Blue Moon

CAN'T UPLOAD ANY PICS TO THE BLOG YET, HOPEFULLY LATER!

Well here we are with the last Scilly Stars of the year, nay the whole decade, perhaps if this was Household tips or even a clever pets spot, it would be appropriate to do a round up but its not so I won’t, and anyway the only thing I can remember was the total Lunar Eclipse of August 2009, when town was full thronged with panicking locals who were convinced the end of the world was imminent, being reassured by east European seasonal workers mopping there brows and telling them in perfect English that the moon will come back. And that’s my review of the decade.

Not much going on this week, though I expect you're all to jaded to care, but on Thursday, New Years Eve by the way, we have a full moon, the second full moon in December, which means it’s a blue moon, which means we must have another in January as well, except its full at 7:15, so technically it won’t be full on New Years Day, but its good enough for me. So how exciting two blue moons in a row.

And on Thursday again, there’s a very slight partial lunar eclipse from 18:52 to 19:54.

What else do we have this week, well like last week and next week Orion's Belt points the way down to rising Sirius. Betelgeuse, Sirius, and Procyon form the nearly equilateral Winter Triangle. And if you don’t know where Orion is yet have a look at the blog.

Mercury is still just about there in the sunset, going down shortly after the Sun. Venus is on winter vacation on the other side of the sun.

Mars getting brighter all the time now in Leo rises around 9 p.m. local time, far below Castor and Pollux in Gemini a bit north of east. A little later, dimmer Regulus rises about a fist-width beneath it. By 2 or 3 a.m. Mars and Regulus are highest in the south, lined up horizontally.

Saturn (magnitude +0.9, in the head of Virgo) rises in the east around midnight and shines highest in the south before and during dawn. Its rings are still narrow, tilted 4.8° from edge-on to us.

Jupiter, bar the moon far away the brightest object in the sky, brightly in the south-southwest in twilight, and lower in the southwest after dark. It sets around 9 p.m.

Now for the lucky among you Santa came a bit late this year, but for others not at all, why? Well I was talking to a very tired Black Shadow on Boxing Day, and it seems that she blackmailed Santa, she showed me the photos, into letting her borrow his fully laden sleigh this year, which has Tardis like properties, Barbara tells me. Anyway she took what she wanted and gave him a detritus laden sleigh back in the early hours of Christmas morning. She then blindfolded me and took me to her secret hideaway in the depths of mount moorwell, which is now a Aladdin’s cave stuffed full of plasma TVs, laptops and iphones. Well as she said on happy talk only last week it supplements the pension.

That was your night’s sky on the 288th anniversary of The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishing its findings.

5 Weeks Away

Now if you were listening to Keri yesterday you may recall he said that last night would be hopeless for star gazing, well that was just another fine example of how he’s not to be trusted, last night was the best night we’ve had for ages. And gave me the best view of Orion I’ve seen since March, and the first sighting I’ve had of Mars since last winter.

I’ll be away until from today until mid December so this will be the last Scilly Stars until the 16th of December. So this week the plan is to give you any highlights that occur over the next 6 weeks. But sadly there aren’t any except possibly the Geminids meteor shower which appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. They can be seen as early December the 6th when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next week, rates increase until a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour is attained on the night of December 13/14. The last Geminids are seen on December 18, when the rate drops to one every hour or so. Have a look on the Scilly Star map on the blog and set the date for the 13th of December. Gemini rises around 6 and is high in the South by midnight with Mars trailing about an hour behind.

Video Of The Geminids

Most of the other highlights are for diehards, involving Jovian moons or Asteroids. But there is one it should be hard to miss, the full moon on the second of December, not so interesting in itself, but the next one is the last of the year and falls on New Years Eve, which makes it a blue moon, so why not celebrate.

Throughout the whole period Jupiter will be in the Southern Sky at sunset, edging further to the SW as the nights go by, and setting around 9pm by mid December.

Tomorrow morning if your out and about at 6:30 you’ll be able to see Venus near the South Eastern horizon with Saturn further south, very close to the moon and a little further to the west Mars. As the weeks go on Venus sinks into the sun, to reappear in the New Year, but Saturn and Mars are still there moving a little to the west each day, which means they are rising earlier every night.

Mars appears in the East tonight at about 10pm, Saturn at around 4am. By mid December Mars appears north east at 9, as Jupiter sets and Saturn rises around 1:45 am. We’ll have to wait until January before we see Saturn before midnight.

I’ll update the blog while I’m away, when I can, but there’s always the Scilly Star Map link over on ther right which will give you a map of the sky between now and eternity.

That was you night sky for the 5 weeks ending on 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

All you ever wanted to know about Magnitudes

The Crag Nebula (Huuble)

Firstly today I’m going to bang on about Stellar Magnitudes, these range from -26.73 for the sun, to 31.5 which is the dimmest object visible by Hubble, the sun from Neptune is – 19.3, which is brighter than the full moon from the earth at -12.6. You’ve probably noticed by now that the brighter an object is then the lower is its apparent magnitude. Its not a particularly linear scale, the moon is 14 orders of magnitude dimmer than the Sun but is actually 450,000 times less bright. Venus ranges from -4.6 to -3.8 and even at its dimmest is brighter than Jupiter and Mars at their brightest at -2.9. Very occasionally, there’s a supernova which frightens everyone to death, for example the Crab Supernova of AD 1054, now the crab nebula in Taurus, which was a dazzling -6.5, which is pretty bright con (6500 light years away).

