Archive
A CME is heading our way – look for aurorae this weekend.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a warning:
2013-03-15 18:14 UTC G2 (Moderate) Geomagnetic Storm Expected
An Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed in conjunction with an R1 (Minor) solar flare radio blackout in the early hours of March 15th. This CME is expected to arrive late on March 16th, with G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storming forecast for the 16th and G2 (Moderate) storming forecast for the 17th. Stay tuned for updates.
A geomagnetic storm produces aurorae (auroras or northern and southern lights). The more intense the aurora the farther toward the equator it will appear.
A tip o’the old sunscreen to SpaceWeather.com for the heads up. You can sign up for alert emails from them too.
08/12/2013 – Ephemeris – Comet PanSTARRS will appear near the moon tonight
Ephemeris for Tuesday, March 12th. The sun will rise at 7:59. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 45 minutes, setting at 7:45. The moon, 1 day past new, will set at 9:05 this evening.
Tonight 40 to 45 minutes after sunset, that’s about 8:30 p.m., if it’s very clear down to the western horizon Comet PanSTARRS might be glimpsed low on the western horizon. The day old sliver of the moon will point to the comet. The comet will appear just to the left of the moon by about 8 moon widths. The comet will appear due west, so a compass will help locate it. It’s tail is expected to be nearly vertical and canted to the left. If the comet is bright enough the tail will appear to be split in two. The gas component is ionized and is pushed back rapidly by the solar wind. Cometary dust is pushed by the pressure of sunlight. Near perihelion, its closest to the sun as comet is moving crosswise to its tail. The tail will swing to the right in the coming days.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Comet PanSTARRS with the moon at 8:30 p.m. or 45 minutes after sunset) on March 12, 2013. Created using Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel and my Looking Up.
As noted in yesterday the sky is from, Stellarium and the comet from Cartes du Ciel. Both free programs that can be downloaded from links on this page. The moon is from my own, much simpler LookingUp program. The moon does appear slightly larger and brighter than how it will appear in the sky, as does the comet. The comet will set shortly after 9 p.m. and the tail may be visible for a while after that.
Reports show that the comet is reaching 1st magnitude, but not for long. Check the link for spaceweather.com for some cool pictures of the comet in the evening twilight.
03/11/2013 – Ephemeris – Comet PanSTARRS enters the northern sky
Ephemeris for Monday, March 11th. The sun will rise at 8:01. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 42 minutes, setting at 7:43. The moon is new today, and won’t be visible.
Comet PanSTARRS is now officially in our skies. It may be visible very low on the western horizon about 45 minutes after sunset. That will make it about 8:30 p.m. The head of the comet may make it to second magnitude, about as bright as a Big Dipper star. The tail should point nearly straight up. As the days go by the tail will lean to the right and the comet moves northward. Tomorrow night the comet will be just left of the thin crescent moon. Pictures of the comet can be found at spaceweather.com, from earlier this month. PanSTARRS or Comet 2011 L4, as its official designation goes will probably not return. It came in reasonably near the plane of the solar system, but is leaving far to the north. Binoculars are the tool best used to spot it.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Comet PanSTARRS as it might appear above the western horizon at 45 minutes after sunset on March 11, 2013. Created using Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel.
Note that the comet will most likely not appear this bright. At this time the comet is only 4 degrees above the horizon. That’s less that half the width of a fist held at arms length above the horizon. The comet will set in less than a half hour after that.
The reason for using images from Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel is that Stellarium does not show comet tails, and Cartes du Ciel does not try to show a realistic twilight.
03/08/2013 – Ephemeris – Next week: Comet PanSTARRS enters our skies
Ephemeris for Friday, March 8th. The sun will rise at 7:07. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 6:39. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:33 tomorrow morning.
