Tag Archives: Saturn

In the Sky This Week – January 21, 2020

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 132 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

We’re running a membership drive this month – our goal is 150 new members. Please subscribe and help support this website and VOF education and outreach programs. The constellation Orion appears high in the southwestern sky at midnight this week; at the latest meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society, the dimming of the star Betelgeuse was discussed – members mentioned that the star had almost dimmed to the level of the other three major stars in the constellation… which was “just weird.” Here's another comparison showing the dimming of #Betelgeuse – this time shot at 50mm focal length (and cropped in on Orion). At left is a shot from Jan 2019, right is the one from last night. Identical equipment/exposures/apertures etc. HQ version here: https://t.co/V2PGbskgVI pic.twitter.com/ailwKLfAdn — Will Gater (@willgater) January 19, 2020 Jupiter makes a return to the southeastern at dawn! Jupiter will appear very low on the horizon this week. Mars continues to appear near the star Antares … Continue reading →

ⓜ Pronouncing the Names of the Moons of Saturn…

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 5 of 4 in the series And Then I Wrote

…or, Pulling Teeth from Tethys (And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown.  In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure. Here’s an offprint of a paper I first published in the AGU newspaper EOS back in 1982, on a topic that is still current. At the time, I was a postdoc at MIT working on computer models of the moons of Saturn, which were just coming up in conversation for the … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 24, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 128 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

The waning crescent Moon joined Mars and the star Spica in the southeastern sky before sunrise on Dec. 24th – Mercury has vanished from the morning sky, and will return to the southwestern sky at dusk at the end of January 2020. Saturn and Venus continue to move away from each other in the southwestern sky after sunset each evening – Saturn is very low on the horizon; the waxing crescent Moon joins Venus and Saturn on the evenings of Dec.27-29. The red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the Constellation Orion appears high in the southern sky at midnight this week; this last week, I saw numerous tweets from astronomer about Betelgeuse, so I thought highlighting it might be appropriate. Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is generally the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion (after Rigel). It is a distinctly wreddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 17, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 127 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Saturn and Venus move away from each other each evening in the southwestern sky after sunset this week – by early next week, Saturn will be very low on the horizon. Mercury, Mars and the star Spica continue to align above the southeastern horizon before sunrise this week – Mercury is very low, and may be challenging to observe. The waning gibbous Moon appears in the eastern sky around midnight on Dec. 18th, the star Regulus nearby. A waning crescent Moon appears near the star Spica in the eastern sky around 4:00 AM on Dec. 21st. Asteroid Occultations More often than I thought, asteroids and transneptunian objects pass in front of stars, causing them to monetarily wink-out. This observing challenge is a rather more advanced than most, as it is best done with an 8 inch+ telescope, and if you intend on reporting your timings (kinda the point) you’ll need video recording equipment with time-insertion hardware, and the ability to … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 10, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 126 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

I mentioned the Starlink satellite constellation to students in my after-school astronomy and space science club, and afterwards got into a discussion about space junk. I told the students that when I was their age, there were only a handful of man-made objects in Earth orbit. Today, there are thousands of objects in orbit – some useful, many not so much. Many satellites and space probes require multi-stage rockets to get them into orbit and/or to their destination. When a rocket stage is spent, it decouples – and continues in whatever orbit the vessel was currently in at that moment. If the vessel was in a sub-orbital trajectory, the spent stage either burns up, or is guided back to a safe landing – as has been known to happen. If the vessel was in orbit at the moment of decoupling, the spent stage remains in that orbit, becoming space debris. When a satellite or space probe has reached the end … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – December 3, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 125 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

At last night’s meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society, the topic of the Starlink satellite constellation came up during the “In the News” segment, and a groan of dismay could be heard from the entire audience. If you are unfamiliar with Starlink, it is a constellation of potentially tens of thousands of communication satellites created by SpaceX with the goal of providing global high-speed internet – that concept sounds great! Starlink satellites during a meteor shower on Nov. 22. pic.twitter.com/wJVk1qu49E — Patrick Treuthardt, Ph.D. (@PTreuthardt) November 25, 2019 The first time I became aware of Starlink was after the 2nd satellite deployment mission of May of 2019, when 60 satellites were put into a 53° Earth orbit. Almost immediately satellite sightings started pouring in from around the world. Videos show a long trail of lights traversing the sky, virtually painting the orbits of the satellites in your mind’s eye, and literally painting them in the cameras of astronomers and astrophotographers … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 26, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 124 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Last week I had students in my after-school astronomy and space science club build and fly rockets in Kerbal Space Program. I had them launch and recover a small pre-made rocket, and build-from-scratch a sub-orbital crewed rocket, similar to a Mercury Redstone. The very next day, I gave the “In the News” report at the meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society – I shamelessly pulled material from my previous “In the Sky” post; I included a slide about the Europa Clipper mission, and a couple about mid-ocean rift ecosystems and extremophiles. There will be a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter low on the southwestern horizon all week; Saturn continues to appear high above the southwestern horizon, and makes for an excellent observing target after Jupiter and Venus have set. Kerbal Space Program has been posting bits of astronomy news and space history on their social media feeds lately – I approve! There's a Venus & Jupiter conjunction on Nov 24th. A conjunction … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 19, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 123 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

