Vern’s Weblog

Sky this Week for Jan 27th to Feb 2nd, 2008


International Space Station
Some nice bright passes of the ISS in the early evening this week.
Wed. Jan 30th magnitude -2.5 appears in the southwest at 6:31:07 pm and disappears in the east-northeast at 6:34:42
Thurs. Jan 31st magnitude -1.1 appears in the west at 6:52:35 and disappears in the north-northwest at 6:55:28 pm
Fri. Feb 1st magnitude -2.3 appears in the southwest at 5:38:37 and disappears in the east-northeast at 5:44:11 pm
Sat. Feb 2nd magnitude -1.3 appears in the west-southwest at 5:59:56 pm and disappears in the northeast at 6:05:16 pm
Sun
No active regions are visible on the disk as of today Jan 27th.
For those of us at 40 degrees north, the sun rises around 7:15 am on Sunday to 7:10 am next Saturday. It sets bit later from 5:16 to 5:23 pm

Moon
The Moon will be in third quarter on Tuesday, Jan 29th at 10:03 pm MST
By Saturday Feb 2nd it will be visible as a thin waxing crescent low in the southwest before dawn
Planets
Mercury sinks lower in the west after sunset this week. By Saturday it sets only about 45 minutes after the sun. This week is about the last chance to view it for a while.

Mars is getting further away, smaller and a bit dimmer now that it is past opposition. Around 9pm it is up high overhead in constellation Taurus.

Saturn is getting closer and brighter. It will be at opposition on February 24th. Around 9 pm, look for it in the east in constellation Leo. At that time it is nearly directly below the star Regulus.

Look for the planet Jupiter before sunrise in constellation Sagittarius.

Venus can be seen shining brilliantly at magnitude -3.9 in the constellation Sagittarius.

Asteroids
Monday evening Jan 28th, look for the asteroid 2007 TU24. The asteroid is about 800 feet across and passes fairly close to earth at a distance of 344 thousand miles away at the closest (around 1:30 am MST Jan 29th). It is about 10.2 magnitude at the brightest and moving fast across the sky so it will be difficult to locate. Use a star chart program to plan its location at given points in time, say every 10 minutes, so that you can locate that point and then watch it cross the field of view of your telescope.

Comets
Comet 17P Holmes is now about 1-1/2 degrees across. It will probably be difficult spot unless you are in a dark sky location. It is below the Star Algol in constellation Perseus

Comet 46P Wirtanen is moving through constellation Pisces. It is magnitude 9.2 in brightenss.

Dark Sky
Since the new moon is mid-week on Feb 6 we get dark sky weekends both this week and next as well.

Around 9 pm look to the northeast and locate the constellation Ursa Major, commonly referred to as the Big Dipper. Mentally draw a diagonal across the bowl of the dipper between stars Phad and Dubhe. Then extend it in the same direction and the same length. With even binoculars or a small telescope you should see the galaxy Messier 81. With an 8 inch telescope or larger some of the spiral structure can be seen. The view is stunning in dark skies through a large aperture scope such as 30″ dob.

While you are in the neighborhood, slew 38 arc minutes north and locate Messier 82. This is an irregular galxy which we view edge on. In scopes 8 inches in aperture or larger show a dark lane which nearly bisects the halo. In larger scopes, bright knots can be seen along the axis of the cigar shape.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Astronomy, Sky this Week, Video. 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.