05/15/2020 – Ephemeris – Virgo and its cluster of galaxies

This is Ephemeris for Friday, May 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 9:04, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:12. The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 4:01 tomorrow morning.

One of the large constellations we see in the south at 11 p.m. can be found using the Big Dipper overhead, follow the arc of the handle to the bright star Arcturus, the straighten the arc to a spike to reach Spica, a bright blue-white star in the south. Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo the virgin. She represents the goddess of the harvest, Virgo is holding a sheaf of wheat in depictions of her, and Spica is placed at the head of the sheaf. In the space between Spica and Leo the lion to her upper right is, a great cluster of thousands of galaxies just below naked eye visibility. The Virgo Cluster. Inside that cluster is galaxy M87 in whose center lies a black hole with the mass of 6.5 billion suns that was imaged last year. The center of the cluster is at about 54 million light years away.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Spica finder animation . Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

Some of the brighter members of the Virgo Cluster (of galaxies) as red ovals. The galaxies marked with an ‘M’ number are part of Charles Messier’s catalog. It took a telescope of 8 inch diameter for me to spot them. Someone with better vision, like Messier himself can spot them with a smaller telescope. M53 and the object next to it are globular star clusters in the outer reaches of our galaxy. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Markarian Chain of galaxies within the Virgo Cluster by Scott Anttila.

The first image of the black hole in M87. Credit Event Horizon Telescope.

 

 

05/14/2020 – Ephemeris – Finding the zodiacal constellation of Virgo

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 9:03, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:14. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 3:36 tomorrow morning.

Tonight at 11 p.m. in the south is the constellation and member of the of the zodiac: Virgo the virgin. Virgo is a large constellation of a reclining woman holding a stalk of wheat. Spica, is the head of that spike of wheat; and as such it ruled over the harvest in two of Virgo’s guises as the goddesses Persephone and Ceres. Virgo is also identified as Astraea the goddess of justice. The constellation of Libra, the scales, which she is associated with, is found just east of her low in the southeast. Early Christians who sought to de-paganize the heavens saw Virgo as the Virgin Mary. Virgo is the host to a great cluster of galaxies seen far beyond its stars. Tomorrow morning Mars will appear just above the Moon for very early risers.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Virgo finder animation with Leo added as an aid for 11 p.m. tonight May 14th. Click on image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

Virgo as depicted in Urania’s Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825. From the Library of Congress. Hat tip Wikipedia.

05/13/2020 – Ephemeris – Let’s look at the naked-eye planets for this week

This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 13th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 46 minutes, setting at 9:02, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:15. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 3:08 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look at the naked-eye planets for this week. Venus is our evening star shining brightly in the west. It will be our evening star for only the next 3 weeks. A tiny crescent can now be seen in binoculars. It will cross between the Earth and the Sun on June 3rd. It will set at 11:43 p.m. It’s only 33 million miles (53 million km) away. In the morning sky there are three planets fairly close together in the south-southeast with the Moon among them tomorrow morning. Bright Jupiter will rise first at 1:35 a.m. Followed by Saturn at 1:50 a.m. Mars, is stretching its lead left of Saturn and will rise at 3:14 a.m. Mars is getting closer to us all the time now, until it closest to us in October of this year.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Venus in evening twilight and bright evening stars tonight at 10 p.m. May 13, 2020. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

Morning planets and the Moon in twilight at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, May 14, 2020. The Moon is shown at three times its actual size. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

The Moon as it might be seen in binoculars at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow May 14, 2020. Created using Stellarium.

The planets as seen in a telescope with the same magnification. Venus, Jupiter and Saturn on the night of May 13/14, 2020. Apparent diameters: Venus, 47.88″. larger than Jupiter, at 42.46″; Saturn, 17.32″, rings, 40.35″. Mars at 8.28″ won’t be added until it reaches 10″. The ” symbol means seconds of arc (1/3600th of a degree.) Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on May 13, 2020. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 14th. The closeness of Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky unfortunately overlays planets and labels. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.

05/12/2020 – Ephemeris – Hydra the water snake slithers along the southern horizon

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 44 minutes, setting at 9:01, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:16. The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 2:33 tomorrow morning.

