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| The new moon of Adar 5773 on February 11, 2013, 6:15PM local time, just 28 hours old!. Mercury is seen to the lower left of the moon, with the dome and slit of the Weiss observatory 40-inch reflector to the right. |
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Monday, February 11, 2013
New Moon of Adar with Mercury!
I was out again tonight, photographing the new moon of Adar together with Mercury. Mars is somewhere in here below Mercury, but lost in the haze. This time I managed to include the dome of the Weiss Observatory 40-inch telescope. I was right up next to the rim of Machtesh Ramon, a bit scary after dark. I'll try again tomorrow night when the moon will be bigger and brighter.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
2013 Conjunction of Mercury and Mars
Mars and Mercury were in conjunction (closest together in the sky) on Thursday, February 7. Although I'm not usually an astrophotographer, I went out to capture the event. Since they would only be visible low in the west right after sunset, I decided to go up to the high plateau overlooking Machtesh Ramon to capture the event. It was definitely worth while, because not only did I get to glimpse them in the evening sky, I also got a wonderful view of the Weiss Observatory before sunset and the rarely seen Zodiacal Light after sunset.
Because Mercury and Mars were so close to the horizon immediately after sunset, I was only able to view them with binoculars, where they were hard to see against the bright afterglow of the sun. But once spotted, they were easy to hold.
It was a truly beautiful, silent night as the sun set, not very cold and quite still with no wind, and I was perched on the rim of the crater watching the sky darken. As it did I was treated to a rare sight: The Zodiacal Light. I had see it the previous week on a star tour and pointed it out to my guests. The Zodiacal Light is a pyramid of light that can be seen shining up from the horizon almost vertically 30 degress to 40 degrees into the sky, shortly after sunset, usually during January and February. It is the light that billions of tiny particles of interplanetary dust in our solar system back sctter towards us as they reflect the light of the sun. It is the primordial stuff of creation. It's easiest to see in January and February because the Zodiac, or the ecliptic as astronomers call it, the plane of the planets' orbit around the sun, makes a nearly vertical angle with the horizon in those months, raising the Zodiacal Light high into the sky and making it easy to see. You need a really dark and clear sky to see it, which is one reason why I never viewed it until I came to Mitzpe Ramon. Last Thursday night was only the third time in my life I have seen the Zodiacal Light!
As long as I was out I decided to try my hand at a little constellation and casual deep-sky photography. My first target was M31, the great spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda This spiral galaxy is our nearest neighboring spiral galaxy at 2.5 million light years away. This is the most distant object you can see with your naked eye, and one of the naked eye treats of my star tours.
One more photo. The Constellation Orion, one of the most popular constellations in the sky. Bright stars, the Great Nebula (M42), and it actually looks like a giant hunter. What's not to like!?
If you're looking for something to do in Mitzpe Ramon, why not try a star tour where you can see these wonders with your own eyes.
And remember...Keep on lookin' up!
Because Mercury and Mars were so close to the horizon immediately after sunset, I was only able to view them with binoculars, where they were hard to see against the bright afterglow of the sun. But once spotted, they were easy to hold.
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| Mars and Mercury set above the rim of Machtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater) high above the little Negev town of Mitzpe Ramon on February 7th. As you can see, you would need an absolutely clear western horizon to view this conjunction, since the two planets are so low in the sky. |
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| The Zodiacal Light, a pyramidal shaped cone of light that rises from the horizon about 40 degrees into the night sky shortly after dark. The light is a reflection of sun light off myriads of tiny particles of interplanetary dust in our solar system, left over from the dawn of creation. The two red glows at the horizon to either side of the Zodiacal Light are distant towns in the Negev in the direction of the Sinai Peninsula. |
As long as I was out I decided to try my hand at a little constellation and casual deep-sky photography. My first target was M31, the great spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda This spiral galaxy is our nearest neighboring spiral galaxy at 2.5 million light years away. This is the most distant object you can see with your naked eye, and one of the naked eye treats of my star tours.
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| M31, the farthest object visible with the naked eye, 2.5 million light years from earth. Here it is seen as a cigar shaped smudge of light with a bright core. In the sky it subtends an angle of 4 degrees, eight full moon diameters, although it requires a telescope to see that much of it. To the naked eye it appears to subtend an angle of about 1/2 degree, or one full moon diameter. |
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| The constellation Orion, a magnificent star forming region if the Orion-Cygnus spur of the Milky Way galaxy. Most of the stars are about 1300 light years from earth. |
If you're looking for something to do in Mitzpe Ramon, why not try a star tour where you can see these wonders with your own eyes.
