Red, White and Blue before dawn.

Hello again, fellow SkyWatchers:

For the early risers, there are some special treats in the East before dawn. At around 5 or 5:30 am you will find Orion lying on his side in the East. (Click on the image to see a larger version of the sky chart.) Most people recognize him by the three bright stars in a straight, even row making up Orion's belt. The three stars in the belt make a line that points down toward the horizon at white Sirius in Canis Major (the big dog), the brightest star in our night sky. The bright red star to the left of the belt is Betelgeuse (Orion's right shoulder) and the bright blue star to the right of the belt is Rigel (Orion's left knee). Directly above Betelgeuse you will find another bright, red star. This is Aldebaran, the right eye of Taurus the bull. The three stars in Orion's belt point almost directly at it in the direction opposite of Sirius. Then, to the left of Betelgeuse and Aldebaran, and making an equilateral triangle with them, the other bright red object is not a star at all. It is Mars, the red planet.

Look down and to the left of the triangle of red stars and you will find an extremely bright, white object. This is Venus, Earth's twin sister. Below, and to the right of Venus, the bright star near the horizon (and left of Sirius) is Procyon in Canis Minor (the little dog). The two fairly bright stars just to the left and above Venus are Castor (the higher one) and Pollux, the heads of the twins in Gemini.

If you don't wait too long, and have a low enough visual horizon, you can turn the other way and look West. The very bright object about to set in the west is Jupiter.

So, get the sleep out of your eyes and get outside early. And as always, try looking up!

The Persied Meteor Shower

Hello again, fellow SkyWatchers.
One of the easiest, and occasionally most spectacular, night sky observing activities is observing meteors. On any clear night, if you lie down and look up at the sky you will eventually see one or more streaks of light moving quickly across the sky and then fading rapidly. If you have a wide visual horizon and a dark observing area away from city lights, you will see even more. These steaks of light are the result of particles of dust and/or ice impacting Earth's upper atmosphere at speeds of tens of thousands of miles per hour. The energy released heats the air and strips electrons off the atoms of the atmosphere creating a glowing plasma 6o + miles up and usually vaporizing the meteor. Most are only as large as a grain of sand, and are often the debris left from a comet that passed by Earth's orbit long ago.

When Earth passes through a part of space near where a comet passed, it encounters a stream of debris which results in a large number of visible meteors. This is called a meteor shower. Every year in August we pass through the debris stream from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The resulting meteor shower can be spectacular. Earth is currently passing through this debris stream, and the annual Persied meteor shower is now under way. The predicted peak is this Tuesday night, August 11/12. Unfortunately, the gibbous Moon will wash out the fainter meteors. But, we may pass through a particularly dense trail of debris left by the comet in 1610, which could produce as many as 200 meteors per hour some time after midnight.

Keep in mind that predicting meteor shower activity is notoriously difficult. But if you have clear skies you should see some, and Perseid meteors are often bright, seem to move fairly slowly, and sometimes leave glowing trails. The meteors can appear any place in the sky, but all the streaks will point back toward the constellation Perseus.

For more detailed information about this year's Perseid meteor shower:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/31jul_perseids2009.htm?list896164
or
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/090807-perseid-meteors.html
or
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/52204947.html .

and for more info on meteors in general,

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/meteors-ez.html.

So, here is just another reason to try looking up!

Steve

Hello again, fellow Skywatchers. Here we are in the dog days of summer. In some ways, this time of year is not the best for viewing the night sky. The heat, humidity, mosquitoes, humidity haze, and evening clouds combined with late sunset and early sunrise all make it less more difficult, and not as much fun, as cooler times of the year. However, when it is clear in the evenings, this time of year can offer some of the steadiest seeing (lack of atmospheric turbulence). In addition, there are some spectacular objects for the hardy and determined.

Saturn is almost lost to us for this year. It is very low (about 15 degrees above the horizon) and almost due West in Leo below the lion's hips at dusk. Good telescope views of Saturn will now have to wait late fall or winter (in the morning sky). If you look even lower to the horizon and to the right of Saturn, you may be able to spot Mercury. Binoculars help.

Fortunately, mighty Jupiter is here to take Saturn's place as the highlight of the night sky. Rising in the East just after sunset, the largest planet in our solar system presents a great target for telescopes all night long. Even small telescopes can see color bands in the cloud tops and the four Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. You can spot these four moons in a good pair of binoculars if you can hold them steady enough. Larger telescopes in good viewing conditions can reveal the Great Red Spot, a hurricane like storm three times the size of Earth. If you have a telescope and look in the next couple of weeks, you may be able to see the new dark spot created when a yet unidentified object slammed into Jupiter recently.

If you have, or can get to a dark sky on a clear night, the summer Milky Way is a beautiful sight, arching from the South in Scorpius and Sagittarius across the sky to Cassiopeia and Perseus in the North. About midway it passes through Cygnus, which is directly overhead around midnight.

If you get up early, you can easily find Mars and Venus in the West before sunrise. Venus is the very bright "star" in the East. A little above Venus there are two fairly bright reddish colored objects. The lower of the two is Mars, and the other one which is slightly higher and to the right is Aldebaran, the right eye of Taurus the bull.

Enough for now. Get out and look up!

Steve