Low in the south and southwestern sky at 10 p.m. and later can be found the constellation of Hydra the water snake. Unlike the monster of the same name this Hydra has but one head, which is its most distinctive part. At 11 p.m. the head of Hydra is located between the bright stars Procyon in the west southwest and Regulus in Leo the lion in the southwest. Hydra’s head is a small but distinctive group of 6 stars that make a drooping loop to the right. The rest of Hydra wends its way diagonally to near the southern horizon below the bright blue star Spica in Virgo. Some delineations of Hydra have the tail tickling the constellation Libra which has just risen in the southeast.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Hydra finder animation for tonight, May 12, 2020. Hydra is the longest constellation. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

 

05/11/2020 – Ephemeris – Looking out of the Milky Way in May

This is Ephemeris for Monday, May 11th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 9:00, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:17. The Moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:51 tomorrow morning.

When it’s finally dark enough to see the stars in a dark sky at the end of astronomical twilight at 11 p.m. the question might be: “Where did the Milky Way go?” The band of the Milky Way is actually nearly ringing the horizon. Part of it runs through the W shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, just above the northern horizon. But the great amount of the Earth’s atmosphere we have to look through that low in the sky dims it to invisibility. The Milky Way is what we see of our galaxy, or more accurately our part of our galaxy whose shape has the rough proportions of a pancake. Remember, we’re in it. In spring we’re mostly looking through the thin side past relatively nearby stars to the intergalactic space beyond.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The Dome of the sky on May 15, 2020 at 11 pm with the Milky Way at its lowest in the sky. Credit my LookingUp program.

Our place in the Milky Way. Note that we appear to be in a barred spiral galaxy. The arms are numbered and named. 3kpc is the 3 kiloparsec arm. 3kpc = 9,780 light years. The Sun is about 27,000 light years from the center. Credit NASA and Wikimedia Commons, via EarthSky.org.

The summer and winter Milky Way viewing directions. During Spring and Autumn, we look out the sides to the universe beyond. Credit Credit: NASA with annotations by Bob King at Universe Today.

05/08/2020 – Ephemeris – A look at Mars 2020 Endurance Rover’s target crater: Jezero

This is Ephemeris for Friday, May 8th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 8:56, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:21. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 10:43 this evening.

The Mars 2020 Rover will be launched on July 17th or thereabouts to land at the crater Jezero* on the Red Planet. What’s the big deal about Jezero? In very early Martian history the crater was filled with water with a river flowing into it. What’s left is a dry river delta. The landing ellipse target for the rover will land it near the leading edge of that delta. Spectral analysis from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected clays that can contain, on Earth, fossils of single celled organisms. The rover is not equipped with a powerful enough microscope to detect them so they will be cached to be returned to the Earth sometime in the future as one of its objectives. Scientists believe that Mars was friendly for life for only a billion years or so.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Jezero is pronounced like the biblical character Jezebel.

Jezero Crater on a map by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (1996-2006). Colors code by altitude (blue-low to red-high). Click on the image to enlarge. Credit NASA/JPL.

The Jezero crater from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter. Jezero is 30.4 miles (49.0 km) in diameter. Note the river delta on the left (west) forming a lake with an outlet on the right. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/ESA.

Mars Endurance Rover’s planned landing ellipse partially overlapping the dried up river delta. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Delta of ancient river that flowed into a lake in the Jezero crater. Color coded based on minerals present. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit NASA.

05/07/2020 – Ephemeris – JPL and NASA preparing a return to Mars via rover and helicopter

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 7th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 8:55, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:22. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 9:26 this evening.

The Endurance Mars Rover will be launched on or after July 17th. To land on Mars February 18th next year. It has until August 5th to launch. That’s a 20 day launch window. Miss that and it’s a wait of approximately 26 months for the next launch window when the Earth and Mars get into the proper relative positions again. The target of the rover is Jezero crater at the edge of a large Martian feature that can be seen in small telescopes called Syrtis Major. Syrtis Major is cooler sounding than what it means in Latin… The Great Swamp*. Anyway, Jezero crater itself is named after a Bosnian town in 2007 by the International Astronomical Union which named interesting features on Mars after earthly towns. What’s so interesting about Jezero? The answer tomorrow.

* There’s no water there.  It’s actually a volcanic plain, maybe a low shield volcano.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Artist rendition of the Mars 2020 “Endurance” Rover. Credit NASA.

