Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Manueuver Puts Chandrayaan in Deep Space

Chandrayaan's highly eliptical orbit. Credit: ISRO

After a successful maneuver early today (October 26, 2008), the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has crossed the 150,000 km distance mark from Earth, officially entering deep space, on course for the moon. This was the third orbit raising maneuver of the mission. The spacecraft’s 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about nine and a half minutes, beginning at 07:08 IST. With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered a much higher elliptical orbit around the Earth. The apogee (farthest point from Earth) of this orbit lies at 164,600 km while the perigee (nearest point from Earth) is at 348 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 73 hours to go round the Earth once.

To compare, Chandrayaan’s initial orbit had a perigee of 255 km and an apogee of 22,860 km, with about a 6.5-hour period. After the second boost from its engines, Chandrayaan raised its apogee to 37,900 kilometers, and increased its orbit period to 11 hours.

Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are also providing backup navigation assistance to the Indian Space Agency in Bangalore, India, by helping to track the flight dynamics. The antennas of the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu are being used for tracking and communicating with Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in its high orbit. From the image below, you can see how additional orbit raising maneuvers in the next few days will take Chandrayaan-1 towards the Moon, and then into lunar orbit. Currently, the spacecraft is scheduled to reach lunar orbit on November 8.

Chandrayaan mission profile. Credit: ISRO
Chandrayaan mission profile. Credit: ISRO

Source: ISRO

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Russian Spacecraft Producer: No More Money for Soyuz

The Soyuz TMA-13 is transported to its launchpad for the Oct. 10th flight (AFP)

[/caption]The Russian spacecraft producer Energiya has warned that it might only have enough money to launch the next two Soyuz flights unless funds are raised urgently.

This situation poses a difficult problem for future access to the International Space Station. The spacecraft producer requires funding in advance to pay for the construction of future Soyuz vehicles, so unless a solution is found, the launch of Expedition 19 that is expected to be carried by the Soyuz TMA-15 (around May 2009) could be the last…

Just when we thought getting access to the International Space Station (ISS) was hard enough, Energiya’s President Vitaly Lopota has announced his company has run out of money.

“We have vessels and funding for them for the next two trips, but I do not know what will happen with expeditions after that,” Lopota said on Friday. “We have no funds to produce new Soyuz craft. Unless we are granted loans or advance payment in the next two or three weeks, we cannot be responsible for future Soyuz production.”

According to other sources, the announcement came as Energiya failed to receive critical government-backed loans from commercial banks.

The Soyuz TMA-12 landed safely on Friday with cosmonauts Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and US space tourist Richard Garriott after being docked on the ISS for six months. Garriott did not stay for this period however, he was launched on October 12th with the crew of Expedition 18 (onboard Soyuz TMA-13 that will return in April next year). Friday was the first nominal landing of a Soyuz vehicle since TMA-9; both TMA-10 (Oct. 21st, 2007) and TMA-11 (April 19th, 2008) suffered separation anomalies, forcing “ballistic re-entries.” It must have been a relief for Volkov, Kononenko and Garriott to touch down on target, ending the spate of bad luck for Soyuz.

Soyuz is the primary method to get to and from the ISS (as you can probably guess from the above paragraph), and when the shuttle is retired in 2010, it will be the only method for the US to access the orbital outpost. However, this is a solution to the “5-year gap” between shuttle retirement and Constellation launch (scheduled for 2015) that many find difficult to come to terms with, especially with the increasing political discord between the US and Russia.

Even after US Congress signed a Iran-North Korea-Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) waiver earlier this month, permitting NASA to buy Soyuz flights after 2011, it looks like the problems haven’t ended for US manned access to space. The waiver will be useless if there’s no Soyuz vehicles being built!

Whether the warning from Energiya’s president should be taken seriously or not, once again US space flight is being restricted by internal problems in other countries. More initiatives like NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program need to be considered to further stimulate private sector space flight. Wouldn’t it make more sense to purchase US rocket launches with SpaceX after 2010 rather than buying Soyuz flights? Fortunately the private sector is catching onto this idea, so hopefully we’ll have dependable means to transport cargo to the ISS — possibly even crew — after 2010…

News source: Space Daily, MSNBC

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

US Air Force Increases Investment in Satellite Protection Technology

Artist impression of an anti-satellite missile (Jeremy Cook/Popular Mechanics)

[/caption]What does the US, Russia and China have in common? Yes, they’ve all sent a man into space and successfully carried out spacewalks using home-made spaceships, but they have another space-based attribute in common. They are all capable of shooting down satellites in Earth orbit. What’s more, all have proven it. So, we know for a fact that the technology is out there, and although it is still an extremely hard task, satellites are becoming more and more vulnerable to attack from the ground. Experts now believe that anti-satellite technology is within reach of rogue states and some well-funded terrorist groups, using nothing more than a medium range missile, a college-level team of individuals and some crude, yet effective, technology.