That was clear wasn’t it, and it will make my life a lot easier, now what have we got this week,

Look low in the east around 10 or 11 p.m. and you'll see the bright winter constellation Orion already on the rise. Above Orion is orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran is the fingertip-size Pleiades star cluster. On Friday the waning Moon will be shining to Orion's left in the middle of Gemini, as shown in the blog.

Mercury is in superior conjunction, behind the glare of the Sun.
Venus (magnitude –3.9) is sinking lower in the dawn every week. Look for it low in the east 60 to 30 minutes before sunrise.

Mars (magnitude +0.4, remember +tive means dimmer, in central Cancer rises around 11 p.m. below Castor and Pollux in the east. It's very high in the southeast before dawn.
Jupiter magnitude –2.4, shines brightly in the south at dusk and lower in the southwest later in the evening. It sets around midnight.

Saturn (magnitude +1.1, in the head of Virgo) is getting higher the east-southeast before and during dawn. More than 20° to its lower left is bright Venus.
And its my birthday in 16 days, I don’t mind what you get me as long as its expensive, if your poor, why not club together, and did you know that if you look on Google maps you can see Barbara burying her ill gotten gains from space, I won’t tell you where, until I see what I get for my birthday.

That was your nights sky for the week ending on the 2nd anniversary of King Juan Carlos I of Spain saying to Chávez, President of Venezuela, "Why don't you [just] shut up?" at the 2007 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile.

The Night Comes Down

Not much to report this week except that everything has shunted forward an hour. And on that subject something occurred to me this week, whilst bickering with George in the Atlantic. George is pretty evangelical about British Summer Time, he loathes it with an unnatural passion, whereas I’m all for 2 hours in the summer and one in the winter. And by the way Giles, if you’re listening George still has your hammer. But I digress, this is what occurred to me, the hour goes back 5-6 weeks after the autumn equinox, which you may have noticed, but goes forward on the last Sunday in March, a week or so after the vernal equinox. Surely to maintain equilibrium it should go forward 5-6 weeks before March 21st, the first Sunday in February, which would be a real shot in the arm in that most dismal of months. And if you’re a Scottish farmer and don’t like the idea, well do something else. Well that’s what I think, and if you disagree then your wrong.

Anyway the upshot is everything is now up a little earlier. Orion is now clearly visible in the just south of east before 11:30, followed soon after by Mars further to the north. And speaking of Orion did anybody see any of the Orionids, which is by the way a rhetorical question, in that I’m not expecting a reply. I looked on one of the few clear nights we had last week, but sadly not a sausage.

The outlook for this week is about as exciting as Island Parish, the planets are much the same as last week, as you’ve no doubt come to expect.

Mercury has become lost in the glow of sunrise.

Venus is also getting lower in the east at dawn, but much more slowly; it's still moderately well up. It’s so bright that it's easy to spot if you look low in the east 60 to 30 minutes before sunrise time, it rises around 6.

Mars rises around midnight and is very high in the south before dawn. It's below Gemini's head stars, Pollux and Castor. If you’re a fanatic then why not use binoculars to watch Mars closing in on the Beehive Star Cluster; it will cross the cluster from the mornings of October 31st to November 2nd.

Jupiter shines brightly in the south after dark and lower in the southwest later in the night. It sets around 1 a.m. And I have a 6 inch reflector available now if anyone would like to come up and take a look. Give me a ring or plague Keri with emails if you’re interested.
Saturn, not overly bright is lying in the head of Virgo and is getting higher the east-southeast during early dawn. Look for it to the upper right of low Venus.
As usual there’s a little more information on the blog, and the local star map if you need a little help.
And that was your night’s sky for the week ending on the 52nd anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika, who achieved fame at no small personnel cost.

Orionides

Bolides

Better Later Than Never

A Bolide

Because Chris is to idle to put Scilly Stars up in the listen again section of the web page I may as well use a piece of music in the background that’s in copyright, and this week it’s the Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny.

Anyway off we go, if you remember last week I told you that we have The Orionids meteor shower this months which is expected to reach peak activity this year on the 21st, 2009. This meteor shower comes from Halley's Comet, since like most comets; it leaves a dusty trail as it orbits the sun. The particles in this trail eventually become meteors as they burn up in our atmosphere.


The Orionids have been producing rather bright meteors in the recent past, so it should be a good show. The shower reached a maximum of only 20-30 meteors per hour last year, but is still a worthwhile observing event! This is because the Orionids typically are very colourful meteors, sometimes being yellow or green and sometimes even producing fireballs called bolides. Also, this year's shower will be perfectly timed with a very thin crescent Moon, so the views of the meteors won't be impeded by moonlight!

