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Friday, January 29, 2016

 

On the Radio Yet Again, on Nightlife

Last night (Wednesday 27 January), I was on ABC Nightlife talking with Rod Quinn about the safety of plastics and bisphenol A in the light of the latest Australian Total Diet Study.

For those of you who missed my radio performance last night, which included forgetting the plastics classification system, forgetting how to pronounce PET, and endlessly explaining that plastic drink bottles don't have BPA in them, you can download the mp3 here
 http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/nightlife/plastic_po_m2256365.mp3

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:10 am 0 comments

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

 

The Sky This Week - Thursday January 28 to Thursday February 4

The Last Quarter Moon is Monday February 1. Jupiter is visible in the late evening sky. The Moon is close to Jupiter on the 28th.  All five bright planets; Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Saturn and Mercury form a long line in the morning sky.  The Moon is close to Mars on the 2nd and Saturn on the 4th. Saturn  is close to the red star Antares. Venus is within binocular distance of the Globular Cluster M22 from January 29 to February 2.

The Last Quarter Moon is Monday February 1. The Moon is at apogee, when it is furthest from the Earth, on January 30.

Evening sky on Thursday January 28 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 23:55 ACDST. Jupiter is above the horizon shortly before midnight with the Moon close by. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter enters the evening sky before midnight daylight saving time, it is low on the horizon for most of the week.

The evening is also graced by the summer constellations of Taurus (with the V shaped cluster the Hyades forming the head of Taurus the Bull and the beautiful Pleiades cluster nearby) Orion the Hunter and Canis Major with bright Sirius, the dog star, climbing above the north-eastern horizon.

Early morning sky on Tuesday February 2 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars with the Moon nearby, Saturn with the red star Antares close by, Venus and Mercury.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter is high in the northern morning skies and is rising before midnight. 

Mars is higher in the morning skies and is readily visible in the pre twilight dark. Mars comes closer to the bright star alpha2 Librae, Zubenelgenubi, during the week and is closest on February 1 when the pair are just a finger-width apart.  The Moon is close to Mars on February 2.

Venus is easy to see in the morning twilight. It is a  distinct "gibbous Moon" shape and is nice in a small telescope. Venus traverses the lid of the teapot of Sagittarius and is close  the bright globular cluster M22. It is within binocular distance of the cluster from January 29 to February 2, being closest on January 30.

Saturn climbs higher in the morning sky. It is close to the Moon on February 4.

Mercury is low in the morning twilight. It climbs higher in the twilight sky, brightening and coming closer to Venus.

This week all five of the bright planets are visible in the morning sky, the first time this has happened for 10 years. Saturn and the red star Antares are close. During the week Venus moves away Saturn and enters the lid of the teapot of Sagittarius coming close to many nebula and clusters. You will need binoculars to see this, and the brightness of Venus will make the clusters hard to see. Mercury climbs higer and comes closer to Venus.

There are lots of interesting things in the sky to view with a telescope. If you don't have a telescope, now is a good time to visit one of your local astronomical societies open nights or the local planetariums.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
 
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:03 am 0 comments

Saturday, January 23, 2016

 

A Little Light Housekeeping

If you look to the left-hand side of the blog you will see a column with various links and apps in it. Scroll down and you will come to a section labelled Posts By Theme.

I have rearranged this so that 2016 astronomical events is at the top, followed by links to the categories Weekly Sky and Southern Skywatch (so event information is easy to find).  Then observing basics and unaided eye observations, followed by hints on using Celestia, Stellarium and a bunch of other useful astronomical things.

Hopefully that will help people to navigate around the site more easily.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 4:35 pm 0 comments
 

Coming Events: A Year of Southern Astronomy for 2016

The planets on 27 August 2016 at 7 pm, Venus and Jupiter are spectacularly close, with Mars nearby. Mars and Saturn form a triangle with the red star Antares. Click to embiggen.

