What's Up | Universe Today

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a great dark sky weekend? Then it's time to walk into the galaxy field of dreams as we take a closer look at part of Markarian's Chain. Even smaller telescopes and larger binoculars will be happy with this weekend's globular clusters! Need more or something totally unusual? Then join us as we take a look at a Wolf-Rayet star. Are you ready? Then it's time to head out under dark skies, because… Here's what's up! Read more…

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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! What does the weekend have in store for those who observe the starry vistas with their eyes, binoculars, or telescopes? Let's head out into the night, because the mysteries of the Cosmos await. Read more…

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Please note that this is going to be the last edition of the What's Up series of articles on Universe Today. From here on out, Tammy's daily skywatching guide will be published in a book called the Night Sky Companion. Tammy is still writing for Universe Today, and will be posting articles about skywatching and events on a regular basis.

Monday, December 24 - Twas the night before Christmas in a sky filled with stars… And low on the horizon are the Yule Moon and Mars! That's right. It's the Full Yule Moon, and arriving at the same time Mars reaches opposition. For many viewers, the spectacular pair will rise with Mars less than a degree south of Luna… But a pairing this close means a few lucky observers could be in for an occultation event! Be sure to check IOTA for possible times and locations.
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Monday, December 17 - Tonight there are craters galore to explore: Plato, Aristotle, Eudoxus, Archimedes… But let's head to the north of Sinus Medii and have a look at a pair we've not yet encountered on our lunar travels - Agrippa and Godin. The larger of the two, Agrippa, measures around 46 kilometers in diameter and drops to a depth of 3070 meters. To the south is Godin, which is somewhat smaller at 35 kilometers in diameter, but a bit deeper at 3200 meters. Note how Godin's interior slopes towards its central peak.
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Monday, December 10 - If you are out stargazing until the morning hours, look for the peak of the Monocerid meteor shower. Its fall rate is around one per hour and its radiant point is near Gemini.

Tonight let's go north for a mid-size scope challenge about two fingerwidths east-northeast of the beautiful double star Gamma Andromedae (RA 02 22 32.90 Dec +43 20 45.8).
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Monday, December 3 - Today in 1971, the Soviet Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the red planet, and two years later on this same date the Pioneer 10 mission became the first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter. One year later on this same date? Pioneer 11 did the same thing!
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Monday, November 26 - Today in 1965 marked the launch of the first French satellite - Asterix 1. Today is also the seventh anniversary of the discovery of the meteorites SAU 005 & 008: the "Mars Meteorites." These meteorites are known to be of Martian origin because of gases preserved in the glassy material of their interior. They were hurled into space some 600,000 years ago when a probable asteroid impact on Mars tossed them high enough to escape the planet's gravity, and they were captured by our gravity these many thousands of years later. They are just two of the 32 meteorites found on Earth which have been positively determined from their chemical compositions to be of Martian origin.
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Monday, November 19 - Even if you only use binoculars tonight, you can't miss the beautiful C-shape of Sinus Iridium as it comes into view on the lunar surface. As we have learned, the mountains that ring it are called the Juras, and the crater punctuating them is named Bianchini. Do you remember what the bright tips of the opening into the "Bay of Rainbows" are called? That's right: Promontorium LaPlace to the northeast and Promontorium Heraclides to the southwest. Now take a good look at Heraclides… Just south of here is where Luna 17 landed, leaving the Lunokhod rover to explore!
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Monday, November 12 - Can you spot the thin crescent of the Moon on the western horizon at sunset? Let Jupiter help you. Look for the slim appearance of Selene about 3 fingerwidths south.
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Monday, November 5 - If you're out looking for meteors this morning - and even if you're not - take a look at the sweet pairing of the Moon and Venus. Take out a scope! Which has the larger crescent visible?

