STAR GAZER
THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Lorain County JVS NASA CORE / 15181 Route 58 South / 440/775-1400
/ FAX 440/775-1460 / nasaco@leeca.org / http://core.nasa.gov
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and mark next
Wednesday, April 16th, as the night when you'll see both the biggest
and brightest and closest full Moon of the entire year. And planet
#1, Mercury at its best for the entire year. Let me show you.
O.K, we've got our skies set up for next Wednesday April 16th
about 45 minutes after sunset facing west where you'll see several
familiar objects. Orion the Hunter easily identified by the three
equally spaced stars which make up his belt, plus two bright stars
which are his shoulders and two bright stars which are his knees.
And off to his right the 6th planet out from the Sun whose rings
are tilted at their best for viewing in thirty years, 75,000 mile
wide Saturn which is snuggled right up next to one of the two
stars that mark the tips of the horns of Taurus the Bull whose
bright red eye star Aldebaran glows red in the twilight. And down
to its right the tiny cluster of stars which rides Taurus' shoulder,
The Seven Sisters, the Pleiades and below them the tiny pink planet
made almost entirely out of iron, the planet closest to the Sun,
Mercury named for the swift messenger of the gods because it changes
its position so swiftly in the night sky; so swiftly that if you
don't catch it this week or next it will disappear as it rapidly
falls back toward the Sun and is lost in its glare.
Now Mercury is called the most elusive of all the naked eye planets precisely because like a moth to a flame it spends most of its time so close to the Sun we can't see it. You see because Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, it zips around the Sun much faster than our Earth does which is planet #3. At a distance of only 36 million miles from the Sun compared to our Earth's 93 million, Mercury makes one trip around the Sun once every 88 days compared to our Earth which makes one trip every 365 days. Which means that Mercury alternately flips east and west of the Sun as seen from Earth which results in its making several brief appearances a year alternating between the morning sky just before sunrise and the evening sky just after sunset. And next week's appearance is its best evening appearance for the entire year when Mercury reaches its farthest separation east of the Sun as seen from Earth on Wednesday the 16th. So catch the pink iron planet now.
And then after you've found it look toward
the east and you'll see a spectacular full Moon rising. And in
case you think it looks bigger and brighter than usual you're
absolutely right because next Wednesday night we'll be treated
to the closest full Moon of the year when it will be only 222,000
miles away from us which is 30,000 miles closer than the farthest
full Moon of this year on December 8th. In fact next Wednesdays
full Moon will be over 13% bigger and 20% brighter! So mark next
Wednesday April 16th as M and M night. M for Mercury at its best
and m for the closest, biggest, brightest full Moon of 2003. Who
could ask for anything more? I'm Jack Horkheimer, Keep Looking
Up!
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Horkheimer: On Wednesday April 16th you'll see both the closest and biggest full Moon of the entire year and Mercury at its best. Just after sunset and below The Seven Sisters look for tiny pink planet # 1 Mercury at its highest for the year. Then face east and you'll see the closest, biggest and brightest full Moon of the year, only 222,000 miles away which is 30,000 miles closer than the farthest full moon of December. In fact next Wednesdays full Moon will be over 13 % bigger and 20% brighter. April 16th is M and M night. M for Mercury at its best and M for a Moon so big it'll knock your socks off. I'm Jack Horkheimer, Keep Looking Up!
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* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only.
Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star Gazer
Lorain County JVS NASA CORE / 15181 Route 58 South / 440/775-1400 / FAX 440/775-1460 / nasaco@leeca.org / http://core.nasa.gov
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow planet
gazers and would you believe, right now you can see all five of
the naked eye planets. Let me show you. O.K., we've got our skies
set up for next week Monday the 21st just after it gets dark out
facing west. And if you have a flat unobstructed horizon you will
see the first planet out from the sun, tiny 3,000 mile wide Mercury
still at its best for evening viewing for the entire year. It
will look very pink and will be very close to the horizon. But
after next week it will be almost impossible to find. So see it
now.
Up above Mercury are our old friends The Pleiades, The Seven Sisters. And up to their left Taurus the Bull with his red eye Aldebaran which will equal pink Mercury in brightness. And above Aldebaran my favorite planet, the one that still has its rings tilted at their best for viewing in 30 years, 75,000 mile wide Saturn. And just to the side of it through a small telescope you'll see an object called The Crab Nebula because in time exposure photographs it resembles a crab. In fact however, it is the giant debris field of a great star that tore itself to shreds in a gigantic supernova explosion which was actually seen and recorded in China almost a thousand years ago in July of 1054. The Crab is also famous because in 1968 astronomers found at its center the first visible object to be identified as a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star which is the stellar corpse of the once great star that exploded. A stellar corpse whose material is so densely packed that a teaspoon of its substance would weigh several tons on Earth.