Significant astronomical events that can be seen with the unaided eye or minimal equipment in 2016 in Australia (and to some degree elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, ocultations and eclipses are very region specific) are listed in this table.


Special events are bolded.

Sadly, we miss out on the Transit of Mercury this year, but there are a number of beautiful planetary events to keep us occupied.

DateEvent
1 January 2016;Moon Near Jupiter
4 January 2016; crescent Moon near Mars
7 January 2016;crescent Moon near Venus and Saturn
9 January 2016; Saturn and Venus at their closest
23-30 January 2016; All five bright planets visible in the morning sky, the first time since January 2005
27-28 January 2016; Moon Near Jupiter
1-22 February 2016; All five bright planets visible in the morning sky
2 February 2016; Moon Near Mars
4 February 2016; Moon near Saturn
6-7 February 2016; Moon Near Venus and Mercury
24 February 2016; Moon Near Jupiter
1 March 2016; Moon close to Mars
3 March 2016; Moon close to Saturn
7 March 2016;Moon close to Venus
8 March 2016; Moon close to Mercury
8 March 2016; Opposition of Jupiter
9 March 2016; Partial eclipse of the Sun, northern Australia only
22 March 2016;Moon close to Jupiter
23 March 2016; Penumbral eclipse of Moon
28 March 2016;Moon close to Mars
29 March 2016; Moon close to Saturn
6 April 2016; Moon close to Venus
18 April 2016; Moon close to Jupiter
25 April 2016; Moon, Mars, Saturn and Antares close
27 April 2016; Mars and Antares closest
6 May 2016; Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
6 May 2016; Moon and Venus close together.
15 May 2016;Moon close to Jupiter.
22 May 2016; Opposition of Mars.
22 May 2016; Moon close to Saturn, Mars and Antares.
3 June 2016; Opposition of Saturn.
3 June 2016; Moon and Mercury close.
4-25 June 2016; Comet C/2013 X1 PANSTARRS potentially visible in binoculars.
11 June 2016; Moon and Jupiter close.
17 June 2016; Moon and Mars close.
19 June 2016; Moon and Saturn close.
9 July 2016; Jupiter and crescent Moon very close.
14-15 July 2016; Mars and Moon close.
16 July 2016; Moon and Saturn close.
17 July 2016; Venus are Mercury very close, low in the twilight.
30 July 2016;Southen Delta Aquarids meteor shower.
31 July 2016; Mercury close to star Regulus.
4 August 2016;Crescent Moon close to Venus and Regulus.
5 August 2016;Crescent Moon close to Mercury.
6 August 2016; Jupiter and Crescent Moon close.
12 August 2016; Saturn and Moon close, with Mars nearby.
24 August 2016; Mars and Antares close, with Saturn nearby.
27-28 August 2016; Venus and Jupiter spectacularly close, Mercury nearby.
3 September 2016; Crescent Moon close to Venus, Jupiter and Mercury.
9 September 2016; Moon forms triangle with Mars and Saturn.
17 September 2016; Penumbral eclipse of the Moon.
22 September 2016; Moon close to star Aldebaran.
29 September 2016; Moon and Mercury close.
3-4 October 2016;Venus the Crescent Moon close.
6 October 2016; Crescent Moon close to Saturn.
8 October 2016; Mars close to Moon.
9-10 October 2016; Mars close to Globular Cluster M22.
18 October 2014;Moon close to Jupiter.
22 October 2016; Orionid meteor shower.
28 October 2016; Venus, Antares and Saturn form a line.
3 November 2016; Venus and Saturn at close to crescent Moon.
6 November 2016;Moon close to Mars.
8 November 2016; Mars close to globular cluster M75.
17 November 2016; Leonid Meteor Shower.
20 November 2016; Venus close to Globular Cluster M22.
25 November 2016; Crescent Moon close to Jupiter.
1 December 2016; Crescent Moon close to Mercury.
3 December 2016; Crescent Moon close to Venus.
5 December 2016; Moon close to Mars.
15 December 2016; Geminid Meteor shower.
23 December 2016; Waning Moon close to Jupiter.
28 December 2016; Crescent Moon close to Saturn.
31 December 2016; Comet 45P potentially visible in binoculars.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 4:08 pm 0 comments
 

Southern Skywatch January, 2016 edition is now out!