Next week it will be darker in the morning and lighter in the evening as daylight time falls upon the land. But the big attraction next week will be the appearance of Comet PanSTARRS into our northern skies. This comet was discovered by an observatory with that acronym at the summit of the Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii. Tomorrow the comet will come as close to the sun as Mercury does before heading out to deep space again. It’s distance from us will always be farther than the sun. Monday night will be our first time to spot it low in the west 45 minutes after sunset. Tuesday its will appear just to the left of the thin crescent moon. PanSTARRS is not as bright as originally predicted, so it will be difficult to spot in twilight. Binoculars are the best bet for spotting it.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Comet PanSTARRS path in the March evening sky. Created using Cartes duCiel.
Taken and updated from my article in the GTAS newsletter the Stellar Sentinel:
Comet 2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) will be entering our evening sky this month after passing perihelion on March 10th.. Here is my reporting of its discovery in the November 2012 issue:
Obviously PanSTARRS isn’t a person’s name but the first telescope of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) located on the summit of the Haleakala volcano on Maui, Hawaii. There are several Comet PanSTARRS so if you use Google or any other search engine to get more information don’t be confused. This one is C/2011 L4. Comet PanSTARRS was discovered on June 6, 2011.
We were hoping for a comet that would reach magnitude 0, as bright as the brightest stars. It seems that this is not going to be the case. The current track of the comet brightness appears to be about a magnitude dimmer than what was previously predicted. To follow PanSTARRS magnitude track, go to the web page http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2011L4/2011L4.html.
The dimness of the comet will make it difficult to spot in the fading twilight. The position of the comet and the moon on the 12th. is seen above, at an hour after sunset. The sliver of the 30 hour old moon will itself be hard to spot. day by day the comet will slowly move higher in the sky and away from evening twilight, On April 1st the comet will begin to pass the Great Andromeda Galaxy.
In photographs displayed on spaceweather.com as I put this issue to bed, the comet appears to have a short tail, divided into a narrow bluish ion tail and a wide dust tail.
Next week I’ll diagram the comet for each of the evenings.
03/07/2013 – Ephemeris – The zodiacal constellation Cancer the crab
Ephemeris for Thursday, March 7th. The sun will rise at 7:08. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 6:38. The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:57 tomorrow morning.
At 9 this evening, the faint constellation, and member of the Zodiac, Cancer the crab is located in the south half way between the bright stars Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini, high in the south and the bright star Regulus in Leo the lion in the southeast. Cancer is very dim, looking like an upside-down Y. In the center of Cancer is a fuzzy spot to the unaided eye. In binoculars or a low power telescope this fuzzy spot becomes a cluster of stars. It is the Beehive cluster also cataloged as M44. At 577 light years away, according to the latest measurements, it is one of the closest star clusters, but more distant than the Pleiades and Hyades the face of Taurus the bull. Before it was seen in a telescope the cluster was known as Praesepe, the manger.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Cancer Finder Chart. Created using Stellarium.
02/19/2013 – Ephemeris – A hit and a miss
Ephemeris for Tuesday, February 19th. The sun will rise at 7:36. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 6:17. The moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 4:01 tomorrow morning.
Last Friday we had what I’d call a hit and a miss. The miss was the close passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 a rock maybe half the size of a football field. We’ll know better once radar observation of the asteroid are processed. Up to then the size was calculated by its brightness and its supposed reflectance or albedo. That last is the biggest variable. The asteroid was traveling at a slight angle to the earth’s orbit and a bit slower than the earth. It was crossing the earth’s orbit heading slightly northward, what astronomers call ascending node. That’s why the asteroid appeared heading north from our point of view. The meteoroid that exploded over Russia I think had a slight southerly trajectory. We’ll find out when the orbit is reconstructed.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Bad Astronomer Phil Plait has the story of the Russian Meteor with lots of videos.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/breaking_huge_meteor_explodes_over_russia.html
The Planetary Society Blog has more information including a Webcast available at:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/mat-kaplan/20130218-2012-da14-planetcast-on-demand.html
01/08/2013 – Ephemeris – The Great Orion Nebula
Ephemeris for Tuesday, January 8th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 1 minute, setting at 5:20. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:56 tomorrow morning.
