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11/27/2013 – Ephemeris – Where are the bright planets and what’s up with Comet ISON?

November 26, 2013 Comments off

Ephemeris for Wednesday, November 27th.  The sun will rise at 7:54.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 5:05.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 2:46 tomorrow morning.

Let’s see where the bright planets are this eventful week.  Venus is brilliant in the southwest after sunset.  It will set at 7:53 p.m.  The giant planet Jupiter will rise at 8:01 p.m. in the east northeast.  It’s cruising against the stars of Gemini now.  It will pass due south at 3:38 a.m.  Mars will rise at 1:47 a.m. also in the east northeast.  Reddish Mars is midway between Regulus in Leo and Spica in Virgo and tomorrow morning will be about 12 moon diameters above left of the moon.  Mercury and Saturn will be together in the east southeast by 7 a.m.  Mercury is the lower and brighter of the two.  Comet ISON is now too close to the sun to be seen.   Check bobmoler.wordpress.com (see below) for how to view Comet ISON near the sun.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Venus

Venus as it should appear at 6 p.m. on 11/27/2013. Created using Stellarium.

Telescopic Venus

Telescopic view of Venus as it should appear at 6 p.m. on 11/27/2013. Created using Stellarium.

Jupiter

Jupiter and some winter constellations as they should appear at 10 p.m. on 11/27/2013. Created using Stellarium.

Jupiter

Telescopic view of Jupiter and its satellites as they should appear at 10 p.m. on 11/27/2013. The satellite Io is behind the planet and won’t appear until after midnight. Created using Stellarium.

Morning Planets

The morning planets Mars, Saturn and Mercury plus the Moon at 6:45 a.m. November 28, 2013. Created using Stellarium

Moon

The Moon at 6:45 a.m. November 28, 2013. Created using Stellarium.

Comet ISON

Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer reported Monday that Comet ISON had suddenly decreased the amount of ices that it was emitting and pretty much simultaneously greatly increased the amount of dust it was producing.  One of the possible explanations was that its nucleus had been disrupted.  The comet’s nucleus is the small, maybe 2 km diameter, solid part of the comet.  All the other parts of the comet are the thin ejected gas and dust from that nucleus.  The head and tail of the comet is still a pretty good vacuum by earthly standards.  There is still questions about it today.  Here’s a YouTube video posted by the Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla created by Emily from images taken by the STEREO Ahead spacecraft.  It seems to be holding its own:

Here is the Planetary Society Blog entry that discusses Comet ISON’s then current status.

At the time of this posting (10 p.m. 11/26) the STEREO Behind COR 2 image shows Comet ISON entering on the lower left.  Also SOHO’s LASCO C3 imager shows Comet ISON entering the view from the lower right.  There’s also a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting toward the comet.  It could pass behind it, in front of it or actually toward it.  It should be interesting.

Live programming of NASA-TV Thanksgiving Day

November 28, Thursday
1 – 3:30 p.m. – NASA Google+ Hangout: Comet ISON – GSFC (All Channels)

Here’s a link to NASA-TV:  http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Categories: Bad Astronomy, Comet, Ephemeris Program, NASA, Planets Tags: , , , , , , , , ,