The line-up of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury as seen from Adelaide on the morning of 28 January at 5:00 am. (click to embiggen)

The January edition of Southern Skywatch is finally up (sorry, holidays got the better of me).  This month features still more nice planetary action. Unfortunately, as with December, it is in the early morning with Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter forming a line in the morning sky and the crescent Moon joining them. Mercury joins the line-up in late January.

Jupiter enters the evening sky and has close encounters with the Moon.

Mars is visible in the early morning sky and has close encounters with the crescent Moon.

Saturn has close encounters with the crescent Moon and Venus..

Venus is prominent in the morning twilight and is close to the crescent Moon on the 7th. It comes close to Saturn on the 9th.

Mercury returns to the morning sky late in the month. This means that all five bright, classical planets are visible together in the morning for the first time since January 2005.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 2:20 pm 0 comments

Friday, January 22, 2016

 

All Five Bright Classical Planets Lined Up in the Morning Sky (23 January - 22 February 2016)

The sky looking north-east on the morning of January 30th, an hour before sunrise. Click to embiggen.The sky looking north-east in January 2015, the last time all the bright planets were together in the morning sky. On the 18-22nd of December 2004 they were in the order they are in from the Sun (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter Saturn) Click to embiggen

As you have probably heard by now, for the first time since January 2005 all five bright classical planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) will be in a line in the morning sky (although some stories confuse alignment, when the planets are close together in the sky, with line-up, where they are all strung out).

This will be rather cool to see, but unfortunately, until around the middle of next week most of southern Australia won't see it.

The sky looking north-east in Adelaide on the morning of January 23rd, an hour before sunrise. Mercury is very close to the horizon and hard to see.The sky looking north-east in Adelaide on the morning of January 23rd, half an hour before sunrise. Mercury is higher above the horizon but swamped in the twilight.

While Mercury is in the morning skies, it is still very close to the Sun, and still relatively dim. While it is magnitude 1.3, and objects this bright are easy to see when the sky is fully dark, in the twilight glow Mercury will be very hard to spot without binoculars. The best time to spot Mercury is at nautical twilight, and hour before sunrise, the sky is still darkish, and Mercury will stand out.

The sky looking east in Darwin on the morning of January 23rd, an hour before sunrise.The sky looking east in Brisbane on the morning of January 23rd, an hour before sunrise.The sky looking east in Sydney on the morning of January 23rd, 45 minutes before sunrise.

The bad news is that for most of Australia south of the latitude of Brisbane, Mercury either doesn't rise before nautical twilight or is very low at nautical twilight, unless you have a clear, level hroizon like the seas or a dessert you won't get to see it.

Take this weekend for example (23-24 January). In Brisbane, an hour before sunrise, Mercury is 5 degrees (just under a hand-span) from the horizon an hour before sunrise, while in Sydney Mercury doesn't really rise until 50 minutes before sunrise.

However, Mercury rapidly rises above the horizon getting substantially brighter (and closer to Venus). By the middle of next week Mercury is becoming easier to see in Southern Australia. By the 30th Mercury is easily visible an hour before sunrise. It is highest above the horizon (around one and a half hand-spans at nautical twilight for most of Southern Australia) on the 7th, and then is reasonably visible to around the 20th-22nd of February.

As an extra treat, Venus and Mercury be 6 degrees (around a hand-span) or closer from February 4th on, and the pair will be closest on February 13th.

The sky looking north-east on the morning of January 30th, an hour before sunrise. Click to embiggen.The sky looking north-east on the morning of February 6th, an hour before sunrise. Click to embiggen.

