The Moon Greets the Planets in the November Dawn

Sunday, November 8, 2015

The Moon Greets the Planets in the November Dawn

The Moon Greets the Planets in the November Dawn:

A tri-planetary grouping from the morning of October 31st. Image credit and copyright: Joseph Brimacombe

So, did this past weekend’s shift back to Standard Time for most of North America throw you for a loop? Coming the day after Halloween, 2015 was the earliest we can now shift back off Daylight Saving Time. Sunday won’t fall on November 1^st again until 2020. Expect evenings get darker sooner for northern hemisphere residents, while the planetary action remains in the dawn sky.

Though Mercury has exited the morning twilight stage, the planets Jupiter, Venus and Mars continue to put on a fine show, joined by the waning crescent Moon later this week. The action starts today on November 3^rd, which finds +1.9 magnitude Mars passing just 0.68 degrees (40’, just over the apparent diameter of a Full Moon) from brilliant -3.9 magnitude Venus. Though the two nearest planets to the Earth appear to meet up in the dawn sky, Mars is actually 2.5 times more distant than Venus, which sits 74.4 million miles (124 million kilometres) from the Earth. Venus exhibits a 57% illuminated gibbous phase 21” across this week, versus Mars’ paltry 4.5” disc.

The lunar planetary lineup on the morning of November 6th… Image credit: Starry Night Education Software

Watch the scene shift, as the Moon joins the dance this weekend. The mornings of Friday, November 6^th and Saturday, November 7^th are key, as the Moon passes just two degrees from the Jupiter and Mars pair and just over one degree from Venus worldwide. Similar close pairings of the Moon and Venus adorn many national flags, possibly inspired by a close grouping of Venus and the Moon witnessed by skywatchers of yore.

… and the view the next morning on November 7th. Image credit: Starry Night Education software

Saturday November 7^th is also a fine time to try your hand at seeing Venus in the daytime, using the nearby crescent Moon as a guide. The Moon will be only four days from New, and the pair will be 46 degrees west of the Sun, an optimal situation as Venus just passed greatest western elongation 46.4 degrees west of the Sun on October 26th.

Mars meets Venus on November 3rd-4th… the center circle = 1 degree FoV. Image credit: Stellarium

Though Venus may seem like a difficult daytime object, it’s actually intrinsically brighter than the Moon per square arc second. Difficulty finding it stems from seeing it against a low contrast blue daytime sky, its small size, and lack of context and depth. The larger but dimmer Moon actually serves as a good anchor to complete this feat of visual athletics.

Venus from the morning of November 3rd. Image credit and copyright: Shahrin Ahmad

Looking for more? Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina will join the planetary lineup next lunation ‘round, hopefully shining at magnitude +5 as it glides past Venus and the Moon on December 7^th. Karl Battams at the U.S. Naval Research Labs has confirmed that Comet US10 Catalina—which reaches perihelion this month on November 15^th –should also briefly graze the field of view for SOHO’s LASCO C3 camera on November 7th.

There’s also a few notable lunar occultations this week. The Moon also occults the +5 magnitude star Chi Leonis for viewers around the Gulf of Mexico on November 4^th, including a dramatic grazing event for Northern Florida. The Moon also occults the +3.5 magnitude star Omicron Leonis on Nov 4^th for Alaska as well.

The occultation footprint for Chi Leonis. The solid lines indicate where the event will occur during darkness and twilight hours, while the dashed lines denote where the event transpires during the daytime. Image credit: Occult 4.2 software

See a bright star near the Venus this week? It’s none other than +3.6 magnitude Beta Virginis (Zavijava). The star passes 15’ from Venus on the morning of November 6th. Stick around ‘til 2069, and you can actually witness Venus occult Beta Virginis. Between Beta Virginis and Mars, Venus has the appearance this week of having the large pseudo-moon it never possessed. From Venus, our Moon would appear near magnitude +0.4 with a disk 6.4” this week, and range 12’ from the Earth.

The closeup view on the morning of November 7th along with a 5 degree Telrad FoV. image credit: Stellarium

Now for the wow factor. All of these disparate objects merely lie along our Earthbound line of sight this week. Traveling at the speed of light (186,282 miles or 299,792 kilometers a second), the Moon lies just over a second away. Venus, Mars and Jupiter are next, at 6, 18, and 49 light minutes out, respectively… and Beta Virginis? It lies 36 light years distant.

This pass of the Moon also sets us up for an occultation of Mars and a dramatic daytime occultation of Venus for North America during the next lunation…

More to come!

-Got pictures of the planetary grouping this week with the Moon? Be sure to send ’em in to Universe Today and our Flickr forum.

About David Dickinson

David Dickinson is an Earth science teacher, freelance science writer, retired USAF veteran & backyard astronomer. He currently writes and ponders the universe from Tampa Bay, Florida.

FASHION WEEK - USA Fashion and Music News
HOLLYWOOD NEWS - Hollywood News Blogger
PINTEREST ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - Google Images Nasa Images
LAST FM - Download Music Legally Direct From Artist
WOMEN COMMUNITY - Women Communty Photography Videos Beauty
DISNEY CHANNEL - Photos and Music News
BABY JUSTIN BIEBER - Google Images Google News
LADY GAGA - Google Images Google News
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - Google Images Universe Pictures
VICTORIA´S SECRET COMMUNITY - Victoria´s Secret Fashion Show Photos

No comments:

Post a Comment

NASA Photos Photography

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Sunday, November 8, 2015