As usual, the best time to observe this meteor shower is during the early morning hours, around 2-5 AM. This is because as the Earth rotates into the sunlight, we are moving into the meteor field. This increases the number of meteors entering our atmosphere over any given location. If you rather not stay up until 2, start watching for the meteors at local dusk, and they'll really start to pick up towards 11 PM or midnight. The Orionids have a very broad peak, so any night during the week of October 18th to October 24th will do. Last weeks blog shows you where to look in Orion which is just peeping over the Eastern horizon by 11pm.

And again for early risers its still all happening in the East, Venus and Saturn are almost on top of each other in the predawn sky this week. Venus will be very bright and unmissable in a clear sky just above the horizon, shadowed by a much dimmer Saturn with Mercury following shortly behind. And on Friday they’re joined by the sliver of a very old moon. As usual there’s a guide on the blog.

If like all right minded people your asleep at sun up, there’s still Jupiter now almost due south when it first appears at about 7pm. I got hold of a 6 inch scope last week and had a look it. Because Jupiter is so low this time round the best views were at a low magnification but it was still a very clear little disc, with striping if you used your imagination, and the 4 Galilean moons were very clear. It looked very lovely in deed and its quite sobering looking at it when you think it’s a half a billion miles away. Anyway if anyone would like come and have a look give me a shout. It won’t take long, aside from the three quarters of an hour required to line the scope up.

And we mustn’t forget Mars which is still fairly dim but getting brighter, the red planet rises in the S East at midnight and will be well up in the eastern sky by 3.

That was your night sky on the 28th anniversary of the collapse of The Nepalese Stock Exchange.

The moon against the Pleiades on the 7th.

Dawn on the 10th.

The Orionids around the 21st.

It’s the first Wednesday in October so here we have some highlights, and there are some this month.

Tonight In the early evening an 85% illuminated waning gibbous will be seen to pass below the Pleiades Cluster, low in the east-north eastern sky, and easy to spot for once.

On Friday morning, the three planets, Venus, Saturn ad Mercury lie close together in the early morning sky. By the 16th, they have separated somewhat bur are joined by the waning crescent Moon. If clear, this should make a wonderful skyscape, but alas to early for me, but perfect for Keri who’ll be skipping to week with a twinkle in his eye as they rise above the eastern dawn horizon.

In October we have another big meteor show, for the clouds to obscure like they did in August. It is worth looking out for them for a week around the 21st as the shower is long lived. They will best be seen in the hours before dawn when Orion is high in the southern sky. But more about that next week.

Jupiter, now lying in Capricorn, will dominate the southern sky all night, in the south east at twilight and setting about 1.

Saturn reappeared in the pre-dawn sky last week and will be best seen at months end when, at magnitude +1.1, it will rise at about 4am, three hours before the Sun.
Mercury reaches western elongation (when it was at its greatest angular distance from the Sun) before dawn yesterday. It was Mercury's most favorable dawn apparition this year but it’s good for a while yet, so as the Sun rises, Mercury will be 15 degrees above the horizon - in company with Venus and Saturn. See the blog.

Mars is becoming more prominent in the morning sky rising by half 11 in the middle of the month. It starts the month in Gemini but moves into Cancer on the 12th October. It will be due south, so highest in the sky at 06:30 am in mid month. We will have to wait a month or so until it will be seen more easily as the nights get longer and it rises earlier. The Earth will, soon be overtaking Mars "on the inside track" so we will come closer to it and its angular size will increase so allowing more features on the surface to be seen.

Venus is now drawing closer to the Sun and can be seen low in the east rising a couple of hours before sunrise. It will be close to the thin crescent Moon on the 16th October. It is now on the far side of the Sun from us so it’s getting pretty small. An interesting fact about its brightness is that it stays pretty constant for most of the time even though the apparent phase changes greatly. When the phase is thin, Venus is nearer to us, when near full much further away so it’s angular size is far less. As a result, the effective reflecting area of Venus as seen from Earth remains pretty constant.

And if the family silver gone AWOL don’t be to harsh on Barbara, it seems she’s a post modernist Robin Hood, and all her ill gotten gains go to a worthy cause, a home for bewildered cat burglars in Manly Gusset Staffordshire, and she’s patron as well.

And that’s was your night’s sky for the week ending on 97th anniversary of the opening of the Helsinki Stock Exchange.

Pointlessly World Wide

I got this from Statcounter, it shows the global distribution of hits the blog got over the last week. Odd really because it only really works for Western Europe. And sadly no South Korea this week.

Knitting at the Lib Dem Conference

Stars spinning around Polaris

It's all much the same this week as you may well have anticipated. Jupiter is still blazing away in the southern sky very close to the waxing moon until it sets at about 1am, just as Mars becomes visible in the east sou eastern sky. Venus is moving further away from Mars toward the sun and shines very brightly in the east 2 hours before dawn in the east from about 5 am. Where’s it joined by Mercury and then Saturn around 6:30 am shortly before sunrise. Venus will be easily visible for early risers in the east but Mercury and Saturn are pretty well reserved for those of us on Tresco and St Martins because they are so low on the horizon they’ll be obscured by hills. But both are to close to the rising sun to be worth a look at the moment. But there’s a guide on the blog if you’re grimly determined.

