Skylights featured three times on Earth Science
Picture of the Day: 1
, 2
, 3
, 4
.
Photo of the Week.. An evening crescent Moon hangs
between the trees.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, October 29, 2004.
The Moon, having survived its eclipse by the Earth's shadow, takes
the whole week to wane through its gibbous phase, and then ends the period at the
third
quarter, that phase reached the night of Thursday, November 4,
about the time of Moonrise in North America. With the Sun about
halfway to its low point at the Winter
Solstice in Sagittarius, the
quarter will be on the downslide of the ecliptic and just to the west of
the Sickle of Leo. In the middle
of the week, Tuesday the 2nd, the Moon passes apogee,
where it is farthest from the Earth. The waning gibbous passes Saturn during the
day of Wednesday, November 3, so it will be just to the west of the
ringed
planet the night of Tuesday the 2nd, and to the east of it the
following night.
While not really an astronomical event, note that Daylight
Savings Time in the US ends on Sunday, October 31.
Saturn, now rising about 10 PM Standard Time, is our only evening
naked-eye planet. To see more of the planets, you must wait for
the morning, at which time you can see
Venus and
Jupiter rising just after 3:30 AM. To rise nearly
simultaneously, they must be close together (in angle as seen from
Earth, hardly in distance, Jupiter five times farther away). And
indeed, they will come into conjunction with each other during the
day on Thursday, November 4th. This marvelous event, the meeting
of the two brightest planets, will be nicely on display the
mornings of Thursday the 4th and Friday the 5th. At their closest,
the two will be only 0.6 of a degree apart, brighter Venus passing
to the north of giant Jupiter. Just to the left of the pair look
for Porrima in Virgo, which will appear as a much
fainter third conjunctive companion. Way down below the two you
might glimpse Virgo's Spica rising
out of brighter twilight, and then down and to the left of it,
Mars, which is beginning to make its appearance, rising just
after dawn begins. Spica and Mars are in conjunction the morning
of Sunday, October 31, with the planet three degrees to the north
of the star.
As you admire the morning planets, note Orion now well to the west of the meridian at dawn as
he heads toward his annual evening show. As Jupiter and Venus
rise, Sirius in Canis Major, Orion's larger Dog,
crosses the meridian to the south. The evening stage is set with
the heart of the stars of fall. With Cygnus and the summer gang heading off to the west, the
Great Square of Pegasus is
seen high to the south, while Andromeda stretches off to the northwest as its star-
streams connect with Perseus, the
Hero of the great story of Cassiopeia, herself seen crossing the meridian around
10 PM as the Big Dipper crosses
beneath the pole.
