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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 8/29/2008

Once a month we have a dark Moon-free Friday night and tonight's the night!  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 really going to be putting on a show for us tonight - lots of moon activity!  Should be 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, Ganymede will be moving behind Jupiter followed by Callisto two hours later at which point Ganymede will reappear from behind on the other side.  Just prior to these events, Io will begin to move across the face of Jupiter followed an hour later by its tiny shadow!  After midnight, Ganymede will seemingly disappear into thin air (!) as it is eclipsed by Jupiter.  See all the details below under Jupiter as well as an animation showing these events.  This is an unusual number of dissimilar events occurring in a relatively brief period of time!

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: 5: 16am Transits: 12: 29pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 7: 29pm Constellation:   Leo Phase:   0.84% illuminated (waning crescent) Distance:   0.00251941 AU = 376,899 km = 234,194 miles = 1.26 light-seconds Magnitude:   -4.6 Apparent size:   31.69 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   10.50 degrees degrees (morning sky) Age:   28.62 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   New Moon on Saturday Aug 30, 2008 at 3:58pm Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 8/29/2008 at 9:04:57pm the Moon will be 17.3º below the west-northwest horizon but will look like this at 6:26pm this evening just 10 degrees ahead of the Sun... (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 5: 07pm Transits: 9: 46pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 2: 25am Aug 30 Constellation:   Sagittarius Phase:   99.36% illuminated Distance:   4.50511124 AU = 673,955,049 km = 418,776,258 miles = 37.52 light-minutes Magnitude:   -2.5 Apparent size:   43.76 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   125.62 degrees (evening sky) On 8/29/2008 at 9:04:57pm Jupiter will be 25º above the south-southeast horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot: Saturday August 30, 2008 at 6:44am GRS longitude: 125.0º Jupiter moons activity - LOTS tonight!      Io transit starts at 10:42pm      Callisto occultation starts at 11:16pm      Ganymede occultation ends at 11:32pm      Io shadow transit starts at 11:47pm      Ganymede eclipse starts at 12:37am Saturday      Io transit ends at 12:58am Saturday      Io shadow transit ends at 2:04am Saturday      Callisto occultation ends at 2:54am Saturday Animation of Jupiter and its four visible moons... Frames are 15 minutes apart starting at 6:45pm and running until Jupiter has nearly set. (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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