Libby Riddles Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Champion.

The main event this week is tonight’s conjunction of Venus and Jupiter over in the west, moving NW as the night progresses, after the sun and the moon Venus and Jupiter are the next two brightest objects in the sky. These conjunctions are not that rare, there’s another in May but just before dawn, but this is a good one because Venus is so high. Both planets can be seen at once in binoculars. Mercury is there as well shortly after sunset but to near the horizon to be worth a look.

Shelia Thomas put a post on facebook asking what the two bright lights were, Jackie a visitor one assumes later posted “Can't wait to be there & see them for ourselves.” Well Jackie they’ll both be somewhere else when you get over, but don’t worry just go out into the garden and look west, this isn’t an IOS exclusive.

Mars, very bright at the moment is over in the east by dark, while Venus and Jupiter are in the west, Saturn rises around 10, just before Jupiter and Venus set, so with 4 planets in the sky at once this is good week.

Which is why myself, Tom and Jacqueline are having another star walk tonight, it’s free, so if you are so inclined turn up at Life Long Learning around 7:15 this evening and if you can bring binoculars. If the weather is ok I’ll set up my telescope in the Carn Thomas car park, I’m not carting it up Buzza it’s too heavy and it needs power, so don’t ask.

Orion, Taurus, Sirius (our brightest star), and the Pleiades are all up in the SW in the early evening all worth a look in binoculars, especially this week with the waning moon rising quite late.

Solar flares have been in the news over the last week with some overly dramatic headlines, though the BBC was a little more considered. The sun has weather system like we do, though snow is on the rare side, and every so often these storms are so violent that billions of tons of ionised gas is thrown out into space. Sometimes it heads toward the earth as it did on the 8^th. We are protected by the earth’s magnetic field, and the interaction of the solar storm and our magneto sphere is what causes the Northern Lights, which can be seen on occasion from the Islands. There are billions of volts of EMF whirling around this can cause disruption to satellites and even cause power cuts.

And now your weekly dose of drivel, your horoscope. Cancer first.

You’re feeling really low this week and could do with the reassurance of supportive friends but you can’t face the effort of actually making some.

And now for Scorpio, which this week is especially tailored for me.

Here I go again on my own, going down the only the only road I’ve ever known”. Whitesnake really captured the helter-skelter life of a rural bus driver, didn’t they?

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the last day of winter and more importantly the 26^th anniversary of Libby Riddles becoming the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Conjunction and Opposition.

The very obvious main event this week is the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, which is actually next Tuesday, Jupiter is closing fast on Venus, absolutely unmissable over in the west, for a good part of the evening, they both set after 10. And if you’re going to get a conjunction of two planets, Venus and Jupiter is the most spectacular. Venus being the brightest and Jupiter the 2^nd brightest objects in the sky.

Mars is pretty good as well; it was at opposition on Saturday and at its closest point to the Earth last night. Not a very good opposition, in fact the worst in its 15 year cycle with the earth, at almost 63 million miles, it can get as close as 43 million miles, when it appears almost twice as big. But we’ll have to wait another 6 years for that. Because Mars is just past opposition, it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise and will be very close to Wednesday’s full moon.

Mercury (about magnitude –0.8) is having its best evening apparition of 2012. But it’s still nothing to write home about, as the afterglow of sunset fades in the west, look near the horizon for Mercury far below and perhaps a bit right of Venus and Jupiter.

Mercury will have slunk back into the sun next week, so this is your last change for a good while, months at least, to see all 5 naked eye visible planets in the one night. Saturn rises as Venus sets at 10pm due east. The planet is fairly easy to spot a little to the left of slightly dimmer Spica, there’s nothing else comparable in the south eastern sky before midnight.

There are no predicted meteor showers until April, but you are always likely to catch the odd one or two, like the one that appeared in the north of England on Saturday, which was claimed to be as bright as magnitude -9, which would have been bright enough to have been seen by day. And I’m sure there must a few wicker folk up in the wilds of Northumberland who are puzzled that that the world didn’t end.

