Archive
11/08/10 – Ephemeris – The constellation Pisces
Monday, November 8th. The sun will rise at 7:29. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 5:22. The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 7:11 this evening.
High in the south at 9 p.m. are the four bright stars of the Great Square of Pegasus, the upside down flying horse. Lying along the left and bottom sides of that square is the constellation of Pisces the fish, one of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac that lie along the path of the sun, moon and planets. Even though the constellation is called the fish, the fish themselves are not represented in the stars. What can be traced in the stars is the rope, that’s tied to their tails, anchored at the extreme southeastern part of the constellation. The right or western end of the Pisces is the asterism, or informal constellation, of the Circlet. It’s the loop of 5 stars, the rope around the tail of one of the two fish. And this year the planet Jupiter is right below it.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/04/10 – Ephemeris – Comet Hartley Intercept
Thursday, November 4th.* The sun will rise at 8:24. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 6:27. The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 7:52 tomorrow morning.
The Deep Impact spacecraft, which witnessed the impact of its Impactor into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 has been redirected to Comet Hartley 2. At 10:01 this morning it will pass its closest to that comet at 434 miles. This is the EPOXI mission, the retargeting of the spacecraft to a new comet. The Arecibo radio telescope on Puerto Rico has already reached out and touched the Nucleus of Comet Hartley 2 and has released its images, showing the nucleus to be a skinny bowling pin shape a bit less than a mile and a half long and tumbling slowly at a rate of 13 to 18 hours. The spacecraft will be positioned to protect itself from the escaping particles of the comet and to photograph the comet, so will not have its antenna pointed to the earth until after the encounter.
Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/03/10 – Ephemeris – the bright planets and Comet Hartley 2 his wee
Wednesday, November 3rd.* The sun will rise at 8:22. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 5 minutes, setting at 6:28. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 6:34 tomorrow morning.
Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Mars is very low and lost in the evening twilight. The planet Jupiter is up at sunset appearing in the southeastern sky in the early evening. It will move due south at 10:29 p.m.. It is the brightest starlight object in the sky. It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 4:16 a.m. Venus is in the morning sky but rises too close to be seen now. It will appear quite suddenly a couple of weeks from now to the amazement of may folks who will report it as being a UFO. Comet Hartley 2 has moved out ahead of the earth being in the morning sky. may be just visible in binoculars right of the star Procyon. Saturn will rise at 5:43 a.m. in the east southeast. It’s in Virgo this year.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/02/10 – Ephemeris – The constellation Aquarius
Election Day, Tuesday, November 2nd.* The sun will rise at 8:21. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 8 minutes, setting at 6:30. The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 5:16 tomorrow morning. | One of the constellations of the zodiac is in the southern sky at 9 in the evening. It’s the constellation of Aquarius the water bearer. The image that is supposed to be depicted in the stars is that of a hapless fellow spilling a stone jar of water across the sky. Aquarius is fairly hard to spot because it is made of faint stars. But this year it is just to the right of the bright planet Jupiter. One part of him is easy to spot, the Water Jar, an asterism or informal constellation. It’s a distinctive small nearly equilateral triangle of stars with another star in the center. Stars extending to the right from the water jar are that stream of water. The body of Aquarius is below, a misshapen balloon of stars that is seen above the bright star Fomalhaut, low in the south.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
11/01/10 – Ephemeris – November Preview
Monday, November 1st.* The sun will rise at 8:20. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 6:31. The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:59 tomorrow morning.