The closest star firming region to us is the Great Orion Nebula. It’s 1,344 light years away give or take 20 light years. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, if you’re counting. It’s located in the constellation Orion’s sword that hangs below his belt. It shines by emission and reflection of the light of a clutch of four stars at its heart, astronomers have called the Trapezium. Binoculars can be used to spot the nebula surrounding what looks like the middle star of the sword. The sword stars aren’t single stars like the belt but groups of stars. Anyway a telescope, using its lowest power will see a glow around those Trapezium stars. The glow will have a dark notch out of it, which is a dark cloud in front if it. Wisps of gas may also be seen.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Great Orion Nebula is also number 42 on Charles Messier’s list of objects to avoid when searching for comets. Amateur astronomers know it as M42, the show piece of the winter sky.
Orion via Stellarium.org
Inner part of the Great Orion Nebula (M42). Image by Scott Anttila.
The Great Orion Nebula (M42) long exposure photograph by Scott Anttila. Includes all the sword stars.
01/07/2013 – Ephemeris – Saturn is near the moon this morning
Ephemeris for Monday, January 7th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 0 minutes, setting at 5:19. The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:49 tomorrow morning.
This morning the planet Saturn will appear above and right of the crescent moon. They should be visible until a bit after seven a.m. The moon will be slipping eastward morning by morning, and by Thursday it will appear near the planet Venus. The moon’s movement around the earth with respect to the sun is called the synodic month, or a lunation. It is the period between one new moon to the next of about 29 and a half days. It is the basis for lunar calendars such as the Jewish and Islamic calendars. The moon’s crescent can be waxing or waning, growing fatter or thinner. It is now waning, and next week when we see the moon in the evening its phase will be waxing. The moon is just an illuminated ball in space.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Saturn and the moon as seen at 6:30 a.m. on January 7, 2012. Created using Stellarium,
01/03/2013 – Ephemeris – The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak this morning.
Ephemeris for Thursday, January 3rd. The sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 5:15. The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:06 tomorrow morning.
This morning will see the peak of the Quadrantid meteor shower. There’s still time to spot them before the sky brightens too much. It’s one of the better meteor showers of the year, except it occurs in the cold and not very clear skies of January. Meteor showers are generally named for the constellation from which they seem to come. Trouble is, there’s no such constellation of the Quadrant. Now, that is. There is a sextant and an octant, but no quadrant. All these instruments were used by navigators and astronomers to measure the altitude of stars and planets. The obsolete constellation of the quadrant was located near the handle of the Big Dipper and north of the kite shaped spring constellation of Boötes. The Quadrantids will be around for the next few mornings.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Quadrantid meteor shower radiant at 1:30 a.m.
12/28/2012 – Ephemeris – Using that new telescope
Ephemeris for Friday, December 28th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:09. The moon, at full today, will rise at 5:48 this evening.
If you gotten a new telescope for Christmas, I’ve got a few tips. Always start out using your lowest power eyepiece. It has the largest field of view to help you find what you want. Once found you may use a higher power eyepiece. Higher powers may make the image larger, but will not make it sharper. The wider the telescope the sharper the image, and the higher powers that can be used. But note that amateur astronomers use their lowest power 90 percent of the time. The images are sharper and brighter. And besides most things in the sky don’t need that much magnification. We mostly need to make them brighter. That’s why telescopes are sometimes called light buckets. Good telescope companions are computer programs that show the sky and books on observing.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum – Links for more information on telescopes and observing
Advice for First Time Telescope Buyers by Joe Roberts. It’s part of his Amateur Astronomers Notebook, whose link is at the top of the page.
Stargazing Basics from Sky and Telescope magazine.
Equipment How To from Astronomy magazine.
Your local astronomy club: In the Grand Traverse Area gtastro.org (Grand Traverse Astronomical Society) which meets at 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month.
Also check out both Sky and Telescope and Astronomy web sites above for links to other astronomy clubs. They are all welcoming of beginners and a great source of telescope expertise.