And speaking of mumbo jumbo, its time for your horoscope, and this week it’s Sagittarius which is just now appearing in the predawn sky after skimming the vale of the Sun in December and as you all know Sagittarius is dominated by Jupiter which is closing in on Venus as fast as a monkey’s bum. Which means for Sagittarians that romance isn’t quite dead, it just smells like it, there is hope yet, despite your running over her cat and claiming half heartedly it was an accident, there is hope yet, but you’ll need to work hard to rebuild that trust, and dribbling less would be a help as well.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 91^h anniversary of Mongolia, under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, declaring its independence from China.

Persieds

Firstly the Persied meteor shower which peaked on Saturday, but will be with us for a few days yet, look to the N E below Cassiopeia, the wonky w on its side. But looking to the north east should be enough. I think I saw one but that may have been wishful thinking. I have the same relationship with meteors as the bloke in the kit kat advert has with pandas, I look for ages and see nothing then look away and it’s Guy Fawkes Night. But you may have better luck; I’ve put a picture of one taken from space on the Radio Scilly Facebook page, and on the Scilly stars blog.

Persied shot from Space.

The planets are pretty much the same as last week, no Venus or Mercury, too close to the sun, and they have been joined by Saturn which now sets very soon after the Sun. Mars rises around 3 am but isn’t very far above before the predawn twilight blinks it out.

Jupiter is the only naked eye planet we have at the moment rising around midnight and blazing in the SE sky and very high in the South by dawn.

Uranus which is just naked eye visible and Neptune which isn’t are well up in the east and SE by midnight, but they are both very difficult to find, I did spot Uranus once but Neptune has always stayed elusive.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 706^th anniversary of William Wallace, Scottish being hung, drawn and quartered for high treason by Edward I of England. And recent research has confirmed that it was exactly like it was depicted in Braveheart. 

Not Much Again.............

Here's a current super novae I haven't mentioned this week.

Supernova 2011dh, which was discovered in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, on May 31st, has been brightening ever since — though the brightening is now levelling off. As of June 16th the supernova was about V magnitude 12.6 and visible in a lot more amateur telescopes. 

Well so much for last weeks eclipse, which wouldn’t have been overly fantastic even if it hadn’t been cloudy, which it obviously was, but never mind there’s another one on December the 10^th, but its at 2:30 in the after noon but we should catch the tail end of as the moon rises at about 4, with the sun setting shortly afterwards. Putting disappointing lunar eclipses to one side, which is always a little traumatic, this week, is much last week. But we do have an event coming up in less than a half hour, at 8:16 in fact, summer starts and the axis of the earth’s rotation starts to edge away from the sun. So today is the longest day, with about 16 hours of daylight. This gives me an excellent opportunity to waffle.

The Earths axial tilt is 23.4 degrees and it always points in the same direction throughout the year, which means it changes with respect to the sun. In spring and summer towards and in autumn and winter away from the sun. At the equinoxes the tilt is at right angles to the sun and we have equal days and nights. Now 23 and half degrees may not seem much but double it and it makes the sun 47 degrees higher today at noon than it will be in mid winter, which is a lot. Now you may have noticed that the rate of change of daylight hours is much slower now or in mid winter than it is in early spring or autumn. It’s best thought of as a pendulum effect, at 8:16 the days stop getting longer and begin to slowly get shorter. The pendulum has reached the top of its swing and starts to fall the other way and begins accelerating again down to the bottom of the swing, which next happens at the autumn equinox, when the swing begins to slow again toward the winter solstice when it will stop and then begin to fall toward mid summer again. And like any pendulum effect the swing is always faster at the bottom slowing to zero at the top.

Now because we had a full moon last week, we have a last quarter moon this week which will rise in the early hours and means that when the stars do come out form 11pm onwards they will be showing well, this of course is under the rather optimistic assumption that the skies ever clear, well if the do the milky way should be lovely arcing over head the North East to the South East, and there’s always the possibility of shooting stars, not that we are expecting a shower at the moment.

As for the planets bar Jupiter and Saturn they are all to close to the Jupiter at the Aries-Pisces border shines in the east during dawn, if you’re up and about it will just about the only thing of note in that part of the sky.

Saturn is in fine view in the south to southwest after dusk. And just ¼° to its upper right is fainter Porrima (Gamma Virginis), turning Saturn into a naked-eye "double star." Shining 15° to Saturn's left is Spica.

And that was your night’s sky for the week ending on the 120^th anniversary of The Street railway in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, commencing operation.