To make things even better the Moon marches down the planetary line-up, giving great morning views.

The waning Moon is close to Jupiter on January 28, the bright star Spica on January 31, Mars on February 2. On February 3 the crescent Moon forms a triangle with the bright star Antares and Saturn. On February 4 the crescent Moon is close to Saturn. Then on the 6th the thin crescent Moon, Venus and Mercury form a triangle. On the 7th the very thin crescent Moon is close to Mercury.

So don't be discouraged if you can't see the line-up this weekend, there are plenty of morning line-up sights coming over the next few weeks .

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:24 am 0 comments

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

 

The Sky This Week - Thursday January 21 to Thursday January 28

The Full Moon is Sunday January 24. Jupiter is visible in the late evening sky. The Moon is close to Jupiter on the 27th.  All five bright planets; Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Saturn and Mercury form a long line in the morning sky.  Saturn  is close to the red star Antares. Venus is close to the Trifid nebula from the 24th to the 26th.

The Full Moon is Sunday January 24.

Evening sky on Wednesday January 27 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 23:55 ACDST. Jupiter is above the horizon shortly before midnight with the Moon close by. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter enters the evening sky before midnight daylight saving time, it is low on the horizon for most of the week.

The evening is also graced by the summer constellations of Taurus (with the V shaped cluster the Hyades forming the head of Taurus the Bull and the beautiful Pleiades cluster nearby) Orion the Hunter and Canis Major with bright Sirius, the dog star, climbing above the north-eastern horizon.

Early morning sky on Sunday January 24 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:23 ACDST showing Saturn with the red star Antares close by, Venus and Mercury.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter is high in the northern morning skies and is rising before midnight. 

Mars is higher in the morning skies and is readily visible in the pre twilight dark. Mars comes closer to the bright star alpha2 Librae, Zubenelgenubi, during the week.

Venus is easy to see in the morning twilight. It is a  distinct "gibbous Moon" shape and is nice in a small telescope. Venus enters the lid of the teapot of Sagittaarius and is close to the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas and the open cluster M21 from the 24th to the 26th. It is closest on the 25th. It then heads for the bright globular cluster M22.

Saturn climbs higher in the morning sky.

Mercury is appears low in the morning twilight. it will be hard to see until the end of the week.

This week all five of the bright planets are visible in the morning sky, the first time this has happened for 10 years. Saturn and the red star Antares are close. During the week Venus moves away Saturn and enters the lid of the teapot of Sagittarius coming close to many nebula and clusters. You will need binoculars to see this, and the brightness of Venus will make the clusters hard to see. 

There are lots of interesting things in the sky to view with a telescope. If you don't have a telescope, now is a good time to visit one of your local astronomical societies open nights or the local planetariums.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
 
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:40 pm 2 comments
 

The David Bowie Constellation in Stellarium

The David Bowie constellation, as illustrated in the memorial webpages What the constellation will actually look like this morning at around 3 am AEDST looking east. Simulated in Stellarium, click to embiggenWhat the constellation will look on 1 April  in the morning at around 3 am AEDST looking south. Simulated in Stellarium, click to embiggen

DDB Brussles report of this amazing tribute to David Bowie has been circulating around the world. The images of the "constellation" Belgian astronomers of the MIRA public observatory created has attracted attention (rather than the fact that the image is interactive and that clicking in the lightning flash plays Bowie songs).

But will the "constellation" actually look like that? The constellation was drawn on 2D maps of the sky, and there is likely some distortion. So I used the "sky cultures" feature of Stellarium to create the Bowie constellation, using the stars nominated by the Belgian astronomers. The results can be seen in the images above.

The "constellation" is only briefly visible before Sunrise in the southern hemisphere (and a large chunk of it is permanently below the horizon for the northern hemisphere) at the moment, and it is side on It won't be until April that it will be oriented more vertically.  It is still a bit chunky, but not too bad a representation.

