Lest We Forget

The Geminid meteor shower which I for reasons I would rather keep out of the public domain I forgot to mention last week peaked on Monday but they will be around until Friday at least. Best viewing will be after midnight, but some meteors can be seen earlier. As the name suggests the radiant is in Gemini which is easily found up and a little to the left of Orion’s shoulders.

Mercury and Mars, are very close together on the western horizon at sunset but are both very dim and not worth the effort.

Venus which would be worth the effort except it rises so early blazes in the southeast before and during dawn. Venus rises some two hours before the first glimmer of dawn

Jupiter shines in the south to southwest during evening, the brightest star like point in the sky. We are gradually losing Jupiter now it’s setting around midnight.

Saturn (magnitude +0.8, in Virgo) rises around 2:30. and is well up the southeast before and during dawn, far upper right of brilliant Venus.

On Friday, look to the lower left of the Moon (by a little more than a fist-width at arm's length) for the delicate Pleiades star cluster. Below the Pleiades by a roughly similar distance is orange Aldebaran, the eye of the bull in Taurus.

And that was your night sky on 1941st anniversary of the end of the Year of the four emperors. Who were respectively Galba, Otho, Vitellius who sounds like an expensive yoghurt for people with more money than sense, and finally Vespasian who became the fourth Emperor of Rome within a year. First Galba, was assassinated, by Otho’s agents, Otho then ruled for 3 months until he topped himself, then Vitellius ruled for 8 months until he was beheaded and chucked in the Tiber, and finally Vespasian who by some sort of miracle died 10 years later of natural causes.

Dec-Jan

Eye on the Sky All events in BST (UT + 1 hour) Dec 2010 - Jan 2011 DEC 1st Mercury is at greatest elongation, 21 degrees east (4pm); Saturn is eight degrees north of the Moon (6pm) Sat 4th Venus is at its greatest illuminated extent (11am) Mon 6th Uranus is stationary (11am) Tue 7th Mercury is 1.8 degrees south of the Moon (9am); Asteroid (16) Psyche is at opposition Fri 10th Mercury is stationary (11am) Sat 11th Neptune is five degrees south of the Moon (3pm) Tue 14th Geminds meteor shower maximum (6am); Jupiter is seven degrees south of the Moon (2am); Uranus is seven degrees south of the Moon (6am) Thu 16th Asteroid (88) Thisbe is at opposition Mon 20th Mercury is in inferior conjunction (1am) Tue 21st Total lunar eclipse as Moon is setting from the UK (8am) Wed 22nd Winter solstice (12am); Pallas is in conjunction with the Sun (5pm) Thu 23rd Ursids meteor shower maximum Sun 26th Asteroid (387) Aquitnia is at opposition Mon 27th Pluto is in conjunction with the SUn (1am) Wed 29th Saturn is eight degrees north of the Moon (3am) Thu 30th Mercury is stationary (8am) Fri 31st Venus is seven degrees north of the Moon (4pm) JAN 2011 2nd Jupiter is 0.6 degrees south of Uranus (2pm); Mercury is four degrees north of the Moon (3pm) Mon 3rd Earth is at perihelion (7pm) Tue 4th Quadrantids meteor shower peak (1am); Partial solar eclipse (Sun in eclipse at sunrise in UK, 9am); Saturn's moon Iapetus is at greatest western elongation (6pm) Sat 8th Neptune is five degrees south of the Moon (12am); Venus reaches greatest western elongation (47 degrees, 4pm) Sun 9th Mercury reaches greatest eastern elongation (23 degrees, 3pm) Mon 10th Uranus is seven degrees south of the Moon, (3pm); Jupiter is seven degrees south of the Moon (5pm) Tue 11th NEO 2000 AZ93 (magnitude +15.8) makes a close approach of 3.4 lunar distances (0.0477 AU) Sat 15th Venus is eight degrees north of Antares (10pm) Mon 17th Comet 9P/Tempel at peak brightness (mag +13) Sat 22nd Asteroid (3) Juno is stationary (11pm) Mon 24th Asteroid (7) Iris at opposition (magnitude +7.9) Tue 25th Saturn is eight degrees north of the Moon (10am) Thu 27th Saturn is stationary (8am) Sun 30th Venus is three degrees north of the Moon (4am) Mon 31st Ceres is in conjunction with the Moon (1am)

The Strumpets Of Yore.

Venus and Saturn at the end of November.

Well its November, its cold, its wet, its windy and the day suddenly seems a lot shorter but those are the negatives, on the plus side everything rises and sets an hour earlier, Orion is now fully exposed by 10pm in the east, a welcome sight after the star-poor skies of October. And apart from Jupiter that’s about it for this week, but Novem

ber as a whole isn’t too bad.