And if you are fortunate enough to see both The Crab Nebula and Saturn through a telescope next week keep in mind that Saturn is so close that it takes its light only 79 minutes to reach our Earth whereas The Crab is so far away it takes its light 6,500 years to reach us. Wow! Now you can not fail to notice the bright stars of Orion the Hunter off to the side of Saturn and above Saturn the twin stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux. But just above Castor and Pollux you'll also see 88,000 mile wide Jupiter. And if you haven't seen it through a telescope please do so now.
Three planets in early evening, Mercury, Saturn
and Jupiter. So where are the other two? Well to see them you'll
have to get up about 45 minutes before sunrise. And if you do
it next Wednesday the 23rd you'll see an exquisite last quarter
Moon parked directly underneath 4,000 mile wide Mars which is
rapidly brightening every single day and which is now almost 400%
brighter than it was on January 1st. Look down and to Mars' left,
almost due east, and you'll see the brightest planet of them all,
8,000 mile wide Venus, and on Sunday the 27th an exquisite crescent
Moon will be parked just to the right of it making a cosmic picture
that will be absolutely breathtaking. Mars and the Moon on Wednesday,
Venus and the Moon on Sunday. Plus Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn
in early evening attended by the fabulous Crab Nebula. I'm Jack
Horkheimer, Keep Looking Up!
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Horkheimer: Right now we can see all five naked
eye planets plus a stellar corpse. Just after dark face west and
you'll see 3,000 mile wide Mercury, The 7 Sisters, Aldebaran,
and 75,000 mile wide Saturn parked right next to The Crab nNebula
which is a giant debris field of a great star that tore itself
to shreds in a supernova explosion which was actually seen in
1054. And above Orion and Castor and Pollux, 88,000 mile wide
Jupiter. Look east before sunrise on the 23rd for our Moon parked
underneath 4,000 mile wide Mars which is now almost 400 % brighter
than it was January 1st. And on the 27th a fabulous crescent Moon
will be parked right next to 8,000 mile wide Venus. Keep Looking
Up!
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* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star GazerLorain County JVS NASA CORE / 15181 Route 58 South / 440/775-1400 / FAX 440/775-1460 / nasaco@leeca.org / http://core.nasa.gov
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers.
As most of you know every April I like to call attention to the
Big Dipper because of its position in early evening. And also
because you can use the Dipper's handle to find two of my favorite
spring stars. Let me show you. O.K., we've got our skies set up
for any night in April between the hours of 8 and 10 looking due
north where you will see the seven stars which make up the Big
Dipper almost directly above and just to the right of the north
star; its cup pointed down which always reminds me of that old
saying, "April showers bring May flowers." because every
April the Big Dipper's cup is indeed positioned in such a way
that its celestial water would be showering out of the heavens
down onto our Earth below.
And as any amateur star gazer can tell you, whenever the Big Dipper is high in the heavens it's easy to use its handle to find two wonderful spring stars who are as unlike as can be. So although some of you have done this a thousand times before I'm sure there are many of you who have never heard of "Arcing to Arcturus and speeding on to Spica" because that's how you can find these two wonderful stars. Simply draw an imaginary line through the handle of the Big Dipper and extend it in the same curve or arc and arc your way to the brighter of the two stars, Arcturus. Then extend that curve, that arc, from Arcturus and speed on to our second wonderful spring star Spica, the brightest star of Virgo the Virgin. Once again using the Big Dipper's handle and its curve, arc to Arcturus, then speed on to Spica.
And now that you know how to find them, I'll
tell you why they're so wonderful. Super bright Arcturus is relatively
close, only 35 light years away which makes it 8 times closer
than Spica which is 265 light years away. And although Spica is
8 times as wide as our million mile wide Sun, Arcturus is a whopping
21 times as wide. Which would seem to be another reason Arcturus
looks so much brighter. But that's not true at all! You see, even
though Arcturus is much, much larger than Spica, it is a much
cooler and thus intrinsically dimmer star. In fact, its surface
temperature is only 9000 degrees fahrenheit whereas Spica's surface
temperature is a whopping 46,000 degrees fahrenheit. Which means
that if we could put Spica and Arcturus side by side, Spica would
appear 20 times brighter than arcturus. The only reason Spica
doesn't look as bright to us is because it's so much farther away.
