Vern’s Weblog

A new region rotated over the east limb a couple days ago, region 10969. Current Zurich classification is Hsx, 90 millionths solar hemisphere in area (273 million sqare kilometers — about half the surface area of the Earth). Here is a view of it from 11:22 am MDT this morning with Celestron Nexstar 11 and Phillips Toucam 840K at cassegrain focus.

Sky was partly cloudy, temperature about 80°F, no wind, transparency very good, turbulence about 6/10, location Louisville, CO

Jupiter is setting earlier each day so its getting more difficult to get good views of it;  I’ve pretty much given up on imaging it anymore this year.  Last night I set up the telescope to get some moon pictures.  It was still too bright to find any alignment stars but Jupiter was shining brightly above the Moon.  The bands were  very distinct and I could even see the red spot about to rotate around the western limb.  So I couldn’t resist, just a couple more Jupiter shots…

Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 and Phillips Toucam 840K at cassegrain focus.

Above image taken with Celestron Nexstar 11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam. Approximately 3 minutes video for each image, aligned and stacked with Registax4. Enhanced with Photoshop Elements2. 

Sky was partly cloudy, temperature 85°F, no wind, transparency excellent, and turbulence varied from 6/10 to 5/10, location Louisville, CO.

Image of Mars at 5:42 am MDT early this morning. Mars is still fairly small, only 7.7 arc sec across but will be getting closer and larger as we progress to opposition on Christmas eve. The Mars central meridian was about 135° when the image was aquired. Image is approximately in NW orientation (north up,west right). The north pole of Mars is towards the upper right. A hint of bluish haze of the north polar hood can be seen can be seen in the image. The faint marking on the surface near the equator is probably Mare Sirenum.

Images taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam. Location was Louisville, CO, the sky was clear, no wind, temperature about 60°F, transparency very good, turbulence about 5/10. Aligned and stacked with Registax4.

The following is a list of some astronomical objects to see in the sky the week of Aug 19 thru Aug 25, 2007. Some of the events and times given are specific to the Colorado front range (40° N and the MDT timezone).

Highlights

See both the shuttle Endeavour and ISS Monday evening!
Excellent time to view lunar craters, valleys, rilles, and domes

International Space Station

The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the ISS this morning. We should be able to see both the ISS followed by the shuttle Endeavour Monday evening at 8:59 to 9:03 pm, both will be very bright so it should be spectacular. The landing is on Tuesday.

Mon. Aug 20 at 8:59:20 pm appears in WNW, disappears in Earth’s shadow at 9:03:30 pm in the SE (very bright at magnitude -2.3)
Tues. Aug 21 at 9:22:26 pm appears in W, disappears in Earth’s shadow at 9:25:21 in the SSW (magnitude -0.2)
Wed. Aug 22 at 8:09:28 pm appears in NW, disappears at 8:15:14 pm in the SE (very bright at magnitude -2.2)
Thur. Aug 23 at 8:32:30 pm appears in W, disappears at 8:37:01 pm in the SE (magnitude -0.1)

Sun

This week the Sun rises at 6:17 am to 6:23 am MDT and sets 7:55 pm to 7:46 pm MDT. Currently no regions are visible on the the Sun’s disk. Solar activity is expected remain at very low levels this week.

Moon

The Moon is at first quarter this Sun, Aug 20 at 5:54 pm MDT and will be full next week on Aug 28.
Schedule a day off next week so you can watch the total lunar eclipse early in the morning, Tues Aug 28. It will be total from 03:52 to 05:22 am.
See diagram at http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2007Aug28/image/TLE2007Aug28-MDT.GIF
The terminator (region between dark and bright sunlight) passes near different features of the Moon as the lunar cycle progresses. Shadows from various features as mountains, craters, and domes are longer tben and increase the contrast. The following is a list of features visible in large binoculars or telescope that are near the terminator on the days indicated at approximately 10:30 pm.