But looking at this week first, we still have Jupiter very bright and due south around 9pm. Venus is back in the dawn sky barely rising by 7am. But it’s much improved by the end of the month, when it rises before 5 and by 7 it will be well above the SE horizon not far from Saturn and the moon, very bright and unmissable. And if you’re out and about between 6 and 7am you can see Saturn in the S E fairly, but not overly bright.

We still have comet Hartley II, though I’ve given up on it, it’s over in the east around midnight just to the east of Gemini passing through Canis Minor, if you want to try for it I’ve put a guide on the blog, but if you can’t be bothered then let NASA do the leg work. On Friday morning NASA's EPOXI mission, which has nothing to do with glue, flies within about 450 miles of the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2, taking pictures all the way. The best resolution should be just 7 meters per pixel on the nucleus's landscape. You can watch the coverage live on NASA TV.

November holds two respectable meteor showers and a chance to three bright planets during the night. The Taurid meteor shower is active through the middle of November. This shower holds few meteors, just 6 per hour on average. But the meteors are much brighter than average. Another meteor shower, the Leonids, peaks during the early morning of November 17. This brief shower has been known for sudden dramatic outbursts, also called meteor storms. But the Leonids have been pretty quiet these past few years. You might see 25-50 meteors per hour before dawn. I’ll tell you how to find them next week.

And as you will all know we’re in Scorpio now, which is my birth sign, the 20^th of November if you’re panning any lavish gifts though cash is preferred. Which means that Scorpio is one constellation you won’t see at the moment because that’s where the sun is.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 3^rd anniversary of the German Bundestag passing the controversial data retention bill mandating storage of citizens' telecommunications traffic data for six months without probable cause.

Last week of buses, whoopee.

Well we certainly have an autumn sky now, which in many ways is as it should be, the summer constellations are now but an ephemeral wisp of memory. Taurus the bull with its baleful red eye is well up in the east by 10 closely followed by Orion. Which neatly brings us to the Orionid meteor shower which peaks this week around the 21^st, and much good will it do us, because we have a full moon on the 23^rd so throughout the entire week we will be hard pushed to see anything at all. But if you’re a fanatic and are determined to have a look then to have any chance at all look toward Orion in the eastern sky after midnight and good luck

And because there’s not much else this week, and I know its flogging a dead horse, lets reprise comet Hartley, with the rash optimism of youth I looked for it again and failed again, and this week with a full moon as well it will be even more difficult, but undaunted I’ll put another guide on the blog. So if you’re a fanatic and are determined to have a look then to have any chance at all look toward Auriga, the only constellation named after a local guest house, almost straight over head to the North with binoculars look a greenish star with a smudge.

Some people have managed to find Hartley 2.

As for the planets Venus has gone it will be back in the dawn sky in 3 weeks. Jupiter remains the main attraction dominating the southern sky throughout the whole night. And Saturn is back in the dawn sky rising around 7 in the east.

And that's your night sky for the week ending on the 1704th anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica.

Fly Fishing Again.

A brief look again this week because there’s not a great deal going on just for once, I mentioned Hartley the comet last week, I looked for it again and I may have seen it, in fact I almost certainly did. There was no moon, I looked with binoculars a little to the east of Cassiopeia toward Perseus and saw hundreds of stars, the thing which has no tail and is allegedly surrounded by for want of a better word a smudge, was indiscernible amongst the milky way, and the moons back next week so it will there’s a guide above, if you think you may have better luck.

Next week maybe from Sunday onwards we have the Orionid meteor shower, which usually peaks on the 21^st, but you’ll need to be up after midnight and look toward Orion in the east.

As for the planets we’ve just about got Venus and most definitely have Jupiter.

Venus, though very bright at magnitude –4.7, is disappearing very low in the southwest during bright evening twilight. It sets well before dark. And if you’re on St Mary’s you have to go up the garrison to see it. It’s a very pronounced crescent at the moment.

Jupiter is loitering at the Pisces-Aquarius border as twilight fades; the giant planet becomes very obvious low in the east-southeast. It shines high in the southeast by mid-evening, by far the brightest star like point in the sky. It's highest in the south around midnight. And well worth a look in binoculars where it will show as a clear disc with the 4 largest moons clearly visible.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 1st anniversary of Chris Stevens of New Richmond, Wisconsin proudly displaying the world’s biggest pumpkin at the Stillwater Harvest festival in Stillwater, Minnesota, it weighed 1810.IIbs 8 oz.

Fly Fishing

The path of comet Hartley.

A brief look this week because there’s not a great deal going on, I mentioned Hartley last week, I looked for it but the moon was too bright, not this week though. Periodic Comet Hartley 2 is a dim 7th magnitude, visible in binoculars in a dark sky. It's excellently placed very high these moonless evenings, passing just south of Cassiopeia. But it's large and diffuse, so you'll need an unpolluted dark sky. Which we have in abundance, the moon is new on Thursday so this is the best week for a look, Cassiopeia is the wonky W high in the north eastern sky before midnight, there’s a guide on the blog.

