12/30/11 – Ephemeris – The best 2012 astronomical events

Friday, December 30th.  The sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:10.   The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:02 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look ahead at next year’s astronomical events for this last Ephemeris of 2011.  What won’t happen will be the end of the world on December 21st.  There is no planet Nibiru.  The closest alignment of the sun at the winter solstice and the center of the galaxy was in 1997.  What will happen is partial eclipse of the sun, or about a half hour of it, before sunset on May 20th.  An extremely rare transit of Venus, that is the planet Venus will cross the face of the sun on June 5th for us.  We’ll see about 3 hours of it before sunset that day.  The sun will continue to be more active next year with more sunspots and more displays of the northern lights.  It will also be a good year for the Perseid meteor shower of August and the Geminids of December.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/29/11 – Ephemeris – Astronomical highlights from 2011

Thursday, December 29th.  The sun will rise at 8:18.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:10.   The moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 11:00 this evening.

Let’s look at the best astronomical events of 2011.  To my mind Comet Lovejoy’s survival near the sun is one.  The announcements from the Kepler satellite keep coming in.  Over 2000 planets in other solar systems suspected including a planet 2.4 times the size of the earth in its star’s habitable zone, two planets of another star about the size of the earth and a planet with two suns.  A fourth moon of Pluto was discovered, worrying scientists operating the New Horizons spacecraft that will reach Pluto in 3 and a half years that there may be a debris field around the dwarf planet.  This year the MESSENGER satellite gained orbit of the innermost planet Mercury, and the Dawn spacecraft began orbiting the asteroid Vesta.  Those are just a sample.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/28/11 – Ephemeris – Where are the planets this week?

Wednesday, December 28th.  The sun will rise at 8:18.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 5:09.   The moon, half way from new to first quarter, will set at 9:56 this evening.

It’s Wednesday and time again to take a look at the whereabouts of the bright planets.  The planet Venus is prominent in the southwestern twilit sky after sunset setting at 7:48 after the end of twilight.  Jupiter is the most prominent planet of the evening sky, once Venus sets.  It’s located high in the south and is seen against the stars of the constellation Aries.  It will pass due south at 8:08 p.m.  It will set at 2:53 a.m.. Mars will rise at 11:08 p.m in the east northeast and will be in the constellation Leo.  Mars will be due south at 5:38 a.m.  It is 98.4 million miles away and closing.  Saturn will rise at 2:32 a.m. just to the left of the bright star Spica in the east southeast.  Of all the planets, Jupiter and Saturn look best in that new Christmas telescope.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/27/11 – Ephemeris – The constellation of Eridanus the river

Tuesday, December 27th.  The sun will rise at 8:18.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 5:08.   The moon, 3 days past new, will set at 8:49 this evening.

One of the more obscure constellations around is Eridanus, which depicts a river.  The river starts near the lower right corner of Orion, near the bright star Rigel and flows to the right then down near the southwestern horizon, then it meanders along the horizon to the south before turning below the horizon.  One has to travel to the far south to see the southern terminus of the river, the bright star Achernar.  Writers over the ages  have seen here the Nile and the earth circling river Ocean of the flat earth days.  Achernar was recently discovered to be the flattest star, due to its rapid spin.  The dimensions of Achernar have been determined to be twice as wide across its equator than from pole to pole.  It’s 139 light years away.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

Addendum

The constellation Eridanus the river, both above and below the horizon. Created using Cartes du Ciel.

The light curved line with the directions SE and S s the horizon from Traverse City, MI.

12/26/11 – Ephemeris – Comet Lovejoy wows southern hemisphere observers

Monday, December 26th.  The sun will rise at 8:18.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:07.   The moon, 2 days past new, will set at 7:40 this evening.

Comet Lovejoy has been the morning Christmas comet for folks in the southern hemisphere for the past week.  After whipping around the sun and losing its tail comet Lovejoy grew another brighter tail that has been greeting early risers in the southern hemisphere since the 17th..  It surprised the astronauts on the International Space Station, who were not given the heads up in advance.  However they did get some great time lapse movies of the comet rising.  From the ground the tail rose for 40 or so minutes before the head.  The comet is moving away from the sun so its heads out tail first.  Comet Lovejoy hasn’t made it big on normal news channels, but astronomical sites on the Internet have been buzzing with the latest news.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

Addendum

www.spaceweather.com is a great place to start.  Look in their archives for the past week too.

12/23/11 – Ephemeris – This year’s Christmas stars

Friday, December 23rd.  The sun will rise at 8:17.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:06.   The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 8:04 tomorrow morning.