The US Air Force is now highlighting their concern by investing $29 million in companies to develop space-based warning and protection systems. The “star wars” threat is still out there…

In February, the warship USS Lake Erie fired a modified Standard Missile-3 at a defunct spy satellite called USA 193. The mission was a success, anti-satellite warhead slamming into the fast-moving target. BBC Washington correspondent Jonathan Beale likened the satellite shoot-down to “trying to fire a missile through the eye of a needle.” Although difficult, the US had proven they had the technology to destroy targets in Earth orbit from the ground. This demonstration of US capabilities was widely interpreted as a response to China’s unannounced weather satellite intercept the previous year. However, the US military maintain action needed to be taken as the dead spy satellite could re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, carrying substantial quantities of toxic hydrazine fuel with it.

Regardless of the reasons for a satellite shoot-down, China and the US have shown their abilities when destroying a small target, travelling at high speed in Earth orbit. So now the concern is: what if a well-funded terrorist group or rogue state develop even the crudest anti-satellite technology? According to US military experts some serious damage can be done to military satellites, global positioning systems, weather satellites and even satellite TV systems should they be targeted. All that is needed is a medium-range missile carrying some kind of crude warhead; as long as the warhead collides with, or disrupts the satellite, the satellite will be useless. Although it is not believed there are any current plans by terrorist groups, the US Air Force wants to ensure the future safety of US interests in Earth orbit.

This signifies more investment in the Self-Awareness Space Situations Awareness (SASSA) program, hoping to develop and demonstrate an automated early warning system for space vehicles by 2010. The Air Force has provided $29 million in funds to companies such as Assurance Technologies and Lockheed Martin Space Systems to begin designing the hardware and software that will offer threat and hazard detection, assessment and notification.

The goal is to construct a payload that will identify threats to satellites and protect them from ground-based missile and laser threats.

Concern is growing for the wider use of anti-satellite weapons, so the US Air Force want to be one step ahead of any future threat to US interests orbiting the planet.

Source: Network World

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Midnight At The OPT Corral: Shootout Between The Celestron SkyScout and Meade MySKY

It’s midnight on the plains of Ohio. A lone tumbleweed rolls across the backyard – or maybe it’s just a black german shepherd skulking about in the starlight. A mysterious figure dressed in black steps off the deck planks and out into the open. She’s come fully armed and ready to duel it out. But this time it isn’t the classic battle between the McClaurys and Clantons versus the Earps and Doc Holliday… It’s a shootout between a Celestron SkyScout and a Meade mySKY.

There isn’t any spurs to chink on my tennis shoes as I make my way out across the open back field. However, I am just strange enough to be dressed in a black leather duster and a borrowed black leather fedora and I’m doing my best cowboy swagger as I mosey my way towards the fence row where I’d earlier hung a cardboard sign that proclaimed it to be the “OPT Corral”. I’m in the wide, wide open now… Armed with fresh batteries and the latest technology. I want my questions answered and I want to give those answers to you.

Ready… Set… Aim… Shoot!

Hands down, the Meade mySKY is the single coolest astronomy gadget I’ve ever used. The second it turned on I was hopelessly, helplessly in love with the graphics, music and program. Five minutes later I had a short in the audio cable and when I tried to turn it off the button stuck and even at the risk of getting dew and grass on my good leather coat I had to sit down and take the batteries out to fix it. Once done, everything reset, and we were good to go again, but the nagging problem with a slight short in the audio cord persisted. Still… It’s terminally cool. Every time I would aim it at something I would have this vision of Carl Sagan out there with me, wandering through the weeds, puffing away and aiming a ray gun at the night sky. Hollywood all the way, baby… The multi-media presentations are simply stunning (and after awhile, annoying) and I can say without a doubt that for anyone who even remotely has an interest in astronomy that you’d love it, too.

