When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Exploring the cosmos
A penumbral lunar eclipse will be visible from western North America, across the Pacific to much of Asia. This is a fairly minor eclipse, with the Moon passing through the outer penumbral shadow of the Earth. A careful observer will note the light of the full Moon dimmed. As the Moon will not enter the darker umbral shadow the effects of this eclipse will not be obvious.
Tonight the Moon will be about 7° away from Jupiter, a bright pair rising together in the eastern sky after sunset. Tomorrow, November 28th, will see the Moon east of Jupiter, but even closer, just under 5° away.
In the few days I had the camera I was determined to acquire some astrophotography test shots with the EOS-M camera. Even if it meant getting up at 3am to have some dark sky after moonset. It would have been easier a few days before, but a Pacific storm system had provided several days of overcast with occasional rain. This particular morning was just about perfect, clear skies, decent seeing and no wind to bounce the telescope around.
The result is an f/7 optical system with 1080mm focal length. This gives a field of view of about 72×48 arc-minutes (1.2 x 0.8 degrees) on the sky when using a camera with an APS-C sensor.
Tomorrow morning, November 26th, will see a very close rendezvous of Venus and Saturn in the dawn. The two will be less than a degree apart, with a separation of only 40 arc-minutes. This will put both planets in the same low power telescopic view. The pair will rise about 04:30HST and be well up, nearly 30° above the horizon, at sunrise.
This is a mismatched pair, with Venus dominating the view at a brilliant -4.0 magnitude. Saturn will be far dimmer at 0.6 magnitude.
Over the coming days, Venus and Saturn will rendezvous in the dawn. Already drawing close, the pair is separated by less than 4° this morning. Close approach will be on the morning of the 26th when the separation will be only 40 arc-minutes. The two will remain close for about a week, the separation having grown to over 4° on the morning of the 30th.
This is a mismatched pair, with Venus dominating the view at a brilliant -4.0 magnitude. Saturn will be far dimmer at 0.6 magnitude.
Mercury is beginning its third and final dawn apparition of the year. Today the planet will be over 10° from the Sun, rising a little further each day until maximum elongation on December 4th. There will be a nice trio with the Moon and Venus around December 11th.
Günther Hasinger
University of Hawai’i
Black Holes and the Fate of the Universe
The character and distribution of stellar and supermassive black holes is a fascinating and rapidly changing area of astronomy research. Recently, the W. M. Keck Observatory has confirmed supermassive black holes are in the centers of most nearby galaxies, including our own Milky Way. A tight relationship exists between black hole mass and the properties of their host galaxies. New instrument capabilities, like those planned at Keck, will reveal even more about the nature of black holes and how they play a role in the ongoing evolution of the universe and everything in it.
7:00 PM
Gates Performing Arts Center Auditorium
Hawaii Preparatory Academy
65-1692 Kohala Mtn. Rd., Waimea
Seating is limited to first come, first served.
Doors Open at 6:30 PM
Free and Open to the Public
To quote Douglas Adams… “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”
We are accustomed to using miles or kilometers when considering distance. These are the distances that we experience in our everyday lives. Driving to work or the supermarket, we do not travel very far compared to the distances faced by those who study the stars. Those wanting to discuss distances beyond our little planet, the distances to the stars and galaxies face a quandary… The universe is just too big, when using these familiar units the number of zeros become impractical and the numbers cease to be convenient, or even understandable. To express distances in the cosmos, astronomers just need a bigger tape measure.
In a few minutes light travels across our solar system, in a few years it can reach the nearby stars. Thus a distance unit that makes sense in astronomy… The light-year, the distance light travels in a single year. With this we have a convenient unit of distance, one that links the concepts of distance and time. A simple bit of math converts the light-year into familiar units… 9.45 trillion kilometers or 5.86 trillion miles.
Continue reading “Light-years, Light-minutes and Light-seconds”
Today the planet Mercury passes through inferior conjunction, passing between the Sun and the Earth. In a week or so the planet will again be visible in the dawn sky, climbing higher each day. Maximum elongation will occur December 4th.
W. M. Keck Observatory press release…
Lowell astronomer Evgenya Shkolnik and her collaborators have published a set of directions for searching out exoplanets, using W. M. Keck Observatory spectroscopy.
Their paper, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, examined new and existing data from stars and brown dwarfs that are less than 300 million years old, as determined from strong X-ray emission readings. In all, the authors identified 144 young targets for exoplanet searches, with 20 very strong candidates, according to Dr. Shkolnik. This candidate list is being searched for planets with Gemini’s NICI Planet-Finding Campaign and the Planets Around Low-Mass Stars survey, led by astronomer Michael Liu and graduate student Brendan Bowler, respectively, both at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai‘i.
Continue reading “Lowell Astronomer Prints Roadmap for Planet Hunters”