VERMILLION SKIES: February 2009

24.2.09

Ceres, Comet Lulin, Venus and the Moon 24.02.09

Comet Lulin

The Path of Comet Lulin, close to Saturn in the North East this week.

Venus and the Moon

Comet Lulin

The path of Ceres through Leo in the North Eastern Sky

This Weeks Scilly Stars.

We have an adrenaline drenched week this week, with a comet on fly by, our largest asteroid only 60 million miles away, Neptune’ s on the way back, and there’s an important anniversary, not the big one but the big ones granddad.

Comet Lulin this week is at its brightest and closest to Earth — right when the sky is conveniently moonless. Use binoculars or a telescope to look for it once it's well up in late evening. The comet is glowing at about magnitude 5.6 as it moves rapidly westward across Virgo just skirting Leo, and very close to Saturn all week, in the North East around 9pm. In recent days the comet's dust-spike has grown longer and stronger, completely outclassing its "true" tail, which points properly away from the Sun like a comet's tail should. It’s dim but easily visible with binoculars and both tails should show. It will be visible for most of the night, look at the blog for a find it guide.

And sticking with Leo, Ceres the largest of the Asteroids is at the closest and best viewing position of our lifetimes and a lot of subsequent lifetimes for that matter. Ceres will pass closer to Earth than it has been since 1857, it won’t be this close again until 4164, an occasion I may well miss. You can spot it with binoculars, which are essential, in Leo, again close to Saturn using the chart at on the blog.
And Friday is a red letter day for Uranus when its as far as it gets from the Sun as it can in its 84-year orbit. So we can all take comfort knowing that no matter how bad things get, for the rest of our lives, Uranus will be just a touch closer every day.

Of the planets Venus and Saturn are the only two really showing at the moment. Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars remain very low in the glow of sunrise, where they're changing configuration daily. Mars is very faint and may require binoculars. But Venus is still dominating the western sky until 9pm, someone asked my mum to ask me what the very bright star above Star Castle perhaps pre-empting the second coming is, well it’s Venus, which I may have mentioned previously on Scilly Stars.

The planet sets about 9pm and if you want to catch it and Saturn together find Venus around 8:30, turn 180 degrees and almost diametrically opposite you will see the yellowish glow of Saturn, in the same area of the sky where you will also find Ceres and Comet Lulin.

March the 3rd is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 9, which was the third manned mission of the Apollo Program, and proved the Lunar Module worthy of manned spaceflight. Further tests on Apollo 10 would prepare the Lunar Module for its ultimate goal, landing on the Moon.

That was you nights sky for the week ending next Tuesday.

17.2.09

Stars 18th Feb, The Orion Nebula

Above and below, Hubble Pictures of the Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula, the Trapezium on the lower left.

Scilly Stars Script 18.02.09

This week and for a while yet most of the action is in the dawn sky just before sun up.

Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars are low in the glow of sunrise, where they're changing configuration daily. They start the week with Jupiter and tiny Mars close together well to Mercury's lower left; Mercury moves in on them day by day. Bring binoculars and look just above the east-southeast horizon about 30 minutes before sunup. On the 24th they’ll be all in a nice line in the predawn sky. So on Sunday go out a half hour before sunrise if the sky is clear, look low in the east-southeast with binoculars, and you'll be rewarded with a diagonal line-up of the crescent Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, and maybe even faint Mars, you shouldn’t need one but there’s a diagram on the blog, (see last weeks post).

Venus, still apparently stationary in Pisces) is the dazzling "Evening Star" high in the west during and after twilight. It's at its peak brightness now, and it doesn't set until about 9 p.m. In a telescope Venus is a thick crescent (31% sunlit) about 37 arc seconds from cusp to cusp. But from this week onwards Venus will start to dim as the planet moves away from us toward the other side of the sun.

Saturn is still hanging around near the hind foot of Leo, perhaps still waiting to be kicked. Saturn rises around 7 p.m., shines well up in the east by 9 or 10, and is highest in the south around 1 a.m. Don't confuse it with similarly-bright Regulus (two fist-widths at arm's length) to its upper right after they rise, and more directly to its right in the early-morning hours. Saturn is pale yellow and shines with a steady light, while Regulus is white with a touch of blue and twinkles slightly.

Uranus and Neptune are lost behind the glow of the Sun, and wouldn’t be able to find them anyway.

Now its time to bang on about Orion again. This is the time of year when Orion stands at his highest due south around 7 or 8 p.m. If you look at his sword you should be able to see a fuzzy blob in the centre. This is the Great Orion Nebula which is around 1300 light years from us. Through binoculars or better still a telescope you should be able to resolve the Trapezium, which is a group of hot white young stars, a sort of interstellar rat pack. The ones we can see easily are the brightest of a cluster of up to 2,000 in a 10 light year radius. The Orion Nebula is an example of a massive dust cloud and is in effect a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. Any planets around these stars will have a truly spectacular night scar, but on the down side with so many stars around it would be a little unstable, deadly in fact and to make matters worse you’d be almost 763 million, million miles from the nearest toilet.

That was your night sky for the week ending the 24th February 2009.