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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 9/05/2008

The Moon is in the best phase for viewing detail on the terminator - the line separating lunar day from night.  It sets early enough (10:28pm) to allow us to view deep sky objects without having to stay up too late.  We'll be able to see Jupiter, colorful double stars, open clusters made up of hundreds of stars, globular clusters comprised of hundreds of thousands of stars, planetary nebula formed by dying stars, diffuse nebula and emission nebula where stars are being born, and galaxies.  With a high-power view through the telescopes, detail in the cloud bands of Jupiter will be possible, and the four Galilean moons actually appear as disks instead of just point light sources.  Uranus and Neptune are visible now as well and appear as small bluish-green 'large' stars in our telescopes.

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: 1: 08pm Transits: 5: 50pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 10: 28pm Constellation:   Libra Phase:   35.38% illuminated (waxing crescent) Distance:   0.00268229 AU = 401,265 km = 249,335 miles = 1.34 light-seconds Magnitude:   -9.3 Apparent size:   31.69 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   72.85 degrees (evening sky) Age:   6.20 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   First Quarter on Sunday Sept 7, 2008 at 10:04am Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT On 9/5/2008 at 8:52:16pm the Moon will be 11.9º above the south-southwest horizon and will look like this... (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 4: 39pm Transits: 9: 18pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 1: 56am Sept 6 Constellation:   Sagittarius Phase:   99.26% illuminated Distance:   4.59558288 AU = 687,489,413 km = 427,186,122 miles = 38.28 light-minutes Magnitude:   -2.5 Apparent size:   42.90 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   118.72 degrees (evening sky) On 9/5/2008 at 8:52:16pm Jupiter will be 25.4º above the south-southeast horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot: Tonight at 9:36pm GRS longitude: 125.1º Jupiter moons activity - LOTS tonight!      Ganymede occultation begins at 11:57pm      Io transit begins at 12:33am Sep 6      Io shadow transit begins at 1:43am Sep 6      Io transit ends at 2:49am Sep 6 Jupiter and its four visible moons will look like this... (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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