Of course, several of the stars are too faint to be easily seen, and the "constellation" ignores the obvious bright stars, but it does reasonably produce a lightning flash. And it is ephemeral, as it was produced to be "near Mars, but Mars will move away from the "constellation" over the year, and be far away by 2017.

 Still, a nice idea. I you want to add this to stellarium yourself, in the skycultures folder create a folder called Bowie. The create the following files:

constellation_names.eng.fab, constellationship.fab, description.en.utf8, info.ini, 
references.txt and star_names.fab 
 
using the file contents below; constellationship.fab  is the Hippicaros numbers of the stars involved (placed in line connection order).  The star_names.fab doesn't work even though identically set up files work fine for my Boorong and  Karuna sky cultures. I leave fixing this as an exercise to the reader. See the abbreviated rules here.

========constellation_names.eng.fab===========
001 "Ziggy Stardust" _("Ziggy Stardust")
002 "NTest" _("NTest")
=======constellationship.fab===============
001 7  65474 73714 73714 77952 77952 70069 70069 70638 70638 64003 64003 68002 68002 65474
=======description.en.utf8=============



David Bowie Tribute

Music legend David Bowie gets his own constellation, delineated by seven stars that shine in the iconic shape of a lightning bolt. A remarkable tribute by Belgian music station Studio Brussel and MIRA Public Observatory. 
External links





Author

This sky culture was contributed by Stellarium user Ian Musgrave based on the work of Belgian music station Studio Brussel and MIRA Public Observatory. 


==========info.ini=========================
[info]
name = Bowie
===========references.txt===================
Reference sources -
http://ddbbrussels.prezly.com/belgians-give-starman-bowie-own-constellation#
http://stardustforbowie.be/
=========star_names.fab================
 65474|_("Spica")
 73714|_("sigma Librae")
 77952|_("beta Triangulum")
 70069|_("SAO 241641")
 70638|_("beta Octanis")
 64003|_("SAO 204132")
 68002|_("zeta Centauri") 
 80112|_("Wife of Dujit")  
=========================================

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 10:23 pm 0 comments

Sunday, January 17, 2016

 

The International Space Station Zips between Orion and Taurus (17 January 2016)

The ISS passes between Orion and Taurus, then enters Earth's shadow. 8 x 5 sec exposures at 400 ASA taken with my Canon IXUS and aligned and stacked in ImageJ. Click to embiggen.Animation of the same 8 frames.

Tonight was a another good night for watching the ISS go over, a bit cloudier than the last time, and a bit more moonlight, but still very good conditions. As with last time, I got to see the ISS as it climbed up from the south-west all the way until it went into Earth's shadow, although it was skirting cloud all the way. Again, this was a nice bright one, easily visible.

This time I was able to get frames of the ISS from just after it was at its brightest, until it disappeared into the Earth's shadow.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 10:57 pm 0 comments

Friday, January 15, 2016

 

The International Space Station Passes Below Canopus (15 January 2016)

The ISS passes below the bright star Canopus and above the False Cross. 6 x 5 sec exposures at 400 ASA taken with my Canon IXUS and aligned and stacked in ImageJ. Click to embiggen.Animation of the same 6 frames.

Tonight was a brilliant night for watching the ISS go over, also perfectly clear aside from some light cloud, not too hot, not too windy, and the waxing Moon did not drown out the stations light. Hadn't had a good night for ISS passes since December. I got to see the ISS s it climbed up from the south-west all the way until it went into Earth's shadow. This was a nice bright one too, easily visible.