Ready… Set… Aim… Shoot!

The Celestron SkyScout has about all the visual appeal of a chubby chick at a dance – but take it from a chubby chick at a dance – we’re the type you want to meet. Yep, we aren’t glamorous – but we don’t short out and we’re still on the same batteries you put in us over a year ago. We’re not “wowing” you with fifteen minute video on everything you wanted to know about the Moon but were afraid to ask, but guess what? We’re not blinding you either. We’re just a nice sturdy little box with a pleasant voice that explains an object when wanted and needed, and gives a red scrolling readout when wanted and needed. Same goes with the other… But not all the time, you see. No matter how many times you turn it off and on, or have to take the batteries out to turn it off and on, you have to go through the initial video presentation. But I digress…

Ready… Set… Aim… Shoot!

Once you’ve learned to use the Meade mySKY functions, you can dim the screen and change it over to night vision mode. However, I will warn you that even very dim and red, it is still like pointing your cell phone screen at the sky. Personally, I found it blinding and had to cover it with my hand to aim. The aiming mechanism itself is also a little difficult. It is three illuminated red marks, like a reflex sight, which can either be static or blinking. The problem is, when you go for a tight star field? The sights cover the stars and you can’t see where you’re aimed! To be fair, the Celestron SkyScout has somewhat solved that problem. By looking through the SkyScout (similar to a camcorder) you are seeing an unmagnified view of the night sky and you have an illuminated (brightness adjustable) red exterior circle. Again, this is considerably better, but not perfect. The screen does dim the stellar factor, so there’s no absolute solution besides preference.

Ready… Set… Aim… Shoot!

Score in the favor of the Meade mySKY. In this case I feel that its internal GPS system picked up on my location faster than the Celestron SkyScout and didn’t seem to notice when I walked it closer to metal. Odd, but true. In both cases, some operations are absolutely identical, because both pieces of equipment are capable of driving each companies respective telescopes. However, out here in the back fields, drivin’ the scopes ain’t what I’m after… It’s drivin’ the stars.

Ready… Set… Aim… Shoot!

Now we’re down to that good old classic saying – “the brass tacks”. In other words, what’s my opinion and why. Well, I ain’t afraid of no buzzards, so I’m going to give it to you.

If you want totally cool, get the Meade mySKY. It goes through all the same motions as the other, plus it has all the multi-media programming that any techno-geek could ever want. As a word of caution, I would also assess it as not very durable and somewhat annoying in the long run. It’s damn fancy, Frank… Kinda’ like a silver Colt revolver with trimmins’….

If you want long-term service, get the Celestron SkyScout. It lacks the bells and whistles, but also lacks the techno-problems that goes with them. It has proven itself to be highly durable and practical, perhaps a bit boring, but a useful astronomy tool. It’s a Glock, George… Plain and simple.

Shoot ’em both and decide.

Addendum: OPT has announced that due to the popular nature of this article, they have reduced the price of the Celestron SkyScout to $199 and a Meade mySKY will now be offered at $149 with free shipping.

Many thanks to Oceanside Photo and Telescope for providing the Meade mySKY and allowing me to use OPT as part of the ‘shoot out’ idea.

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Google Founders Buy Fighter Jet… to Help NASA

A Dornier Alpha Jet, similar to the one brought by Brin and Page (Adrian Pingstone)

[/caption]A company owned by Google’s founders has just bought a 1982 light attack Dornier Alpha Jet. H211 LLC owns several aircraft that are frequently used by Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and in an “unusual” agreement signed last year, H211 managed to get the rights to operate from an airstrip ten minutes away from Google HQ near the south end of San Francisco Bay, California. This isn’t any ordinary airstrip, it is Moffett Field, owned by the NASA Ames Research Center…

Not just anyone can land their private jet at Moffett Field. Located right next to Silicon Valley, it has had a lot of interest from the hi-tech billionaires to get permission to fly in and out of there. But there’s a problem, Moffett Field isn’t an ordinary airstrip, it is owned by NASA. NASA is a government department and with that comes certain rules. Unless the aircraft has a direct relationship with the NASA research being carried out, or a military flight, you’ll have to find somewhere else to land. So whether you’re Bill Gates or Queen Elizabeth — unless you need to land in an emergency — you cannot use the airstrip, unless you’re carrying out NASA business.

