Observing With Webb

June 2023

WATCH this on YouTube
LISTEN as a podcast on Podbean, Stitcher, or iTunes

Social Media: @mrwebbpv on Twitter and Instagram

@pvplanetarium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

 

         Venus shines bright at sunset all month, with Mars nearby, while Saturn, Jupiter, and even Mercury shine in the mornings, and the Beehive Cluster gets two wandering guests, all in the solstice month of June.

         Welcome to Observing With Webb, where a high school astronomy teacher tells you what you’re looking at, why it’s so cool, and what you should check out later this month…at night. 

 

Naked-eye PLANETS

Sunset

• Venus – Look W after sunset. It’ll be the brightest object and probably the first “star” you’ll see, about 30˚ above the horizon. Sets between midnight and 11pm.  Get your looks in now, because once August starts, your view of Venus in the evening will disappear, and return to the mornings of September.
• Mars – Look W and about 5 or 10˚ up and to the left of Venus, for a dull reddish dot in the sky, hanging out in Cancer, and slowing moving toward Leo. Sets between midnight and 11pm.

Throughout the night - None

Morning – (from left to right) Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn

• Saturn – Beginning of the month: Rises at 1:30am in the ESE, and is 30˚ above the SE horizon by dawn. End of the month: Rises at 11:30pm in the ESE, and is 40˚ above the S horizon at dawn.  About 60˚ to the right of Jupiter.
• Jupiter – Beginning of the month: Rises at 4am in the E, and is just 15˚ above the E horizon by dawn. End of the month: Rises at 2am in the E, and is 35˚ above the E horizon at dawn.  About 60˚ to the left of Saturn.
• Mercury – For the first 3 weeks of June, Mercury is less than 10˚ above the horizon, to the left of East. Hard to find, but not impossible.

 

EVENTS

Full Moon – 3^rd (Visible all night)

Waning Gibbous (Mostly lit, rises later at night)

Last Quarter Moon – 10^th (Visible midnight into the morning)

Morning Crescents (look East in the AM)

New Moon – 17^th (darkest skies)

Evening Crescents (look West after Sunset)

First Quarter Moon – 26^th (Visible until midnight)

Evening Gibbous (Mostly lit, after Sunset)

 

2^nd – Mars, Beehive Cluster (M44) – Find that dull red dot in the sky which is Mars, then take some binoculars out, or a telescope, and witness Mars being directly in M44, the Beehive Cluster, so named because of its resemblance to a swarm of bees. The day before and after, Mars will be on either side of the cluster. Definitely worth at least a look, if not a picture.

9^th + 10^th – CLOSE ENCOUNTER - Moon, Saturn – Get up early, look SE, and find a gibbous Moon with Saturn about 8˚ above and to the left on the morning on the 9^th.  On the 10^th, the Moon will have moved to be 7˚ down and to the left of Saturn.

13^th – Venus, Beehive Cluster (M44) – Find that bright brilliant dot in the sky which is Venus, then take some binoculars out, or a telescope, and witness Venus being ALMOST directly in M44, the Beehive Cluster. The day before and after, Venus will be on either side of the cluster. Definitely worth at least a look, if not a picture.

14^th – CLOSE ENCOUNTER - Moon, Jupiter – Get up early, after 3am, look E, and find a very thin crescent Moon with bright Jupiter only 2˚ to right.

21^st – Summer Solstice – This is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  There’s a bit of explanation as to why here.

20^th – 22^nd – CLOSE ENCOUNTER – Moon, Venus, Mars – Check this out right after sunset! Look West and you’ll easily see Venus being super bright. Each day, Mars will be about 5˚ (or three finger-widths) up and to the left of Venus.  The best part is the Moon traveling through.  On the 20^th, a super-duper thin Moon will be about 13˚ down and to the right of Venus.  But on the 21^st, the Moon moves to be just 3˚ to the right of Venus, and is a little bigger and easier to spot.  Then, on the 22^nd, the Moon moves up and to the left again, forming a nice curved line with Mars and Venus.  Definitely worth a look, though pictures will prove to be difficult, given the relative brightness of each object.

 

CONSTELLATIONS...

Use a sky map from www.skymaps.com to help you out.