September and early October are very much a transient time for the stars. The familiar winter constellations are not quite there yet. The Pleiades and the V of Taurus with its giant bright red malignant eye Aldebaran is well up in the east by 11, but it’s another month until my favorite constellation Orion is around much before midnight. And then Orion will be with us until late April when the summer stars are beginning to appear. The whole thing is centered on Polaris the pole star which the whole sky seems to revolve around including the moon and the sun, this is because the pole star hangs almost directly above the North Pole and doesn’t appear to move. It is in effect in line with the imaginary axle the earth spins on. With a long exposure the stars weave a circle of light around Polaris, the North Star, and the stars near Polaris will always be in the sky. The Northern constellations like the plough or Cassiopeia are there in the sky every night and during the day, if they could be seen. Orion and Taurus even the sun also appear to revolve around Polaris but the circle they carve goes way over the horizon so they come and go. And with the earth spinning at 23.5 degrees the southern horizon shifts up and down by twice that between December and June, which is about a ¼ of the sky, which is why stars on the North and Southern horizons only appear at certain times of the year. I’ve completely confused my self now but sadly theirs more to come. Many constellations are over the horizon at some point every day but for half the year they will be up with the sun, the summer zodiac constellations are never seen in the summer, for example Taurus and Gemini are only just now putting in an appearance, now. And that’s enough of that especially at 7:30 am. But why should I care, I’m asleep, but probably dreaming about it.

Moving on, we have the harvest full moon on Saturday, and when the full moon comes this early in the month it means we’ll have a blue moon soon, October and November just miss it but we have the second full moon in December on the 31st, so we have a blue moon on New Years Eve which is as good a reason as any to celebrate I suppose.

And finally for the 55th time theirs a new definitive answer to whether there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth. A bunch of mathematicians from Hawaii, presumably to effete to surf have determined that there are 1 with 19 zeros grains of sand on the earth whilst there are 1 with 22 zeros stars, I read how they worked it out but its pretty tedious. But sand does have the last laugh because it only a thousand times more and there must be billions of planets out there full of sand, so in the final analysis sand wins hands down.

Knitting at the Lib Dem Conference

Interpol

The sun scarperd over the horizon yesterday to make sheep all over the Falkland Islands hot and sweaty and desiccate forests all over Australia for the seasonal Christmas bush fires, and plunged us into autumn. And you can tell autumn’s here if you look at the eastern horizon after midnight. Taurus with its brilliant red eye Aldebaran is already well up. Mars and Orion put in a tentative appearance at about 12:30. Mars is in Gemini and will be clearly visible in the north east after 2am.

If you bizarrely you’d rather be in bed at 2 then we still have Jupiter blazing away in the Southern sky for most of the night. Look at it through binoculars and you’ll see a clear disc and up to 4 of the Galilean moons, named after Galileo who is credited with being the first man ever to see them. I know I keep saying this week after week but the heavens, mercifully, are renowned for slow sedate change, which is an anathema in this day and age, and certainly if they were a soap then no one would bother watching.

Before the dawn Venus is shining brightly in the east with much dimmer Mercury a little lower slightly to the North, but Mercury will probably be lost in the sunrise, as certainly will be Saturn a little behind it. And just for a change I didn’t look any of that up but rather gleaned it all from the wonderful Scilly Star map which is linked to on the Scilly Stars blog. But who in there right mind is up that early, even Scarborough Bimpson, real name withheld at the insistence of Interpol, who are running a covert surveillance operation, well less covert now, anyway even Scarborough is in bed by then having deposited her nightly stash in her two bulging warehouses hidden beneath mount Moorwell. And then of course there’s poor Chris who’s right at the start of his first morning show, playing music he can’t bear to people he has yet to learn to love, and like Caviar they are an acquired taste Chris.

If you look to the Southwest up to the weekend you’ll see the waxing moon rising through Scorpio and on to the Sagittarius Teapot. Libra is a little further to the Southwest of Scorpio with the Sun, which is why we’ve just gone in to Libra, and Scorpio is next in the spot light then Sagittarius you can probably see the emerging pattern. In fact the one sign of the zodiac that you’ll never ever see is the one we’re currently in. And that’s about it except.

It seems there’s been a flurry of UFO activity in Germany over the last month, but nothing here alas. I never quite know what to think of UFOs, I’m sure there’s a possibility, but it seems a long way to come just to flash a few lights and zoom off, and by the way why do aliens only kidnap people who like country and western music. And of course Fallon Colby, Alexis and Blake Carrington’s daughter in Dynasty and when she came back Jeff her husband didn’t even notice, and neither did anyone else.

That was your night sky for the week ending on the 38th anniversary of Oman joining the Arab League.

Benson The Giant Carp

Benson the Giant Carp, star of Request Stop 18.

