The Chaotic Jewel of Orion’s Sword
Published April 10, 2012
False-Color image of the Orion Nebula taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA
If you’d like to catch Orion before it sets, look to the south-west after dark. With a moderate telescope, you should still be able to catch somewhat decent views, simply aim your telescope at the middle “star” in Orion’s sword. Additionally, from April 11th – 20th, you can participate in GLOBE at Night by viewing Orion and reporting your findings at http://www.globeatnight.org
Venus and Pleiades Dance Together
Published April 3, 2012
Western sky as viewed at 8PM local time. Image generated with Stellarium (www.stellarium.org)
Using the above image as a guide, simply look to the west after dark. Depending on your sky conditions you may also see Jupiter close to the horizon. Don’t mistake brilliant Venus for Jupiter. While Jupiter is much, much larger than Venus, it also happens to be nearly ten times further from Earth than Venus. If you look through a decently powered telescope, you’ll notice Venus shows a gibbous phase. A question to ask yourself is this: Why do Venus and our Moon show phases, but Mars Jupiter and the other outer planets don’t?
Of course, Venus and the Pleiades aren’t really close together, Venus is less than 1 astronomical unit away from us, whereas the Pleiades is almost 400 light-years from Earth. Why is this such a worthy event to view you ask? For every eight orbits Earth makes around the Sun, Venus makes 13. This means we won’t see Venus dance with the Seven Sisters for eight more years.
The above image was generated with Stellarium, an open-source, freely-available planetarium software package that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac systems. You can download Stellarium at www.stellarium.org.
If you’d like to learn a little bit of the mythology of the Pleiades, visit: http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/pleiades/pleiades_myth.html
Friday Feature: Lunar Eclipse and Geminid Meteor Shower
Published December 9, 2011
Viewing data for the December 2011 Lunar eclipse. Click for larger image. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
According to NASA, the eclipse will last from 11:33 UT (6:33 a.m. EST, 3:33 a.m. PST) until 17:30 UT (12:30 p.m. EST, 9:30 a.m. PST).
The period of time the Moon will spend at totality, (when Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon) is expected to be about 50 minutes. While the entire U.S will be able to see at least some part of tomorrow’s Lunar Eclipse, viewers on the West coast will have a more complete view.
For those on the West coast, the eclipse will start at 3:33AM PST, providing a view of totality around moonset and sunrise. West coast viewers will notice the deep red color of the Moon around 6:30 AM PST.
While the Geminids won’t peak until mid-month, you may spot a number of meteors after midnight on the 10th. Sadly, with the full moon and Gemini near each other throughout the night, this years view won’t be as spectacular as past showers. Those observers with telescopes may want to point them at the bright pinkish dot in the East if hunting for meteors isn’t panning out, since Mars is making its return to the night skies.
To view an image showing where to spot the Geminids, click the “Continue Reading” link below. Happy meteor hunting and clear skies!
Leonid Meteor Shower
Published November 18, 2011
Eastern Skies before dawn (~3AM) Image Generated with Stellarium (www.stellarium.org)
While the Leonids peaked on the 17th, Stargazers with a “day” job should be able to still catch some celestial fireworks this weekend. After midnight and up to about an hour before dawn, look in the region of Leo, as shown in the image above.
The moon will be up, so there will be some interference, but observers with decent night sky conditions should still be able to see a fair amount of meteors. Those of you who have missed the tiny pink dot of Mars will be in for a treat, as it will be visible near the moon as well!
Rounding out 2011′s meteor shower season will be the Geminids on December 13th. I’ll have a post showing you how to find them next month.
Clear skies!
Nominated as a 2011 Blogging Scholarship Finalist!
Published November 16, 2011
I’ve been nominated as a finalist for the 2011 Blogging Scholarship!
Please take a moment and visit the voting page, and vote for me:
(Ray Sanders).
With my wife and I having just had our first child a couple months back, this scholarship would be a a huge help with my final year of classes.
To cast your vote, click on the image below, and you’ll be taken to the voting page. You can vote once per day, but please don’t attempt to “cheat” the voting system.
You can also vote by following this link: http://www.collegescholarships.org/blog/2011/11/18/2011-blogging-scholarship/
I also wanted to take a moment to thank you, the readers of this site, for all your support and enthusiastic participation.
I’m very thankful to have the privilege of sharing my little corner of the Internet with every one of you.
Interesting Facts About Pluto
Published August 24, 2011
Image credit: The International Astronomical Union/Martin Kornmesser
Fraser Cain at Universe Today writes:
Pluto isn’t a planet any more, but it’s still a very interesting dwarf planet in the Solar System, worthy of our fascination and interest. Here are 10 facts about Pluto. Some you might already know, and others will be completely new.
1. Pluto has an atmosphere
Even though Pluto’s average temperature averages a mere 44 degrees above absolute zero, the dwarf planet has an atmosphere. Not an atmosphere as we know it, but an atmosphere, none the less.
It was first discovered back in 1985, when astronomers watched as Pluto passed in front of a star. They were able to calculate a slight dimming as its atmosphere passed in front of the star, before Pluto itself blocked the star entirely. From those observations, they were able to calculate that it has a thin envelope of nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide.
As Pluto moves away from the Sun, this atmosphere gets so cold that it freezes onto the surface. And then as the dwarf planet warms again, the atmosphere evaporates again, forming a gas around it.
2. Pluto has 3 4 moons
You might have heard that Pluto has a large moon called Charon (more on that later), but did you know that it actually has 3 moons in total. Charon is the large one, with a mass of roughly half that of Pluto’s.
Two additional moons, Nix and Hydra, were discovered by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope on May 15, 2005. They were originally called S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, and then given their final names on June 21, 2006.
They took a long time to discover because they’re so tiny. Nix is only 46 km across, while Hydra is 61 km across.
Update:A fourth moon, dubbed “P4″ was recently detected by the Hubble Space Telescope.
3. Pluto hasn’t cleared out its orbit
Although Pluto orbits the Sun and it’s round, it’s not a planet. And that’s because Pluto hasn’t cleared out its orbit of material. This was the reason that the International Astronomical Union chose to demote it from planet to dwarf planet in 2006.
Just to give you an idea, if you added up the mass of all the other objects in Pluto’s orbit, Pluto’s mass would only be a tiny fraction of that total. In fact, it would only be 0.07 times as massive as everything else. For comparison, if you did the same thing with all the other material in the Earth’s orbit, our planet would be 1.5 million times as massive.
And that’s why Pluto’s not a planet.
Continue reading