Today in 1906, a man named Fred Whipple was born. If that name doesn't ring a bell for you - it should. Thanks to Dr. Whipple's work we have a clearer understanding of the orbital mechanics of comets and their relation to meteoroid streams. Not only that, but he founded the SAO observatory in Arizona, discovered six comets, made invaluable contributions to research in the upper atmosphere, and was the first to call a comet a "dirty snowball." His guess about the outgassing properties of comets was proved true when the first flyby of Comet Halley was made!
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Monday, October 29 - On this night in 1749, the French astronomer Le Gentil was at the eyepiece of an 18' focal length telescope. His object of choice was the Andromeda Galaxy, which he believed to be a nebula. Little did he know at the time that his descriptive notes also included M32, a satellite galaxy of M31. It was the first small galaxy discovered, and it would be another 175 years before these were recognized as such by Edwin Hubble.
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Monday, October 22 - Something very special happened today in 2136 B.C. There was a solar eclipse, and for the very first time it was seen and recorded by Chinese astronomers. And probably a very good thing because in those days the royal astronomers were executed for failure to predict!Today is also the birthday of Karl Jansky. Born in 1905, Jansky was an American physicist as well as an electrical engineer. One of his pioneer discoveries was non-Earth-based radio waves at 20.5 MHz, a detection he made while investigating noise sources during 1931 and 1932. And, in 1975, Soviet Venera 9 was busy sending Earth the very first look at Venus' surface. If you are up before dawn this morning, why not take a moment to have a look at Venus yourself. Can you tell what phase it is in through the telescope?
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Monday, October 15 - As the evening begins, be sure to at least walk out and look at the Moon. For many observers, bright red Antares will be only around a half degree north of the waxing crescent. Of course, you know that a brush this close could mean an occultation for your area! Be sure to check IOTA for visibility locations and times. No special equipment is needed to check out a lunar occultation, but thanks to an historic observation of just such an event, Antares' companion star was discovered by Professor Johannes Burg in Vienna on April 13, 1819!
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Monday, October 8 - Today marks the birthday of Ejnar Hertzsprung. Born 1873, Hertzsprung was a Danish astronomer who first proved the existence of giant and dwarf stars in the early 1900s. His discoveries included the relationship between color and luminosity, which wasn't truly recognized until it was recovered by Henry Russell. Now it is a familiar part of all our studies as the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. His use of absolute magnitudes will come into play tonight as we have a look at the age-old mystery of M73.
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Monday, October 1 - In 1897, the world's largest refractor (40") debuted at the dedication of the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory. The immense telescope was 64 feet long and weighed 6 tons. Also today in 1958, NASA was established by an act of Congress. More? In 1962, the 300 foot radio telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) went live at Green Bank, West Virginia. It held its place as the world's second largest radio scope until it collapsed in 1988. (It was rebuilt as a 100 meter dish in 2000.)
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Monday, September 24 - In 1970, the first unmanned, automated return of lunar material to the Earth occurred on this day when the Soviet's Luna 16 returned with three ounces of the Moon. Its landing site was eastern Mare Fecunditatis. Look just west of the bright patch of Langrenus.
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Monday, September 17 - Today in 1789, William Herschel discovered Saturn's moon Mimas. Tonight we'll discover our own Moon as we have a look at one of the last lunar challenges that occur during the first few days of the Moon's appearance - Piccolomini. You'll find it to the southwest of the shallow ring of Fracastorius on Mare Nectaris' southern shore.
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Monday, September 10 - Today is the birthday of James E. Keeler. Born in 1857, the American Keeler was a pioneer in the field of spectroscopy and astrophysics. In 1895, Keeler proved that different areas in Saturn's rings rotate at different velocities. This clearly showed that Saturn's rings were not solid, but were instead a collection of smaller particles in independent orbits.

While we are studying some of the summer's finest objects, we'd be very remiss if we didn't look at another cosmic curiosity - "The Blinking Planetary." Located a couple of degrees east of visible star Theta Cygni, and in the same lower power field as 16 Cygni, it is formally known as NGC 6826.
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Monday, September 2 - Tonight we'll hunt with the "Fox" as we head to Vulpecula to try two more open star cluster studies. The first can be done easily with large binoculars or a low power scope. It's a rich beauty that lies in the constellation of Vulpecula, but is more easily found by moving around 3 degrees southeast of Beta Cygni.