Unfortunately the camera did't want to come out of fireworks mode, so I missed a couple of frames from the pass, but it still stacked up pretty well. Hopefully Sunday's pass between Taurus and Orion will be clear too.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:18 pm 0 comments
 

Catch Some Bright International Space Station Pass Starting Tonight (15 January 2016)

The ISS passes near between Taurus and Orion , as seen from Adelaide on the evening of  Sunday 17 January at 21:50 ACDST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen.The ISS passes or the bright star Sirius, as seen from Sydney on the evening of Saturday 16 January at 21:38 AEDST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen.The ISS passes below Aldebaran and the Moon, as seen from Perth on the evening of Wednesday 20 January at 19:52 AWST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot). click to embiggen.
All sky chart showing local  times from Heavens Above for Sunday 17 January for Adelaide.All sky chart showing local  times from Heavens Above for Saturday 16 January for Sydney.All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Wednesday 20 January for Perth.

Starting tonight (Friday 15 January) there a series of bright evening passes of the International Space Station. For many places in Australia the ISS glides over or near bright stars or distinctive constellations. In Sydney and Perth the ISS passes through Orions belt (19 January and 17 January respectively), in Melbourne the ISS passes close to the Moon (18 Jan) or between Orion and Taurus (15 Jan, 17 Jan for Adelaide and 20 Jan for Perth).

When and what you will see is VERY location dependent, so you need to use either Heavens Above or CalSky to get site specific predictions for your location (I'm using Sydney, Adelaide and Perth as examples, choosing  some of the more distinctive events, but there are lots more that are perfectly nice.).
 
Start looking several minutes before the pass is going to start to get yourself oriented and your eyes dark adapted. Be patient, there may be slight differences in the time of the ISS appearing due to orbit changes not picked up by the predictions.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 8:41 pm 1 comments

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

 

The Sky This Week - Thursday January 14 to Thursday January 21

The First Quarter Moon is Sunday January 17. Jupiter is visible in the late evening sky. Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Saturn form a long line in the morning sky. Venus and Saturn  form a triangle with the red star Aldebaran. 

The First Quarter Moon is Sunday January 17. The Moon is at perigee, when it is closest to the Earth, on the 15th.

Evening sky on Saturday January 16 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 23:55 ACDST. Jupiter is just above the horizon shortly before midnight. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Mercury is lost in the twilight.

Jupiter enters the evening sky just before midnight daylight saving time, it is low on the horizon for most of the week.

The evening is also graced by the summer constellations of Taurus (with the V shaped cluster the Hyades forming the head of Taurus the Bull and the beautiful Pleiades cluster nearby) Orion the Hunter and Canis Major with bright Sirius, the dog star, climbing above the north-eastern horizon.

Early morning sky on Sunday January 17 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars, Venus and Saturn with the red star Antares close by.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter is high in the northern morning skies and is rising before midnight. 

Mars is higher in the morning skies and is readily visible in the pre twilight dark.

Venus is easy to see in the morning twilight. It is a  distinct "gibbous Moon" shape and is nice in a small telescope.

Saturn climbs higher in the morning sky.

Venus, Saturn and the red star Antares form a triangle low in the early twilight. During the week Venus moves away Saturn from Saturn making the triangle broader. There are lots of interesting things in the sky to view with a telescope. If you don't have a telescope, now is a good time to visit one of your local astronomical societies open nights or the local planetariums.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
 
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:45 pm 0 comments

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

 

Geomagnetic alert (6-7 January)

The Australian Space Weather Service (SWS ) has now  issued a Geomagnetic Alert for possible geomagnetic storms on 6-7 January UT from a coronal hole. A G1 storm has been predicted, although it may occur in the late afternoon during daylight. There is a possibility we will get unaided eye visible aurora in Tasmania and less likely for the Southern mainland. Evening skies are Moon free, morning skies have a crescent Moon near Venus and Saturn.

Dark sky sites have the best chance of seeing anything, and always allow around 5 minutes for your eyes to become dark adapted.

As always look to the south for shifting red/green glows, beams have been reported consistently over the last few aurora and a large green "blob" has been seen, as well as bright proton arcs and "picket fences".

Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds http://satview.bom.gov.au/
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.  