Mercury (magnitude –1.2) drops back down into the sunrise this week. So its gone for a while but it will soon be back in the evening sunset.

Venus, though very bright at magnitude –4.7, is disappearing very low in the southwest during bright evening twilight. It sets well before dark. And if you’re on St Mary’s you have to go up the garrison to see it. It’s a very pronounced crescent at the moment.

Mars, vastly dimmer at magnitude +1.5, is 7° above or upper right of Venus in bright twilight. That's about one field-of-view width in typical binoculars. You'll need them. Good luck.

Jupiter is loitering at the Pisces-Aquarius border and is two weeks past opposition now. As twilight fades, Jupiter becomes very obvious low in the east-southeast. It shines high in the southeast by mid-evening, by far the brightest star like point in the sky. It's highest in the south around midnight. And well worth a look in binoculars where it will show as a clear disc with the 4 largest moons clearly visible.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 200^th anniversary of the first Oktoberfest: When the Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

The Persieds

Persieds Radient, peaking Thursday night / Friday Morning

The main event this week has to be the Perseid meteor shower. They peak this year at 2 am Friday morning, so tomorrow night as late as you can manage is the best time for viewing. You need to look to the Northeast, there are no obvious stars nearby, the best way to find the radiant is to find Cassiopeia, which looks like a wonky W on its side. If you can’t find Cassiopeia, then I hope you can find the plough. Take a line from the two stars through the end of the dipper which takes you to Polaris, the North Star, keep going and you’ll find Cassiopeia. Now take a line from the lower internal diagonal in the triangle toward a couple of brightish stars and your there. Failing that just look to Northeast 30-40 degrees up, and if you don’t know where the Northeast is, have you considered suicide.

This year should be a good one because the moon is just off new and will be trailing the sun on the way to New York, it was 2007 when we last had a moonless Perseid Shower. If you’re a special type of Anorak you can count how many you see in a certain time and send the data in to the International Meteor Organization, who will compile it all and put it into a very interesting book. Though all this wholly academic because its bound to be overcast, but the Perseids will still be showing right up to the 22^nd.

The shower is caused by the Earth passing through the orbit of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which is due back in 2016 when the show will be much more vivid.

We still have Venus, Mars and Saturn waltzing around very close to each other shortly after evening twilight in the west. Unfortunately this means that Saturn and Mars are on the other side of the Sun and are about as far away as they get. Venus on the other hand is getting closer to us and should be visible as a bright crescent in a good pair of binoculars.

Jupiter is up now well before midnight in south east and dominates the Southern sky for the rest of the night, you can’t miss it.

That was your Scilly stars for the week ending on 127th anniversary of the first public performance of the Dominican Republic.

The Flatulence Of The Sun

I take a week off and before you know its August, the month where the evening start to very noticeably start drawing in. And it’s not a bad month for looking at the night sky.

This week in particular if you look to the Northwest, Venus Mars and Saturn are almost on top of each other, especially on Saturday when they are within a 5 degree circle. Don’t worry about Mars and Saturn at first, just look for Venus which will visible very soon after Sunset hanging between Samson and the Bishop, looking from St. Mary’s. As the Sun sinks lower Saturn and Mars will come into view, all 3 of them should be easily visible at once in binoculars. By the end of August they will all be setting before 9, so this is the last chance to see them for a while. For this week at least, Mercury will be there but a lot closer to the horizon and may not be visible.

Yesterday Keri was banging on about the Aurora Borealis and he almost sounded like he knew what he was talking about, when the sad reality is that Keri is as much a scientist as John Prescott is a gay icon. Anyway you never know, there’s no moon of consequence for the next two weeks before midnight, so if you see some shimmering to the north it could just be the Northern Lights which are caused by the solar wind, a sort of Astral flatulence interacting with the earths magnetosphere. Which in turn is caused by the huge puddle of molten iron at the earth’s core?

Auroras are the result of the emissions of photons in the Earth's upper atmosphere, above 80 km (50 miles), from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state. They are ionized or excited by the collision of solar wind particles being funneled down and accelerated along the Earth's magnetic field lines; excitation energy is lost by the emission of a photon of light, or by collision with another atom or molecule:


As for the moon this month first quarter was yesterday, its New on the tenth and full on the 24th.

And the other highlight of August is the Perseids Meteor Shower. The Perseids is one of the best meteor showers of the year, producing up to 60 meteors per hour at their peak. This year's shower should peak on the night of August 12 and the morning of the 13th, well after the moon has set. But you may be able to see some meteors any time from now to the 22nd. The radiant point for this shower will be, oddly enough, in the constellation Perseus. The thin, crescent moon will be out of the way early, setting the stage for a potentially spectacular show. For best viewing, look to the northeast after midnight.

