Explore the Universe - Lunar Phases

We have all watched the Moon as it has changed its phase.  By the time we are thirty years old the Moon has gone through nearly 375 cycles.  The Moon is a beautiful sight in the night sky, a bastion of the sky for more than 4 billion years.  What causes the Moon to go through different phases?

The below diagram shows the Sun, Earth and the Moon.  The Moon phases pictured below occur when they are at that angle between the Sun and Earth.  When the Moon is between the Sun and Earth it will be a 'New Moon' and will not seem to appear in the sky.  The Sun is illuminating the far side of the Moon.  As the Moon orbits the Earth it slowly appears as a 'Waxing Crescent'.  Waxing is a term synonymous for 'growing'.  When the Moon is at a 90° angle it becomes a 'First Quarter' Moon.  Some people are confused why it is called a quarter when it seems as though half the Moon is illuminated.  It is referred to as a quarter because it is a quarter of the way through the lunar cycle.

The Moon continues to orbit and becomes a 'Waxing Gibbous' Moon, growing larger towards the next phase of a 'Full Moon'.  The Sun shines directly onto the near side of the Moon and observers on Earth see it as fully illuminated.  The Moon then starts orbiting back towards the Sun to become a 'Waning Gibbous'.  When it reaches 270° it is half illuminated again and called 'Third Quarter' or 'Last Quarter'.  It then continues its trek back to the beginning of the cycle going through its 'Waning Crescent' phase.  Around 29 days since it began the cycle it becomes a 'New Moon' again and restarts the process.

Phases of the Moon

The images above (including the Sun but excluding the Earth) were taken from the backyard.  The below diagram displays the dates and times.  To qualify for the Explore the Universe certificate the 'Last Quarter', 'First Quarter' and 'Full Moon' must be recorded within 18 hours of the actual time the exact phase occurs.  This is recorded below.

Lunar Phases Observation Record

I have a love/hate relationship with Moon phases.  A 'Full Moon' produces a lot of light making it more difficult to fall asleep.  It also brightens the sky with awful light pollution rendering deep-sky observing less fruitful.

The 'First Quarter' phase is one of my favourites.  The Moon is visible in dark skies early in the evening so it is perfect for kids to see before they go to bed.  The terminator goes through some intriguing craters that can be easily viewed from Earth.  Also, by the time adult bedtime arrives, the Moon has set allowing an easier sleep.

Viewing the waning phases in a dark sky is also difficult because it occurs early in the morning accessible by staying up very late or waking up very early.

Keep an eye on the sky and try to figure out what phase the Moon is at.  The weekly posts on my blog will highlight the 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° phases. 

Explore the Universe - M4

As it is approaching late Spring, Scorpius is starting to poke its claws above the southern horizon earlier in the evening.  This is quite exciting as it soon heralds the appearance of the heart of the Milky Way in Sagittarius with all its beauty.  However, this post will focus on Messier 4, a globular cluster sitting right next to Antares.  Antares is the bright heart of Scorpius named after the Greek meaning 'Equal to Ares'.  Ares was the Greek god of war whose Roman equivalent is Mars.  This is noteworthy as Antares and Mars look similar to each other in the sky as bright red objects.  Last year in fact Mars and Antares were less than 5° from each other in April of 2016.  It was an amazing sight.

Lying a little more than 1.25° to the West of Antares is Messier 4.  A typical wider field eyepiece in a moderate sized telescope will be able to locate both within the same field of view.  This is how I found it at 1:30am with a tired mind and sleepy eyes.  I did not have the chance to photograph it as I had already put my imaging scope away for the evening.  It looked like a typical globular cluster as a round, dense formation of stars.  It went across about a third of my 25mm eyepiece with a 62.5' field of view.  Some individual stars were observable around the edge of the blurry object.  It turns out that it was the first globular cluster where individual stars were resolved.  As Scorpius rises higher in the sky I hope to have a better look at it earlier in the evening.  My observation record for M4 is shown below.

Observation Record - M4

After a Winter and Spring of observing open clusters it is quite a gear shift moving onto the Summer globulars.  It is more difficult to see individual stars in a globular as they are further away and orders of magnitude more dense.

Last night was an open house at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory.  It was very cloudy on the way there but it cleared around 9pm.  One of the members found Jupiter manually nearly an hour before the sun set.  We viewed the 7% waxing crescent Moon, the Hercules Cluster M13 and I was even able to stick the International Space Station into my view and manually tracked it for a few seconds.  The solar panel array can be easily seen.  Jupiter had its Great Red Spot facing directly toward us at 10pm and it provided a great sight for many first-time Jupiter viewers.  There was a hydrogen alpha solar telescope available to use and prominences on the Sun were visible.  Sunspot region 2659 was clearly visible in scopes equipped with a solar filter.