The all sky aurora camera in Northern Tasmania at Cressy may be helpful.
<http://www.ips.gov.au/Geophysical/4/2>

SUBJ: SWS GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCE WARNING 16/02
ISSUED AT 2301UT/04 JANUARY 2016
BY THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECAST CENTRE.

Coronal hole effects are likely to result in periods of active
geomagnetic conditions in the Australian region, with minor storm
levels at higher latitudes.

INCREASED GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY EXPECTED
DUE TO CORONAL HOLE HIGH SPEED WIND STREAM
FROM 06-07 JANUARY 2016
_____________________________________________________________

GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY FORECAST
06 Jan:  Active to Minor Storm
07 Jan:  Active to Minor Storm


Further monitoring at
http://www.ips.gov.au

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:54 pm 0 comments
 

Seeing Comet C/2013 X1 and its Outburst in Australia

Location of comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) as seen looking north-west from Adelaide at astronomical twilight, and hour and a half after sunset. The comet is just below Chi and Gamma Peg (indicated). Click to embiggen.Location of comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) as seen looking north-west from Brisbane at astronomical twilight, and hour and a half after sunset. Ignore the time on the image, it is a Stellarium bug. Click to embiggen.Location of comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) as seen looking north-west from Darwin  at astronomical twilight, and hour and a half after sunset. Ignore the time on the image, it is a Stellarium bug. Click to embiggen.

Comet P/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) is reported to be in outburst at magnitude 8.1 or brighter (there have been reports in the high 7's but I haven't seen them directly). This makes the comet potentially visible in binoculars, and rather obvious in telescopes.

Unfortunately for Australians the comet is currently in the Great Square of Pegasus, forming a triangle with Gamma and Chi Pegasi. This means that it is very low to the horizon, and can only be seen for a short time after astronomical twilight in the evening before it becomes too low.


Black and white printable map suitable for use with binoculars or a telescope. The stars Gamma nd Chi Pegasi (indicated on the chart above) are shown for orientation. The large circle is the filed of view of 10x50 binoculars, ad the small circle the FOV of a 24 mm eyepiece on a 114mm Newtonian reflector. Click to embiggen and print. 

Southern Australia has the worst view, with the comet only 10 degrees or a little bit more above the horizon, where horizon murk will make it harder to see.

Northern Australia has the best views with the comet 20 degrees above the north-west horizon at the latitude of Brisbane at astronomical twilight, and 41 degrees above the north-west horizon at the latitude of Darwin at astronomical twilight.
 
My image of C/2013 X1 taken with the iTelescope remote scope T20 in New Mexico on the 4th.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 2:08 am 0 comments
 

The Sky This Week - Thursday January 7 to Thursday January 14

The New Moon is Sunday January 10. Jupiter is visible in the late evening sky. Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Saturn form a long line in the morning sky and are joined by the waning to crescent Moon. On the 7th Venus, Saturn and the crescent Moon form a triangle. Venus and  Saturn are closest on the Saturday 9th.  

The New Moon is Sunday January 10.

Evening sky on Sunday January 10 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 23:55 ACDST. Jupiter is just above the horizon shortly before midnight. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Mercury is lost in the twilight.

Jupiter enters the evening sky around midnight daylight saving time, it is low on the horizon for most of the week.

The evening is also graced by the summer constellations of Taurus (with the V shaped cluster the Hyades forming the head of Taurus the Bull and the beautiful Pleiades cluster nearby) Orion the Hunter and Canis Major with bright Sirius, the dog star, climbing above the north-eastern horizon.

Early morning sky on Saturday January 9 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars, Venus and Saturn with the red star Antares close by.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter is high in the morning skies and is rising before midnight by the end of the week. 

Mars is higher in the morning skies and is readily visible in the pre twilight dark.

Venus is easy to see in the morning twilight. It is a  distinct "gibbous Moon" shape and is nice in a small telescope.

Saturn climbs the morning sky.

