Moon near Gemini Twins a.m. on September 7
8 comentarios Imprimir Enviar a un amigoEl Cielo Esta Noche 06 sep, 2007
In the predawn hours on Friday, the waning crescent moon lines up with Castor and Pollux, the brightest stars in the constellation Gemini the Twins.
These two stars – Castor and Pollux – were seen as twins in the star lore of many civilizations. Regardless of the seeming connection between these two stars, Castor and Pollux are not close together or physically related. They happen to reside along the same line of sight.
Castor and Pollux are different kinds of stars. Castor is a rather hot, white-colored star that is well known for its multiple personality. It consists of three pairs of binary stars – or six stars bound together in an intricate gravitational dance. Pollux is a cool and rather bloated orange-colored star, said to be the closest giant star to Earth.
If you’re up before dawn the next few days, look closely at the moon. There’s a good chance you’ll see the moon’s dark side softly aglow in earthshine – sunshine that’s reflected from Earth and back to the moon.
By the way, the moon is hovering now on the border of the constellations Gemini and Cancer, approximating the sun’s position in front of the stars for July 21.
On September 5, 2007 we observed a “mini” version of the moon at the day’s phase (smiling moon) on the eastern ski line at dawn. It was located at about 8 o’clock from the moon, but it appeared to be moving fast. We first scoped it at about 6am MDT from Bigfork Montana. We watched it move quickly across the sky, looking like a small version of the moon. We would really like to know what it was – can you please tell us?
Thanks,
Dev and Liz Hill
Bigfork, Montana
Dev & Liz,
I’m not sure what you saw. Did you happen to notice brilliant Venus quite a bit below the moon and pretty close to your eastern horizon? Do you know if this object was something other than Venus? If it was moving quickly across the sky, it could’ve been a satellite.
Bruce
Driving east from Lancaster, Ca, at 0500 hrs. September 6, 2007 – there is a very bright star in the eastern sky. What star is this?
Thanks
Fred Smith
Fred,
Was it close to the horizon, almost due east, and shining with a bright, steady light? If so, it was the planet Venus! If it appeared more in the southeast part of the sky and was sparkling wildly, it was the star Sirius. Sirius shines a fairly good distance to the south (or right) of Venus, and this star – though the brightest true star of nighttime – is nowhere as bright as the planet Venus. Venus is the third brightest celestial object to light up the sky (after the sun and moon).
Bruce
When standing at night and looking up, either north or south, how do you tie what you are looking at, to a sky map so you can identify the stars or objects you are looking at.
I see that there’e going to be total solar eclipse in 2008 that can only be seen in areas like Russia. When will we in the US be able to view a total solar eclipse?? When was the last one visible in the US??? I do recall viewing one through welder’s goggles about 15 years or so ago…... Thanks
the space shuttle new horizon will be at pluto in 2015 is it possible it will visit the tenth planet eris…
thanks,
joe
To Darrel:
To find your way through the night sky, it helps to know your cardinal directions: north, south, east, west. The most famous trick of navigation is to use the Big Dipper to locate Polaris, the North Star. Once you find north by the North Star, you automatically know the other three directions. As you’re facing Polaris, stick out your arms sideways. Your right hand is pointing east and your left hand is pointing west. Directly about-face of Polaris is due south.
To Mike:
Here’s a map of the total solar eclipses that took place in North America from 1951 to 2000. Here’s a world map of the total solar eclipses from 1997 to 2020. It looks like the next total solar eclipse in the US will be on Aug. 21, 2017.
To Joseph:
I don’t know that the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt probe will be be visiting the dwarf planet Eris. Perhaps you can find out here
Bruce