But the really mind boggling thing about these two spring stars
is their incredible speed in relation to our planet Earth. You
see Spica is flying away from us at a speed of 2000 miles per
hour while Arcturus is racing toward us at the incredible speed
of 12,000 miles per hour; which is so fast that Arcturus will
eventually pass us. And in just a few hundred thousand years won't
even be visible to the naked eye. So before it's too late, run
out and find the Big Dipper, arc to Arcturus, then speed on to
Spica. I'm Jack Horkheimer, Keep Looking Up!
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Horkheimer: Every April in early evening you can
use the Big Dipper's handle to find two wonderful spring stars.
Look north for the Big Dipper, then shoot an arrow through its
handle in the same curving arc and you'll arc to Arcturus. Continue
that arc and you'll speed on to Spica. Brighter Arcturus is 8
times closer than Spica and is 3 times as wide but, strangely,
Spica is intrinsically much brighter because its surface temperature
is 37,000 degrees hotter than Arcturus. Which means that if Spica
was as close to us as Arcturus, Spica would appear 20 times brighter.
What a sight that would be! I'm Jack Horkheimer, Keep Looking
Up!
How did you like this episode?
Please give us your comments. (Click
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* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star GazerLorain County JVS NASA CORE / 15181 Route 58 South / 440/775-1400 / FAX 440/775-1460 / nasaco@leeca.org / http://core.nasa.gov
Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and mark late evening May 15th and early morning May 16th on your calendar as the night of the first of the two total lunar eclipses of 2003 visible over North and South America, the second being November 9th. Let me show you. O.K., let's imagine that we're out in space looking down on our Earth, Moon and Sun. Now as most of you know, our Moon does not make its own light. Moonlight is really reflected sunlight. And one half of the Moon is lit up by the Sun at all times. Although the only time we see the half of the Moon that is completely lit up is when we have a full Moon which occurs every month whenever the Moon is directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth.
Now usually when we have a full Moon the Moon is either above or below the plane of our Earth's orbit. But occasionally the full Moon will glide directly into our Earth's plane and will pass directly through our Earth's shadow cone which will block most of the Sun's light from reaching it. In other words our Earth's shadow will eclipse the light of the Sun. So we call such an event an eclipse. Now during an eclipse the Moon never completely disappears but always turns some weird shade of reddish-copperish-orange. And that's because the red rays of sunlight are always bent by our Earth's atmosphere into our Earth's shadow. So our shadow is always filled with a faint reddish-copperish-orange light. So during a total lunar eclipse the reddish orange color you see is actually light from all the sunrises and sunsets around the world being refracted into our Earth's shadow, then onto the Moon, and then reflected back again. And that's what you'll see Thursday night and Friday morning, May 15-16.
Now if we could look at our Earth's shadow
cone more closely we would see that there are two distinct parts
to it. A pale outer shadow called the penumbra and a smaller dark
shadow called the umbra. The Moon will start to enter the penumbra
at 9:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time or your local equivalent, and
for the next hour it will slowly glide into it and you may see
a slight dimming. But the real action begins at 10:03 when the
moon starts to enter the umbra. Because as minute after minute
goes by you'll actually see our Earth's curved shadow slowly creep
across the moon. And as it does the Moon will gradually darken
and change color. And at 11:14 p.m. total eclipse will begin and
the Moon will have changed into some marvelous, unpredictable
color of reddish copper orange. The deepest and most intense part
of the eclipse will be at 11:40 p.m. And totality will end at
12:07 a.m. After which the whole process will reverse. And ta
da! next week i'll give you tips on how to really enjoy this wonderful
event and explain the mysterious moon/mars eclipse connection.
In the meantime, check our website and Keep Looking Up!
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Horkheimer: Late Thursday night May 15th and early
Friday morning the 16th North America will experience the first
of two total lunar eclipses for 2003. A total lunar eclipse occurs
whenever the full Moon glides directly into our Earth's shadow
which blocks most of the Sun's light from reaching it, because
moon light is nothing more than reflected sun light. There is
always however some red sun light which is bent by our Earth's
atmosphere into the shadow. So during a total eclipse the Moon
will always turn some strange shade of reddish-copper orange.
The eclipse begins at 10:03 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time or your
equivalent and ends at 1:18. Go to our website for more. Keep
Looking Up!
How did you like this episode?
Please give us your comments. (Click
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* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.
This week's Sky At A Glance displays current week only
Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star Gazer
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