Venus, Saturn and the red star Antares form a triangle low in the early twilight. During the week Venus traverses the head of the Scorpion and meets on Saturn. 


Venus is closest to Saturn on the morning of January 9th. Simulation in Stellarium of the telescopic field of view in a 10 mm eyepiece with a 114 mm Newtonian telescope. Similar views will be seen in a variety of telescopes. (click to embiggen).

On the morning of Thursday January 7, Venus Saturn and crescent Moon are close and on the morning of the  9th, Venus and Saturn spectacularly close (and also visible together in a low power telescope as illustrated).

There are lots of interesting things in the sky to view with a telescope. If you don't have a telescope, now is a good time to visit one of your local astronomical societies open nights or the local planetariums.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
 
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:24 am 0 comments

Monday, January 04, 2016

 

Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina 20 December and 31 December 2015

Comet C/2103 US10 imaged with iTelescope T20 on 20 December 2015. MEDIAN stack of  5x180 second luminance images, stacked in ImageJ. Click to embiggen to see the galaxies in the bottom right clearly.Comet C/2103 US10 imaged with iTelescope T20 on 31 December 2015. MEDIAN stack of  5x180 second luminance images, stacked in ImageJ. Click to embiggen.  The ginormous blob off to the right is the bright star Arcturus, making detail in the comet hard to see..
The image of Comet C/2103 US10 above cropped to show detail in the inner tail. Click to embiggen to see the fine structure more clearly.Animation of each of the 5x180 second frames.

I have been having extraordinary trouble seeing the bright(ish) comet C/2013 US10 Catalina (magnitude 6.4, just below unaided eye visibility), here in Australia it is very low on the horizon and clouds (and the occasional need for sleep) have frustrated me. My choice of timing for remote telescope runs has been pretty dismal too, I seem to pick all the stormy nights. However I have managed to get these two images, one from the 20th showing exquisite detail in the tail, and one from the 31st, when the comet was close to Arcturus. This was interesting but drowned any detail in the comet out.

The comet is still reasonably close to Arcturus, if you want to try an find it with your own scopes.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 12:47 am 4 comments

Sunday, January 03, 2016

 

Morning Planet and Moon Dance 4 January - 9 January, 2016

Early morning sky on Monday January 4 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars, the crescent Moon, Venus and Saturn with the red star Antares close by.  Venus and Saturn form a triangle with the red star Antares.Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).Early morning sky on Thursday January 7 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars, Venus, Saturn and the crescent Moon with the red star Antares close by.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).
Early morning sky on Saturday January 9 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Mars, Venus, Saturn. Venus and Saturn are at their closest and form a narrow triangle with the red star Antares. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).Simulation in Stellarium of the telescopic field of view in a 10 mm eyepiece. (click to embiggen).

If you are up early in the morning over the next week the morning sky will delight you. On Monday morning the cresecnt Moon is below Mars, and close to the horizon Venus and Saturn form a triangle with the bright red star Anatres. Venus is in the head of the constellation of the Scorpion, almost on top of the brightish star nu Scorpii.

Over the week the crescent Moon heads for the pair of Venus and Saturn, and Venus comes closer to Saturn. On Thursday the 7th The crescent Moon is close to Venus, Saturn and Antares. This will be a wonderful astrophotography target, as well as being beautiful to see. 

Binocular and telescopic view of Venus and Saturn on the morning of the 9th. The large circel is the field of view of 10x50 biinoculars, the medium circle the FOV through a 24 mm eyepiece of  a 114 mm Newtonian reflector, and the small a 18 mm eyepiece.

On Saturday the 9th Saturn and Venus are at their closest. If you have a telescope which can aim low to the horizon, you will see both Saturn and Venus together in wide field and medium power eyepieces.

The pair form a very narrow triangle with Anatres, and again will look very nice in the morning. Unless you have a very level, unobstructed horizon, the best time to look is  bit before an hour before sunrise.

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# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 3:22 pm 0 comments

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