Evening sky watchers might
be asking themselves, "Where did all the planets go?" With Jupiter
having disappeared into the bright evening twilight during this past week, the
evening sky is now totally devoid of any bright planets.
Morning is the time to find
planets.
Venus and Saturn are easily
visible and will be putting on a predawn show during this upcoming week in the
eastern sky, gradually appearing to close in on each other until Aug. 31 when
they'll be in conjunction, just under 2 degrees apart in
our sky To visualize this, consider that the apparent width of the Full Moon
is equal to ˝ degree and that the width of your fist held at arm's length is
roughly equal to 10 degrees.
The two planets will pull
away from each other during September.
On the morning of Aug. 28,
dazzling Venus will be above and to Saturn's right. Two mornings later, they're
side-by-side. On the morning of the 31st, Venus will have moved to the lower
right of Saturn. By the morning of Sept. 4, Saturn is shining almost directly
above Venus.
It is easy to tell the two
planets apart in the sky. Venus is by far the brightest. The only stars in the
eastern sky that compete with Saturn for brightness are much farther away from
Venus, off to the right.
Details on Venus
Venus rises around 3-a.m.
local daylight time (or some two hours before the first light of dawn) and as
noted above, starts the month near the much-dimmer Saturn. This is the peak
of Venus's highest morning apparition (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes).
Shining at magnitude
-4.2, Venus glides about 3˝ degrees south of the center of
M44, the pretty Beehive star cluster in Cancer, on the mornings of Sept. 10
and 11. Binoculars will provide the best views. Also on the morning of the 10th,
take note of the waning crescent Moon, well above and to the left of Venus.
By month's end Venus has
descended to within 5 degrees of Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, the Lion.
Venus will pass close to Regulus on Oct. 3.
Telescopes now show Venus
as a featureless gibbous form.
Saturn details
Saturn starts September
paired-off with brilliant Venus. Well above and to the left of this planetary
pair are the "twin stars" of Gemini, Pollux and Castor, both dimmer
than Saturn.
Saturn is shining at a very
respectable magnitude of +0.2, but this pales to the brilliance
of Venus. (On this scale, smaller numbers indicate brighter
objects.) Indeed, Saturn only appears 1/58 as bright! Venus gradually pulls
away to the east as September progresses, leaving Saturn on its own.
The crescent Moon will pass
through this part of the sky on the mornings of the Sept. 9 and 10 and will
form a broad triangle with Saturn and Pollux on both mornings.
Currently located in the
constellation of Gemini, Saturn's famous ring
system is tipped about 22 degrees toward Earth and still provides a spectacular
view even in small telescopes.
Made up by billions of ice
and rock particles of all sizes -- from small debris to boulders as big as houses
-- these rings orbit Saturn at varying speeds. There are hundreds of these rings,
believed to be pieces of shattered comets, asteroids or moons that broke apart
before they reached the planet. The rings are so big that they would fill most
of the distance between Earth and the Moon.
Other worlds
Along with Jupiter, Mars
and Mercury are also currently hidden in the solar glare. Both Jupiter and Mars
will be in conjunction with the Sun during September and will be effectively
out of sight for a number of weeks to come.
Mercury passed through inferior
conjunction on Aug. 23 and will start becoming evident in the morning sky in
about another week. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not visible to the unaided
eye.
It will not be until the
second week of October that a bright planet (Saturn) rises into view before
the stroke of midnight.
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Joe Rao
serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium.
He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and
he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News
12 Westchester, New York.
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DEFINITIONS
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Degrees
measure apparent sizes of objects or distances in the sky, as seen from
our vantage point. The Moon is one-half degree in width. The width of
your fist held at arm's length is about 10 degrees.
Magnitude
is the standard by which astronomers measure the apparent brightness
of objects that appear in the sky. The lower the number, the brighter
the object. The brightest stars in the sky are categorized as zero or
first magnitude. Negative magnitudes are reserved for the most brilliant
objects: the brightest star is Sirius (-1.4); the full Moon is -12.7;
the Sun is -26.7. The faintest stars visible under dark skies are around
+6.
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