Let’s look at the skies for the month of November. The sun is still moving south rapidly. Daylight hours in the Interlochen/Traverse City area and will drop from 10 hours and 11 minutes today to 9 hours 6 minutes on the 30th. The altitude, or angle, of the sun above the southern horizon at local noon will be just under 31 degrees today and will descend to 23 and a half degrees on the 30th. The altitude of the sun in the Straits area will be a degree lower. Local noon, this month, will be about 12:30 p.m. when we go back to standard time this weekend. The moon will interfere with the most prominent meteor shower this month the Leonids at mid month. Beginning next week the planet Venus will begin to appear in the morning sky before sunrise.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
10/29/10 – Ephemeris – Algol the Ghoul Star
Friday, October 29th. The sun will rise at 8:16. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 6:35. The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:12 tomorrow morning. | Not all the ghosts and goblins out Sunday will be children. One will be out every night, because it’s a star. Its name is Algol, from the Arabic for Ghoul Star or Demon Star. The Chinese had a name for it that meant ‘piled up corpses’. It’s the second brightest star in the constellation Perseus the hero, rising in the northeast this evening. The star is located where artists have drawn the severed head of Medusa, whom he had slain. Medusa was so ugly that she turned all who gazed upon her to stone. Algol is her still glittering eye. Astronomers finally found out what was wrong with Algol. It does a slow 6 hour wink every two days 21 hours, because it is two stars that eclipse each other. [Medusa will not be winking Halloween evening.]
Text in brackets were omitted in the program due to time constraints.
10/28/10 – Ephemeris – Venus at inferior conjunction
Thursday, October 28th. The sun will rise at 8:14. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 22 minutes, setting at 6:37. The moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 11:00 this evening. | Later today Venus is in inferior conjunction with the Sun. That is, it will pass between the earth and the sun. This time it won’t do it directly between, which is normal. However a year and a half from now Venus will pass in front of the sun so we can see it. This is the twice in 200 year transit of Venus. Currently the transits occur in pairs 8 years apart after an interval of over 100 years. This time we cannot see Venus as it will pass far south of the sun. In the next week or two it will begin to be visible in the east just before sunrise. It’s sudden appearance will cause it to be reported as a UFO. [I suppose to those reporting it it will be a UFO in the generic definition. It would be unidentified] It’s just Venus spending 9 months in the morning sky.
Text in brackets was omitted from the program due to time constraints.
10/27/10 – Ephemeris – Planets and Comet Hartley 2 this week
Wednesday, October 27th. The sun will rise at 8:13. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 6:38. The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 9:52 this evening. | Lets take a look at the bright planets for this week. Mars is very low and lost in the evening twilight. Venus will officially enter the morning sky after tomorrow’s passage between the earth and the sun. It will then appear quite suddenly a couple of weeks later to the amazement of many folks who will report it as being a UFO. The planet Jupiter is up at sunset appearing in the southeastern sky in the early evening. It will move due south at 10:54 p.m.. It is the brightest starlight object in the sky. It’s located in Pisces this year and will set at 4:46 a.m. Comet Hartley 2 has moved out ahead of the earth being in the morning sky. may be just visible in binoculars as a fuzzy spot at the bottom of the constellation Gemini.
10/26/10 – Ephemeris – New LCROSS results
Tuesday, October 26th. The sun will rise at 8:12. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 28 minutes, setting at 6:40. The moon, half way from full to last quarter, will rise at 8:51 this evening. | There are now more results from the LCROSS spacecraft collision in an eternally shadowed crater on the moon a bit more than a year ago. These came from the Wall Street Journal. I’ll assume that these results are preliminary too. Despite the disappointing show for TV viewers of this event including yours truly, there was a measurable plume that resulted in the discovery of the hoped for water plus hydrogen, ammonia, methane, plus the metals mercury, sodium and silver. The percentage of the soil kicked up was nearly 6 percent water or rather ice. If the astronauts can get to the rugged south pole of the moon to process the soil into water they will save the approximately $50,000 a pound to haul it up from the earth.
10/25/10 – Ephemeris – Most distant galaxy
Monday, October 25th. The sun will rise at 8:10. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 6:41. The moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 8:00 this evening. | The European Southern Observatory has announced the discovery of a new most distance galaxy. I prefer to think of as the earliest galaxy found after the Big Bang itself. Astronomers are very sure the Big Bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago plus or minus 200 million years. We can only see back to about 13.4 billion years ago when the universe became transparent. The distance of a particular faint galaxy, discovered on a Hubble Ultra Deep Field image was investigated using ESO’s Very large Telescope and it was learned that using its velocity of recession that it was found to come from an infant galaxy that existed 600 million years after the Big Bang. Very early indeed. The Universe’s dark ages lasted only perhaps 200 million years.