Known as Stock 1, this stellar swarm contains around 50 or so members of varying magnitudes that you will return to often. With a visual magnitude of near 5, loose associations of stars - like Stock clusters - are the subject of recent research. The latest information indicates that the members of this cluster are truly associated with one another.
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Monday, August 27 - While it's going to be very hard to ignore the presence of the Moon tonight, Neptune is a little more than a degree north, and there may be a visible occultation event. Be sure to check IOTA for the most up-to-date information.
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Monday, August 20 - Our first order of business for the evening will be to pick up a lunar club challenge that we haven't noted yet - Hipparchus.

Located just slightly south of the central point of the Moon and very near the terminator, this is not truly a crater - but a hexagonal mountain-walled plain. Spanning about 150 kilometers in diameter with walls around 3320 meters high, it is bordered just inside its northern wall by crater Horrocks. This deep appearing "well" is 30 kilometers in diameter and its rugged interior drops down an additional 2980 meters below the floor. To the south and just outside the edge of the plain is crater Halley. Slightly larger at 36 kilometers in diameter, this crater named for Sir Edmund is a little shallower at 2510 meters deep - but it has a very smooth floor. To the east you'll see a series of three small craters, the largest of which is Hind.
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Monday, August 13 - Tonight, begin with just your eyes as you gaze about four fingerwidths above the top of the Sagittarius "teapot dome" for an open window on the stars and the magnificent M24…

This huge, hazy patch of stars is in reality an area of space known as "Baade's Window" - an area free of obscuring gas and dust. Cataloged by Messier in 1764 as object 24, even small binoculars will reveal the incredible vista of the "Sagittarius Star Cloud." Although it's actually not a cluster, but rather a clean view of an area of our own galaxy's spiral arm, that will not lessen the impact when viewed through a telescope. Spanning a degree and a half of sky, it is one of the few areas in which even a novice can easily perceive areas of dark dust.
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Monday, August 6 - Today in 2001 the Galileo spacecraft made its flyby of the moon Io sending back incredible images of the surface. For southern hemisphere observers, be on watch as the Iota Aquarid meteor shower peaks on this Universal date.

Studies continue as we look deeper into structure. As a rule, globular clusters normally contain a large number of variable stars, and most are usually the RR Lyrae type such as in earlier study M54. At one time they were known as "cluster variables," with their number differing from one globular to another. Many globulars also contain vast numbers of white dwarfs. Some have neutron stars which are detected as pulsars, but out of all 151, only four have planetary nebulae in them… Read on!
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Monday, July 30 - Today's history celebrates the 2001 flyby of the Moon by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) on its way to Lagrange Point 2 to study the cosmic microwave background radiation. Tonight we'll also fly right by the Full Buck Moon as we continue our studies to have a look at Mu 1 and Mu 2 Scorpii about two fingerwidths north of Zeta.

Very close to the same magnitude and spectral type, the twin Mu stars are easy to separate visually and most definitely worth a look in telescopes or binoculars. They are considered an actual physical pair because they share the exact same distance and proper motion, but they are separated by less than one light-year.
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Monday, July 23 - Tonight let's continue our look at the lunar poles by returning to previous study crater Plato. North of Plato you will see a long horizontal area with a gray floor - Mare Frigoris. North of it you will note a double crater. This elongated diamond-shape is Goldschmidt and the crater which cuts across its western border is Anaxagoras. The lunar north pole isn't far from Goldschmidt, and since Anaxagoras is just about one degree outside of the Moon's theoretical "arctic circle,� the lunar sun will never go high enough to clear the southernmost rim. As proposed with Saturday's study, this permanent darkness must mean there is ice! For that very reason, NASA's Lunar Prospector probe was sent there to explore. Did it find what it was looking for? Answer - Yes!

The probe discovered vast quantities of cometary ice which have hidden inside the crater's depths untouched for millions of years. If this sounds rather boring to you, then realize that this type of resource will greatly improve the prospects of establishing a manned base on the lunar surface!

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