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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 10/19/2007

Tonight's event will feature a just past First Quarter Moon with lots of detail visible on the terminator - the line separating lunar day from night.  We'll have the planet Jupiter which is almost gone for this season, but two of its moons will be putting on a show for us: Europa moves behind Jupiter at 7:15pm and Ganymede comes out of eclipse at 8:12pm low on the horizon, colorful double stars, open clusters made up of hundreds of stars, globular clusters comprised of hundreds of thousands of stars, planetary nebula formed by dying stars, diffuse nebula and emission nebula where stars are being born, will all be available to us the entire night.  Many amateur astronomers feel that late fall is the best time to observe since there are beautiful objects of all categories available and the Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live, is directly overhead.  Bring binoculars if you have them, there’s plenty to see with them if you know where to look - and we’ll be happy to show you!

for a list of DeepSky Objects that will be available to us this session.

We hope to see you here for a night under the stars - now in our thirteenth year!

For observing conditions at our site, please click on the link below: 
ClearSkyClock for Fishcreek Site  (the darker blue the squares are, the better)

Quick links:
    Inner Solar System     Outer Solar System    General Information about our events

Moon data   Rises: 3: 14pm Transits: 8: 00pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 0: 54pm Oct 20 Constellation:   Capricornus Phase:   56.46% illuminated (waxing gibbous) Distance:   0.00256411 AU = 383,586 km = 238,349 miles = 1.28 light-seconds Magnitude:   -10.4 Apparent size:   31.14 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   97.28 degrees (evening sky) Age:   8.78 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Full Moon on Friday Oct 26, 2007 at 0:52am Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 at 9:58pm EST At 7:39pm the Moon will be 25.8º above the south-southeast horizon and will look like this: (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 11: 57am Transits: 4: 38pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 9: 20pm Constellation:   Ophiuchus (pronounced oh-fee-oo'-cuss) Phase:   99.46% illuminated Distance:   5.84121632 AU = 873,833,524 km = 542,974,985 miles = 48.65 light-minutes Magnitude:   -1.9 Apparent size:   33.75 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   51.14 degrees (evening sky) At 7:39pm Jupiter will be 13.8º above the south-southwest horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot:  Saturday Oct 20 2007 at 0:55am GRS longitude: 117.8º Lots of action with Jupiter's moons tonight:      Europa moves behind Jupiter at 7:15pm      Ganymede comes out of eclipse at 8:12pm This animated GIF of Jupiter and its moons begins at 6:40pm EDT and runs until Jupiter is below the horizon. You can read the altitude and azimuth in the caption below Jupiter.  This image is neither inverted nor reversed and is oriented as it would appear in binoculars or a non-inverting telescope.  Frames are 10 minutes apart. 'Alt' is degrees above the horizon, 'Az' is degrees of azimuth: 0 is north, 90 is east, 180 is south and 270 is west Ganymede is rendered in orange until it emerges from Jupiter's shadow at 8:12pm EDT ← Callisto is off-screen to the left Animation is centered on Jupiter to better show the motion of the moons (back to 'Quick Links')

Inner Solar System - the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Earth
(Created using Software Bisque's TheSky software)

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Outer Solar System - the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
(Created using Software Bisque's TheSky software)

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General Information you should know about our events - Q&A of Where, When and What


Very sincerely yours,
Dave Jessie
"Time spent observing the heavens is not deducted from your life span"

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