Planets galore!

Ah, the end of the semester. Students are frantically studying for finals, and professors are frantically grading and wrapping everything up. These sorts of thing have caused me a delay in posting. However, for the moment I seem to be caught up.

We got snow here a couple nights ago, which means I now need to be thinking of a few things up at the observatory: shoveling a walking path to the dome from the road, anticipating a frozen dome on a clear night, and getting snow tires for the drive up to College Camp. Snowy winter months can often have the clearest nights with the best seeing (little heat circulation means very stable air - limited twinkling). But those nights are often the coldest, which makes for somewhat unpleasant conditions. Nevertheless, let's get those telescopes or binoculars out and see what's visible!

On Saturday, December 10th the full Moon will pass through the Earth's ruddy shadow, resulting what is known as a total lunar eclipse. Anyone witnessing this event will see the Moon slowly begin to disappear, as if a bite was being taken out of it, until it is fully within the Earth's shadow - at which point, it will appear a rusty reddish-orange color. This view can be shocking to anyone who doesn't see it coming. Unfortunately for us Oneonta viewers, we won't see it at all.

If you keep your eyes to the night sky, you may eventually notice that not all points of light are stationary. Some move across the sky at fairly rapid rates! If they're not blinking (which would mean they're airplanes) then you can be fairly certain they're actually orbiting objects - either satellites or space junk. Russia just deposited a large piece of space junk into low Earth orbit in the form of a failed spacecraft that was supposed to travel to Mars to sample the surface material of its moon Phobos. Since this spacecraft failed to leave Earth's orbit, it is now expected to plunge into our atmosphere sometime in mid-January. While it isn't unusual for space junk to fall out of the sky, these things typically burn up before they hit the ground. However, there are some notable examples within the last few months (e.g. the ROSAT X-ray telescope and NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) of objects so robust that some parts actually make it to the Earth's surface. This Russian craft, called Phobos-Grunt, will likely join that club, though it isn't yet known precisely where its debris may land. For now, you can see it, and many other orbiting satellites, as they pass overhead. Check out Spaceweather.com's Satellite Tracker for information on when certain satellites will pass overhead and where to look.

Venus is easily visible now after sunset as a bright point of light above the orange glow on the southwestern horizon. At the same time, Jupiter is also easily visible toward the east. For those who get up before the sun rises (or who stay up that late!) Saturn is visible rising in the east before the sun. Finally, Mars is also visible after midnight. You can find it by starting at Betelgeuse (the orange-ish star in the constellation of Orion), drawing a line through Procyon (which is due east) and continuing on until you reach another reddish light source in the sky, which is Mars. It's becoming a busy time for planets in our sky, and it will only get better as Mars and Saturn trek more and more into the earlier parts of the night over the coming months.