I’ve put a guide on the blog. Of course the advent of the Perseids has now become a harbinger of doom. It is of course the time of year when the black shadow or she who walks by night begins her annual 8 and half months of plunder. Of course Barbara has already had virtually everything of value, but I’ve heard that this year she will be kidnapping elderly relatives for ransom, so you may want to put that Granny Flat on hold pending further developments.

And that was night sky for the week ending on the 39th anniversary of the founding of the Society for American Baseball in Cooperstown, New York.

The Scottish Comet

A bit of a challenge for you this week, which I’m can say with a fair degree of certainty that none of you will take up, Comet McNaught. I did mention this comet before in the May round up, but couldn’t find any easy way of placing it for you, well now there is and its now naked eye bright. But and it’s a big but, you’ll have to get up very early or better still go to bed very late. Mid-June is when Comet McNaught should be most interesting, offering the best compromise between its increasing brightness and its decreasing altitude at the start of dawn. Moreover, the sky will be free of moonlight. It’s about 15° high in the nor, nor east as the sky starts to grow light on June tonight, but it appears roughly 1° lower every day after that. The comet passes Capella on the 21st, and it’s very low by the 24th, when it passes through Auriga, the constellation named after the guest house not the guest house it self.. By now Comet McNaught may be as bright as 4th magnitude, but moonlight is returning.

Comet McNaught June 1oth.

And Capella is the key to spotting the comet. Cappella is the brightest star in Auriga, the sixth brightest in the sky, and there’s really nothing else in the early low Northern sky at the moment, apart from the inevitable cloud that will make all this redundant. McNaught is moving towards Cappella up to the 21st. Find Cappella with binoculars and slowly move them eastward parallel to the horizon and you should find it, otherwise just scan randomly in the general area.


It’s quite a striking green, with a blue tail, pictures and a guide of course on the blog. Gas molecules of cyanogen (CN) and diatomic carbon (C2) in a comet's coma fluoresce green in sunlight. Ions of carbon monoxide (CO+) and carbon dioxide (CO2+) in the ion tail fluoresce blue. A comet's dust tail, on the other hand, simply reflects sunlight and is basically Sun-colored: pale yellow-white. This is clearly not a very dusty comet.

As for the planets no real change at all.

Mercury barely rises before the sun, so forget about it.

Mars still forms a striking pair with bluer Regulus in the late evening western sky.


Jupiter rises around 1 or 2 a.m. daylight saving time and shines high in the southeast before dawn.

Saturn (magnitude +1.1, in the head of Virgo) glows in the southwest during evening. The diagonal line of Saturn, Mars, and Venus is shrinking week by week. The three planets will bunch up low in the sunset in early August.





That was your night sky for the week ending on the 377th anniversary of the Catholic Church forcing Galileo to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe. He was wrong anyway, but it was a big step up the road.

Jupiter Dinged Again

Impact Point

June 2010 Around 11pm

Nothing overly exciting going on at the moment, unless you live on Jupiter, which has just had another impact event. The fireball appeared in the giant planet's atmosphere June 3 at 20h30m GMT.

Jupiter has been the target of several huge impacts within the last two decades. In July 1994, 21 fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit the planet, any of which would have wiped us out. More recently, a 600 metre wide asteroid struck Jupiter on July 18th last year. This makes two impacts in a year twice in a year, which is actually quite alarming. Now a 600 metre meteorite is no where big as the 10kilomtre job that wiped out the 70% of everything including the dinosaurs 65,000,000 years. But if one landed in the North Atlantic at a 120,000 miles per hour plus there wouldn’t be much left of Europe or the Eastern Sea board of America. But not to worry Bruce Willis would sort it out in that rather fetching vest of his. But just to reassure you it all happens on Jupiter because the planet is so big it attracts these rogue celestial mountains and throws them out of a stable orbit, it’s like the solar system’s Hoover. Video below

Now more mundanely Mercury is back in the morning sky but to dim and too close to the sun to bother with.

Venus is still very much with us in the north western sky during and well after Sunset. Venus, Pollux, and Castor line up straight as twilight fades on Friday. You just can’t miss Venus its fantastically bright at moment. It’s on the other side of the Sun at the moment and in a telescope it shows as an almost complete but tiny disc. It’s getting nearer all the time and as it comes around the sun toward us, it will gradually change to a much larger crescent, by late summer. Venus is as high in twilight as it will appear this year; soon it begins its slow summer sink.

Mars glows in the west, forming a striking pair with bluer Regulus (magnitude +1.4). Mars has been closing in on Regulus for weeks. They passed each other on June 6th, 0.8° apart — a pencil-width at arm's length. In a telescope Mars is just a very tiny blob, 5.8 arcseconds in diameter.

