Image: Mars & Jupiter, 2015 / Source: Roger Hutchinson (Flickr)
Did you see the close conjunction between Jupiter and Mars on the 14th? They are separating again, and it might be something you would enjoy tracking over time as weather permits. Mars is 140 million miles away from Earth; Jupiter is almost 4 times as far, yet because Jupiter is so massive it reflects more sunlight due to its larger reflective surface area, spanning 37 minutes of arc, as opposed to Mars’s mere 6 minutes of arc. This term arc is a unit of measurement in apparent size or the distances between objects across the sky. These units originated in Babylonian astronomy as subdivisions of the degrees in a circle; they are used in fields that involve very small angles, such as astronomy. I’d like to think your geometry teacher taught this in geometry class, but mine didn’t so perhaps yours didn’t either.
Mercury left the evening sky last Sunday; it will be in the morning sky on the 31st. This speedy inner planet is elusive because it never rises very high above the horizon. Some fascinating facts about Mercury include a year on Mercury takes 88 Earth days. Because Mercury is gravitationally locked, a day on the surface of Mercury lasts 176 Earth days.
Saturn is rising before dark now and appears in the east by 6:00 PM. When you are taking your after-dinner stroll or jog, look for it to be well up by full dark. Its magnitude is 0.7 and is the brightest point of light among the stars of faint Aquarius. If you were a year 2000 AD baby, your parents probably danced to the tune Age of Aquarius, which really doesn’t mean anything profound, I just liked that song and it reminds me of that time frame.
Constellations in the hour before dawn include winter’s Orion, with Betelgeuse — yes, I know there is a new movie out about Beetle Juice, but this star actually was named by Arabic astronomers; check out this site for a great article about this star’s lore: https://www.astronomyclub.xyz/alpha-centauri/the-name-and-lore-of-betelgeuse.html
The summer night constellations include the Summer Triangle of the constellations the eagle, the swan, and the lyre high overhead by 9:00 PM. The three bright stars of these constellations — Altair, Deneb, and Vega — are the vertices of the huge asterism.
If your walking area is not overwhelmed with street and home lighting fixtures, then the great curving J of Scorpius is leaning a bit southwest. Look for the red star, Antares, the rival of Mars (Aries) and try to trace the lazy J or fishhook shape of the scorpion.
If you have access to decent telescopes the southern sky is filled with a variety of Messier Objects catalogued by the French astronomer/comet hunter Charles Messier. His work was primarily hunting for comets and any blurry or fuzzy object that appeared through his telescope he recorded the ascension and declination measurements for its location. If it moved and was not a planet, it would hopefully be a comet. He identified dozens during his lifetime. The ones visible with aid in the southern sky this month include M4 in Scorpius, and in between Scorpius and Sagittarius are M6 &7. In between and above those are M8, 11, 16, 17, 20, and 22. You can find images of these different beautiful structures here: https://www.messier-objects.com/
I do hope you enjoy your stargazing/skywatching. There is so much pleasure to experience when we look up. Until next time, DO let some stars get in your eyes.
KLU
