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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 04/10/2009

Tonight, the Moon will be with us nearly the entire night.  It will rise at 9:34pm and clear the trees to the east around 11:00pm, but don't despair.  The phase is just past full so there's lots to see in the maria - especially Mare Crisium, Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Fecunditatis and Mare Serenitatis.  We'll also be able to see Saturn, colorful double stars, and open clusters made up of hundreds of stars.  The 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 will be somewhat difficult in the light of the Moon.  Saturn, the ringed planet, is a beautiful sight.  With a high-power view through the telescopes, the cloud bands are now visible since the rings are nearly edge-on this entire year.  Try to catch the rings now, or as soon as possible, because they'll continue to be more difficult to see as the year progresses becoming invisible to us by early September.

   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)

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    Inner Solar System     Outer Solar System    General Information about our events

Moon data   Rises: 9: 34pm Transits: 2: 36am Apr 11 - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 7: 31am Apr 11 Constellation:   Virgo Phase:   97.35% illuminated (waning gibbous) Distance:   0.00261378 AU = 391,016 km = 242,966 miles = 1.31 light-seconds Magnitude:   -12.2 Apparent size:   30.55 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   161.22° (morning sky) Age:   15.37 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Last Quarter on Friday Apr 17, 2009 at 9:36am Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 4/10/2009 at 9:02:55pm the Moon will be 6.7º below the east horizon but will look like this when it rises above the trees by 10:30pm... (back to 'Quick Links')

Saturn data   Rises: 4: 47pm Transits: 11: 19pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 5: 51am Apr 11 Constellation:   Leo Phase:   99.90% illuminated Distance:   8.56112192 AU = 1,280,725,610 km = 795,806,009 miles = 1.19 light-hours Magnitude:   0.6 Apparent size:   19.41 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   144.63° (evening sky) On 4/10/2009 at 9:02:55pm Saturn will be 44.7º above the east-southeast horizon and will look like this... Note: This is a correct-image representation.  A telescope will reverse this left-right and possibly invert up-down depending on type of equipment (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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