2017 Week 9: (February 26-March 4)

This upcoming week has some interesting conjunctions in the sky.  Also, if you live in Southern South America or Southern Africa you will be able to see an annular solar eclipse on February 26.  A link to the visibility range of the eclipse is given below.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/february-26-annular-solar-eclipse/

This week begins a new lunar cycle so look at the Western horizon after the 26th to see a slim waxing crescent Moon peeking up from the mountains.  Venus begins its retrograde motion as it can be observed moving to the West against the backdrop of stars.  A dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt known as Ceres will be very close to the Moon Thursday evening.  Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt making up about a third of its total mass.  It will be magnitude 9.0, so pretty much only visible in a telescope or if you are really lucky in a large pair of binoculars.  The chart for astronomical activities for next week is shown below.

Date	Event
Feb 26	New Moon
Feb 27	Mars 0.6°N of Uranus
Mar 1	Mars 4°N of Moon
Mar 1	Neptune in conjunction with the Sun
Mar 2	Venus Stationary
Mar 2	Ceres 0.8°N of Moon
Mar 4	Aldebaran 0.2°S of Moon

An important conjunction will be Aldebaran with the Moon on the evening of March 4.  An excellent presentation at the last RASC meeting discussed the possibility of seeing a grazing occultation of Aldebaran.  At specific locations at the very North of the United States you will be able to see Aldebaran peek in and out from behind the Moon.  In Calgary we should see the Moon nearly cover the bright red eye of Taurus at an angular distance of 12'.  This will be a great sight to see in binoculars so point them towards the Moon next Saturday.  The last time the Moon occulted Aldebaran was in December of last year.  I took a poor hastily prepared image through my 8" reflector.  If you look closely you can see the star on the left hand side of the Moon.  Since the Moon was full I had to dim the Moon and enhance the brightness of the star in the image.  Successfully manipulating astronomical images is one of my goals for 2017 as I did not have too much luck with it last year.

Occultation of Aldebaran

Neptune will be in conjunction with the Sun next week and will begin to show up in the morning sky before sunrise.  I look forward to the summer when I can go out and search for this elusive planet lying more than four billion kilometers away.

Good luck finding clear skies next week we're in for some chilly weather.  However, there is some hope for near the end of the week with temperatures around the freezing mark.  When there is a break in the clouds take the opportunity to look up!