Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, November 1, 2008.
The ever-popular Moon passes through its full
phase the night of Wednesday, November 12th, around midnight in
North America, with the Moon crossing the meridian high and bright. With the Sun now in central Libra heading southward along the ecliptic toward the Winter Solstice, the full Moon takes
its place between classical Aries
and Taurus (to the west of the
Pleiades and northwest of Aldebaran), our companion now
heading northward toward the Summer
Solstice. During the early part of the week, the Moon waxes
through its gibbous phase, while after
full, we see a couple days of the waning
gibbous.
Near the beginning of the week, the night of Saturday the 8th, the
Moon passes a few degrees north of Uranus, which lies near the Pisces-Aquarius border to the south of Pisces' "Circlet." At the other end of the
week, the morning of Friday the 14th, the waning gibbous Moon
passes perigee, where
(and when) it is closest to the Earth (5.5 percent closer than
average).
The evening sky is now gloriously alight with the two brightest of
planets, Venus and Jupiter. (Jupiter can barely be beaten out by Mars when it is at its closest to us, but
that is a rare event.) In mid-twilight, Venus can hardly be missed
in the southwest, while Jupiter shines some 30 degrees to the east,
Venus roughly six times the brighter of the two. Venus is now in
far western Sagittarius, very close
to the Winter Solstice. That and the tilt of its orbit makes it
about as far south as it can get, two degrees south of the Solstice
itself, just north of the Galaxy's
Center and of last week's "Star of the Week," X Sagittarii. Jupiter, on the other
hand, lies in far eastern
Sagittarius to the northeast of the Little Milk Dipper. While both planets are in direct
easterly motion against the background stars, Venus is moving the
faster and will catch up with the giant planet at the end of the
month.
Moving easterly (and northward) along the ecliptic, we next arrive
at vastly dimmer Neptune (about 5 times fainter than the
naked eye can see). Moving ever so slowly against the stars of far
northeastern Capricornus, the
planet -- with an orbital period of 165 years -- has not quite made
a full circuit since its discovery in 1846. Farther along yet lies
Uranus. Though dim, it can actually be seen without a telescope as
it slowly moves retrograde in -- as noted above -- northeastern
Aquarius below the Circlet of Pisces. Both are evening planets,
Neptune transiting the meridian at the end of twilight, Uranus an
hour and a half later. Continuing along the ecliptic path we go
over the top at the Summer Solstice, and then down to Leo and Saturn, which rises around 2 AM
rather well to the east of Regulus.
While admiring Jupiter, look to the east to find autumn's Fomalhaut in Pisces Austrinus, the Southern Fish, as the lonely
first magnitude star glides across the sky not far above the
southern horizon. If you are far enough south, you might spot the
modern constellation Grus, the
Crane, below and a bit to the right of it.
