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Welcome again to our monthly newsletter with features on exciting celestial and earth science events, product reviews, tips & tricks, and a monthly sky calendar. We hope you enjoy it!

   

Bright and Faint

I discovered that this event would take place in one of my two major sources of astronomical information, the Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. First published over a century ago, the 2012 edition contains 352 pages of densely packed data on astronomy. There is no other reference book, and nothing on the internet to compare to it. Each year I eagerly await its arrival in my mailbox, and spend the next year poring over it for tidbits of astronomical information.

One of the most heavily thumbed sections of my Handbook is “The Sky Month by Month,” a compilation by date of interesting events in the sky. When I looked at the pages for January, this event popped out at me. Wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, to see the brightest and the faintest planets in my telescope at the same time?

Venus has been a brilliant “evening star” for a couple of months now, and will continue to grow brighter until it reaches its maximum on April 30, moving on towards inferior conjunction on June 6, when it will actually pass between us and the Sun. Meanwhile, Neptune has been moving along on the outer edge of the solar system towards superior conjunction with the Sun on February 19. They meet up on the night of Friday January 13 at 7 h UT.

On the 13th, Venus will have a magnitude of –4.03 on the topsy-turvy brightness scale astronomer’s use, while Neptune will be +7.95. a total difference of 11.98 magnitudes. What does that mean? A difference of 5 magnitudes on this logarithmic scale equates to 100 times difference in brightness, so a difference of 12 magnitudes amounts to about 100,000 times difference! Venus will be 100,000 times brighter than Neptune.

Very interesting on paper, but my next question was whether I could actually see this event in the sky. To find out, I turned to my other major source of astronomical information, Starry Night.

The big question was when could I observe this event, and this is where Starry Night came to the rescue. The Handbook gave the time of conjunction as 7 h UT. Here I knew I was in trouble because that’s 2 a.m. in my time zone, Eastern Standard Time, and Venus would have set long before.

I did a quick check in Starry Night around 7 p.m. on January 12 and 13, the dates on either side of the event, to see which would give me the closest distance between Venus and Neptune. On January 12, they were 1° 20’ apart (as measured by Starry Night’s separation cursor) and on January 13, 1° 09’, so the 13th was the better date.

Now the challenge was to find the best time to observe the event. I have a very low western horizon, so that wasn’t a problem. Neptune would be very faint, around 8th magnitude, so I needed a time late enough that it would be visible, but not so late that it would be too low in the sky and obscured by distant haze over Georgian Bay.

There are several ways to figure out when twilight is over, when the sky is truly dark, in Starry Night. The quick and dirty way is to just look at the screen and see whether the sky background is dark blue or black. The scientific way is to check the altitude of the Sun: –6° is the end of civil twilight, –12° is the end of nautical twilight, and –18° is the end of astronomical twilight, the one we want here. At my location, the Sun will reach –18° altitude at 6:46 p.m.

I’ve discovered another way to find the exact time of astronomical twilight in Starry Night. I turn on the NGC objects and then watch for the time when they appear. I discovered years ago that Starry Night is programmed to only show all the NGC objects when astronomical twilight is over. It will show some of the brighter NGCs before twilight is full, but not all those little galaxies.

So, all the indications are that the optimum time to observe this close conjunction of bright and faint will be around 6:45 p.m. on January 13 for my location. In this case, your mileage will definitely vary, because twilight is very sensitive to the observer’s location. So, you will need to use your Starry Night to find the optimum time for your location. It will be interesting to see how it varies from one place to another.

Geoff Gaherty
Geoff has been a life-long telescope addict, and is active in many areas of visual observation; he is a moderator of the Yahoo "Talking Telescopes" group.

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Major Astronomical Events 2012

Occultations of planets and bright stars are by the Moon unless noted otherwise. General locations are given for these occultations. For observers outside these locations, close conjunctions of the Moon and objects may be observed.

All times are given in Universal Time (UT). To calculate the time for your location, use the following table. Take the UT time and add the time in the table for your time zone.

Time Zone Conversion Table

Time Zone Standard Time Daylight Saving Time
Eastern Standard Time (EST) –5 hours –4 hours
Central Standard Time (CST) –6 hours –5 hours
Mountain Standard Time (MST) –7 hours –6 hours
Pacific Standard Time (PST) –8 hours –7 hours

Geoff Gaherty
Geoff has been a life-long telescope addict, and is active in many areas of visual observation; he is a moderator of the Yahoo "Talking Telescopes" group.

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The Death of the Sun

No, that's not an ancient Mayan prophecy but, according to astronomers, a scientific truth. Stars, like people, have a definite life span and like people, different stars have different life spans.

Last month we saw that during most of a star's life, it stays on the Main Sequence of the H-R Diagram as shown below.

We also learned that how long a star lives depends on its mass. Stars like our Sun should live for about ten billion years. With the Sun's age estimated at five billion years, there is no need to panic yet!