But, in an agreement that was described as a “win-win” situation for NASA, on July 31st, 2007 Ken Ambrose, Vice President of H211, signed a lease contract to park four aircraft at Moffett Field. These passenger aircraft included a Boeing 757, Boeing 767 and two Gulfstream Vs, regularly used by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to conduct business for H211 and Google (although both companies are separate entities). So how did they do this?

In exchange for use of the NASA site, H211 agreed that NASA could use its aircraft for scientific research (thereby helping NASA out with certain experiments in the fields of atmospheric chemistry, ozone depletion and wildfire monitoring), plus the cool sum of $1.3 million/year in rent.

But there was a problem, in order for NASA to use the fleet of four aircraft, it has to modify them. Each modification would require new certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration as the aircraft are passenger planes. This has been the main stumbling block, possibly causing Page and Brin to lose their aircraft parking spot.

So, H211 has bought a military aircraft to get around the FAA problem and still deliver on its promise for NASA to use its aircraft. The 26 year-old German-built light attack Dornier Alpha Jet can be modified by NASA, so it is currently being made ready for civilian use in Seattle before experiments can be carried out.

“The Alpha Jet they are bringing on board is considered an experimental aircraft, so we don’t have the same issues as with a passenger plane,” said Steve Zornetzer, associate director of the NASA Ames Research Center.

The Google executives flights account for less than 1% of the annual air traffic at Moffett Field. 88 flights out of approximately 19,000 of the last year’s flights were for Google business.

Or alternatively, Google is planning a (very) hostile takeover of Microsoft…

Sources: NY Times, SF Chronicle

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Could Strange Mars Craters be from a Fallen Third Moon?

[/caption]Was there a third Martian moon orbiting the planet? Did Phobos and Deimos have a triplet sibling? According to the discovery of two elliptical impact craters, there might just have been another moon, but it ploughed into the Red Planet’s surface a long time ago. The moonlet would have been approximately 1.5 km wide (0.9 miles), and it will have succumbed to the Mars gravity, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle. As it tumbled through the atmosphere it broke in two, hitting the surface and creating two elongated impact craters, near-perfectly aligned.

It is thought that the “third moon” of Mars dropped from orbit a billion years ago and the same will happen with Phobos in a few million years. However, there might be another explanation, with no third moonlet in sight…

Observations of the Martian surface, just north of Olympus Mons, show two oval-shaped craters (pictured top). Usually impact craters are approximately circular, so the elongated craters indicate the impactor(s) entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle. This isn’t the only strange characteristic of these two craters. They lie 12.5 km (7.8 miles) apart and they are almost exactly aligned from east to west (they are off-alignment by only 3.48°). The larger crater is 10 km (6.2 miles) wide at its longest point, and the smaller crater is 3km (1.9 miles) wide.

There are two possible answers to this puzzle, but researchers are having a hard time in agreeing on which one. In a recent publication, John Chappelow and Rob Herrick of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, have calculated that the impact craters were caused by a small moon that entered the atmosphere, broke into two (due to atmospheric drag) and then struck the surface at an oblique angle of 10° or less. The moonlet would have been 1.5 km (0.9 miles) in diameter. This sounds feasible, after all for both craters to be aligned, one would think they came from the same mass, right?

NASAs Lunar Orbiter spacecraft imaged the Messier A (right) and B craters on the Moon. Messier A is about 11 km long (NASA)
The lunar Messier craters (NASA)
This moon-impact theory has a few drawbacks however. The first problem is that the impact craters are located at 40° latitude in Mars’ northern hemisphere. One would expect natural satellites to orbit around the equatorial plane if their orbits are stable (hovering around 0° latitude). “Any close natural satellite must, like Phobos, orbit in Mars’s equatorial plane,” said Jay Melosh, a crater expert at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is highly sceptical of Chappelow and Herrick’s findings.

However, Herrick believes that the moonlet may not have established a stable orbit, above the equator. “We don’t know the details of the [moonlet’s] capture mechanism, so I don’t know that we can definitively say that the object must have moved to an equatorial orbit before spiralling in,” countered Herrick.