And remember...Keep on lookin' up!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
We're Having a Heat Wave - NOT
That great Jewish song writer, Irving Berlin wrote this:
We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The temperature's rising,
It isn't surprising,
She certainly can can-can.
She started a heat wave
By letting her seat wave
In such a way that
The customers say that
She certainly can can-can.
Gee, her anatomy
Makes the mercury
Jump to ninety-three.
We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The way that she moves
That thermometer proves
That she certainly can can-can.
But this does not describe this winter's weather in Mitzpe Ramon. Ever since the first day of Succot, even before we prayed for rain, rain has come pouring down with abundant clouds in the sky. I've had to cancel many a star tour due to cloudy weather. But we might as well share and enjoy one of the benefits of a stormy desert winter, the beautiful clouds that grace the skies around the Machtesh. So, here ya go:
If you're looking for something to do in Mitzpe Ramon this winter, nothing beats a star tour, except cloud photography when it's stormy outside.
We're not Having a heat wave...A tropical heat wave...Remember to keep on lookin' up!
We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The temperature's rising,
It isn't surprising,
She certainly can can-can.
She started a heat wave
By letting her seat wave
In such a way that
The customers say that
She certainly can can-can.
Gee, her anatomy
Makes the mercury
Jump to ninety-three.
We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The way that she moves
That thermometer proves
That she certainly can can-can.
But this does not describe this winter's weather in Mitzpe Ramon. Ever since the first day of Succot, even before we prayed for rain, rain has come pouring down with abundant clouds in the sky. I've had to cancel many a star tour due to cloudy weather. But we might as well share and enjoy one of the benefits of a stormy desert winter, the beautiful clouds that grace the skies around the Machtesh. So, here ya go:
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| Today's stormy sunset with the sun looking like a globe shining on an alien planet. |
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| Alien planet sunset - actually Mitzpe Ramon, overlooking the Machtesh Ramon,, February 6, 2013. |
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| Mares' Tail clouds of January, preceding stormy weather and rain. |
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| Cumulonimbus clouds at sunset, above Machtesh Ramon. |
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| A break in the clouds, but not the weather, above Machtesh Ramon, looking toward Shein Ramon, Ramon's Tooth ridge. |
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| A clear full moon night in December, as the moon rises above Har Nimrod. |
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| Peculiar clouds above Mitzpeh Ramon. |
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| More Mares' Tail clouds, heralding rain, at sunset. |
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| Fan of light, sunrise over Machtesh Ramon. |
We're not Having a heat wave...A tropical heat wave...Remember to keep on lookin' up!
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Truly Great Nebula in Orion
One of the most famous nebulae in the sky is the Great Nebula in Orion, also known by its number in Charles Messier's catalog of deep sky objects as M42. This star formation region is in the constellation Orion, also one of the best known and most easily identified constellations in the sky. Orion is prominently placed high in the south early in the February night sky, and is so filled with wonders that I could spend an entire star tour talking just about it.
M42 is a stellar nursery, or star factory as the metaphor is sometimes used. A region of our galaxy where ionized Hydrogen gas and interstellar dust are collapsing to form new stars. All stars are born is such regions, including our own sun, and evenutually evolve into open clusters whose members are flung out of the cluster through interactions with the gravity of the galactic disk. So, we are all related to brother and sister stars that have since gone their own ways, every one of us.
M42 looks pinkish in photographs because the four, newly born stars in its center, called the Trapezium because of their shape, emit utraviolet light that knocks an electron off of the atoms of hydrogen gas, causing these atoms to become positively charged, or ionized. When the electron recombines with the hydrogen atom this characteristic pink glow is emitted. The color of the glow is usually not evident to the naked eye or in any but the largest telescope, since the light is not bright enough to activate our color vision. But in photographs even short ones as above, the beautiful pink hue is evident. To the naked eye or small telescope the glowing gas cloud just looks a milky white, still a magnificent view.
M42 has long been one of the most photographed and studied regions of the sky. My friend Eddie Lubat, an amateur astrophotographer in New New Jersey, recently took a photograph of the M42 region that is one of the best I have ever seen. It not only captures the beauty and subtle details of M42 itself, but also much of the surrounding area that is often omitted in pictures of the nebula.
