We did have 2 new attendees - Mike and his wife (regret I missed her name) from Neyland.
Rob has intimated that he is to put the material from the main lecture on the website so check for it here:
click here
Hence as from this post I will be omitting the main lecture thoughts.
Other lecture material will be posted on the website from time to time.
The "What's Up in June" item is reproduced in slide form below and notes related to the slides are there also.
WHAT’s UP IN JUNE
2
June2-4. Mercury
visible about 45 mins after sunset given a low horizon.
Fading from +1.2 to +3.4 (on the 11th). Lost to
view as it moves towards inferior conjunction
(lying between the Earth & Sun) on 19th.
3
Looking East before
dawn (30 mins). Venus, shining at mag.~ -3.9 and lying between the Pleiades
& Hyades clusters in Taurus, will be seen ~2.5 degrees to the left of a
thin crescent Moon.
4
If you have yet to spot Saturn through a telescope, it’s
still well placed in the sky especially around midnight. If you can draw your
attention away from the beautiful rings, see if you can spot Saturn’s largest
and brightest moon, Titan at its greatest elongation - that is its greatest
distance from the planet- on the 7th of the month.
Magnitude 8.2 – visible in binoculars held steady.
5
A small telescope will show the rings with a magnification
of x25 and one of 6-8 inches aperture with a magnification of ~x200 with good
“seeing” (calm atmosphere) will show Saturn and its ring system in its full
glory.
As Saturn rotates quickly with a day of just 10.5 hours, its
equator bulges slightly so it appears a little squashed.
Like Jupiter, it does show belts but their colours are muted
in comparison.
6
These are 2 good nights to observe an interesting feature on
the Moon if you have a small telescope.
Close to the limb (on 6th) is the Appenine
mountain chain that marks the edge of Mare Imbrium.
Toward the upper end you should see the cleft across them
called the Alpine alley. It is about 7 miles wide and 79 miles long. As shown
in the image a thin rill runs along its length which is challenging to observe.
Over the next 2 nights the dark crater Plato & the young crater Copernicus
will come into view.
7
2 G.C’s in Hercules – M13 & M92 are impressive
8
Lyra is dominated by
its brightest star, Vega, the 5th brightest star in the sky. It is a
blue-white star having a magnitude of 0.03 and lies 26 light years away.
There is a lovely double star called Epsilon Lyrae up and to
the left of Lyra. Binoculars will show them up easily.
A telescope shows that each of the two stars is a double
star as well so it is called a double double!
Cygnus, the Swan, is sometimes called the Northern Cross.
Deneb, the Arabic word for “tail” is a 1.3 magnitude star that marks the tail
of the swan. It is nearly 2000 light years away and appears so bright only
because it gives out around 80,000 times as much light as our Sun. If Deneb
were as close as Sirius it would appear as brilliant as the half moon and the
sky would never be really dark when it was above the horizon.
Albireo which marks the head of the swan is much fainter and
a beautiful sight in a small telescope – slide 10.
M56 is an 8th magnitude globular cluster visible
in binoculars. Slide 10 also.
9
M57 is a planetary nebula – so called because in a telescope
they show a disc –like planets. They are, in fact, remnants of stars that have
come to the end of their life and have blown off a shell of dust and gas around
them.
Brocchi’s Cluster is an easy object to spot with binoculars
– often called “the Coathanger” although it appears upside down in the sky.
Follow down the neck of the swan to Albireo then sweep down and to its lower
left
10
Albireo is made of two stars – one is amber and the other
green which provide a wonderful colour contrast. With magnitudes 31 and 5.1
they are regarded as the most beautiful double that can be seen in the sky.
There is a beautiful region of nebulosity up and to the left
of Deneb which is visible in binoculars in a dark and clear sky. Photographs
show an outline that looks like N America – hence the name....
11 & 12 Noctilucent Clouds
Just one picture to conclude with -this is Peter giving out the latest FAS newsletter.
I hope you like this format - I can't guarantee it will always look like this but variety is .........
No comments:
Post a Comment