In last week’s session of my after-school club, the Endeavour Space Academy, I ran the students through a very quick tour of the solar system using both NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app, and the NASA Solar System Exploration website. Only a couple of the students knew anything at all about the solar system, so I covered the most important points in the 25 minutes available… I wish I had several more hours to cover everything! I asked the students if any of them knew about the Earth’s mid-ocean rifts – one said they were covering that in science class. I asked the student if she heard about the ecosystems that exist around the mid-ocean rifts, and extremophiles? I talked about the students about the possibility that similar sub-ocean rift systems might exist on several of the icy moons in the outer solar system, and what that might mean for the search for life. Saturn appears high above the … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 12, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 122 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

I hope you had better luck than I did seeing the transit of Mercury… a good portion of North America was shrouded in clouds – I got several inches of snow! Even the website I pointed readers to last week to view the transit online was not broadcasting due to clouds. I ended up watching it on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s (SDO) Eclipse website – clouds are never a problem for the SDO. Venus and Jupiter appear very low and Saturn appears  high in the southwestern sky after sunset this week over the week. Jupiter moves slightly towards the horizon, and Venus moves slightly southward toward Jupiter. By the beginning of next week Mercury returns, appearing low and Mars a bit higher above the eastern horizon before sunrise this week. If you are having trouble spotting Mercury, you can use Mars and the star Spica to star-hop in the general direction of Mercury. The Moon appears high in the sky at … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – November 5, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 121 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Jupiter is low on the horizon, and Saturn is high in the southwestern sky after sunset  this week. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. The Moon appears in the south-southeastern sky after sunset this week – going from first quarter, to a waxing gibbous, to full early next week. The full Moon appears high in the southeastern sky above the constellation Orion at 10:00 PM on Nov. 11th. The Pleiades star cluster (M 45) and the constellation Taurus with the bright red star Aldebaran appear nearly overhead at midnight all week. Venus appears low on the southwestern horizon after sunset   Transit of Mercury Transits occur when a planet or another body moves in between another distant body and an observer; transits of our Sun are rare and fascinating astronomical events, and one is happening on November 11, 2019 from 7:36 AM-1:04 PM EST! You will need a telescope to see Mercury cross the face of … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – October 22, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 119 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Saturn and Jupiter continue to be excellent observing targets in the southern sky after sunset; this last weekend. The Warren Astronomical Society hosted a boatload of girl and boy scouts at their Stargate Observatory this last weekend – I was with the girl scouts before dusk showing them a virtual reality fly-over of Saturn, another member was talking to the girls about meteorites. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. The Moon passes through the constellations Cancer and Leo in the mornings of Oct. 22-24th. A very VERY thin waning crescent Moon appears near to Mars above the eastern horizon before dawn on Oct. 26th. Venus and Mercury appear very close to each other in the southwestern sky at dusk on Oct. 22nd – if you use binoculars, and get Venus in your right field-of-view, Mercury will be in your left. Observing this may be a challenge if you have anything obscuring your view of the horizon. … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – October 15, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 118 of 133 in the series In the Sky This Week

Saturn and Jupiter are excellent observing targets all week after sunset – Jupiter is getting lower towards the horizon each evening. I’m also noting that it’s getting darker earlier each evening. The Moon appears in the predawn sky this week, moving from west to east; the waning gibbous Moon appears high in the western sky before sunrise on Oct. 15 & 16th. On Oct. 17 and 18th, the waning gibbous Moon appears near the star Aldebaran in the southwestern predawn sky. The third-quarter Moon appears high in the southern predawn sky near the star Pollux on Oct. 21st. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. Orion was again impossible to miss high in the southern predawn sky. Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is generally the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion (after Rigel). It is a distinctly reddish, semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between +0.0 and +1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. At near-infrared wavelengths, Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer … Continue reading →