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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 07/03/2009

Tonight, we have a nearly full Moon that will be with us the entire night until it sets at 3:24am.  This phase isn't the best for viewing detail in the craters on or near the terminator - the line separating lunar night from day, but a wealth of features can still be seen.  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.

Click HERE 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:  6: 16pm Transits: 10: 51pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 3: 23am July 4 Constellation:   Scorpius Phase:   90.39% illuminated (waxing gibbous) Distance:   0.00266683 AU = 398,952 km = 247,897 miles = 1.33 light-seconds Magnitude:   -11.7 Apparent size:   29.94 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   143.80° (evening sky) Age:   11.28 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Full Moon on Tuesday July 7, 2009 at 5:21am Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 7/03/2009 at 10:18:05pm the Moon will be 22º above the south-southeast horizon and will look like this... Note: All graphics are correct-image representations.  A telescope will reverse this left-right and possibly invert up-down depending on type of equipment being used. (back to 'Quick Links')

Saturn data   Rises: 11: 21am Transits: 5: 52pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 0: 22am July 4 Constellation:   Leo Phase:   99.76% illuminated Distance:   9.81280415 AU = 1,467,974,606 km = 912,157,142 miles = 1.36 light-hours Magnitude:   1.1 Apparent size:   16.94 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   64.56° (evening sky) On 7/03/2009 at 10:18:05pm Saturn will be 22.2º above the west-southwest horizon and will look like this... Note: All graphics are correct-image representations.  A telescope will reverse this left-right and possibly invert up-down depending on type of equipment being used. (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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Click HERE for general Information you should know about our events - Q&A of Where, When and What.

Click HERE for a printer-friendly version of the information on this page.

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

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