Sunset at the RAO

Later in the evening, after 11pm and throughout the night, the aurora put on an amazing show.  Unfortunately I had already packed it in and was cruising home to bed.  A moderate G2 geomagnetic storm decided to dazzle everyone with a beautiful display of the Northern Lights.

2017 Week 22: (May 28-June 3)

June is coming up really fast and with it the Summer Solstice.  There are a few conjunctions happening next week that will be interesting to check out.  The list of astronomical events for Week 22 is shown below.

Date	Event
May 31	Regulus 0.3°N of Moon
June 1	First Quarter
June 2	Venus 1.8°S of Uranus
June 3	Venus greatest elongation West
June 3	Jupiter 2°S of Moon

The month ends with Regulus hanging out right on top of the Moon.  This will be a great sight for the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.  The next evening the Moon will be at its first quarter phase and great for finding interesting craters along the terminator.  I hope the clouds will stay away so I can capture some craters!  If you are a morning person Venus will be less than two degrees from Uranus.  This may be visible in a set of binoculars or a wide field telescope.  A map of the region is shown below.  As you can see they barely fit into my 8" telescope with a Panoptic 41mm eyepiece.

Venus and Uranus

Venus will be at its greatest elongation West on Saturday.  Also, if you add some power you will be able to see it at half phase.  The week finishes off with the Moon skipping below Jupiter in the southern sky.

If you are a Mars fan, I'm sorry but it will be tucking in behind the Sun for awhile.  It reaches superior conjunction on July 26.  It will become visible again nearer the end of September in the early morning prior to sunrise.  The good news is next year on July 27 it will be at opposition very close to Earth.  However, it will be low on the ecliptic and the big fat Full Moon will be cruising very close to the red planet.  Since it will be low on the ecliptic viewing it will be hindered by poorer seeing than if it were higher overhead.  I am hoping that it will be good enough to grab some images of the features on the planet, including Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in our solar system.

Jupiter and Saturn will make for a great display throughout next week and into June.  Jupiter will appear in the South and Saturn will follow it up several hours later in the South East.

Uranus is still swimming around Pisces and Neptune is having fun tempering the water being pour out of Aquarius.  Good luck finding them.  Your best bet for Uranus is matching it up with Venus close to the June 2 conjunction.

Have fun observing the sky this upcoming week and keep your eyes peeled for exciting astronomy activities we host or volunteer at!  Join the group at www.facebook.com/simonjastronomy to stay informed!

Explore the Universe - M13

The great globular cluster in Hercules was the first Messier object I ever found.  Back in 2016 I first acquainted myself with the Hercules constellation and the keystone that forms the heart of it.  I knew Messier 13 was on one side of the keystone between two bright stars.  It took me nearly an hour to find it for the first time.  In my eyepiece it looked like a water molecule with the cluster forming the oxygen atom and two stars equally spaced away forming the hydrogen.

In Spring, Hercules is just coming back up to reside overhead for the next few months and it will give plenty of opportunity to go back to one of my old favourites.  With my red dot finder and knowledge today it only takes a few seconds to find.  This cluster serves as a milestone marker where once it took an hour now takes a matter of seconds.  The image below is the shot I took in May 2017.  I am hoping to learn how to use dark frames to get rid of noise from the photographs in the future.

Messier 13

In a dark sky it is barely visible to the naked eye and spans a diameter about two-thirds of the Moon.  The globular cluster contains more than a quarter millions stars packed into a region nearly 150 light years across.  The cluster lies more than 25,000 light years away from Earth.  It spanned approximately one-third of the way across my eyepiece and was circular in shape.  The record below shows my observation.

M13 Observation Record

This was the second of the three globular clusters I observed on May 21, 2017 and definitely the best.  I was planning on going to bed after this observation around midnight but stayed up another hour and a half to catch Messier 4.

Explore the Universe - M5

Going into Friday, May 20, 2017 I required four more observations of deep-sky objects on the Explore the Universe list.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity to find three.  The first one I found was a globular cluster in a constellation known as Serpens.  Serpens is a strange constellation as it is split up into two non-contiguous sections bisected by Ophiuchus  Serpens contains Serpens Caput (head) and Serpens Cauda (tail) where the body of Serpens is represented going behind Ophiuchus.  This was just when I thought the constellations started to make sense.

For more information about globular clusters please see my blog post from January 18, 2017 linked below.

What is a Globular Cluster?

Messier 5 is an amazing globular cluster.  It spans 160 light years across and may contain up to half a million stars.  It is also one of the oldest globular clusters at an age of roughly 13 billion years.  An image I took of this cluster is shown below.

Messier 5

Its arclength in the sky is 23' and it spanned about a third of my field of view with my 25mm eyepiece.  After spending the Spring viewing open clusters it was a rewarding experience to come back to the Summer globulars.  The observation record is shown below.

