Photo of the Week. Evening clouds obscure the setting
Sun.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, August 29, 2008.
The Moon begins
the week just barely shy of new, that
phase reached on Saturday, August 30. The first decent chance to
view the waxing crescent will be the
evening of Monday, September 1, in fairly bright twilight. At the
same time, look about five degrees up and to the right to see
Venus, which is coming out of the evening murk. Then, if you
have binoculars, try to find Mercury, which will lie in
between the two. Mars will be
there too, a bit up and to the left of Venus, but don't bother, as
it is much to faint to see as a result of its great distance from
us, two and a half times that between Earth and Sun. Mars then
invisibly passes conjunction with the Moon after midnight. The
following evening, that of Tuesday the 2nd, you can find the Moon
below Virgo's Spica. The remainder of the week sees the Moon in
the fattening crescent as it heads toward its first quarter next Sunday, September
7.
That pretty much leaves us with the two giants of the Solar System,
one brilliantly obvious, the other out of sight. On Wednesday the
3rd, Saturn
passes conjunction with the Sun as it makes the transition from
evening to morning, though it won't be visible in the dawn hours
until late in the month. Jupiter, on the
other hand, quite dominates the evening sky, shining in the south
at nearly minus third magnitude just north of the Sagittarius's Little Milk Dipper. The huge planet now transits the
meridian just as twilight formally
ends. Moving toward the southwest, it sets about half an hour
after midnight local time (1 AM Daylight).
As the Big Dipper of Ursa Major begins to swing to the left
of the pole and then down into the
northwest, watch for the "W" of Cassiopeia climbing in the northeast. Between the two
is the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor,
which in early evening stands nearly straight up on its handle,
making for best viewing. Look then higher into the sky, above Polaris, for the four-star head of
Draco the celestial Dragon, which
winds down toward Polaris, and
then wraps its slithery body around and to the left of the Little
Dipper, finally ending up between it and the front bowl stars of
the Big one.
