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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 8/22/2008

Tonight's event will feature a waning gibbous (nearly Third Quarter) Moon rising before midnight.  Until then, we'll be able to see Jupiter, 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, and galaxies.  Jupiter, the King of the planets, is a beautiful sight.  With a high-power view through the telescopes, details in the cloud bands is possible, and the four Galilean moons actually appear as disks instead of just point light sources.  As night falls, Jupiter's moon Io will be transiting the planet and Ganymede will be in eclipse behind Jupiter.  If we're lucky, we should be able to see Ganamede suddenly appear at 11:56pm.  See the details below under Jupiter.

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 fourteenth 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: 10: 50pm Transits: 6: 35am Aug 23 - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 2: 32am Aug 23 Constellation:   Aries Phase:   60.58% illuminated (waning gibbous) Distance:   0.00249431 AU = 373,144 km = 231,861 miles = 1.25 light-seconds Magnitude:   -10.6 Apparent size:   32.01 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   102.08 degrees degrees (morning sky) Age:   21.63 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Third Quarter Moon on Saturday Aug 23, 2008 at 7:50pm Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 8/22/2008 at 9:17:20pm the Moon will be 14.7º below the north-northeast horizon but will look like this at 12:30am Saturday when it clears the trees to the east of the observing field... (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 5: 36pm Transits: 10: 15pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 2: 53am Aug 23 Constellation:   Sagittarius Phase:   99.48% illuminated Distance:   4.42246541 AU = 661,591,409 km = 411,093,848 miles = 36.84 light-minutes Magnitude:   -2.6 Apparent size:   45.33 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   132.65 degrees (evening sky) On 8/22/2008 at 9:17:20pm Jupiter will be 24.3º above the south-southeast horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot: Saturday August 23, 2008 at 5:57am GRS longitude: 124.8º Jupiter moons activity:      Io shadow transit starts at 9:52pm      Io transit ends at 11:09pm      Ganymede comes out of eclipse at 11:56pm      Io shadow transit ends at 12:09am Jupiter and its four visible moons will look like this at 9:17:20pm tonight... Notice the GRS on Jupiter, Io transiting and Ganymede eclipsed and therefore invisible (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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