Vern’s Weblog

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Highlights this week

• Bright ISS pass tonight, Dec 23rd, at 5:16 pm
• Mars opposition on Monday Dec 24
• Checkout Comet 17P Holmes and 8P/Tuttle with binoculars before moonrise

International Space Station

Only one good pass this week, tonight at 5:16:23 pm. Appears in the WNW and disappears in the SSE at 5:21:40 (magnitude -0.6).

Sun

No regions are currently visible as of today. Solar activity is expected to remain at very low levels this week.

Moon

The moon is full tonight, Dec 23 at 6:16 pm MST. Take a look for rays and bright albedo features.

Planets

Venus is visible before dawn in constellation Libra. It is very bright at magnitude -4.0. It shrinks in angular size this week from 15.3 to 14.7 arc sec across.

Mars is at opposition on Christmas in constellation Gemini. It is -1.6 magnitude in brightness. Our view of the martian disk shrinks from 15.85 arc sec tonight to 15.56 arc sec on Saturday.

Saturn is in constellation Leo. It rises at 9:39 pm by Saturday and is +0.9 magnitude in brightness. The disk is 19 arc sec across.
Dark Sky
Starting Wednesday, we’ll get some dark sky before moonrise in the early evening. On Saturday, the moonrises at 11:11 pm.

Comets

Comet 17P/Homes is in northern Perseus, around magnitude 5 in brightness and 70 or so arc minutes across.

Comet 8P/Tuttle is brightest this week at magnitude +6.4.Tonight it is in constellation Casseopia but will move rapidly south for several weeks. It be in constellation Andromeda on Christmas day. Coma is about 5.2 arc-min.

See http://cometchasing.skyhound.com for charts and more information regarding comets.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 1:02 pm 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.