Mercury and Venus Set Beside the Dome of the Weiss Observatory in Mitzpe Ramon

Venus, upper left, and mercury set next to the dome of the Weiss Observatory in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel.

Venus and Mercury Close Together in Mid-January Sky

Venus and Mercury are putting on a nice show in the mid-January sky. The two planets are quite close together just as the sun sets in mid-January. Venus is to the upper left while Mercury is just below to the right. The two are a pretty sight. Dim Mars appears as the reddish object far above and left of Venus. Here in one g are the three closest planets to earth.

Mercury and Venus are always seen in the dusk or dawn sky since they orbit the sun interior to the earth, hence we are always looking in the direction of the sun when we observe them. Mercury is by far the most elusive of the twilight pair since it is closest to the sun and id usually lost in the suns glare. Go out the next few nights and see Venus and Mercury together. Mercury is so elusive that even Copernicus was said to never have observed it himself.

How to locate Mercury, Venus and Mars in the evening sky of mid-January 2015.

My own attempt to capture Venus (upper left) and Mercury as they set over a desert landscape in Mitzpe Ramon.

Murmurs of Earth

One of the most moving and beautiful astronomy and space books of all time was Carl Sagan's "Murmurs of Earth", an account of the Voyager 1 space mission and the gold record that was attached to signal to anyone who might find it eons in the future that WE WERE HERE. This gold record had symbols impressed upon it that would convey who had made it and where they lived. The record itself had tracks that were audio recordings of sounds from our planet. Yes, it was an audio analogue record, basically an LP pressed out of gold. It just goes to show how much technology has changed in the last 50 years. There were no images or videos on it, at the time (September 5, 1977) a technology beyond what was then capable.

Voyager 1 has now left the confines of our solar system and travels in interstellar space, much as Elvis has left the room, the first and only Earthling-made object to have achieved that distinction. But it lives on, still sending data back to us, long after it was to have ceased operating. Now you can listen to the tracks on the gold record, courtesy of the World Wide Web. How ironic that the first voice on it is of the hidden Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, at the time Secretary-General of the UN. Message to future aliens: If you came looking for us and we weren't here, it was because of what institutions like the UN became and what men like Kurt Waldheim were - mass murderers posing as guardians of humanity. Tell us , Oh Aliens, are you as barbaric as some of us were or have you solved that problem? Well....assuming you are there to listen.

Tracks from the golden record sent on Voyager 1 (September 5, 1977) to explore the outer planets of the solar system. The record had sounds from planet earth and images of earthlings and our location impressed in the disk, in case it might be picked up by aliens eons into the future.

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New Children's Book on Rosh Chodesh Featuring The Starman of Mitzpe Ramon

Somehow I let it slip by that there is a new book just out written by well known Israeli children's author Allison Ofananasky about the new moon and Rosh Chodesh. The story is set in the desert around Mitzpe Ramon and features The Starman of Mitzpe Ramon as the childrens' guide to the New Moon and the new month. Teach your children why the moon has phases and how they determine when Rosh Chodesh occurs. Photographs by Eliyahu Alpern.

"New Month, New Moon" - A new book by Allison Ofananasky explaining the moon's phases and their connection to Rosh Chodesh. Featuring The Starman of Mitzpe Ramon, Ira Machefsky.

You can buy it here from Amazon.com.

Comet Lovejoy Now at its Brightest

Comet Lovejoy is now at its predicted brightest, magnitude 4.9, where it is forecast to remain through January 12. Magnitude is the measure of the brightness of celestial objects. Lower numbers are brighter, higher numbers are dimmer. From there it will continue to dim to magnitude 5.9 on January 22. Magnitude 6 is considered to be the dimmest object visible to the naked eye in a totally dark sky. Yet, even if you can't view it with your naked eye, and you need extremely dark skies to see a magnitude 4.9 object with your naked eye, it should still be easily visible even in small binoculars in a suburban sky throughout the month of January.

Here is another finder chart with tick marks for date and magnitude on each date. Comet Lovejoy is now moving through Taurus, and its path runs roughly parallel to the dim stars that make up Orion's shield or bow, as it is sometimes depicted. Let us know if you have any luck finding it.

Follow Comet Lovejoy as it passes through the constellations Orion and Taurus. Tick marks show its position at 0h UT on each date as well as its magnitude. Higher magnitude numbers are dimmer. It should be easily visible in suburban skies with even small binoculars.

Now all we need in Israel to have a go at it is the end of the storms that have pummeled us for the last few days and made it impossible to see anything at all in the sky.

What would the planets look like at the distance of our moon?

I love depictions of celestial bodies that show the vast difference in their sizes. Here's one of the planets in our solar system seen down the end of a dark highway if they were the same distance away as our moon, around 230,00 miles or 300,000km on average. Of course the gas giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have immense gravitational fields that would make short work of us on earth at that distance, but let's hold gravity in abeyance for a while while we contemplate the awesome difference in the size of the objects in our solar system.

Earth's moon and the planets of our solar system seen at the distance of the moon, 230,00 miles/300,000km