We have two bright planets and the brightest nighttime star out to be our Christmas stars this year.  The planet Venus appears in the southwest in the evening and in seen higher and higher each evening, leading the sun in its slow climb as we move through winter into spring.  Jupiter holds forth high in the south, the brightest star-like object once Venus sets.  The brightest of all the night-time stars is Sirius, whose name means “Dazzling One”  rising higher in the southeast, whiter than any planet with a tinge of blue, especially when seen in binoculars or a telescope.. It is accompanied by the rest of the bright stars of winter, including those of the great constellation Orion the hunter, whose three stars of his belt point down and to the left at Sirius.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/22/11 – Ephemeris – Winter is here!

Thursday, December 22nd.  The sun will rise at 8:16.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:05.   The moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 7:06 tomorrow morning.

At 12:30 this morning the sun reached its farthest southerly travel and is now slowly beginning to turn northward again.  That point was the winter solstice, or to be more general the December solstice, because in the southern hemisphere of the earth summer has arrived, while we star winter.  December 21st is the usual day of the solstice, and it will be again next year because next year is the leap year and will set the calendar back to match the seasons.  The adding of the extra day every 4 years came under the auspices of Julius Caesar and gave us the Julian calendar.  It slightly over corrected the calendar.  The latest adjustment was the Gregorian reform that will fix the calendar for the next few millennia.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/21/11 – Ephemeris – Where are the bright planets this week?

Wednesday, December 21st.  The sun will rise at 8:16.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:04.   The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:58 tomorrow morning.

It’s Wednesday and time again to take a look at the whereabouts of the bright planets.  The planet Venus is prominent in the southwestern twilit sky after sunset setting at 7:30.  Jupiter is now the most prominent planet of the evening sky located in the high in the south and is seen against the stars of the constellation Aries.  It will pass due south at 8:36 p.m.  It will set at 3:20 a.m.. Mars will rise at 11:25 p.m in the east northeast and will be in the constellation Leo.  Mars will be due south at 6:01 a.m.  It is 105 million miles away and closing.  Saturn will rise at 2:57 a.m. just to the left of the bright star Spica in the east southeast.  Winter starts at 12:30 tomorrow morning.  I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

12/20/11 – Ephemeris – Procyon, the “Little Dog Star”

Tuesday, December 20th.  The sun will rise at 8:15.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:04.   The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 4:45 tomorrow morning.

Visible low in the east at 9 p.m. appears the star Procyon  to its lower left is Sirius the brightest night time star.  Procyon is the bright star in the constellation Canis Minor, or lesser dog.  I can find only one other star in Canis Minor.  Perhaps it’s a hot dog.  If Sirius, in Canis major is the Dog Star then Procyon should be the Little Dog Star.  However Procyon is an interesting name.  It means “Before the dog”, which is an allusion to the fact that Procyon, though east of Sirius actually rises before it.  This is due to Procyon’s more northerly position.  This effect doesn’t work south of the equator, however.  Procyon is a star much like Sirius but farther away.  [It’s 11.41 to Sirius’ 8.6 light years away.  And like Sirius it even has a small white dwarf star in its system.]

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  Text in brackets was omitted in the audio program due to time constraints.

Addendum

Procyon, Sirius and the stars of winter. Created using Stellarium

The grid lines are right ascension and declination, analogous to longitude and latitude on the earth.  Looking eastward the right ascension lined run from the upper left to the lower right.  Thus Procyon is definitely farther east than Sirius.

12/19/11 – Ephemeris – Comet Lovejoy survives!

Monday, December 19th.  The sun will rise at 8:14.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:04.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:29 tomorrow morning.

Comet Lovejoy surprised most astronomers by surviving its encounter with the sun last Thursday evening.  By Friday morning it was receding from the sun minus its tail.  The tail it had approaching the sun was still there, but what emerged looked like a really bright star.  It fooled me until I saw the animated images that showed the comet disappearing around the left side of the sun and a bright star-like object emerge on the right.  As Friday wore on comet Lovejoy began to grow a new tail.  Over the weekend images came in from all the six solar monitoring satellites.  All had recorded the comet, and some as the comet came very close to the sun to see the interaction of the comet’s tail with the sun’s corona.  The comet has since been picked up from the ground.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

Addendum

The comet has been photographed by a Las Vegas astronomer in the morning before sunrise!

For more information go to www.spaceweather.com.  Checkout the archive pages too!

Here is a US Navy site following Comet Lovejoy:  http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=news/birthday_comet

For Scott:  I haven’t seen a good magnitude on it yet.  It’s going to be a southern hemisphere object.

Here’s a link to the Elements and Ephemeris of the comet from the Minor Planet Center: http://scully.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/returnprepeph.cgi?d=c&o=CK11W030