AAGG Show #28: Show Notes

Carpe Noctem - Seize the Night!

photo courtesy of: ESA SMART-1
Credit: ESA

Stars: Act I Les Miserables

Stars
In your multitudes
Scarce to be counted
Filling the darkness
With order and light
You are the sentinels
Silent and sure
Keeping watch in the night
Keeping watch in the night

You know your place in the sky
You hold your course and your aim
And each in your season
Returns and returns
And is always the same
And if you fall as Lucifer fell
You fall in flame!

By Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer

Listener Feedback

Welcome to Heath, Stephan, and Vance. I am glad to have you aboard and loved the emails. I also got a phone call from my Aunt Bonnie who was visiting my folks with the infamous "Mars Spectacular" email in hand. She apparently forgot about it until she heard the podcast. Apparently it caused much hilarity and spawned a welcomed phone call.

Listener Question

Mars Spectacular ... exact number repressed
Why is Pluto not a planet...lost count
I'm ready for some new questions! ;-)

News

SMART-1 to hit the Moon Read more from NASA...or more from the ESA protal... One of its most important discoveries was a "Peak of Eternal Light," peaks around Crater Peary near the Moon's north pole in constant, year-round sunlight. Peaks of Eternal Light are prime real estate for solar-powered Moon bases.
Ironically I planned this week's lunar Lacus tour before I knew that SMART-1 was crashing into Lacus Excellentiae so the Lacus Tour is appropriate.

Uranian eclipse Read more from Space.com...
Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus on March 13, 1781, noting that it was moving slowly through the constellation Gemini. Initially, however, Herschel thought he had discovered a new comet.

Constellations

Scutum - The shield is the 5th smallest constellation and was introduced in late 1683 by Hevelius as commemoration of the victory of the Christian forces led by Polish king and hero John III Sobieski in the battle of Vienna. We have danced all around this constellation, looking at its brighter objects all summer but never calling it by name. It is home to M11 (NGC 6705) +6.3 mag, the Wild Duck Cluster, M26 (NGC 6694)an +8.0 mag open cluster. The globular cluster NGC 6712

Sculptor - introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille as a sculptor's studio, but the name was later shortened to just Sculptor. It sits North of the Phoenix and Grus (the Crane) and to the east of Fomalhaut. Scuptor's 4-5th mag stars outline what could be a large block of unshaped stone.
Visible from 50 deg N Scuptor contains the South Galactic Pole and is home to the Scuptor Dwarf

Pisces Australis - Visible from 53 deg N the Southern Fish is one of the original 48 constellations that appeared in Ptolemy works. If you can find Aquarius and follow the water being poured from the jug you will find the Southern Fish drinking at the base of that cascade. The Arabs call the brightest star Fum al Hut (Fish Mouth)now Fomalhaut.

Around 3000BC Persian astrologers used Fomalhaut (Haftorang) as one of their 4 Guardian Stars (Royal or Watcher Stars).

They are:
Aldebaran (Tascheter) - vernal equinox (Watcher of the East)
Regulus (Venant) - summer solstice (Watcher of the North)
Antares (Satevis) - autumnal equinox (Watcher of the West)
Fomalhaut (Haftorang) - winter solstice (Watcher of the South)

Microscopium - another one of de Lacaille's mechanical wonders. Visible from 45 deg N but the stars are very faint. If you draw a line from Fomalhaut to Kaus Australis (the bottom corner star of the spout in the Saggitarius teapot) the half way point will be right in the middle of Microscopium.

Constellation image on its way!

Viewing

Naked eye -
Participate in NASA's "Star Count" all you need is a paper towel tube!

Something for the Northern Hemisphere is Algol. The Arabs called it Al ghul 'the ghoul' and the Greeks refered to it as the evil eye of the Gorgon Medusa. In the sky it is the second brightest star in the constellation Perseus and is indeed in Medusa's head in Perseus' outstreatched arms.

"...the Gorgon's head, a ghastly sight, deformed and dreadful, and a sight of woe". - Homer, writing of Algol in the Iliad.

Algol was actually an eclipsing binary 93 light-years away with a freakishly regular period of 2 days 20 hours 48 minutes 56 seconds to go from magnitude +2.1 to +3.4 and back. Use the charts from the AAVSO to find Algol and compare her in brightness to stars in the same area. Algol will be come easier to see (earlier!) and the season wears on. For more information visit the Sky and Telescope website.