M5 Observation Record

Messier objects are fun to find and the hunt is just as exciting.  It is like the thrill of finding Waldo in a difficult scene.  I am slowly working on the Messier certification however, it will be difficult and the work will likely span several years.  Also, I would like to get back into observing the Moon.  There is a new lunar observing program that is not as exhaustive as the Isabel Williamson Lunar Observing Program.  It might be a good place to start.

Explore the Universe - Alpha Librae

Last night was one of the first good nights for astronomy in a long time.  This Spring has recently been giving us 3 or 4 clear nights per month so last night was a treat.  I had a list of targets that I have been saving for a clear night.  I only require two more double stars and four deep-sky objects to complete my Explore the Universe Certificate.  I was fortunate to find two double stars and three deep-sky objects from the list last night.  A complete list of the Explore the Universe items can be found at the link below.

Explore the Universe

The first object on my list was Alpha Librae.  The bright star in the double is also known as Zubenelgenubi.  This name derived from the Arabic الزُبَانَى الجَنُوبِي which means* the 'southern guard' or 'southern police'.  I am assuming this is because Zubenelgenubi is the southernmost of the two bright stars of the justice constellation: Libra. (*Thank-you to a colleague who is well versed in Arabic).

This double star forms the second brightest object in the constellation Libra.  It is an easy naked eye object which made it exceptionally easy to find with a telescope.  When Libra was high in the sky just before midnight I could see Alpha Librae.  I placed my red dot finder onto the target and looked through my 25mm eyepiece.  I could clearly see two bright stars against a field of several dim stars.  I estimated the separation between the stars was approximately 5% across my field of view.  This would give an estimate of 3.13' separation which was close to the accepted value of 3.85'.  My observation record is posted below.

Alpha Librae Observation Record

I recently learned how to type in celestial coordinates to the goto mount and may begin imaging multiple star systems on the list.  They are not incredibly exciting so it may be a while before I attempt it.

The next deep sky objects on the list are either in or near Sagittarius which does rise above the houses until after 1 in the morning.  Messier 16 is more than 10° East of Saturn and would be the next feasible target on the list.  Approaching this target may be difficult as it is about two binocular fields away from an urban naked eye star: Nu Ophiuchi.  The Summer constellation Sagittarius is quite low in the sky and contains many deep-sky objects.  It may require spending a few late Summer evenings at the observatory to get a clearer view of the southern horizon.

It is unfortunate that the clouds seem to be rolling in this evening after an exceptionally clear night.  Long weekend evenings are typically very good for astronomy because you can sleep in after catching some great late night sights!  In future posts this week I will log another double star and three deep-sky Messier objects!

2017 Week 21: (May 21-27)

We are now approaching the 21st week of the year and there are some amazing things happening in the sky.  The table below showcases the conjunctions and the birth of a new lunar cycle on May 25.

Date	Event
May 22	Venus 2°N of Moon
May 23	Mercury 1.6°N of Moon
May 25	New Moon

The interesting thing in the sky is Comet C/2015 V2 Johnson in binocular range located in the bright constellation Boötes.  Currently the comet is at magnitude 6.9 less than 2° SW of Delta Boötis.  A sky map of the constellation is shown below for this evening.  The comet is labelled near the top.

Boötes

A zoomed in map is provided below with the fields of view.  As you can see a pair of 15x70 binoculars will easily fit Delta Boötis and C/2015 in the same field of view.  Also useful is a wide field eyepiece will be able to capture the comet in the same field of view this evening.

C/2015 V2 Johnson is a hyperbolic comet so it does not orbit our Sun.  It is probably a traveler from outside the solar system or it has been gravitationally kicked out by the interaction with another body in our solar system.

If you would like to find the comet seek out Arcturus.  This is a bright (4th brightest in the night sky) red star that will be sitting just southeast over overhead.  Follow the bright stars shown in the first image on this blog to the naked eye star near the comet.  Stick this star in your binoculars and peak southwest keeping the bright star in your field of view.  If you are lucky you will see a fuzzy patch of light.  This will be the comet.  For more information about Boötes please see my previous blog post linked below.

Constellation Profile - Boötes

Last night we had an astronomy open house at our home.  There were 12 people in attendance and we had the opportunity to discuss the objects that are currently in the sky.  Even though the Moon was just past last quarter the phases were discussed and when to view them.  After the presentation and the snacks the clouds parted to have a great view of Jupiter.  All four Galilean Moons were visible and the seeing was good enough to see the North and South Equatorial belts at 171x power.  A link to the powerpoint presentation is given below.

Astronomy Night - May 19, 2017

Based on the success of the open house we hope to continue these evenings regularly throughout the year.