After Dinner, Before Bed:

Spring Constellations: Big Dipper, Bootes, Virgo, Corona Borealis, Hercules – Gaze almost vertically as you face the NW, and you’ll easily find the Big Dipper: seven very bright stars that form a spoon shape. Now if you take the handle of the Dipper, follow its curve to the next bright star you see, about 20˚ away, which is Arcturus. “Follow the arc to Arcturus.” That’s the brightest star in Bootes, which looks like a kite. Take that same curve, and follow it about another 20˚ to “speed on to Spica”, the brightest star in Virgo, one of my favorite constellations, since it reminds me of the Dickinson Mermaid.  Now go back to Bootes, and just to the left of Bootes are seven stars that form the northern crown Corona Borealis, which looks more like a small bowl or a “C” in the sky. Continue a little further to the left and you’ll find the keystone asterism which is part of the constellation Hercules. Extra Challenge! Look for M13, the Hercules Cluster in between two of Hercules’ “keystone” stars.  It known as the best globular cluster in the northern skies.  It will be a fuzzy spot in binoculars and will be even cooler through a telescope

Summer Constellations: Lyra, Cygnus, Aquila – Look pretty much straight above you, and find the brightest star up there. You’ll notice a parallelogram attached to it. This is the brightest star Vega, part of the constellation Lyra, the harp. Directly above you will be Cygnus the Swan, with its brightest star Deneb. It will look like a large cross, or if you look out a little further, a swan flying above you. Below Cygnus and Lyra is the third constellation of the Summer Triangle, Aquila the Eagle, with its brightest star Altair. The three bright stars in this one can be easily confused for Orion’s belt, given their similar size, however they are not in line as straight, and are part of a bigger diamond shape.  Use a star chart to find small Delphinus and Sagitta in the area as well.

Before Work:

Pegasus, Andromeda – Look directly south and most of the way up the sky and you’ll find the very big and almost perfect square of Pegasus, the winged horse. Now if you look to the top left of the square, you’ll see three pairs of stars creating a neat double curve to the left and up from that corner star. That is Andromeda. If you have a little extra time, find the middle pair of stars, connect them with a line, and move toward the inside of the curve about the same distance as those stars are apart. There you’ll find the Andromeda Galaxy, which will be just a small faint fuzzy with your naked eye. The cool part is that you are looking at billions of stars that are 2.9 million light years away, that spread out about 150,000 light years across.

Don’t forget this podcast is found on my Podbean page, Stitcher, and iTunes.  There’s also a video version on my YouTube Channel and I can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @mrwebbpv. The Pequea Valley Planetarium and its events and updates are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @pvplanetarium.

November 2022 - ECLIPSE TOMORROW!

LISTEN as a podcast on Podbean, Stitcher, or iTunes

Social Media: @mrwebbpv on Twitter and Instagram

@pvplanetarium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

 

          Thanksgiving, 3 planets, a meteor shower (with the possibility of a storm), and a TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE.  November is going to be great!

         Welcome to Observing With Webb, where a high school astronomy teacher tells you what you’re looking at, why it’s so cool, and what you should check out later this month…at night. 

 

 Naked-eye PLANETS

Sunset

• Saturn – About 30˚ above the horizon in the S. Fairly dim, but still brighter than all the stars around it.
• Jupiter – SUPER bright in the SE after sunset. Just find the brightest point of light in that direction, and you’ve got it.

Throughout the night

• Saturn & Jupiter – Starting off in the SE, with brightest Jupiter on the left and dimmer Saturn about 40˚ to the right, these two march westward through the night, with Saturn setting around 11pm and Jupiter setting around 2am.
• Mars – Rises at about 8:30pm in the beginning of the month, and just after sunset by the end. Look East early in the evening for a dull reddish dot in the sky, above Orion and between the tips of Taurus’s horns.

 Morning

• Mars – By morning, Mars will have moved to the S or SW, still between Taurus’s horns above Orion, about 2/3 of the way up the sky.

 

EVENTS

First Quarter Moon – 1^st (Visible until midnight)

Evening Gibbous (Mostly lit, after Sunset)

Full Moon – 8^th (Visible all night)

Waning Gibbous (Mostly lit, rises later at night)

Last Quarter Moon – 16^th (Visible midnight into the morning)

Morning Crescents (look East in the AM)

New Moon – 23^rd (darkest skies)

Evening Crescents (look West after Sunset)

First Quarter Moon – 30^th (Visible until midnight)

 

4^th – CLOSE ENCOUNTER – Moon, Jupiter – A waxing gibbous Moon is below Jupiter by just 3˚.  Visible all night.

