Look Out For Space (Seven For Space)
This allowed farmers to work into the evening under bright moonlight. When the waning gibbous moon rises in the eastern sky at about 10 p. This will be their second close encounter this month.
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The moon and star will cross the sky together while the moon's eastward orbital motion green line will slowly carry it just above the star. Their minimum separation of 0. At that time, both objects will fit into the field of view of a backyard telescope orange circle. Sunday, September 30 at 9: The "Demon Star" Algol in Perseus is among the most accessible variable stars for beginner skywatchers. Its naked-eye brightness dims noticeably for about 10 hours once every 2 days, 20 hours, and 49 minutes because a dim companion star orbiting nearly edge-on to Earth crosses in front of the much brighter main star.
On Sunday, September 30 at 9: EDT, Algol will reach its minimum brightness of magnitude 3. At that time, it will sit partway up the northeastern horizon.
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EDT, it will be approaching the zenith and will have brightened to its usual magnitude of 2. Mercury will be visible low in the eastern pre-dawn sky during the first week of September.
Visually, the planet will continually brighten, and in a telescope, its apparent disk size will shrink and wax fuller. After the first third of September, Mercury will become hidden by the sun's glare — re-appearing well after its superior conjunction with the sun on September After conjunction, the speedy planet will commence an appearance in the western evening sky that will be poor for mid-northern latitude observers, but very good for Southern Hemisphere observers.
Venus' long evening apparition of will enter its closing stage during September. During the month, the planet will traverse the more southerly portion of its orbit, which lies below an already descending evening ecliptic.
So Venus will be pulled steadily closer to the western evening horizon while it swings back toward the sun. On September 1 the planet will be setting about 82 minutes after the sun, shortly after 9 p. That interval will be reduced to 38 minutes at month-end.
China, Russia, the U. When that happens, there's going to be an explosion of astrophysical fireworks that will help researchers measure the mass, gravity, magnetic field, stellar wind and disc properties. Your fist on an outstretched arm covers about 10 degrees of sky, while a finger covers about one degree. Observing the night sky can be done with no special equipment, although a sky map can be very useful, and a good beginner telescope or binoculars will enhance some experiences and bring some otherwise invisible objects into view. The duration record for a single spaceflight is
As Venus moves closer to Earth during September, it will wane to a crescent phase from 40 percent to 17 percent illuminated while growing in apparent disk diameter. It will continue to brighten until it reaches a peak in visual magnitude of Venus will remain among the stars of southern Virgo all month and pass less than 1. In the southwestern sky on the evening of Wednesday, September 12, the young waxing crescent moon will take up a position a fist's diameter above Venus, making a lovely wide field photo opportunity.
Mars , well positioned for viewing all month, will spend September moving eastward through the stars of western Capricornus. It will be relatively low in the southern evening sky and set in the wee hours after midnight. During the month, as Earth pulls away from the Red Planet, Mars will remain a bright reddish naked-eye object, but its visual brightness will be cut in half from magnitude Meanwhile, the planet's apparent disk diameter will decrease from On the evening of Wednesday, September 19, the waxing gibbous moon will sit about four finger widths above Mars.
The available time for observing Jupiter will shorten considerably during September. The very bright planet visual magnitude It will move eastward through the stars of central Libra, pulling away from the nearby bright double star Zubenelgenubi. Jupiter will set at around As Jupiter and the summer stars are carried west by Earth's orbital motion, Jupiter will move towards Venus; but that planet's westward passage towards the sun will prevent a close meeting of the pair of bright planets.
On the evening of Thursday, September 13, the young crescent moon will be situated 4 finger widths to the upper right of Jupiter. That pairing, when combined with Venus below them, will make a lovely wide field photo opportunity. Saturn will be visible during September as a medium-bright visual magnitude 0. Look for it just to the left of the Milky Way, among the stars that form Sagittarius' teapot-shaped asterism.
On Thursday, September 6, Saturn will complete a westward retrograde loop with respect to the distant stars that began in April and resume its regular eastward motion. The planet's rings, which subtend an angular size of about 40 arc-seconds, continue to be well open because the planet's northern pole is tilted roughly sunward.
On the evening of Monday, September 17, look for the first quarter moon sitting 4 finger widths to the upper left of Saturn. Blue-green Uranus magnitude 5. In early September, Uranus will be observable all night after rising in the eastern sky before 10 p. By month's end it will be approaching opposition and rising shortly after dusk.
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The bright waning gibbous moon will sit a palm's width to the lower right of Uranus on September 4. On Friday, September 7, blue-tinted Neptune will reach opposition, the date when it will be directly opposite the sun in the sky, visible all night, and closest and brightest magnitude 7.
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Used to describe a planet or moon that is more than 50 percent illuminated. A noteworthy or striking pattern of stars within a larger constellation. Degrees measuring the sky: The sky is degrees all the way around, which means roughly degrees from horizon to horizon. It's easy to measure distances between objects: Your fist on an outstretched arm covers about 10 degrees of sky, while a finger covers about one degree.
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This is the astronomer's scale for measuring the brightness of objects in the sky. The dimmest object visible in the night sky under perfectly dark conditions is about magnitude 6. Brighter stars are magnitude 2 or 1.
The brightest objects get negative numbers. Venus can be as bright as magnitude minus 4. The full moon is minus How the lunar cycle works, from full moon to new moon. Two of the best ones to look out for are the Perseids, which will be peaking of August with up to 60 meteors per hour, and the Geminids, which will be peaking December with up to meteors per hour. If you want to try to see as many meteor showers as possible, you can find a very comprehensive calendar here , and a more simple calendar here. The first image of a black hole, created in In April this year, a multi-telescope project called the Event Horizon Telescope made a no-holds-barred attempt to photograph the event horizon of a black hole - not the black hole itself, but the point of no return, where the pull of the object is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
We're so excited, for real. Friends, it is maybe not quite official: Earthlings are going back to the Moon. The last person to set foot on its surface was NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan in , and next year, well, we may not get back there personally, but there's a whole bunch of nifty Moon stuff percolating. For starters, India is putting a rover on the Moon for the first time in the country's history in , and that's rad. SpaceX also said it's planning a trip to lunar orbit - with two private citizens on board although it's been pretty quiet about it for a while.
China's Chang'e 4 and Chang'e 5 are going to be conducting a dark side exploration and sample return mission respectively. There have also been rumblings of the US sending humans back to the Moon, and don't forget Google's Lunar XPrize - a competition for private entities to put a robotic rover on the Moon. Well, boy, you're going to love !