Jupiter rises around 2 a.m. and shines in the southeast at dawn. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

Saturn (magnitude +1.0, in the head of Virgo) glows in the southwest during evening. Take a look at the star map for Scilly on the blog if you want to find it.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 133rd anniversary of Henry Ossian Flipper becoming the first African American cadet to graduate from West Point.

Old Town Inn Completes The Partial Mind

Well I tried I really did but could I find the moon let alone Venus on Sunday afternoon, well the short answer is no. And if any of you tried and failed as well, well that’ll teach you to listen to me.

Venus now moving from Taurus to Gemini) is the bright Evening Star shining in the west-northwest during and after twilight, and remains completely unmissable Capella is the bright star far to its upper right.


Mars (magnitude +0.9, in Cancer) is high in the west during evening, very far upper left of Venus along the ecliptic. Mars is moving eastward against the stars; week by week it's closing in on Regulus to its upper left. They'll pass each other on June 6th, 0.8° apart.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.2, below the Circlet of Pisces) shines in the east-southeast at the first light of dawn. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

On Saturday the "star" and that’s star in quotes. above the gibbous Moon this evening (by about 8°: as seen from North America) is Saturn. The much fainter star about 2° to Saturn's lower right this week is Beta Virginis, which although my Latin doesn’t extend beyond amo agricola, means I think, virgin second class. And if you’re curious amo agricola means I love the farmer.

Saturn is high in the southwest during the evening. In a telescope Saturn's rings are tilted a mere 1.7° from edge-on, their minimum tilt for the next 15 years.

On Friday as dusk fades into night, turn binoculars or a telescope on Venus in the west-northwest. Look less than 1° lower left of Venus for the big open star cluster M35, but wait until the end of twilight

And that’s about it for this week a week that ends on the 468th anniversary of the ending of the Diet of Worms, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issued the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw, a bit like a pious German Billy the Kid I guess.

May 2010

This is one of the first images of the Sun in the extreme ultraviolet taken by the new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It will be producing solar images of unprecedented detail with over 1.5 Terrabytes of data being returned to Earth each day! It does rather look as though the Sun is awakening from its deep sleep over the last couple of years!

Well it’s over for another year, and over the course of two days the average of our visitors has tripled and some may say though I wouldn’t dare, that their average IQ has been similarly engorged. This means that it’s the beginning of May, so here’s some highlights for the coming month.

You may remember that last week I told you that Venus is visible sometimes during the day, well on the 16th which is a Sunday the moon is the merest whisker below Venus.. Its closest approach is at 10:00 BST when the Moon's northern edge is just 0.25 degrees below the planet. At 10 am, the Moon and Venus will lie just 5 degrees south of East and the newish moon will be naked eye visible. They’ll lie 30 degrees away from the Sun, but still be VERY careful when searching for them and keep your binoculars well away form the Sun!! The pair, which will lie close to the open cluster M35 in Gemini (1 degree above the Moon) that evening, should also make a beautiful target with binoculars as night falls.

Jupiter, having passed behind the Sun on the 28th February, has now reappeared in the pre-dawn sky. At the beginning of May it will rise in the east as morning twilight begins and, at magnitude -2.1, could be seen in binoculars given a clear low eastern horizon. During the month it will gradually rise earlier and, by end of the month, will rise about 2:30 and brighten to -2.3 magnitude, which is pretty bright. A small telescope will easily pick up Jupiter’s four Galilean moons as they weave their way around it.

Saturn may now be easily seen in the south after sunset lying in Virgo down to the lower left of the constellation Leo. It can then be seen for much of the night with a magnitude +0.8 rising (which means getting fainter) to +1 during the month. The ring system is still close to edge-on and so will still appear very thin - the reason why Saturn is not a bright as it is when the rings are more open. For the first time in 15 years we are now begining to see the northern face of the rings. A small telescope will easily show its brightest satellite, Titan at magnitude 7.8.

Mercury passed in front of the Sun on April 28th and will appear in the morning twilight sky during the latter part of May reaching its greatest elongation from the Sun on the 26th. However, the ecliptic is at a very shallow angle to the horizon and so Mercury will only lie about 5 degrees above the horizon half an hour before sunrise. You might just be able to pick it out with binoculars given a very low eastern horizon.

Mars remains visible (at magnitude +0.7 changing to +1.1 during the month) in the south-west after sunset. It is now moving ~1/2 degree a day eastwards from Cancer into Leo. On the 31st May, it will lie just 3.5 degrees to the right of Regulus.

And right at the end of May we have Comet McNaught. In the early hours of the morning at the end of May, binoculars should help you spot a comet. It’ll be a night mare to find but if I can figure out how to tell you where to look I will in 3 weeks.