The Walk

Firstly, I’ve done 87 of these now and I deserve a medal, email in if you agree. And as always there’s a little more information on the blog.

This week Mercury is hidden in the solar glare, as is Saturn. Venus is receding now and slowly moving away from us behind the sun, and so is starting to dim after a very bright run starting late last year. After the moon its still the brightest object in the sky and still dominates the dawn sky. Venus’s decent into the sun is a pretty slow one and it won’t be until February when Venus will return to the evening sky again, just as Jupiter disappears into the sunset. So basically what I’m saying is you can’t win, but don’t shoot the messenger.

And Jupiter is still there as blatant as an Oran U Tang in an ice cream van dominating the southern sky all night. This week is a particularly good week to look at it, the sky was wonderfully clear on Monday, and the easterly winds shouldn’t carry much moisture.

Its some consolation that Mars has now firmly escaped the clutches of the dawn, which sounds like a Michael Moorcock book, which he mercifully didn’t write, though I must say in my mid teens I was a great Michael Moorcock fan, which is no recommendation at all, the clutches of the dawn, it has a certain ring to it. Anyway Mars is now timidly peeping over the eastern horizon by 1am, but isn’t really showing well till 4am when its hanging around Gemini in the e sou east sky, tonight in almost a straight line with Venus and the moon.

Saturn is lost behind the Sun, and it’s just had its equinox, because the rings were edge on to us, but we can’t see them anyway, and we’re about to get ours. Next Tuesday, not Monday the 21st, when everywhere in the world whether you live in Canberra or God have mercy on you Camborne, will have a twelve hour day, and we leave the embers of summer behind and slide into Autumn cruel grasp. Which means I can talk about the autumn equinox when the earth’s orbital axis is perpendicular, or at a right angle, to its orbital plane with respect the sun. So far the next 6 months the South Pole will be angled towards the sun and the north away. So if you are one of our many Antarctic listeners working at the pole, its only another 3 weeks until the first plane since February comes in, but you may have known that already. For us Hiboreans, the frozen folk who live beyond the North Wind, it means autumn then winter, but we can console ourselves that Orion will soon be back with us, dominating the southern sky till next spring.

And if you’re one of the hardy folk walking between the Islands on Sunday, its all been made possible by the equinox. The Equinoctial Spring Tides this year fall on a new rather than a full moon, the tides are big because the earths axis is perpendicular to the ecliptic, the plane of the moon and the sun, so the tidal bulge is undistorted by any angular momentum effects. But if you are going be aware that Barbara will be know precisely who’s walking the walk and you could well come back to find that your house has been entirely cleaned out, an empty shell, gutted.

That was your nights sky for the week ending next Tuesday on the 230th anniversary of the establishment of the position of United States Postmaster General. The first one being one Samuel Osgood

Whale Meat Again

This year, Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been nicely bordered by the thick white line of the Red Spot Hollow, which indents the dark South Equatorial Belt. Note the very dark red barge following behind the pale Red Spot. The North Equatorial Belt is full of turbulence, including a big blue plume. Far to the right (celestial east), Ganymede and Europa are in conjunction. S&T's Sean Walker took this image at 1:15 UT September 3, 2009. South is up. Stacked-video images like this show much more detail than you're ever likely to see visually on Jupiter.

An example from the Scilly Star Map link.

Very little change if any since last week Mercury and Saturn are lost in the sunset, It’s a shame about Saturn because on September 4th its rings turned edge-on to Earth, and are invisible bar a dark line around Saturn’s equator. Venus is still blazing away in the pre dawn sky, with Mars moving away from it now and rising around 1pm, some where between Taurus and Orion. Aldebaran, in Taurus and Betelgeuse in Orion, all three are similarly coloured and bright, Mars is the most North Easterly.

The sky hasn’t been all that clear recently but over the weekend the full moon broke through and it was nice to see the Chinese lantern things; I’ve no idea what the proper name is crossing the path of the almost full moon and Jupiter on Saturday night. The moon is on the way out now its in its last quarter on Friday and if we get the clear skies predicted Jupiter will worth looking at with binoculars, dominating the southern sky all night. And the Milky Way will be over head arcing from the North east to the South West and it’s always worth a look.

You’ve probably gathered by now that I’ve haven’t got a whole lot to tell you this week, but if there’s anything you’d particularly like to have a look at, if you go to the Scilly Stars blog, look at the links and click on Scilly Star Map, I’ve finally set it up so it’s no longer exclusively for out Tasmanian listeners. The page has a set of basic but adequate tools for you to drill down to get what you’re looking, any time of day in fact any time at all. For example the 25th of October 1745 was completely useless all the planets were up all day long and if you were very lucky you might have caught a glimpse of Mars as it set at seven. October 25th is a lot better this year at 11pm we have mars rising as Jupiter sets. And in the year 2525 if man is still alive on October the 25th the moon is very close to Saturn in the South. See endless hours of free fun, I think I’d better stop now.


