, not a single red dwarf is visible to the naked eye. We’ve written about other red dwarfs in the range of a backyard telescope, such as Groombridge 34 & Omicron Eridani; this week, we’d like to turn your attention to a curious specimen in the constellation Cetus.
We love it when obscure defunct constellations work their way into modern usage. This week brings with it the first meteor shower of 2013 by way of the Quadrantids. And let’s get the most frequent question out of the way right now, one that we always get around the beginning of each year; where the heck did the name come from? Ah, for that little bit of trivia, we refer you to our handy post on obsolete constellations of yore. The Quadrantids derive their name from an obsolete constellation known as the Mural Quadrant or Quadrans Muralis. [Read more...]
It has arrived. Welcome to our official guide to the fascinating, the unique, and the down right bizarre in the realm of astronomy coming to a sky near you in 2013. As always, we strive to make this almanac a monument not only to the most awesome astronomical spectacles in 2013 but a conglomeration of some little known but also fascinating sights. Some events you’ll only find gathered here on these pages, and we pride ourselves on ferreting out these events over the year. [Read more...]
The Moon+Jupiter on Dec 25th at 7PM EST.
(Created by the Author in Starry Night).
Looking forward to Christmas? The sky has a present for all on the evening of December 25th. On this date, the 95% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon will make a splendid pairing with the -2.7 magnitude planet Jupiter. Look to the east for the pair at sunset. In fact, this is also a great time to try and pick out Jupiter in the daytime, a feat that is made simpler by the nearby and easy to spot Moon. Use binoculars to guide your eyes to the ghostly disc of Jupiter against the daytime sky, and then attempt a naked eye sighting. The “bluer” the sky, the better chance you have of picking out a low-contrast Jupiter against the background near the Moon… a fun feat to attempt!
A daytime Jupiter as seen on September 8th, 2012.
(Photo by author).
The Moon will actually occult (pass in front of) Jupiter and its retinue of moons for observers in South America and South Africa. The occultation is centered on 00:10 UTC December 26th, and will occur in the daytime for observers west of Brazil. (see graphic below) This is actually part of a short cycle of three Jovian occultations by the Moon occurring over the next few months, with the next ones occurring on January 27th & February 18th of 2013 (also occurring in the southern hemisphere). For North American observers, Jupiter will pass from 29’ arc minutes of the limb of the Moon as seen from Miami (25° 30’ north latitude) to 39’ arc minutes as seen from Montreal (45° 30’ north). This occurs around 6:15PM EST with the Moon at about 30-40° degrees elevation above the horizon. The Moon rises around 3:30PM from middle northern latitudes on the evening of the 25th.
The occultation path for December 25th-26th. (Created by the author in Occult 4.0).
Now for the obligatory “Wow!” factor. The Moon appears about half a degree (30’ arc minutes) across, while Jupiter appears about 1/38th the size with a disk 47” across. But of course, that’s just an illusion; Jupiter is 41 times larger than our 2,084 miles in diameter Moon, but is over 1,600 times farther away. And that also means the reflected sunlight took only just over a second to leave the lunar surface and enter your eye, but took over 34 minutes to depart Jupiter for your viewing convenience. What madness is this, that tiny rocky satellites can cover gas giant worlds? Sometimes, the universe just makes you say “Wow!”
Jupiter just passed opposition on December 2nd, and will not do so again until January 5th, 2014. Neither Jupiter nor Mars reach opposition in 2013. I’ll leave it to any astute readers to calculate when that last happened… the Moon also reaches Full this week at 10:23 UTC on the 28th. This is the last Full Moon of 2012. The December Full Moon is also known as the Full Frost, Winter or Oak Moon. This is also known as the “Moon before Yule” when it falls before Christmas (which it doesn’t this year) and the “Long Nights Moon” being the closest to the northern hemisphere Winter Solstice. This is also the most northern Full Moon of 2012, (a direct result of the solstice tie-in) with a 19° 49’ north declination. Happy holidays; expect our action-packed look at “all things astronomical” in 2013 before 2012 is out!