Artist impression of binary asteroid 90 Antiope (ESO)
Artist impression of binary asteroid 90 Antiope (ESO)
Melosh argues that the craters may have been caused by a binary asteroid (or “double asteroids”) entering the Martian atmosphere at a very shallow angle. After all, there is a confirmed example of a binary asteroid impact on the Moon (a.k.a. the Messier craters on the Moon, pictured above). Chappelow however disputed this claim saying, “In such a case, the craters should be oriented randomly.” After all, wouldn’t the binary asteroid have a randomly oriented orbital plane?

Apparently not. It appears that over hundreds of thousands of years of asteroid evolution, the effect of sunlight has a huge role to play in the dynamics of binary asteroid formation. A process known as the “Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack Effect,” or the YORP Effect, causes the uneven heating of an asteroid. Carrying a tiny jolt of momentum, photons are emitted from the surface in jets, eventually causing the asteroid to spin. Eventually a piece of rock breaks loose, forming the binary asteroid. It would appear there is an observed trend for the majority of binary asteroids to orbit in the same plane as the rest of the Solar System.

So it seems possible that a binary asteroid could create the two elongated and aligned impact craters after all.

Regardless, whether a third moon or binary asteroid hit Mars, it will be of little comfort to Phobos. The moon (with a mean radius of 11 km) is slowly dropping in altitude due to tidal forces. In about 11 million years it will either crash into Mars or be ripped apart through gravitational shear. Either way, Phobos is a doomed moon.

Original Source: Space.com

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Full Moon

Full Moon by Luc Viatour

[/caption]
The full moon occurs when the Sun and Moon are located on opposite sides of the Earth. In this situation, the face of the Moon visible from the Earth is completely illuminated by the Sun. More specifically, the full moon occurs when the geocentric apparent longitudes of the Sun and the Moon are 180 degrees apart. This is a fancy way of saying that the Sun and the Moon are on opposite sides of the sky.

The Moon takes 27.3 days to orbit the Earth. But because the Moon is orbiting around the Earth in the same direction that the Earth is orbiting the Sun, the Moon takes an additional 2.2 days to return to the same position in the sky, where it’s perfectly lined up with the Sun. That’s why the amount of time it takes to go from a full moon to a full moon is 29.5 days long. Astronomers call this length of time a lunar month.

One interesting side note, the month of February only has 28 days. Since that’s less than the 29 day lunar month, there are some years where February doesn’t have a single full moon. The last time this happened was in 1999, and it’s expected to happen again in 2018.

When the Moon is full, it’s at its brightest. Astronomers measure the brightness of an object using a term called apparent magnitude. The apparent magnitude of the full Moon is -12.7. When the Moon is only at its first quarter, its brightness is -10.0, which is a reduction of 12x. Ancient peoples carefully recorded the times from full moon to full moon since those were some of the few times that they could actually see and get work done in the night – before we had artificial illumination.

A blue moon occurs when a single month has two full moons. The second full moon in a calendar month is known as a blue moon. Blue moons tend to occur every 2.7 years.

We have written several stories on Universe Today about the full moon. Here’s one about interesting things that might happen during a full moon. And here’s one about blue moons.

Want to know when the next full moon is going to happen? Here’s a calculator from the US Navy’s Observatory.

You can listen to a very interesting podcast about the formation of the Moon from Astronomy Cast, Episode 17: Where Did the Moon Come From?

References:
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/science/phases.htm
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question3.html

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Lunar Month

The Moon. Image credit: ESA

[/caption]
A lunar month is the amount of time it takes for the Moon to pass through each of its phases (new moon, half, full moon), and then return back to its original position. It takes 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds for the Moon to complete one lunar month.

You might have heard that the Moon only takes 27.3 days to complete one orbit around the Earth. So why is a lunar month more than 2 days longer than the orbit of the Moon?

A lunar month is the amount of time it takes for the Moon to get from a specific phase, like a new moon, back to the same phase. In other words, the Moon has to get back to the point in its orbit where the Sun is in the same position from our point of view. Since the Moon is going around the Sun with the Earth as part of its orbit, the Moon has to catch up a little bit on each orbit. It takes 2.2 additional days each orbit of the Moon to catch up.

This method of measuring a lunar month, from new moon to new moon, is known as a synodic month. A new moon is defined as when the Moon has the same ecliptic longitude as the Sun, as seen from the center of the Earth; when the Sun, Moon and Earth are perfectly lined up.