Someone from one of those green dots that mar our horizon from the South West to the North East told me in the co-op the other day that the off islands are under represented in Scilly Stars, well I don’t wish to offend anyone, so for the best view go up the garrison, any night you want, look just above the horizon due west and you’ll see the lights of St Agnes to the North you’ll catch a glimpse of the lights of Bryher behind Samson with Tresco next door and in the extreme North East you’ catch St Martins, though all of them are fairly easy to during the day, and I’ve been led to believe that there are manned expeditions to these Islands of light everyday. Scilly Stars is nothing if its not inclusive.

That was your night’s sky for the week ending on the 74th anniversary of Germany adopting a new national flag with the swastika.

The Bat, the Custard, the Labradoodle

The Bat
The Custard
The Labradoodle

Although the Moon and Jupiter look close together on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, Jupiter is actually 1,500 times farther away — and 40 times larger in diameter. Faint, 8th-magnitude Neptune is 7 times farther than Jupiter.

I was up very early on Tuesday Morning at 4:30, for reasons that will remain between me, the bat, the drum of lukewarm custard and the Labradoodle. The sky was icily clear the moon had set and there was no hint of the approaching dawn. Venus was blazing above long stone Orion was up to its right and Mars was between Taurus and Gemini, and the Pleiades, now up around midnight, were high in the south-eastern sky, Jupiter sadly had by that time sunk below the garrison. It was nice to see them all because I talk about the predawn sky every week but never see it and it all goes to confirm that I haven’t been lying to you for the last 3 months. Eventually it got a little to cold and I went back to bed, but before I did I’m sure I espied a shadowy figure creeping stealthily down church road, which could well have been Barbara S returning home with her nightly haul.

The sky this September sky has two celestial conjunctions.

The solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, is now rising early enough for even younger children to catch a glimpse. It rises above the south-southeast horizon anytime after dark. Other than the Moon, and Venus at dawn, Jupiter is the brightest object in the night sky.

Even low-powered binoculars will reveal Jupiter’s four Galilean moons.

Near the end of the month, watch for the waxing gibbous Moon to rise with Jupiter. On the 29th, the two will be separated by less than two degrees. Of course, the Moon will be bright, so Jupiter may seem lost at first glance.

Earlier in the month the moon pairs as a waning crescent with our red neighbour, Mars. You will find the two in Gemini, in the hours before sunrise on the 13th, on your East horizon. That bright star in the same field of view is Mebsuta. Mebsuta is a super giant star located some 900 light-years distant. Mars, on the other hand, is currently just about 14 light-minutes away, while the Moon is a mere 1.3 light-seconds away … three very different objects appearing together to form one beautiful triangle.

Saturn has nipped behind the sun, maybe to eat some more of his kids, there’s a charming picture by goya on the blog, and some guides as well.

Venus (magnitude –4.0, in Cancer) blazes in the east before and during dawn.

Mars (magnitude +1.0, in the feet of Gemini) is high to the upper right of Venus before dawn.

Jupiter comes into view in the southeast as twilight fades — the first "star" to appear after sunset. And tonight you’ll see Jupiter just to the right of the moon, with Neptune, 20,000 times dimmer which you won’t see just to the moons lower left.

And sticking with tonight and Jupiter, if you’ve never seen Jupiter’s moons and don’t want to anyway, tonight’s the night not to see them, because tonight Jupiter displays no visible moons in a small telescope from 12:43 to 2:29 a.m. Thursday morning EDT (9:43 to 11:29 p.m. Wednesday evening PDT and this won't happen again until 2019, which is a strange sort of non event.

That was your weeks sky ending on the 43rd anniversary of Star Trek first appearing on NBC.

Saturn Devouring His Son is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of Cronus (in the title Romanised to Saturn), who, fearing that his children would overthrow him, ate each one upon their birth. It is one of the series of Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823.

Not A Lot

Not unexpectedly last week’s Persied meteor shower was obscured by clouds for its entire duration, I did have a look on Friday when the sky was crystal clear just in case there were any late comers, but not a flipping sausage, never mind there’s some more in October.

First up is the Draconids, on the 8th and ninth and then the Orionids, a major shower of shooting stars, on October 20-21.

You’ve probably guessed that there’s not a whole lot going on this week already, or why would I be bleating on about October.

Mercury and Saturn appear near each other in bright twilight just above the horizon due west. Use binoculars to look for them about 30 minutes after sunset. At the beginning of the week Saturn is above Mercury; later it's to Mercury's upper right, check the blog, but even with a clear night you’’ need binoculars.

Venus is in Gemini and blazes in the eastern sky before and during dawn, and is unmistakeable. It’s still about as bright as it was in February when it wasn’t keeping antisocial hours and was setting up to 3 hours after sunset in the west.

Mars still on the dim side but improving rises about an hour and a half before the sun, passing between the horn tips of Taurus is high to the upper right of Venus before dawn. To its own upper right is similar-looking Aldebaran. To its lower right is similarly coloured Betelgeuse, which is the bright star to the top left of Orion. So although Mars will have moved a little by October when Orion returns to the evening star, it will be easily found and at its closest to the earth for a long time.

