November 2015

Transcription

1 November 2015 Jupiter & It s Shrunken Great Red Spot As Recently Imaged By The Hubble Space Telescope November Meetings Thursday 5th November: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by Dr Johanna Jarvis at Sudborough Village Hall, Main Street, Sudborough at 8pm. Monday 16th November: Chelveston Village Hall, Caldecott Road, Chelveston at 8pm. The Andromeda Galaxy & Sky Guide l

2 Forthcoming Events Thursday 5th November: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder by Dr Johanna Jarvis. Sudborough Village Hall, Main Street, Sudborough at 8pm. Admission 3. Friday 6th November: Starnight Observing Session at Chelveston Village Hall, Caldecott Road, Chelveston from 8pm. Sessions will take place on clear evenings only. To confirm that conditions will permit observing and that we will be in attendance, please check either our Twitter account or alternatively the front page of our web site from 6.30 on the evening. Friday 13th November: Starnight Observing Session at Chelveston Village Hall from 8pm. Details as 6th November Monday 16th November: Meeting at Chelveston Village Hall, Caldecott Road, Chelveston at 8pm. A look at the Andromeda Galaxy along with the Sky Guide Friday 20th November: Starnight Observign Session at Chelveston Village Hall from 8pm. Details as 6th November. Thursday 3rd December: Meeting at Sudborough Village Hall, Main Street, Sudborough at 8pm. The Winter Night Sky Friday 4th December: Starnight Observing Session at Chelveston Village Hall, Caldecott Road, Chelveston from 8pm. Sessions will take place on clear evenings only. To confirm that conditions will permit observing and that we will be in attendance, please check either our Twitter account or alternatively the front page of our web site from 6.30 on the evening. Friday 11th December: Starnight Observing Session at Chelveston Village Hall from 8pm. Details as 4th December Friday 18th December: Starnight Observing Session at Chelveston Village Hall from 8pm. Details as 4th December. Monday 21st December: Meeting at Chelveston Village Hall, Caldecott Road, Chelveston at 8pm. Speaker and subject to be announced. (There will be no Chelveston Observing sessions on either Friday 25th December or Friday 1st January) Join Dr. Johanna Jarvis at our meeting on Thursday 5th November at Sudborough Village Hall, Main Street, Sudborough at 8pm. Dr Jarvis lecture is entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.. and will look at the various types, colours and classifications of the stars. Dr. Jarvis is the Daphne Jackson Research Fellow at the Open University and additionally runs Astronomy Tuition which offers a number of varied courses on the subject. Admission for the evening is 3 and is open to all. Don t forget that you can follow the Nene Valley Astronomical Society on Twitter and we also have a Facebook Page. Contributions for the next Stargazer newsletter are welcome and can either be handed to Steve Williams at meetings or ed to astrosteveuk@yahoo.co.uk Chelveston Observing Evenings As members will be aware, we have been attempting to run observing evenings at Chelveston Village Hall on clear Friday evening s since the start of September. Unfortunately, clear Friday evening s have been in short supply (indeed our current hit rate is only one in the eight during this session so far!). Whilst we cannot do anything about the clouds, we do have a couple of options that I would welcome your preferences on. The first is to continue with our weekly Friday sessions in 2016 and hope for an improvement in the conditions. The second is to hold short a series of short notice sessions (of up to four per month) selected with around 24 hours notice when the forecast looks promising. These would not be run on consecutive evenings, but would be spread throughout the course of the month subject to the availability of the village hall car park. Please let me know your thoughts or alternatively if you have any alternative suggestions. Steve