During most of its life, a star's stable existence is governed by two opposing forces. Gravity pulls the solar material inward, toward the center. Radiation pressure caused by the tremendous energy released during fusion pushes solar material outward. Once these two processes are in equilibrium, the star maintains a more-or-less uniform size and luminosity for a few billion years.

But, eventually the nuclear fuel runs out—the hydrogen in the core of the star has been fused to helium. The decrease in energy output causes the core to contract as gravity now triumphs over radiation pressure. Paradoxically, this causes the core to heat up. The star now expands and the much larger surface area decreases in temperature. No longer on the Main Sequence, the star has become a Red Giant. Eventually a high enough temperature is reached to cause the helium to fuse into carbon.

Although life on Earth will become uncomfortable long before, drastic changes will happen as the Sun enters the Red Giant phase. The expanding atmosphere will first swallow Mercury and then may eventually expand beyond the orbit of the Earth. Rapid expansion of the solar atmosphere will cause a good portion of it to be blown out into space surrounding the remnants in a shell of gas called a planetary nebula. The central core, now the size of the Earth, becomes a white dwarf. It may shine for a trillion years as it slowly cools off to become a dark, cold mass.

The night sky provides lots of examples of dying stars. Red giants, white dwarfs and planetary nebulae can be found in all parts of the sky...

 

Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation Taurus, is a star in the red giant phase. M57 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Lyra. Finder charts for these two objects are shown above.

M57 Ring Nebula

Shown above, is a portrait of M57, the Ring nebula. It can be seen as a faint smoke ring in small telescopes. The central star has exhausted its supply of nuclear fuel and is on its way to becoming a white dwarf.

Use any version of Starry Night to help you find more red giants and planetary nebulae.

Next time we'll look at the fate of stars more and less massive than the Sun.

Further Study
If the Sun loses some mass during the red giant stage, what will happen to planetary orbits?

Answer to last month's question:
Six of the Big Dipper's seven stars are on the main sequence. Dubhe, the pointer star closest to the pole, is a red giant nearing the end of its life. You can verify that by using the H - R diagram in Starry Night.

Herb Koller

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The Layered Earth now included with Earth Science Textbook

Publisher Jones & Bartlett newest Earth science textbook titled “Earth’s Evolving Systems: The History of Planet Earth” by Ronald Martin includes access to The Layered Earth.

The Layered Earth, includes exercises that enable students to envision Earth as a whole system, showing them tectonic plate boundaries, mountain ranges, volcanoes, earthquakes, mineral resources and biomes. Students can then dive into the Earth’s core, slice open a volcano or watch rocks transform. They’ll even witness the changing shapes of Earth’s major landmasses throughout history!

As part of our collaboration, a set of custom exercises where created to go along with the various chapters.

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Starry Night Dome

Starry Night® is known around the world as the most popular software for classroom and desktop astronomy. But you might be surprised to know it’s fast becoming an important tool for planetarium visualization.

The Starry Night team has been collaborating for over 10 years with leading science centers and planetarium makers to bring the visual beauty and accuracy of Starry Night to larger screens and domes. Starry Night software powers the leading digital planetarium systems in the educational world: Spitz Inc.'s SciDome and Science First's Digital STARLAB.

Starry Night®’s database of stars, galaxies, 3D models and other deep sky objects is realistically projected in an immersive full-dome theater environment. “Starry Night® is the perfect platform to teach students about the complex universe we live in.” says Scott Huggins, Marketing Director for Spitz. “The space science curriculum is so comprehensive, there’s almost nothing we can’t show. It offers a thousand times more teaching capability than traditional planetarium projectors.”

Planetariums all over the world are adopting Starry Night® as their astronomy display medium. There are over 100 Starry Night Dome owners all around the world.

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Starry Night® File of the Month

2012 Venus Transit

A transit of Venus will occur on June 5 - June 6 in 2012. The next transit of Venus will be in December 2117.

Pedro Braganca
Education & Content Director
Starry Night® Education

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Constellation in Focus: Perseus

Constellation Map: Perseus

Perseus is the mythological hero who saved Andromeda from Cetus, the Sea Monster. Perseus used Medusa's head (lopped off in a previous adventure) to turn Cetus to stone. At this time of year Perseus is visible in the north-east after dusk. As the night progresses, it rises higher for excellent viewing, and there are a number of fabulous sights on show.

NGC 869/884, the Double Cluster, is a favorite target and with good reason. Use binoculars to get an overview of this jewel box, then a low magnification in your telescope to bring out the distinctly varied coloration of stars in each cluster. Both clusters are about 7000 light-years away and are part of the Perseus arm, one of the spiral arms of our Milky Way.

M76, the Dumbbell Nebula, is another favorite among observers because of its obvious hourglass/dumbbell shape. It's faint and small but responds well to magnification. Averted vision will help you see its two distinct lobes and nebulous wisps.

NGC 1245, an open cluster, is best viewed with low magnification. Most of the stars are hot blue, but there are some nicely contrasting bright orange stars, cooler and older than their blue house mates.