Jupiter, in Capricorn was at opposition on August 14th. So now it’s with us for the whole night It comes into view low in the southeast early in twilight — the first "star" to appear after sunset. It's higher in better telescopic view by 11 or midnight. You can’t miss it it’s the extremely bright star that arcs across the southern sky throughout the night.

But even with out a blockbuster feature, we’ve still got all the usual stars, and the most spectacular sight at the moment is the Milky Way, it arcs across the sky from north east to the south west and is always worth a look with binoculars, even with poor binoculars you’ll see at least 10 times as many stars. And the Milky Way although it’s a run of the mill spiral galaxy, amongst billions of the things, it still has some pretty impressive statistics.

The stellar disk of the Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter, and is an average, about 1,000 thick. With between 200 billion 400 billion stars, and its just our look that out of all those stars its our Solar System that produces Britain’s got talent.

Persid Meteor Shower

Persid Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteors appear to stream away from their radiant near the border of Perseus and Cassiopeia. And while you're outside on a dark night, don't forget to look for the Double Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy, two of the easiest "faint fuzzies" to spot with your unaided eye.

Dawn Sunday/Monday

Jupiter's impact scar is the small dark mark in the planet's South Polar Region (top). The black dot on the edge of the South Equatorial Belt is the shadow of Callisto. Note the Great Red Spot just about to rotate out of sight on the celestial west limb (left). Sky & Telescope's Sean Walker used a 14.5-inch reflector for this stacked-video image 8:45 UT July 23, 2009.

This week’s big issue is the Persied meteor shower. The little bits of interplanetary grit making up the Persied meteoroid stream orbit the Sun with a period of about 130 years, like their object of origin, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. The richest part of the stream is strung out near the comet itself, which last dipped through the inner solar system in 1992. So the shower's annual sky show has waned of late —the great Persied meteor displays of the early 1990s are gone.

This year's Persied peak was predicted to come around 18h Universal between 11pm and dawn last night. But there should be still a few around for a few days yet. After 10 pm look to the north east for the radiant, straight down a few degrees from the first star in the Cassiopeia W, an easy constellation to spot, a misshapen W. There’s a diagram on the blog.

The waning Moon is nearly at last quarter. It rises an hour or two after dark and will brighten the sky somewhat during the best Persied-activity hours, from 11 p.m. until dawn. Nevertheless, but this is a pretty reliable shower, and some Perseids should be there for the catching.

If you’re really serious about Meteor watching, I found some instructions on S and T.com. Find a spot with an open view of the sky, wrap up warmly in winter clothes, perhaps an anorak or a sleeping bag, and use mosquito repellent where you're not wrapped. Lie back in a lounge chair and watch whatever part of your sky is darkest. Be patient. You may see a meteor zipping into the upper atmosphere every few minutes on average.

On Friday, Jupiter is at opposition, big and bright. It's opposite the Sun in the sky: rising around sunset, shining highest in the middle of the night, and setting around sunrise. And I’ve put a nice picture of Jupiter’s new black spot up on the blog.

During Sunday’s dawn morning the thin waning crescent Moon hangs with Mars, when early risers can watch the waning crescent Moon pass Mars and then Venus in the dawn. there’s a guide on the blog.

You can still catch Venus blazing away in the dawn sky, with Mars nearby between the horns of Taurus, but bear in mind they’re only horns if you have a vivid imagination or know a horribly misshapen bull.

Green Flash

Remains the same much of the week, for both images.

Green Flash

Tonight we have a full moon, the last but one of this summer and we have a slight penumbral eclipse, which means only a very slight dimming probably, too slight for any shading to be detectable at all by eye. If you want to try and spot it, the mid point is at 1:40am. If you can’t see it never mind, Jupiter will be easily visible near the moon, for the next two or three days.

I haven’t checked the tides, the bus is strangely unaffected by them, but I imagine they should be pretty big this week, with Jupiter the moon and the sun lining up, though Jupiter being so far away will only add a couple of inches.

On Thursday, the Moon rises in the dusk with a menacing Jupiter just 4° to its right.
Mercury is having a poor apparition deep in the glow of sunset. Look for it very low in the west-northwest in bright twilight.


Venus in the feet of Gemini blazes in the eastern sky before and during dawn.
As recently happened with Jupiter, an amateur planetary imager has found a newly-appeared marking on Venus! Frank Melillo of Holtsville, New York, discovered that Venus had unexpectedly grown a "Great White Spot" in ultraviolet light when he imaged it on the morning of July 19th. The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe, currently orbiting Venus, has imaged the spot in detail.

Mars getting a little brighter now, in the horns of Taurus is well to the upper right of Venus before dawn. Not far to Mars's right or upper right is Aldebaran, a close match for it in both brightness and color. The two are 7° apart on August 1st, 10° apart by the 8th.
Jupiter very bright in Capricorn shines low in the east-southeast during twilight. It's higher the southeast by midnight.

Saturn (magnitude +1.1, in Leo) is getting very low in the west after sunset. Pretty well lost to us now, and the rings have about vanished. They turn edge-on to the Sun and go black on August 9–10.

