A look at the sky this week, from July 27 to August 4

Friday, July 27

• Full Moon (accurate at 4:20 pm EDT). Full Moon is Moon's opposition, so she shines with brilliant Mars, which is just a day after her opposition .

Mars at this moment is 143 times farther from us than the Moon (and it is twice as large). Its surface is covered with dark brown and rusty dust compared to the very dark gray dust of the moon. So why do they look orange and white in our night sky? Because they are brightly illuminated, by the direct sunlight, while the rest of the night around us (to which our eyes adapt) is much darker.

• Total eclipse of the moon, but not for North America! (or Hawai'i). The best views will come from Europe, Africa and much of Asia. It is the longest lunar eclipse total of the 21st century, with a total duration of 1 hour 43 minutes. Next to Reddish Mars, the Moon will turn from white to (presumably) very red, then back to white

The Basic Timeline: Partial eclipse starts at 18:24 UT , the total eclipse begins 19: 30 UT, the total eclipse ends at 21:13 UTC, the partial eclipse ends at 22:19 UT on July 27. The whole occurs at dusk or in the evening for Europe, East of Brazil and West Africa; late into the Middle East night across India; and around dawn for Southeast Asia and much of China, Indonesia and Australia.

Article with details and world map: The Red Moon meets the red planet in the longest total lunar eclipse of the century. A livestream of the lunar eclipse will be broadcast on Slooh from 1pm. EDT (17:00 UTC)

Saturday, July 28

• Tonight, the moon shines more to the left of Mars after their elevation.

Sunday, July 29

• The Big Dipper is diagonally hung in the northwest at dusk From its midpoint, look three fists at arm's length to the right to find Polaris (not very bright) ) that shines northward as always.

Polaris is the handle of the Little Dipper. The only other parts of the Little Dipper that are even modestly bright are the two stars forming the outer end of her bowl. On the evenings of August, you'll find them in the upper left of Polaris (about a fist and a half at arm's length). They call themselves the Guardians of the Pole, since they surround Polaris endlessly throughout the night and throughout the year.

Monday, July 30

• Scorpius's tail is low in the south just after dark, well at the bottom right of Saturn. The life of depends on the north or south where you live: the southernmost, the highest.

Look for the two particularly close stars in the tail. These are Lambda and lower Upsilon Scorpii, known as cat eyes. They are inclined at an angle; the cat tilted his head and blinked.

Cat's eyes point to the west (right) of a fist width towards Mu Scorpii, a much tighter pair known as Little Cat's Eyes. They are oriented almost exactly in the same way as big cat eyes. Can you solve the Mu pair without using binoculars?

Tuesday, July 31

• Starry Scorpius is sometimes called "Orion of Summer" for its brilliance and red supergiant (Antares in the case of Scorpius, Betelgeuse for Orion). But Scorpius goes much lower in the south than Orion for those of us in the middle latitudes of the north. This means that there is only one very good month of the evening: July. Catch Scorpius in the south just after dark, before it begins to tilt to the southwest.

Wednesday August 1

• With the summer advance, the teapot of Sagittarius begins to tilt. and pour from its beak to the right. The teapot will tilt further and further during the rest of the summer – or for much of the night if you stay out late.

Thursday, August 2

• Bright Vega runs the closest from 10am to 11pm. summer time, depending on where you are in the east or west of your time zone. The proximity of your zenith depends on your distance to the north or south. It pbades right to your zenith if you are at 39 ° North latitude (Washington DC, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Lake Tahoe). How much can you judge that by watching?

Then Deneb crosses the closest zenith almost exactly two hours after Vega

Friday, August 3

• Action in Sagittarius. Less than 3 ° lower right of Saturn this week is M8, the lagoon nebula and its badociated star cluster. The lagoon is the brightest emission nebula of the summer sky. In a dark sky, it is obvious to the naked eye as a small patch of the milky way if you know where to look: above the beak of the teapot of Sagittarius.

Above M8 by 1.4 °, and perhaps a little to the right M20, the Trifid nebula and its small adjacent cluster M21. This nebula usually needs a telescope.

Matt Wedel, in his Binocular Highlight column of the Sky & Telescope of August (page 43), draws attention to two other binoculars in the same field, somewhat subtle but easy to recognize once you know them. Collector 367 is located 1.3 ° east-northeast of the lagoon. The ASCC 93 is at the same distance east-northeast of the Trifid. Saturn is currently about to walk on it.

"I can not stop seeing four objects in a parallelogram now," Wedel writes about his binocular view. "In the northwest corner, M20, M21, and a group of bright stars are blending together on a brilliant glow that rivals M8, which occupies the southwest corner.At east, Cr 367 and ASCC 93 seem smaller, weaker from their nebular neighbors. "Things you did not know!

Saturday, August 4

• Moon of the last quarter (accurate to 14:18 eastern daylight time). The moon gets up until 2 pm tonight, depending on your location. Once it is high, locate the Pleiades to his left and Aldebaran below the Pleiades. As the very first light of dawn alludes to the next day, you will find Orion brightening the eastern horizon well below Aldebaran (for the north-north latitudes of the world).