Were you interested in learning about a lunar day? Here’s an article from Universe Today about some strange things that can happen during the full moon.

Here’s a cool moon phase calculator from stardate.org.

You can listen to a very interesting podcast about the formation of the Moon from Astronomy Cast, Episode 17: Where Did the Moon Come From?

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Orbit of the Moon

Differences in Lunar apogee and perigee.

[/caption]
The Moon takes about 27.3 days to complete one orbit around the Earth. That’s the simple answer to the orbit of the Moon, but there’s a lot more going on, so let’s take a look.

The first think that you have to understand is that that Earth and the Moon actually orbit a common center of gravity. This place is about 4,700 km from the center of the Earth. In other words, the Earth wobbles back and forth because of the orbit of the Moon. Some scientists have even proposed that the Earth and the Moon are actually a double planet because of their relationship, but this would only be the case if the common center of gravity was outside the surface of the Earth.

The orbit of the Moon is about 385,000 km from the Earth on average. Like the planets in the Solar System, the orbit of the Moon isn’t circular; it actually follows an elliptical path around the Earth. At its closest point, called perihelion, the Moon is 364 397 km from the Earth. And then at its most distant point, called aphelion, the Moon is 406 731 km.

You might have heard that the Moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth. Although the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, presenting the same face to our planet, the Earth isn’t tidally locked. But in about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will complete an orbit once every 47 days, and it will remain in exactly the same place in the sky. One half of the Earth will be able to see the Moon, and it will be hidden from the other half. Of course, the Sun is expected to become a red giant in about 5 billion years and potentially destroy the Earth and Moon, so this time may never come.

Want to learn more about orbits? Here’s an article about the orbit of the Earth, and here’s one about the orbit of Mars.

Here’s more information about the orbit of the Moon, and here’s a cool article from Windows on the Universe.

You can listen to a very interesting podcast about the formation of the Moon from Astronomy Cast, Episode 17: Where Did the Moon Come From?

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Weekend SkyWatcher’s Forecast – October 24-26, 2008

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s a dark sky weekend and a great time to get out your binoculars or telescopes and enjoy. Use bright star – Formalhaut – to help you find distant planet Uranus… and the “Great Square of Pegasus” to help you find an even more distant galaxy! Would you like to explore some stellar evolution or did you know Saturn was back in the morning skies? Then check out what’s happening as we head out into the night…

Friday, October 24, 2008 – Today we remember the launch of Deep Space 1 from Cape Canaveral in 1998. Its primary mission was extremely successful, testing a dozen advanced, high-risk technologies. During its extended mission, Deep Space 1 headed for Comet Borrelly and sent back the best images from a comet up to that time. The mission continued to test new techniques until it was finally retired after three fantastic years of service on December 18, 2001.

Tonight in 1851, a busy astronomer was at the eyepiece as William Lassell discovered Uranus’ moons Ariel and Umbriel. Although the equipment he used is far beyond backyard equipment, we can have a look at that distant world, as we find Uranus about 25 degrees (slightly more than an hand span) north-northwest of Fomalhaut.

While Uranus’ small, blue-green disc isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to see in a small telescope or binoculars, the very fact we are looking at a planet that’s over 18 times further from the Sun than we are is pretty impressive! Usually holding close to magnitude 6, we watch as the tilted planet orbits our nearest star once every 84 years. Its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium and methane, yet pressure causes about a third of this distant planet to behave as a liquid. Larger telescopes may be able to discern a few of Uranus’ moons, for Titania (the brightest) is around magnitude 14.

Now let’s head toward the southwest corner star of the Great Square of Pegasus – Alpha. Our goal will be 11th magnitude NGC 7479, located about three degrees south (RA 23 04 56 Dec +12 19 23).

Discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1784 and cataloged as H I.55, this barred spiral galaxy can be spotted in average telescopes and comes to beautiful life with larger aperture. Also known as Caldwell 44 on Sir Patrick Moore’s observing list, what makes this galaxy special is its delicate “S” shape. Smaller scopes will easily see the central bar structure of this 105 million light-year distant island universe, and as aperture increases, the western arm will become more dominant. This arm itself is a wonderful mystery – containing more mass than it should and having a turbulent structure. It is believed that a minor merger may have occurred at one time, yet no evidence of a companion galaxy can be found.