Toutatis near Aldebaran on December 19th.
It’s a shooting gallery out there. As the scarred surface of our Moon attests, the inner solar system is routinely criss-crossed by comets and asteroids that would do our precious niche of the universe harm.
Looking east the morning of December 3rd an hour before dawn.
(Created by the Author in Starry Night).
By now, you’ve no doubt been thrilled by last week’s dramatic passage of Venus and Saturn in the dawn sky. Well, as the old Late-night TV ad cliché says, “But wait, there’s more…”
Fresh off of inferior conjunct and a near transit of the Sun that missed the solar limb by less than 8’ minutes on November 17th, the planet Mercury joins the pair for a stunning gathering. [Read more...]
Looking east Nov 27 two hours before sunrise.
(Created by the author in Starry Night).
This week sees the second eclipse of the November eclipse season and the spectacular return of the ringed planet to dawn skies.
First up is the penumbral eclipse of the Moon on November 28th. A Penumbral eclipse occurs when the Full Moon misses the dark inner umbra and instead passes through the indistinct, bright outer penumbra of the Earth’s shadow. You may not even notice the subtle shading of the Moon unless you’re looking for it. [Read more...]
Looking northeast at 2AM local.
(Created by the Author in Starry Night).
There’s one yearly meteor shower that’s always worth watching out for. This weekend, the Leonid meteors are set to peak on November 17th. The bad news is: this is a bad year for this shower; although the Leonids can reach storm levels of +1,000 per hour as last happened in 1998 & 1999, this year the Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) isn’t expected to top 15. [Read more...]
(Animation credit: A.T. Sinclair/NASA/GSFC).
All hail the saros… eclipse season 2 of 2 is upon us for 2012. This coming Tuesday as the Moon reaches its ascending node along the ecliptic also represents the only total solar eclipse of the Sun for 2012. [Read more...]
Discovery image of 2012 F1 (LINEAR)
(Credit: the Remanzacco Observatory).
2012 S1 (ISON)… 2011 L4 PanSTARRS… 2013 is already ramping up to be a great year for astronomy, with the promise of no less than two bright comets. This year came in with the surprise survival of Comet C/2011 W3 Lovejoy past the Sun and saw two decent binocular comets in Garradd C/2009 P1 and a surprise outburst recently of Comet 168P/Hergenrother last month. These icy visitors are fickle beasts, and any comet that rises above +10 magnitude officially piques our interest.
The “Ghost of Gamma…” (Created by the Author in Starry Night).
Sometimes, the new and the unexpected lies just inside the field of view of the familiar. This week, we’d like to turn your attention to a hidden double star in the field of a star party favorite. Halloween means sidewalk astronomy season, as we show off the delights of the universe to high-fructose corn syrup-filled suburbanites. Hey, it’s wonderful that a pagan Cross Quarter tie-in holiday (as in a celebration approximately midway between the equinox and the solstice) gets some play in this day and age. [Read more...]
A Taurid meteor streaks through an All-Sky Cam. (Credit: NASA).
A relatively obscure meteor shower may be on the upswing in the coming month, starting this week. The Northern Taurids are usually a minor shower, of little note on most years. Generating a maximum zenithal hourly rate just a little above the background sporadic level of about 5 per hour, the Northern Taurids go unnoticed on most years. Active from October 20th through December 10th with a broad peak centered on November 12th, the radiant drifts across the border from the constellation Aries into northern Taurus just below The Pleiades (M45) open star cluster.
The path of the radiant of the Northern Taurids. (Photo & Graphic by Author).
Fred Whipple’s analysis of the radiant of the Northern Taurids in the early 1950’s revealed a path wandering from a Right Ascension of 3 Hours 00’ and a declination of +19° degrees in the constellation Aries in mid-October into Taurus very near the Pleiades at a R.A. of 4 Hours and 7.7’ and a declination of 24.5° degrees on December 1st.
