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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 7/18/2008

Tonight's event will, again, be somewhat limited by a nearly full Moon the entire night.  We will be able to see the beautiful planets Saturn and Jupiter, colorful double stars, open clusters made up of hundreds of stars, globular clusters comprised of hundreds of thousands of stars.  Unfortunately, the planetary nebula formed by dying stars, diffuse nebula and emission nebula where stars are being born, and galaxies will be rendered invisible to us by the brightness of the full Moon.  Saturn is beautiful beyond words!  If you've never seen Saturn through a telescope, you owe it to yourself to do so.  It's said that one picture is worth a thousand words, but no picture can match the majesty of the real thing!  Jupiter is visible, if you stay after midnight when it will be high enough to clear the trees to our east.  This is an ideal time to view Jupiter.  It reached opposition on July 9th and is still about as close to us as it ever gets.  With a high-power view through the telescopes, details in the cloud bands is possible, and the four Galilean moons actually appear as disks instead of just point light sources.  Jupiter clears the trees to the east of our observing field at a conveniently early hour now (see the Outer Solar System to see why this is so).

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)

Quick links:
    Inner Solar System     Outer Solar System    General Information about our events

Moon data   Rises: 9: 19pm Transits: 2: 16am July 19 - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 7: 21am July 19 Constellation:   Capricornus Phase:   99.36% illuminated (waning gibbous) Distance:   0.00264498 AU = 395,683 km = 245,866 miles = 1.32 light-seconds Magnitude:   -12.4 Apparent size:   30.19 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   170.78 degrees (morning sky) Age:   15.99 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Last Quarter Moon on Friday July 25, 2008 at 2:42pm Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 7/18/2008 at 10:07:35pm the Moon will be 6.2º above the east-southeast horizon and will look like this... (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 8: 06pm Transits: 0: 46am July 19 - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 5: 27am July 19 Constellation:   Sagittarius Phase:   99.97% illuminated Distance:   4.16140626 AU = 622,537,515 km = 386,826,883 miles = 34.66 light-minutes Magnitude:   -2.7 Apparent size:   47.25 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   169.43 degrees (evening sky) On 7/18/2008 at 10:07:35pm Jupiter will be 16.2º above the southeast horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot: Saturday July 19, 2008 at 2:06am GRS longitude: 124.0º Jupiter moons activity:       None tonight Jupiter and its four visible moons will look like this at 10:07:35pm tonight... (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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General Information you should know about our events - Q&A of Where, When and What


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

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