3 Eagle s Eye Dave Eagle looks ahead to the sky sights for November The Starchart to the left (from heavens-above.com) shows how the sky will look on Nov.1st at 11pm and Nov. 5th at 10pm. The Moon: 3rd November 11th November 19th November 25th November Last Quarter. New. - First Quarter. - Full The Moon will be close to:aldebaren on the morning of 5th November, Jupiter on the morning of 6th November, Mars and Venus on the morning of 7th November, Spica on the morning of 9th November, Neptune on the evening of 19th November, Uranus on the evening of 22nd November and the Hyades and the Pleiades on the evenings of 26th and 27th November. Solar System: MERCURY Reaches superior conjunction on the 17th so will not be seen this month as it is too close to the Sun. VENUS Now a bright beacon shining at magnitude -4.3 in the eastern morning sky. Passes very close to Mars on the 3rd. MARS Now visible in the morning sky below Leo. It shines as a 2nd magnitude star in pre-dawn sky. Close to Venus on the 3rd. JUPITER Now very easy to spot in the eastern pre-dawn sky. At magnitude -1.9 it is brighter than Mars, but fainter than Venus. All these three planets make a nice grouping in the eastern morning sky throughout the month. SATURN Now too close to the Sun to be seen. Passes through conjunction on the 30th of the month. URANUS Still favourably placed in the evening sky in Pisces. At magnitude +5.7 it is (just) theoretically visible to the naked eye. NEPTUNE Still easily visible in Aquarius at magnitude +7.9 it requires binoculars or a small telescope to identify amongst the background stars. High overhead at the time of our map the distinctive W shape of Cassiopeia dominates the sky. This is of course a circumpolar constellation, being visible throughout the year. The area is full of star clusters, which makes pleasing observing in our earlier and darker skies. Towards the north Ursa Minor hangs almost straight down from the 2nd magnitude star Polaris, the Pole Star. Use a small telescope to reveal its 9th magnitude companion. Towards the south Andromeda is visible extending away from Pegasus. Can you spot The Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye? Low in the Southern sky Cetus the Whale (or Sea Monster) dwells in the watery part of the sky accompanied by Pisces and Aquarius. In the Western sky the last two stars of the Summer Triangle, Deneb and Vega are now almost gone. In the Eastern sky the bright Winter stars are now coming into view. The unmistakable figure of Orion The Hunter has now completely cleared the horizon. COMET C/2013 US10 CATALINA The activity of this comet has settled down so may not become as bright as expected. It reaches perihelion in mid November, becoming a naked eye comet towards the New Year. In mid January 2016 this comet will pass within 0.7 AU of the Earth. LEONIDS This annual meteor shower, debris from Comet Tempel- Tuttle, reaches a maximum of around 20 meteors per hour in the early hours of the 18th of the month. Start observing for them after midnight. For a much fuller guide, charts, graphics and the latest news, visit my web site at:

4 Curiosity Rover Confirms Ancient Lakes On Mars A new study from the team behind NASA s Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity has confirmed that Mars was once, billions of years ago, capable of storing water in lakes over an extended period of time. Using data from the Curiosity rover, the team has determined that, long ago, water helped deposit sediment into Gale Crater, where the rover landed more than three years ago. The sediment deposited as layers that formed the foundation for Mount Sharp, the mountain found in the middle of the crater today. Observations from the rover suggest that a series of long-lived streams and lakes existed at some point between about 3.8 to 3.3 billion years ago, delivering sediment that slowly built up the lower layers of Mount Sharp, said Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and co-author of the new Science article which was published last month. The findings build upon previous work that suggested that there were ancient lakes on Mars, and add to the unfolding story of a wet Mars, both past and present. In September, NASA scientists confirmed current water flows on Mars. A view from the Kimberley formation on Mars taken by NASA s Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground dip towards the base of Mount Sharp, indicating flow of water toward a basin that existed before the larger bulk of the mountain formed. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA s Cassini Spacecraft Encounters Enceladus For The Penultimate Time NASA s Saturn orbiter probe, Cassini, made it s penultimate flyby of the Saturnian moon Enceladus on 28th October 2015, flying just 30 miles above the icy moon s surface at closest approach. The aim of the encounter was to fly through one of the icy water plumes coming from the south pole, something which has not been attempted previously, measuring it s composition. The south polar plume reaches thousands of miles above the surface of Enceladus and Cassini found that it contains a combination of water and organics pulled from a sub-surface ocean, which scientists now believe is a global ocean around 10 to 15 miles beneath the moon s icy crust. Cassini s final flyby of Enceladus will take place in December An unprocessed image of Enceladus taken by Cassini during it s 28th October fly-by showing the icy plumes studied by the craft.

5 Members Observations of the 28th September Total Lunar Eclipse In the early hours of Monday 28th September 2015, a total lunar eclipse was widely observed. Members of the NVAS were of course out and about with their telescopes and cameras and these are just some of the images that were taken. The three images below were taken by Paul Blackman: The four images below were taken by John McEvoy

6 These images were taken by Steve Williams who noted that the lunar eclipse was generally much darker than other such eclipses he had seen. The penumbral effect was also very pronounced before the Moon entered the umbral shadow.

7 Finally, this was sent in by Janet Fowkes. I could not resist putting this in the Stargazer! Perhaps the Star & Garter in Chelveston would make a small amendment??