And that was night sky for the month ending on the 99th anniversary of the blessing and launch of RMS Titanic.

Mo and I

Pretty much same old same old this week. Which is not necessarily bad, Venus is still there in the North West soon after sun set, getting brighter all the time a little to the left of the Pleiades which are we about to lose until next autumn. During the next 10 days as the moon ages and shifts further toward the dawn sky, Venus may be bright to cast a shadow, if its dark enough. Venus along with the moon, the sun, the occasional very bright comet, and the even rarer super nova are the only celestial bodies capable of casting a shadow, we shall see.

Anyway I’ve been covering for Spider while he’s off on the mainland attending his gran’s funeral. And on Monday night I picked up Mo Widdop and before taking her own I drove down the mermaid car park to see Venus, and there it was, incandescent, the planet of love, and me and Mo, it was a very touching moment. And as an aside when Denis passes away, hopefully in many, many years to come Mo will become the widow Widdop, which I hope will be some consolation for her.

The summer constellations are beginning to appear in the dawn sky, Scorpio is there now with the full moon around an hour before Sunset, see the blog, because you won’t be up for it. Scorpio as you may know runs from 23 of October to 22 of November when it rises and sets with the sun. At the moment we’re in Taurus which sets a little after Venus at the moment but by the end of May it will be firmly attached to the Sun, and then it will be Gemini’s turn.

Tomorrow we have a full moon, which will give us fairly big tides for the upcoming weekend tedium. And a low tide for Sunday’s barbeque so hopefully it won’t come in and put the fire out hours before the end this year.

Mars, dimming farther into the distance, is high in the southwest during the evening. It's in Cancer east of the Beehive Star Cluster.

A bright Jupiter is low in the dawn. Look for it above the eastern horizon about 60 to 45 minutes before sunrise. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

A not overly bright Saturn is high in the south during evening. Use the star map for Scilly on the blog to find it. In binoculars you should be able to Titan, which is Saturn’s largest moon, and is actually larger than Mercury.

That was your Night Sky over for the week ending on the 165th anniversary of William Walker departing from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.

Mo and I

Pretty much same old same old this week. Which is not necessarily bad, Venus is still there in the North West soon after sun set, getting brighter all the time a little to the left of the Pleiades which are we about to lose until next autumn. During the next 10 days as the moon ages and shifts further toward the dawn sky, Venus may be bright to cast a shadow, if its dark enough. Venus along with the moon, the sun, the occasional very bright comet, and the even rarer super nova are the only celestial bodies capable of casting a shadow, we shall see.

Anyway I’ve been covering for Spider while he’s off on the mainland attending his gran’s funeral. And on Monday night I picked up Mo Widdop and before taking her own I drove down the mermaid car park to see Venus, and there it was, incandescent, the planet of love, and me and Mo, it was a very touching moment. And as an aside when Denis passes away, hopefully in many, many years to come Mo will become the widow Widdop, which I hope will be some consolation for her.

The summer constellations are beginning to appear in the dawn sky, Scorpio is there now with the full moon around an hour before Sunset, see the blog, because you won’t be up for it. Scorpio as you may know runs from 23 of October to 22 of November when it rises and sets with the sun. At the moment we’re in Taurus which sets a little after Venus at the moment but by the end of May it will be firmly attached to the Sun, and then it will be Gemini’s turn.

Tomorrow we have a full moon, which will give us fairly big tides for the upcoming weekend tedium. And a low tide for Sunday’s barbeque so hopefully it won’t come in and put the fire out hours before the end this year.

Mars, dimming farther into the distance, is high in the southwest during the evening. It's in Cancer east of the Beehive Star Cluster.

A bright Jupiter is low in the dawn. Look for it above the eastern horizon about 60 to 45 minutes before sunrise. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

A not overly bright Saturn is high in the south during evening. Use the star map for Scilly on the blog to find it. In binoculars you should be able to Titan, which is Saturn’s largest moon, and is actually larger than Mercury.

That was your Night Sky over for the week ending on the 165th anniversary of William Walker departing from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.

Fireballs

I suppose the big event of this and last week has passed with the meteorite crashing into the sea off Tolman point. It could have been an isolated pebble but it is far more likely to part of the dust left in a comets trail. The most likely contender for this is comet Thatcher which has nothing to do with the iron lady. When we pass through its tail between the 16th and 26th of April fire balls are quite common. They seem to radiate from the constellation Lyra. But Lyra rises a bit later than the meteorite was seen, in the North East at about 9:30, and the fireball appeared in the South. So we’ll never know but after 10 if you look to North East where you’ll see a brightish star Vega, you should see 10 to 20 meteors an hour. The shower should peak tomorrow on the 22nd but they should show for a few days either side.