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Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations! They are the key to locating anything weaker and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.

This is an outdoor nature hobby. For an easy-to-use constellation guide covering the entire evening sky, use the large monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope The Essential Guide to Astronomy.

Once you have a telescope, to put it to use, you will need a detailed atlas of the sky (set of maps). The basic standard is the Pocket Sky Atlas (in the original or Jumbo Edition), which shows stars at magnitude 7.6.

Next, the largest and deepest Sky Atlas 2000.0 reporting the stars at magnitude 8.5; almost three times more. The next time, once you know your way, are the largest Interstellarum atlas (stars at magnitude 9.5) and Uranometria 2000.0 (stars at magnitude 9 75). And read how to use the sky charts with a telescope.

You will also need a good deep sky guide, such as the 1945-19007 collection of Sue French Deep-Sky Wonders (which includes his own maps), Sky Atlas 2000.0 Companion Strong and Sinnott, or the largest Guide to the Night Sky Observer by Kepple and Sanner .

Can a computerized telescope replace cards? ] Not for beginners, I do not think, and not on mounts and tripods that are not of good mechanical quality (which means heavy and expensive). And as Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer's Guide "a full appreciation of the universe can come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understand how the sky works spending time under the stars with star cards in hand. "

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This week's Roundup Planet

Other surface signs on Mars become visible again on July 26th in trouble ahead." A new dust cloud is visible on Solis Lacus, "writes the imager Damian Peach.It is the elongated bright patch (or spots) roughly halfway to the center at the edge of 10 o'clock in this view to the south. In addition, "a very dark albedo stain appeared across Phases-Daedalia that had not been present before this storm (although it appeared before following large dust storms.) "He took this picture at 3:00 GMT on July 26th was on the central meridian."

Jupiter's Great Red Spot was just over the central meridian when Peach took this image to 2:42 TU July 10. The red dot is surrounded by a bright white material. "The equatorial zone seems very som bre and yellow / orange, "notes Peach; Have you ever seen it like this before? South is up

Another fishing peak, Saturn on July 12. The south is rising. Purely by chance, he picked up Saturn's blackout from the progressing HD 108233 star. It's barely inside the inner edge of the dark C ring. "I had no idea what was going on at the time."

Mercury is hidden in the brightness of the sun.

Venus (magnitude -4.3) shines brightly in the west during dusk, a little lower each week. It's around the end of twilight. In a telescope, Venus is gibbous, 21 seconds arc and 57% solar light

March this week is closer to Earth than she was to been in 15 years! twice as bright as Jupiter. And its color gives it a dramatic side.

Spot Mars low in the southeast at dusk. After dark, he climbs higher and moves south, a strange anomaly like no celestial object you normally see. Mars is the highest in the south, in the best telescopic view, around midnight or 1am, although it is at a southern declination (-26 °) in southern Capricorn.

Mars is exactly on the night of Monday, July 30, showing a record of 24.3 seconds wide arc, but the difference all week is insignificant. Mars was in opposition on the 27th. And good news for telescopic observers: The dust that still covers the Martian globe thins a little, allowing weak and low-contrast views of some dark surface markings.

Can you identify any of these features? For a map of Mars that shows the Earth on your date and time, use our Mars Profiler. And see the observation guide of our barnyard astronomer: See Mars at its best since 2003.

Jupiter (magnitude -2.1, in Libra) shines in the south-southwest at dusk. It is between Spica about 20 ° at its bottom right, and Scorpius head about 20 ° to its left. Catch Jupiter with your reach at the end of the twilight before it goes down.

Saturn (magnitude +0.1, above the teapot of Sagittarius) shines yellow in the south after dark. It's about 30 ° to the right or the top right of Mars much brighter. In a telescope, the rings of Saturn are always inclined 26 ° from our night line, almost as open as we see them

Uranus (magnitude 5.8, at the Aries-Pisces border) and Neptune (magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius) are well placed high in the south-east and south, respectively, in the hour or two before the first light of dawn. Search Graphs for Uranus and Neptune

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All descriptions that relate to your horizon – including the words up, down, right, and left – are written for the middle latitudes of the world. The descriptions that also depend on the longitude (mainly the positions of the moon) are for North America.

Daylight Saving Time is UTC (UT, UTC, GMT or Z) minus 4 hours

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"Remember to look at the stars and not at your feet, try to make sense of what you see and ask what makes the universe exist, be curious."
– Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018

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"The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before: there is not something new in our way of thinking is that gullible and confused thought "
– Carl Sagan, 1996

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" Objective Reality Exists Facts Can Often Be Determined Vaccines Save Lives Carbon dioxide warms the globe Bacteria evolve to thwart antibiotics, because evolution, science and reason are not a political conspiracy.They are how we determine the facts.The survival of civilization depends on our ability and our willingness to do so. "
– Alan MacRobert, your editor of Sky at a Glance

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" Facts Are Rebellious Things. "Adams, 1770 [19659073] [ad_2]
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