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Astronomical Observing at Fishcreek - Friday 9/19/2008

On schedule for tonight, we have a nearly third-quarter Moon clearing the trees to the east of the observing field at around 11:00pm.  What makes this so special?  As it rises, the Moon will be nestled in the arms of the Pleiades cluster - a beautiful sight!  Despite the brightness of the moon, we will 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.  Jupiter, the King of the planets, is a beautiful sight.  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.  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)

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    Inner Solar System     Outer Solar System    General Information about our events

Moon data   Rises: 9: 32pm Transits: 5: 29am Sep 20 - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 1: 35pm Sep 20 Constellation:   Taurus Phase:   74.08% illuminated (waning gibbous) Distance:   0.00247319 AU = 369,984 km = 229,897 miles = 1.24 light-seconds Magnitude:   -11.2 Apparent size:   32.29 arcminutes in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   118.66 degrees (morning sky) Age:   20.19 days since last New Moon Next Phase:   Last Quarter on Monday Sept 22, 2008 at 1:05am Next Lunar eclipse:   Total eclipse (100%) on Sunday Sept 27, 2015 at 10:10pm EDT Special event!   When the Moon rises, it will be occulting the Pleiades Cluster in Taurus - a beautiful sight!   On 9/19/2008 at 8:27:04pm the Moon will be 10.5º below the north-northeast horizon When the Moon clears the trees to the east of the observing field at approximately 11:00pm, it will look like this.  Notice the rich star-field behind and surrounding the Moon.  These stars are members of the Pleiades, a rich open cluster of stars approximately 380 light-years distant - almost ten billion times farther away from us than the Moon! (back to 'Quick Links')

Jupiter data   Rises: 3: 45pm Transits: 8: 24pm - Time of highest position in the sky, due South Sets: 1: 02am Sep 20 Constellation:   Sagittarius Phase:   99.11% illuminated Distance:   4.79383329 AU = 717,147,253 km = 445,614,649 miles = 39.93 light-minutes Magnitude:   -2.4 Apparent size:   41.12 arcseconds in angular diameter Elongation from Sun:   105.33 degrees (evening sky) On 9/19/2008 at 8:27:04pm Jupiter will be 25.7º above the south horizon Next transit of the Great Red Spot: Tonight at 11:11pm GRS longitude: 125.4º Jupiter moons activity:      None tonight 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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