Now I’m about to take all the romance out of the fabled green flash. The reason for a green flash lies in refraction of light in the atmosphere, light moves more slowly in the lower, denser air than in the thinner air above, so sunlight rays follow paths that curve slightly, in the same direction as the curvature of the Earth. Higher frequency light (green/blue) curves more than lower frequency light (red/orange), so green/blue rays from the upper limb of the setting sun remain visible after the red rays are obstructed by the curvature of the earth. I’ve put a lovely picture on the blog which I’d love to say I took, but I didn’t
Though if you firmly believe it’s an omen for the imminent end of the world you won’t believe a word of that will you.
That was your night sky for the week ending on Al Qaeda’s 21st birthday.

The Prettiest Star

Better Late Than Never

Orion's Back

The Eagle Nubula (photo Nasa/Hubble)

On Thursday, the red long-period variable stars V Bootis, R Bootis, and S Hydrae should be about at maximum light (7th or 8th magnitude) this week. V Boo is easy to locate with binoculars less than 1° from 3rd-magnitude Gamma , doesn’t mean a lot to me either

I was asked on the bus about meteor showers, well the next reasonable shower will be the Perseids peaking on August 12, so more about that next week.

Venus and Mars both in and near Taurus) are in the east during dawn. Venus is a dazzler; Mars, well to Venus's upper right near Aldebaran, is 110 times fainter. They're moving farther apart: from 13° to 16° separation this week.

Aldebaran, similar to Mars in both brightness and colour, twinkles about 5° or 6° to Mars's lower right or right. Higher above them are the Pleiades. Far left of them shines bright Capella. And look lower right of Venus for Orion everybody’s friend. Which is mercifully back again until next spring

Jupiter the roman god of the moment shines low in the east-southeast during twilight. You can’t real miss low in the South East after 9:30 and moving higher and further south as the night progresses any binoculars will show it as a disc. And it just had a thump a black dust mark, like those of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts in 1994, appeared suddenly in Jupiter's South Polar Region around July 18th. It's now spreading out. So it looks like its had another impact. Probably our turn next, maybe on the first of the 4th next year.

Saturn in Leo is getting very low in the west after sunset, there a slightly out of date guide on the blog, which I’ll remember to do this week.

I discovered another anniversary on the internet this week, it seems that that the Eagle Nebula, made famous by Hubble, 3004 light years away, was formed 5000 years ago this year by a super nova, which when it blew dominated the night sky for some weeks. If you do the math, it would have been visible here around 4 AD. Which would be plausible, except that the Eagle Nebula is 6500 light years away, it gets dafter though it seems that a highly advanced peace loving humanoid species were wiped out in the cataclysm. Which would make it a hell of Christmas decoration, and as you know everything on the internet is true.

That was your nights sky for the week ending on the 95th anniversary of the outbreak of world war one.

Man In The Moon

Unless you’re in a coma you’ve probably heard that tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. If your old enough I’m sure you can remember the excitement. I was allowed to stay up and watch the landing at about 3 am but I fell asleep. I had all the models, all the posters and any magazines I could get hold of; in short I was a boring little Herbert. It’s easy to forget what a staggering achievement it was. When JFK announced a goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, all they’d so far managed was 16 minute sub orbital flight with Alan Shepard aboard. This is the equivalent of promising to circumnavigate the world when all you’ve actually done is rowed across Port Melon in a bath tub, but they did it. When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat in Mercury 3, waiting for lift-off, he replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder”.

90% of Apollo 11 was fuel to get the tiny command and lunar modules out of Earth Orbit, at launch it was 365 ft high, I still remember that and all that came back was the Command Module was a truncated cone measuring 10 feet 7 inches tall with a diameter of 12 feet 10 inches across the base. It took 3 days to get the moon, 3 days of excitable waffle by Patrick Moore and James Burke; Steve Watt would have been in his element. And then on the 20th they landed, though they should have aborted but Aldrin ignored procedure and landed with about 15 seconds of fuel left. The Neil Armstrong got this wrong, but he might have been nervous. Then they came back to a well disturbed heroes welcome, Buzz Aldrin went slightly mad for a bit, Neil Armstrong became a recluse and Mike Collins is now managing a fish and chip shop in Enfield, maybe.

They went back 5 more times but the public lost interest, which is why all NASA does now is probes and low earth orbit missions, they have the technology, but not the funds, to build a moon base, ands go to mars they even have plans for an interstellar mission. And after all the best way to sort out global warming is to find a new planet to ruin, but at least we got Sky TV and Sat Navs out of it, god bless America.

And there’s another anniversary this week. On July 16th 1994, the first piece of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter, speaking of which, Jupiter rises around 10 p.m in Capricorn and shines highest in the south before dawn, dominating the South Eastern sky for most of the night.

Like all the best cowboys Saturn has just about disappeared into the sunset.

Venus and Mars are still faffing about due east during dawn. Venus is very bright, Mars, to Venus's upper right, isn’t.

I’ve put some Apollo pictures up on the blog, and a guide to Mars and Venus if you’re daft enough to be up at 3:30 am