M34, another star cluster, contains about 60 members including several double-stars. The cluster is 1,500 light-years distant and is moving in the same direction through space as the Pleiades.

NGC 1023, an very elongated looking galaxy, hangs in space roughly 30 million light-years from the back of your eye. From that distance it's surprisingly bright, especially the middle. Try all magnifications to pick out structure and details.

NGC 1499, the California Nebula, is a large emission nebula. Under dark skies, it's bright enough to see with the naked eye. Use low magnification and a nebula filter if you have one. See if you can make out the shape of the state that gives the nebula its name.

Sean O'Dwyer
Starry Night® Times Editor

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JAN 2012

Focus on Features

   
Imagine purchasing a Digital STARLAB® system for less than US$45,000!

Then imagine obtaining a 5 meter inflatable dome at no extra charge!

For questions or further information please contact our STARLAB® team at (904) 225-5558.
   

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The Wilson Cycle

In 1966, Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson published a landmark paper in Nature called “Did the Atlantic Close and Then Re-open?” Wilson proposed in this paper that the formation of the Atlantic Ocean was part of a continuous cycle in which ocean basins were formed, and then closed again after a period of time.

This continuous tectonic cycle of continental breakup, ocean formation, subduction and eventual ocean closure, and continental collision is today known as the Wilson Cycle.

Learn more at layeredearth.com.
   

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Pedro Braganca
Education & Content Director
Starry Night® Education

   

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Tips & Tricks
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Exporting Sky Objects

Selecting File->Export Data from the main menu creates a text file which contains data for all of the objects visible on the screen in Starry Night. You will be asked to name the file and choose a directory to save the file in.

Pedro Braganca
Education & Content Director
Starry Night® Education
   

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Sky Events
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Moon Phases

Mon., Jan. 9
2:30 a.m. EST
Full Moon

The Full Moon of Jan. is usually called the Old Moon. In Algonquian it is called Wolf Moon. Other names are Moon After Yule and Ice Moon. In Hindi it is known as Paush Poornima. Its Sinhala (Buddhist) name is Duruthu Poya. The Full Moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise, the only night in the month when the Moon is in the sky all night long. The rest of the month, the Moon spends at least some time in the daytime sky.

Mon., Jan. 16
4:08 a.m. EST
Last Quarter Moon

The Last or Third Quarter Moon rises around 1 a.m. and sets around 11 a.m. It is most easily seen just after sunrise in the southern sky.

Mon., Jan. 23
2:39 a.m. EST
New Moon

The Moon is not visible on the date of New Moon because it is too close to the Sun, but can be seen low in the east as a narrow crescent a morning or two before, just before sunrise. It is visible low in the west an evening or two after New Moon.

Mon., Jan. 30
11:10 p.m. EST
First Quarter Moon
The First Quarter Moon rises around 11 a.m., and sets around 1 a.m.

 

Observing Highlights

Wed., Jan. 11
1:26 a.m. EST
Double satellite transit on Jupiter
Two of Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede and Europa, will pass in front of Jupiter. Europa’s icy surface reflects much more light than Ganymede, so appears as a white spot against Jupiter’s clouds while Ganymede appears as a dark gray spot. Again, the best views will be in western North America.

   

Thu., Jan. 12
Dusk
The brightest and the faintest
The brightest and the faintest of the planets are in conjunction tonight. Neptune, at magnitude 8.0, will be just above Venus, at magnitude –3.9, a difference in brightness of 11.9 magnitudes. Venus will be easy to spot with the naked eye, but Neptune will require binoculars or a small telescope.

   

Planets

Mercury may be glimpsed in the southeast just before sunrise at the beginning of the month, but is too close to the Sun the rest of the month.

Venus is a brilliant object in the evening sky after sunset all month. The waxing crescent Moon will pass close to Venus on Wed. Jan. 25 and Thu. Jan. 26.

Mars spends all of Jan. on the border between Leo and Virgo. It grows in size from 9 arc seconds to 12 arc seconds during the month, large enough to reveal its polar cap and dark surface markings in a 5-inch (125-mm) telescope. By the end of the month it reaches magnitude –0.5, making it the brightest object in the morning sky except for Sirius and the Moon.

Jupiter continues to be well placed in the evening sky all month on the border between Aries and Pisces. Jupiter and Venus are the brightest objects in the evening sky other than the Sirius and the Moon.

Saturn is high in the eastern sky before dawn. It now shines brighter than nearby Spica.

Uranus is well placed in the early evening in Pisces all month.

Neptune is low in the west at sunset in Aquarius. It passes just north of Venus on Jan. 12.

Geoff Gaherty

Data for this calendar have been derived from a number of sources including the Observer's Handbook 2012 of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Starry Night® software, and others. Only events with a reasonable possibility for Northern Hemisphere observers, or those events with some other significance, are given. All times shown are U.S. Eastern Time.
   

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