Tonight, the First-quarter Moon shines below Mars shines over the Moon.

From Friday through Sunday Venus and the Pleiades fit within a 5° binocular field of view in the west soon after sunset. With binoculars you should be just able to see Venus as a crescent leaning toward the setting sun. On Saturday a milky yellow Saturn shines to the Moon's upper left.

Mercury is fading and dropping out of sight in the sunset, after pairing with Venus for the first half of April. And I know quite a lot of you saw the elusive little rock, well two of you anyway, buts it’s well on the way back into the sun again now.

Venus shines very brightly in the west-northwest during twilight, getting a little higher and more obvious every week.

Mars, dimming into the distance at magnitude +0.5, shines very high in the southwest during evening. It's in Cancer, left of Pollux and Castor and above Procyon. Near it binoculars show the big Beehive Star Cluster, M44.

Jupiter is low in the dawn. Look for it above the eastern horizon about 45 minutes before your sunup. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

Saturn is high in the southeast to south during evening. Not overly bright or easy to find, so have a look at APL star map for Scilly on the blog.

But enough of this frippery, not much has been heard of the black shadow recently, but she has been busy, very busy, while her alto ego Barbara Simpson has been gleaning feel good stories the length and breath of the islands, the black shadow has been hard at it. You may have heard of quantitative easing, well my mole in the US federal reserve tells me that, through a diabolically cunning scheme, to difficult for me to understand let alone explain, the Black Shadow has siphoned more than 650 billion dollars that had been intended to kick start the world economy, its all stashed in her hide away deep in the bowels of Mt Moorwell. What sinister use she will put it too, remains to be seen.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 51st anniversary of the last Canadian missionary being booted out of the People's Republic of China.

Mercury.

Mercury

We have an unusual contender for this week’s main attraction, tiny little Mercury. Not that its overly bright, but for once its easy to, in fact this is as good an apparition as often-elusive Mercury ever puts on and with Venus lighting the way to it, you could hardly ask for Mercury to be any easier. Look to the WNW soon after sunset and you’ll very quickly be able to spot an extremely bright Venus, if you look a little to its right you be able to see Mercury.

Yesterday evening at around 8:45 I caught the pair of them at the same time in binoculars. Venus is many times brighter than Mercury but they were the only two objects visible in that part of the sky. Venus was visible from around 8 until about 10:30 when it sank over Mincarlo, looking from the garrison.

It was a bit of a red letter day for me because it was the first time I could ever say I’d definitively seen Mercury, though I must have seen it from the plane window 6 weeks ago when it was completely over shadowed by Venus. The little planet is dimming rapidly now it was magnitude -.8 on the second but by the next week it will be right down to magnitude 1.4. So the next few days will give you your best viewing window, possibly for the next 140,000 years, but I’m speculating here.

And here’s some stuff you probably have less than no interest in about Mercury, it’s a pretty miserable place that orbits as close as 30 million miles from the Sun so it gets as hot as a monkeys bum, it whacks around the sun every 88 days, and it has a 1400 hour day, one day on Mercury is 58 of ours, more or less 9 Mercurian months long. It only revolves at 6 miles an hour so if you could maintain a brisk walk at the equator, which you couldn’t then you’d never have see the sun come up, or set, depending on whether you like extreme cold -150 degrees, or heat 500 degrees, and nothing lives there. But on the plus side there are no elections

As for the other planets they’re all around at the moment. Venus will be bright after sunset in the wnw for a while yet.

Mars, dimming into the distance at magnitude +0.3, now, it shines very high in the southwest during evening. It's in Cancer, left of Pollux and Castor and above Procyon.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.1) is emerging very low in the glow of dawn. Look for it just above the eastern horizon about 40 or 30 minutes before sunrise.

Saturn (magnitude +0.6, in the head of Virgo) is two weeks past opposition. Look for it in the east-southeast at dusk, higher in the southeast by late evening, and highest in the south by 11 or midnight.

As usual have a look at the blog for guidance, which I guess you are doing.

That was your night sky for the week ending on the 40^th anniversary of an oxygen tank on Apollo 13 exploding.

The Pliers Of Hercules

Just a short one this week, because I’m flying back to England yesterday, sorry about the miss-matched tenses there, but I’m recording this Monday you’re listening on Wednesday and I’m fly back Tuesday. So by the time you hear this I’ll be back in England trudging across the Tundra, mile after mile, trying to find some Soya milk for the huskies.

Officially spring has arrived, not that you’d know it, even in Spain where it’s wet and miserable as well but maybe not quite as cold, and nothing too special to report this week. Mercury should be just about visible in the West just after Sunset, below a much brighter Venus. This week well away from the middle aged moon.

