Be
VERY CAREFUL NOT TO OBSERVE SUN DIRECTLY!
INSTANT BLINDNESS CAN OCCUR!!!
Instruments can explode!!! Cease viewing before Sun actually rises if you're using binoculars or telescope!!!
Sample images from repaired and upgraded Hubble Space Telescope.
Butterfly Nebula, Galaxy Cluster, Star Cluster, Cold Molecular Cloud Pillar in Carina Nebula, where stars form.
PLANET and SKY INFORMATION: (August 16th, 2010)
PLANETS: Mercury is rounding the Sun, flipping to morning object shortly..
Venus is the very bright whitish dot low in the SW evening sky. Venus is close to greatest eastern elongation, will shortly appear to be retreating toward Sun. Mars is the bright orangy dot hovering near the star, Spica, and just above Venus. We're pulling away from Mars, so its diameter seriously diminishes.
Saturn is the bright yellowish dot to the upper right of Venus and Mars. Saturn is also getting left behind, fading quickly into the evening sunset. Our view of the rings is slowly widening, though.
Jupiter rises in the east by mid evening, the bright whitish dot. Uranus is just to the upper right of Jupiter. Neptune is just to the upper left of the left tip of the triangle of Capricornus. These two outer planets generally require optical aid to see.
BE AWARE OF THE CAUTIONS MENTIONED LAST FALL AND ABOVE ABOUT NOT LETTING SUNLIGHT GET INTO YOUR EYES, INSTANT BLINDNESS! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a comet visible in wee hours in eastern sky, 10/P Tempel, flying through Cetus, but you'll need binoculars to see, 8th magnitude. Finder chart at skyhound.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eclipses? See Fred Espanak's NASA Eclipse site for details, we need to wait until December, 2010, for our next readily visible total lunar eclipse. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROMINENT STARS and CONSTELLATIONS in early Autumn Sky:
The "sickle" (reverse questionmark) of Leo sets in the west by mid evening, carrying Venus adjacent to Regulus this week. Brilliant Arcturus, key star of Bootes, also heads toward the western part of the sky as darkness falls.
The Big Dipper stands vertically in the NW sky, off to the west of Polaris, the North Star.
The Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb, and Altair) appears fairly high in the eastern sky as darkness falls, and on moonless nights, the Summer Milky Way can be seen arching from the NE, where the W of Cassiopeia sits, across through Cygnus where Deneb rules, down through Aquila, where Altair resides, and flowing to the south, where Scorpius, with bright orangy Antares lies low along the southern horizon, along with the Teapot of Sagittarius just to the left, where the "steam" from the spout of the Teapot is where the center of our Galaxy, containing a several million solar mass black hole resides.
Sweep through the Summer Milky Way, particularly between Aquila and Sagittarius, with binoculars, to spot many star clusters and nebulas (clouds of dust and gas) and check out the dark nebulas in Cygnus.
If you stay up later in the evening, you'll see the great square of Pegasus rise in the east, and you can spot the Andromeda Galaxy 3 stars from the upper left star of the square, with unaided eye if you have dark skies. Photons from this object have traveled about 2.5 million light years to land on your eye!
Around midnight, the Pleiades star cluster rises along with the pentagon of winter stars of Auriga including its bright star of the Winter sky, Capella, low in the northeastern sky. Before dawn, the winter stars, Aldebaran in Taurus, and even the outline of Orion with brilliant Betelgeuse and Rigel can be seen rising in the east.
Sample images