6^th – Daylight Savings Time Ends

 8^th – TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE – Only the West coast of the U.S. can pretty much see all of it, with the rest of the U.S. seeing only portions before sunrise.  Here’s the game plan:

           4:09am EST – Partial Eclipse Begins – Just look West to find the Full Moon, and watch as the Earth’s shadow appears to nibble on the Moon from the top down, but a little off-center to the left. This phase will last about an hour, and the Moon will drop about 10˚ closer to the horizon. (You might hear that the penumbral portion of the eclipse starts before this.  While true, it is essentially undetectable with the naked eye.)

           5:16am EST – Totality Begins – Now the umbra of the Earth’s shadow is completely engulfing the Moon, and only the light from all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth are illuminating our orbital partner’s surface, making it appear anywhere from dark yellow to orange to red to brown.  This phase will last almost an hour and a half, leading into dawn for those of us on the east coast.

           6:42am EST – Totality ends, Partiality begins again – now the shadow leaves the Moon, starting to expose its surface from the top down.

           7:49am EST – Partial Eclipse Ends, but the Sun is up and the Moon is setting.

        Other things to notice during the eclipse

• As the Moon gets darker, more and more stars will be visible

• The Pleiades are above the Moon

• Taurus is up and to the left of the Moon

• Orion is off to the left of Taurus

10^th – CLOSE ENCOUNTER – Moon, Mars – The Moon is 6˚ above and to the right of Mars.  Visible in the NE around 8:30pm, and high in the W by sunrise.

17^th – 18^th – Leonid Meteor Shower – This annual, weak (10-15 per hour), meteor shower can have some wonderful years.  Could this be one of those years? MAYBE.  Some predict we could get up to 250-300 meteors per hour after midnight on the 18^th.  Am I banking on it? No. But am I going out anyway? Absolutely.  I wouldn’t want to miss it, and I don’t need to set anything up to witness a meteor storm.

Some advice for watching:

    Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or hammock

    Look around Leo’s head.  That is where the radiant is - where the meteors will appear to be coming from.

    The strategy to observe this year is to get out there whenever you can, but the later you stay up, the more you’ll see, since the radiant will be higher and you’ll be closer to the peak. 

Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear

Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something. 

If you’re feeling extra nerdy, do a scientific meteor count (S&T and IMO)

That said, you never know when a nice meteor will burn up, to take a nice look at the sky in general, noting that the meteors will appear to go from the radiant in the head of Leo and outward.

25^th – Thanksgiving – After feasting, get out and find the Moon and 3 planets!  A two day old Moon will be visible just after sunset, but not for long, maybe an hour, in the SW.  Get a clear view of the horizon.  As dusk darkens, find brightest light Jupiter in the SE, bright-ish light Saturn in the South, and Mars very low in the ENE, rising as the night progresses.  Now is also a good time to use that scope for Andromeda and the Pleiades.

28^th – 29^th – CLOSE ENCOUNTER – Moon, Saturn – The crescent Moon is just 7˚ below Saturn on the 28^th, and 10˚ to the left of Saturn on the 29^th. Visible after sunset in the SSW, before 11pm.

 

 CONSTELLATIONS...

Use a sky map from www.skymaps.com to help you out.

After Dinner:

Pegasus & Andromeda - Look pretty much straight up you’ll be able to see the Great Square of Pegasus, with Andromeda curving off of one corner. If your skies are decently dark, you might catch the faint fuzz that is the Andromeda Galaxy.

Before Bed:

Andromeda, Perseus, Triangulum, Aries – Find Pegasus off to the West a little bit to find the cornucopia shaped Andromeda again. Keep following the cornucopia shape to find Perseus, which has kind of a similar shape, except opening up toward the southern horizon and the Pleiades.  Below Perseus and Andromeda will be Triangulum, a small thin triangle, and Aries the Ram, which looks more like a curved walking cane on its side.

Before Work:

Orion – Look southwest to find the vertical bow-tie that is Orion the Hunter.

Don’t forget this podcast is found on my Podbean page, Stitcher, and iTunes.  There’s also a video version on my YouTube Channel and I can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @mrwebbpv. The Pequea Valley Planetarium and its events and updates are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @pvplanetarium.