Other objects around Algol.

Binocular - Turn those binoculars towards Algol for a treat. Telescope won't really give you the same nice wide field of view and the binoculars make it easier to compare magnitudes with stars around Algol. Binocular observers with really dark skies can view NGC 288 in Sculptor together with the bright galaxy NGC 253 in one field; NGC 288 appears as a round nebulous object.

Telescope - Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 55 in Sculptor
Swinging up high and dark try NGC 6207 mag +11.6 in Hercules just .25 deg NE of M13 the Hercules cluster.

Viewing image on its way!

The Moon

Partial Lunar eclipse Sept 7 16:42 UT (first contact with penumbra)

Images created with Lunar Phase Pro

Our beautiful lunar photos are courtesy of Frank Barrett at celestialwonders.com I recommend visiting his site and checking out his lunar phase photos. You can zoom in for more detail.

Show #26 took us to the Ptolemaeus group of craters and we are going to start at the end of that group for a little hop to hell! ;-)

I loved this excerpt from "What's up 2006: 365 Days of Skywatching" by Tammy Plotner

"Just west of Thebit and its prominent A crater to the northwest, you see the Straight Wall - Rupes Recta - appearing as a thin, white line. Continue south until you see large, eroded crater Deslandres. On its western shore, is a bright ring that marks the boundary of Hell. While this might seem like an unusual name for a crater, it was named for an astronomer - and clergyman!"

Object	Latitude	Longitude	Comments
Crater Manilius	14.5	9.1	Marcus; Roman poet and astrologer (unkn-c. 50 B.C.).
Crater Menelaus	16.3	16	Of Alexandria; Greek geometer, astronomer (c. A.D. 98) also of the Iliad Menelaus was brother to Agamemnon and husband to Helen soon to be Helen of Troy

The 'Lake District'. The same way the Lake District in Northern England has a pletheora of 'tarn' the lunar surface also has its share of lacus (lakes), 17 in all, there is one region that has a nice concentraion. Between Mare Vaporum and Mare Serenitatis.

1. Lacus Felicitatis
2. Lacus Odii
3. Lacus Doloris
4. Lacus Gaudii
5. Lacus Hiemalis
6. Lacus Lenitatis

Remember latitudes that are negative (-) are South and longitudes that are negative (-) are West!

Planets

Evening Planets

• Mars - Mag +1.8 is at the western end of Virgo. You will have to look hard in the haze of the horizon and it will help to be closer to the equator.
• Jupiter - Mag -1.7 in Libra. Clearly visible high in the sky just after sunset. Any telescope can reveal its two widest cloud bands and four Galilean satellites. Listener Kevin recommended a piece of free software that I now have on all my computers Jupiter 2 (Thanks Kevin!).
• Uranus - Mag +5.7 in Aquarius Uranus is best seen in a dark moonless sky away from artificial lighting. It may be seen looking like a very faint star to the dark-adapted naked eye that shimmers in and out of visibility just over 1 degree east of Lambda Aquarii. Find the tipped over letter Y of Aquarius, go 4 thumbwidths southeast to find Lambda, and then look pinky nail east.
• Neptune - Mag +7.8 in Capricorn 1 degree north of the +4.3 magnitude star Iota Capricorni

Don't Blink!

• Mercury - Mag -1.7 at Superior conjunction Aug 31. Mark your calendars for inferior conjunction and visible transit on Nov. 8th

Morning Planets

• Venus - Mag -3.8 The brightest morning planet visible. To the ESE the bright star Sirius is rising with Venus in the morning.
• Saturn - Mag +0.5 on the western edge of Leo! You still need binoculars in the early morning glare. Starting the first weekend in September look for Saturn ~7 degrees West of Venus but by the second weekend they will be 15 degrees apart as Venus creeps closer to the Sun and Saturn and the Sun move apart..optically that is!

Shall we be sassy? Dwarf Planets..er...Minor Planets...er...Icy Dwarfs....er...um...hmmmm

• Pluto Mag +13.9 in Serpens Cauda
• 1 Ceres +7.9 mag in Piscis Austeralis 18.5 degrees West of Formalhaut
• UB313 mag +19 in central Cetus

Comets

Comets for the Month.

Check out the Sky Hound site.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"
-- Shakespeare

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Music

Celtic Stone - Raggle Taggle Gypsies

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