Artist’s concept of the Mars Helicopter “Ingenuity”. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Jezero Crater on a map by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (1996-2006). Colors code by altitude (blue-low to red-high). Click on the image to enlarge. I’ll have a closer look tomorrow. Credit NASA/JPL with my labels.

 

05/06/2020 – Ephemeris – Let’s look at the naked-eye planets for this week

This is Ephemeris for Wednesday, May 6th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 8:54, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:23. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:46 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look at the naked-eye planets for this week. Venus is our evening star shining brightly in the west. It will set at 12:10 a.m. It’s closing in on the Sun in our sky, by approaching the Earth at only 37 million miles (59 million km) away. In the morning sky there are three planets fairly close together in the south-southeast. Bright Jupiter will rise first at 2:02 a.m. Followed by Saturn at 2:17 a.m. Mars, stretching its lead left of Saturn, will rise at 3:31 a.m. Mars is now down to 110 million miles (177 million km) away, as the Earth slowly overtakes it at the rate of about 4 million miles (7 million km) a week. Mars will be closest to us in October at 38 and a half million miles away. That’s only 3 million miles (5 million km) further than it was 2 years ago.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Venus, the Moon and bright evening stars tonight at 10 p.m. May 6, 2020. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

The nearly full Moon as it might be seen in binoculars at 10 p.m. tonight May 6, 2020. Created using Stellarium.

Morning planets in twilight at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, May 7, 2020. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Stellarium.

The planets as seen in a telescope with the same magnification. Venus in the evening and Jupiter and Saturn in the morning on the night of May 6/7, 2020. Apparent diameters: Venus, 42.88″. larger than Jupiter, at 41.54″; Saturn, 17.12″, rings, 39.89″. Mars at 7.92″ won’t be added until it reaches 10″. The ” symbol means seconds of arc (1/3600th of a degree.) Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on May 6, 2020. The night ends on the left with sunrise on the 7th. The closeness of Jupiter and Saturn in the morning sky unfortunately overlays planets and labels. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.

05/05/2020 – Ephemeris – SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Demo 2 mission extends to multi-months

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 5th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 8:53, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:25. The Moon, 2 days before full, will set at 6:15 tomorrow morning.

On May 27th* or shortly thereafter the first crewed spacecraft will leave American soil since the last Space Shuttle launch in 2011. This is called the SpaceX Demo 2. Notice they’re not called manned spacecraft any more. Especially since the American with the most time in space, man or woman is Peggy Whitson with nearly 666 days in space over three flights to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will launch from historic Pad 39a at the Kennedy Space Center on a Falcon 9 rocket in a Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. What was to be a two week stay will turn out to be a several month tour on the station.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

* The date I gave in the program was the 25th.

Addendum

Crew Dragon atop the Falcon 9 and Crew access arm. Credit SpaceX.

Astronaut humor.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, NASA Astronauts for Demo-2 of SpaceX Crew Dragon. Credit: NASA. Each has had two flights on the Space Shuttle. Hurley was Shuttle Pilot twice.  Credit NASA.

 

 

05/04/2020 – Ephemeris – NASA mission preparations this month

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, May 4th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 8:52, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:26. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 5:47 tomorrow morning.

May is a month of preparation for the space community. The Mars 2020 Rover, now named Endurance is getting packed up and balanced in preparation to be loaded into the sky crane and aeroshell, part of the cruise stage for its trip to Mars. It will employ the same landing technique as its predecessor, Curiosity which landed 9 years before in 2012. The launch is scheduled for July 17th to land on February 18th next year. It will deploy a small helicopter as a demonstration. It has many of the tools as Curiosity plus new ones and will cache rocks for future return to the Earth for further analysis. Hopefully by month’s end two NASA astronauts will launch on a Falcon 9 from US soil to the International Space Station.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Mars 2020 Rover “Endurance” destined for the martian crater Jezero. Credit NASA.

Mars Helicopter “Ingenuity” after deployment. Delta of ancient river that flowed into a lake in the Jezero crater. Credit NASA.

Delta of ancient river that flowed into a lake in the Jezero crater. Credit NASA.

Crew Dragon docking to the International Space Station during the Demo 1 flight. Credit NASA.