Astroblog: And As Saturn Slowly Sinks in the West

Thursday, August 20, 2009

And As Saturn Slowly Sinks in the West

Mercury rises in the evening sky, while Saturn sinks lower towards the horizon (click the image to embiggen).

Saturn will be leaving our skies shortly. It's currently ringless form (at least to our view, as the rings are edge on), will disappear into the twilight over the week.

But if you are up watching the pair, why not wait a little longer and join in the Big Aussie Starhunt?

Labels: Mercury, Saturn

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 6:45 am

Comments:

What is the object that is currently visible in the
picture from the STEREO B spacecraft?

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/08/20/behind/hi1/512/20090820_191801_s7h1B.jpg

# posted by

Unknown : 6:33 am

Venus

# posted by

Ian Musgrave : 7:37 am

Thank you for the quick answer.

It settles a argument between me and my brother.

--

If I go back to the 15 August I see an other object in the picture. Is that some kind of comet?

# posted by

Unknown : 8:56 am

No, that's Mars. Do you have Celestia, the 3D space visualization program? If not, then get it. Then Add the Stereo Spacecraft using the SCC file here, and you can see the solar system from the Stereo Spacecraft point of view. Makes life much easier as you can readily identify major objects (I'm a stereohunter, I hunt comets using the Stereo images, so I use this all the time).

# posted by

Ian Musgrave : 8:36 pm