Tonight the Moon forms a roughly equilateral triangle with Mars and Pollux this evening, as shown here, tomorrow the moon moves up a little and together with Mars, Pollux, and Castor form a ragged line this evening, and on Friday you’ll be able to spot bright Regulus shining to the left of the moon. As usual there’s a guide on the blog, though lets face it you should all be experts by now.

Not much action with the rest of the planets, these being Jupiter and Saturn, according to my secret sources Jupiter is apparently still hidden in the glow of sunrise, but I reckon it should be visible very low in the east in the minutes before sun up, especially toward the end of the week and definitely by early April.

Saturn not overly bright is in the head of Virgo and hit opposition last Sunday: rising around sunset, shining highest in the middle of the night, and setting around sunrise. In a telescope Saturn's rings are tilted only 3° from edge-on. They'll narrow further to 1.7° in May and early June, and then begin widening again. So with any luck in about 5 years Saturn will be good and bright again. Anyway there’s a thunder storm on Saturn at the moment, about twice the size of the Earth, but from here it looks like little white spot. There’s a video of it on the blog where you can see Dione, one Saturn’s moons wacking around as well, but be warned Avatar it’s not.

White Storm On Saturn.

The giant, long-lived thunderstorm on Saturn known as the Saturn Electrostatic Disturbance (SED), a source of radio emissions detected by the Cassini spacecraft, has returned to amateur visibility as a small white spot, at least for users of large scopes and/or during moments of excellent seeing. It's above center barely past the central meridian here. "The SED is really brightening now!" writes Christopher Go, who took this image. "It is much more prominent than when I last imaged it." Update: As of March 18th it was fading and had reportedly split in two.

Go took this image at 16:48 UT March 13, 2010. The spot is near System III longitude 0°, System II longitude 236°. In addition, he notes, "The [dark] South Equatorial Belt is very prominent, while the North Equatorial Belt looks faint. There are a lot of band details, especially in the northern hemisphere."

Little Dione is in the background below the right end of the rings. South is up. Click image for a .wmv movie of eight images (with north up).

Christopher Go

And that was a rather brisk Scilly Stars for the week ending on the 152nd anniversary of Hymen Lipman patenting the first pencil with an attached eraser.

Spring

The most important thing about this week must be on Sunday which is the first day of spring, the equinox occurs at 9:32 am when the axis of the earth is exactly perpendicular to the ecliptic, in English the orbital plane, and by 9:33 it will be tentatively pointing toward the Sun again. And because we’re right on top of the vernal equinox the days are lengthening faster now than at any other time of the year. The rate of change will peak on the 21st then slow down to midsummer’s day when it stops dead and reverses when we begin the inexorable plunge to mid winter. But that’s another 3 months yet.

We may be able to just swing all 5 naked eye planets this week, but I warn you now it’s iffy and it means very little sleep. Mercury sets at 6:30 just behind the sun, but it may be visible in binoculars with a clear eastern horizon over the sea, so this is really for St Agnes and Bryher folk. Though you may get a view between Porth Looe and the golf club on St Mary’s. But if you can’t see Mercury you won’t be able to miss Venus if the conditions are right, it sets around 7:30 and is a very bright -3.9. Tonight the two inner planets will be accompanied by a very young moon, which reminds me it was a month ago last night that I photographed the 3 of them from the window of a jet, over Northern France.

Mars is still very much with us, now sadly faded to magnitude –0.2, it shines very high in the southeast at dusk and is due South by 8:30. It's in Cancer, below Pollux and Castor at nightfall and left of them later in the evening.

Saturn that most buoyant of planets, it being the only one that will in water float admittedly in a bath if heroic proportions. The ringed planet is at opposition on the 21st which means it rises as the sun sets and vice versa. And it will be due South at about 12:30, this week it setting at about 6:30 am just as Jupiter rises. The giant planet has passed from behind the sun and is setting around now before the sun at 4pm, which we can’t see. But it’s back in the late dawn sky just before the sun so it may be visible briefly. But by the 31st it’s up almost an hour before the sun so it may best to wait. We won’t see it again before midnight until early July, but by September it will rise around 8 and will be dominating the southern sky throughout the autumn and early winter, but let’s get the summer out of the way first.

If you’re champing at the bit to find Aires, as I’m sure most of you are. The moon is just off new at the moment and on Thursday at nightfall you’ll find it in the west at Sunset just after Venus has retired for the night in Aries, there’s a guide of on the blog. Now who am I to pass judgement on the ancient Greeks, though it’s not as if they can sue or anything, but they must have been on something pretty strong to be able to see a ram in that little pile of nondescript stars.

On the 20th the moon a little further up occults the Pleiades again and on Sunday it’s a little to the North of Taurus the bull, which to be fair is quite like a bulls head, with his bright baleful eye Aldebaran.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 4th anniversary The Federal Reserve discontinuing publishing the M3 money supply figures.