The great gas-flowing features in the area are real, caused by the infalling gas that is forming stars, the outflowing gas that is blown away by the stellar winds of the stars that have formed, and by the collisions of this gas with stationary regions of hydrogen, giving rise to bow shocks that look like bubbles. This region is about 1345 light years away and 24 light years across in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
This is one of the objects we spend time viewing and studying both naked eye and in the telescopes on my star tours on cold winter evenings. Come on by and have a look!
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| The constellation of Orion rides high in the south of a mid-winter's night. The bright red star to the upper left is Betelgeuse, an old star nearing the end of its life. At the bottom right shines Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation and a young, hot blue-white star. M42, the Great Nebula in Orion, is the central, reddish object in the sword, hanging from the three stars in Orion's belt. |
M42 looks pinkish in photographs because the four, newly born stars in its center, called the Trapezium because of their shape, emit utraviolet light that knocks an electron off of the atoms of hydrogen gas, causing these atoms to become positively charged, or ionized. When the electron recombines with the hydrogen atom this characteristic pink glow is emitted. The color of the glow is usually not evident to the naked eye or in any but the largest telescope, since the light is not bright enough to activate our color vision. But in photographs even short ones as above, the beautiful pink hue is evident. To the naked eye or small telescope the glowing gas cloud just looks a milky white, still a magnificent view.
M42 has long been one of the most photographed and studied regions of the sky. My friend Eddie Lubat, an amateur astrophotographer in New New Jersey, recently took a photograph of the M42 region that is one of the best I have ever seen. It not only captures the beauty and subtle details of M42 itself, but also much of the surrounding area that is often omitted in pictures of the nebula.
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| M42 region by Edward Lubat. The M42 nebula itself is the large pinkish area in the center right. The four stars of the Trapezium are here too small to be seen individually, but their combined light is the white glow in the center of the nebula. There is a dark lane of interstellar dust separating M42 from nearby M43 to the center left. Then there is an even larger lane of interstellar dust to the left of M43, separating it from the star cluster, far left, whose light illuminates the "Running Man Nebula", the dark feature in the bright reflection nebula to the left center. Photo by Edward Lubat. |
The great gas-flowing features in the area are real, caused by the infalling gas that is forming stars, the outflowing gas that is blown away by the stellar winds of the stars that have formed, and by the collisions of this gas with stationary regions of hydrogen, giving rise to bow shocks that look like bubbles. This region is about 1345 light years away and 24 light years across in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
This is one of the objects we spend time viewing and studying both naked eye and in the telescopes on my star tours on cold winter evenings. Come on by and have a look!
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Mercury and Mars in the February Evening Sky
Observing alert for Mercury and Mars. These two planets will appear within one degree (twice the diameter of a full moon) of each other just after sunset on the Thursday evening of February 7, 2013. You will need a very clear horizon to the south west, and possibly binoculars, to see them both this close to sunset.
Mars will continue to disappear into the sun, but Mercury will continue rising into the evening sky for its first sunset apparition of the new year. Keep an eye out for it as February advances.
Mars will continue to disappear into the sun, but Mercury will continue rising into the evening sky for its first sunset apparition of the new year. Keep an eye out for it as February advances.
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| Mercury and Mars appear just south of west in the early evening sky on Thursday, February 7. This view is for 5:45PM on the night of February 7, but the two planets will continue to be close to each other for the next couple of days. |
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Dancing with Jupiter and the Moon
Early in the morning of January 22, 2013 in Israel, the moon will make a beautiful close pass at Jupiter, skimming just half a degree (one full moon's diameter) beneath the planet. Closest approach will be at 5:00AM local Israeli time. Observers in the America's will be more favorably positioned for this close approach since it will occur 7 hours earlier on the east coast at 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on January 21, 2013.
I'm not even sure I will be awake that early in the morning here in Israel, but if the US has clear skies be sure to go out and watch this magnificent event. It will be easily visible to the naked eye, but even small binoculars will help you see the many bright stars in the vicinity of the moon and Jupiter that will be hidden by the moon's bright glare.
I'm not even sure I will be awake that early in the morning here in Israel, but if the US has clear skies be sure to go out and watch this magnificent event. It will be easily visible to the naked eye, but even small binoculars will help you see the many bright stars in the vicinity of the moon and Jupiter that will be hidden by the moon's bright glare.
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| The moon will makes its closest approach to Jupiter in this lunation on the morning of January 22, 2013 at 5:00AM Israel Local Time, 7 hours earlier on the night of January 21 for observers on the east coast of the US. Don't miss this spectacular sight if you have clear skies.. Use this chart to help you identify bright stars in the vicinity of this event. You will probably need binoculars to see many of them due to the moon's bright light. (Click for full size image.) |
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