Sun Aug 19: craters Aristoteles, Eudoxus,
Mon Aug 20: Alpetragius, Alphonsus, Archimedes, Aritillus, Arzachel, Cassini, Hershell, Hipparchus, Huggins, Miller, Piton, Wermer,
Mons Hadley,Vallis Alpenninus, Montes Alpes, and Alpenines.
Tue Aug 21: Beer, Clavius, Maginus, Pitatus, Plato, Rima Birt, Stadius, Tycho, and Fra Mauro Rupes Recta
Wed Aug 22: crater Copernicus, Euler, Lambert, Longomontanus, Reinhold, and Dome Kies Pi
Thur Aug 23: craters Doppelmayer, Encke, Gassendi, Hainzel, J Herschel, Kepler, Schiller. Also Sinus Iridium and Montes Jura,
Fri Aug 24: crater Aristarchus, Oceanus Procellarum, Vallis Schroter
Sat Aug 25: craters Pythagoras, Schickard, Wargentin

Planets

Mercury is not visible.

Venus is not visible.

Mars rises 0:20 to 0:09 am MDT in constellation Taurus. It brightens from +0.4 to +0.3 magnitude, the distance decreases from 1.22 AU (113.4 million miles) to 1.19 AU (110 million miles), and increases in size from 7.7 to 7.9 arc sec across, and is 86% illuminated.
Best time to view Mars is just before sunrise when it is high up (around 5 am). In a large telescope, the martian features Mare Cimmerium, Mare Sirenum, and Olympus Mon are visible early in the week but rotates from our view. Later in the week the prominent features visible are Solis Lacaus (the eye of Mars), and Tharsis. See the annotated Mars map by Damian Peach. The following are the center longitude at 5 am on days indicated:

Mon Aug 20: 119 deg.
Tue Aug 21: 110 deg.
We Aug 22: 100 deg.
Thur Aug 23: 90 deg.
Fri Aug 24: 81 deg.
Sat Aug 25: 71 deg.

Jupiter is visible early in the evening in the SSW in constellation Ophiuchus. It sets 0:33 to 0:10 am this week. The Great Red Spot (GRS) crosses the center of Jupiter at the following times:

Mon. Aug 20 at 11:05 pm
Thur. Aug 23 at 08:35 pm
Sat. Aug 25 at 10:14 pm

Saturn is not visible. It is in conjunction with the Sun on Tues, Aug 21.

Uranus is in constellation Aquarius, magnitude 5.7, and 3.6 arc-sec in diameter.

Neptune is in constellation Capricornus, magnitude 7.8, and 2.5 arc-sec in diameter.

Pluto is in constellation Sagitarrius, magnitute 13.7, and 0.1 arc-sec in diameter.

Comets

No reasonably bright comets are visible this week.

Asteroids

There are 7 asteroids brighter than magnitude +10 this week. Locations below are for Sat. Aug 25 at 10:30 pm MDT.

     Name        Const           RA          Dec      Mag   

     1 Ceres     Cetus        03:28:11   +09 24'23"   8.7        

     2 Pallas    Pegasus    22:32:56   +05 46'54"   8.9   

     4 Vesta     Scorpio     16:32:06   -20 51'38"   7.1  

     8 Flora      Cetus        03:31:36   +11 03'34"   9.8  

    30 Urania    Aquarius     22:54:07   -04 53'06"  10.0  

    40 Harmonia Capricornus  20:47:08   -23 00'16"   9.6  

   194 Prokne    Aquarius     21:36:51   -06 28'23"   9.6

Dark Sky

We can still get some dark sky views early in the week if we stay up past midnight.

Meteor Showers

The annual Perseid meteor shower reached maximum activity last week but still continues this week. The meteor counts will be far lower, about 5 per hour. Sporadic meteor rates (those not associated with a particular radiant) increase to about 12 per hour this time of year.
Look for meteors early this week after moonset.

Friday evening we went to the Little Thompson Obsvervatory in Berthoud, CO. to a pre-screening of the upcoming PBS film “Seeing in the Dark” by Timothy Ferris.

The documentary film features beautiful, high definition scenic and astronomical photography. The film is about the joy of observing the night sky with telescope and camera. It starts out with Ferris’s reminiscence of observing from a Florida beach as a teenager in the 1950s. It has interviews with a number of amateur astronomers such as Robert Gendler, the Bisque brothers (who were in attendence at the LTO screening), and shots of the 2006 Stellafane ATM convention. It is a beautifully done, extremely interesting film.

The film is being prescreened by PBS at various planetariums. The next showing in the Denver area is at the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder on Wed. Aug. 29 at 7:00 pm. It will air on PBS stations on Wed. Sept 19, check your local listings.