Vern’s Weblog

The following is a list of some interesting things to see up in the sky this week, June 10 thru June 16, 2007. Some of the events and times given are specific to the Colorado front range (40° N and the MDT timezone).

Highlights

• Dark sky week!
• Watch Jupiter’s moon Io transit Sunday evening 9:30pm
• Photo op early Tues. morning as Jupiter’s GRS and moon Europa transit in same view about 0:30 am
• Double transit, both Io and Ganymede cross Jupiter next Saturday morning 4:50 am
• Spot a thin crescent moon on Friday evening
• Globular season begins.

International Space Station
The ISS passes over us almost every evening this week, unfortunately all the passes are dim and low in the NW.

Sun
Sunrise is 5:12 am to 5:37 am MDT (it rises later!) and sunset is 8:31 pm to 8:33 pm MDT this week.
Region 10960 was quite large and active for a while and produced a series of M-class flares. The storm appears to be mostly over now, the region is quieter and decreasing in size. It is located about midway between center of the disk and the west limb (right) today (Sunday Jun 10). It will rotate out of our view Wednesday. See http://www.raben.com/maps for current location of active regions. Solar activity is expected to be low this week.

Moon
New moon is on Thursday 9:13 pm MDT. Friday evening we will have a chance to spot a very thin crescent moon in the WNW exactly 24 hrs old at 9:13 pm.

Planets
Mercury
Last chance to see Mercury after sunset for a while, it will disappear from our view Wednesday.

Venus
The crescent is getting thinner, but its still very bright at magnitude -4.2, straight west after sunset in the constellation Gemini.

Saturn
Still time to see Saturn, it is magnitude +1.1, in the constellation Leo, to the upper left of Venus in the early evening.

Jupiter
It is currently magnitude -2.4 in the constellation Ophiuchus and is already up in the SE after sunset.

Sun. June 10 9:30 pm Io transits
Tues. Jun 12 1:09 am Europa transits
1:16 am GRS at center
9:08 pm GRS at center
Thur. Jun 14 2:54 am GRS at center
10:46 pm GRS at center
Sat. Jun 16 5:48 am double transit, Io and Ganymede
Sun. Jun 17 0:23 am GRS at center

Pluto moves into constellation Serpens Caput. It is magnitude +14.
Uranus is magnitude 5.8 in the constellation Aquarius
Neptune is in the constellation Capricornus and is magnitude +7.9.
Mars rises around 2:30 am in constellation Pisces. It is getting brighter at magnitude 0.8 and is 6 arc-sec across. Not much detail yet in a scope, but wait until late fall. Mars opposition is Dec 24th.

Comets
Only a couple comets are within range of large backyard scopes this week.
C/2007 E2 (Lovejoy) is magnitude +11.3 and moves from constellation Draco to Ursa Major. BTW Lovejoy discovered another one C/2007K5(Lovejoy) but unfortunately we won’t get to see it.
C/2006 VZ13 (Linear) is magnitude +11.6 and moves from constellation Andromeda to Lacerta.

Asteroids
There are 12 asteroids brighter than magnitude +11 this week, coordinates given are for Sat. Jun 16 at 10:30 pm MDT.

     3 Juno is in Virgo           RA 13:01:10 Dec +04 02'47"  magnitude +10.8
    21 Lutetia is in Scorpius     RA 16:13:51 Dec -20 33'30"  magnitude +10.4
     4 Vesta is in Scorpius       RA 16:16:22 Dec -14 44'46"  magnitude  +5.7
    85 Io is in Ophiuchus         RA 17:06:40 Dec -05 26'48"  magnitude +10.8
     9 Metis is in Sagittarius    RA 18:12:46 Dec -26 38'59"  magnitude + 9.8
   192 Nausikaa is in Sagittarius RA 19:22:08 Dec -32 53'18"  magnitude +10.4
    80 Sappho is in Aquila        RA 20:24:49 Dec -04 53'36"  magnitude +10.9
    40 Harmonia is in Capricornus RA 21:21:16 Dec -18 02'21"  magnitude +10.6
     2 Pallas is in Pegasus       RA 22:51:45 Dec +10 44'29"  magnitude +10.1
    12 Victoria is in Pisces      RA 00:00:00 Dec +09 54'42"  magnitude +11.0
     8 Flora is in Pisces         RA 01:24:48 Dec +03 51'35"  magnitude +10.6
    29 Amphitrite is in Aries     RA 01:58:37 Dec +13 37'13"  magnitude +11.0

Dark Sky Objects
Galaxies
Evenings this week are a good time to go galaxy hopping through Virgo and Coma Berenices. Check Bob’s Messier guide for this part of the sky at
http://longmontastro.org/albers/las/messier/mess_05_05.pdf

Globular Clusters
Its time to work on AAL globular certificates (see http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/globular/globular1.html ). About 70% of the 157 known globular clusters are in the Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Scorpio part of the sky which makes the early summer a great time to check off a bunch of them.

Nebulas
Lots of great early summer nebula to view if you stay up a little late. The “Ring Nebula” M57 in Lyra, the “Dumbbell Nebula” M27 in Vulpecula, the “Tiny Dumbbell” NGC 7026 in Cygnus , faint ring NGC 6894 also in Cygnus, and the “Cat’s Eye” NGC 6543 in Draco are some I’m planning to visit this week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 10:30 am and is filed under Astronomy, Sky this Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.