On July 27, 1990, a supernova occurred near NGC 7479’s nucleus and reached a magnitude of 16. When observed in the radio band, there is a polarized jet near the bright nucleus that is unlike any other structure known. If at first you do not see a great deal of detail, relax… Allow your mind and eye time to look carefully. Even with telescopes as small as 8-10″, structure can easily be seen. The central bar becomes “clumpy” and this well-studied Seyfert galaxy is home to an abundance of molecular gas and is actively forming stars. Enjoy the incredible NGC 7479…

Saturday, October 25, 2008 – And who was watching the planets in 1671? None other than Giovanni Cassini – because he’d just discovered Saturn’s moon Iapetus. If you’re up before dawn this morning, have a look at Saturn for yourself as it poses less than five degrees away from the Moon. Iapetus usually holds around a magnitude of 12, and orbits well outside of bright Titan’s path.

Today is the birthday of Henry Norris Russell. Born in 1877, Russell was the American leader in establishing the modern field of astrophysics. As the namesake for the American Astronomical Society’s highest award (for lifetime contributions to the field), Mr. Russell is the “R” in H-R diagrams, along with Mr. Hertzsprung. This work was first used in a 1914 paper, published by Russell.

Tonight let’s start with a star that resides right in the middle of the H-R diagram as we have a look Beta Aquarii (RA 21 31 33 Dec -05 34 16).

Named Sadal Suud (“Luck of Lucks”), this star of spectral type G star is around 1030 light-years distant from our solar system and shines 5800 times brighter than our own Sun. The main sequence beauty also has two 11th magnitude optical companions. The one closest to Sadal Suud was discovered by John Herschel in 1828, while the further star was reported by S. W. Burnham in 1879.

Now let’s head to the eastern portion of Capricornus and start by identifying Zeta about a fistwidth southwest of the eastern corner star – Delta. Now look southeast about two fingerwidths to identify 5th magnitude star 41. About one half degree west is our target globular for the evening, M30 (RA 21 40 22 Dec -23 10 44).

At near magnitude 8, this class V globular cluster is well suited to even binoculars, and becomes spectacular in a telescope. Originally discovered by Messier in August 1764, and resolved by William Herschel in 1783, M30’s most attractive features include the several branches of stars which seem to radiate from its concentrated core region. Estimated to be about 26,000 light-years away, you’ll find it fairly well resolved in large aperture, but take time to really look. The dense central region may have already undergone core collapse – yet as close as these stars are, very few have collided to form x-ray binaries. For the smaller scope, notice how well M30’s red giants resolve, and be sure to mark your notes!

Sunday, October 26, 2008 – If you’re up early, be sure to look for Venus and Antares making a close pairing in the pre-dawn sky!

Tonight it’s time for a telescopic challenge – a compact galaxy group. You’ll find it less than half a degree southeast of the stellar pair 4 and 5 Aquarii (RA 20 52 26 Dec -05 46 19).

Known as Hickson 88, this grouping of four faint spiral galaxies is estimated to be about 240 million light-years away and is by no means an easy object – yet the galactic cores can just be glimpsed with mid-sized scopes from a very dark site. Requiring around 12.5″ to study in detail, you’ll find the brightest of the group to be northernmost NGC 6978 and NGC 6977. While little detail can be seen in the average large backyard scope, NGC 6978 shows some evidence of being a barred spiral, while NGC 6977 shows the even appearance of a face-on. Further south, NGC 6976 is much smaller and considerably fainter. It is usually caught while averting and studying the neighborhood. The southernmost galaxy is NGC 6975, whose slender, edge-on appearance makes it much harder to catch.

Although these four galaxies seem to be in close proximity to one another, no current data suggests any interaction between them. While such a faint galaxy grouping is not for everyone, it’s a challenge worthy of seasoned astronomer with a large scope! Enjoy…

Until next week, ask for the moon – but keep on reaching for the stars!

This week’s awesome images are: Deep Space 1 image of Comet Borrelly – Credit: NASA, Rendition of Lassell’s Telescope (widely used public image), Uranus – Credit: HST/NASA, NGC 7479 – Credit: Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech, Henry Norris Russell (widely used public image), Beta Aquarii – Credit: Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech, M30 – REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF and Hickson 88 – Credit: Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech. Thank you so much!!