In fact, researchers in the mid-20th century discovered that the two Taurid streams are tangled up with two other faint streams, known as the Autumn or Northern & Southern Arietids.
So, what’s so significant about a minor meteor shower? Well first off, the Northern Taurids are known to produce a disproportionate amount of bright fireballs. The Moon reaches Full phase on October 28th at 3:49PM EDT/7:49 PM UTC, but that shouldn’t be a hindrance for any bright fireball sightings. General meteor velocities for the Northern Taurids are about 29 kilometres per second, lending themselves to long, graceful meteor trails. This has also lent the nickname “The Halloween Fireballs” to the Northern Taurids over the years.
Both the Southern and Northern Taurids emanate from debris shed by that most famous of ultra-short period comets, Comet 2P/Encke. The Southern Taurids have a radiant that runs roughly parallel though the southern portion of the constellation Taurus with a ZHR=5 and are also currently active from September 10 – November 20th. In fact, it may be tough to disentangle the source radiant of the two, as they only lie about 10° degrees apart. Comet Encke has the shortest orbital period of any known comet at 3.3 years, and there’s some thought that the streams of all four showers converge on points 4,700 and 1,500 years ago, hinting at a large breakup and discharge of material around those times.
The Northern Taurids have seen a recent upswing in activity on the years 1995, 1998, 2005 and 2008. Current modeling suggests that we encounter a “swarm” of Taurid fireballs once every 61 years, as last occurred, you guessed it, 61 years ago in 1951. In fact, it was the “Taurid fireball swarm of 1951” that solidified the stream as a true meteor shower in the first place. Of course, this shower has only been monitored for less than a century, and it’s to be seen if the 61 year hypothesis holds true.
Just only this year, the International Astronomical Union raised the number of established meteor showers from 64 to 95. To be sure, there are lots more streams out there, and clumps of debris in known showers that we’ve yet to encounter. There’s already talk of a possible new mid-December radiant dubbed the “46/P-ids” that may becoming active, along with a return of the defunct Andromedids in early December and a possible meteor storm from Comet 209P/LINEAR in May of 2014. Incidentally, that last one will hail from the constellation Camelopardalis, perhaps giving birth to… wait for it… the Camelopardalids! That’ll be a fun one for the non-science media to explain!
Do keep a watch on the sky for Taurid fireball activity over the next few weeks. The radiant rises to the northeast just after sunset and will be high overheard by local midnite for mid-northern latitude observers through November. Watch those all-sky cameras for activity as well. Will we witness a “Great Taurid Swarm of 2012?” remember, you won’t see any if you don’t try!
|
|
|
 |
|
Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
The Algonquin Indians had names for each of the seasonal Full Moons, many of which survive today. The Full Snow Moon pictured occurs in the month of December, when the first large winter storms coat the ground with snow. This Full Moon also tends to fall near the Winter Solstice, and thus rides high in the nightly sky opposite to the Sun on long winter nights.
Every rocket launch is unique, but twilight shuttle launches where by far the most impressive. The image pictured was of the April 5th, 2010 launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center at dawn. The exhaust plume caught the rising Sun overhead just right, and numerous noctilucent clouds persisted right up until sunrise. Unfortunately, space shuttle launches are now relegated to the pages of history.
Astro-Challenge: Catching the Flyby of Asteroid 2012 DA14.
Passage of 2012 DA14 by the Earth.
(Credit: NASA/JPL).
By now, you’ve heard the news. On the night of February 15th, Near Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will make a close passage by our fair world. It happens sometimes; hey, it’s a shooting gallery out there, with rogue space rocks roaming the inner solar system at will, seemingly looking for the occasional planet to smash into. This isn’t the closest near miss (or near hit?) of an asteroid; [Read more...]