I’ve no luck at all for the Perseids. It had been cloudy and raining for the whole week – typical weather for Malaysia. All I could see were just Venus and the Moon struggling to shine through the clouds. Although I didn’t have the chance to see the Perseids in real time, I still can enjoy the meteors (plus bonus Milky Way) – in video, thanks to photographer Henry Jun Wah Lee. Enjoy!
Under the Milky Way in Joshua Tree National Park by Henry Jun Wah Lee
The Carnival for this week is up at Space Tweeps Society. Go and see what’s up in space this week.
All these happen in one night: 13th August 2010 – Friday. And you do not want to miss them.
This Friday, find a place with an unobstructed western horizon and have your dinner there while enjoying the sunset. As the Sun sets around 7:30 pm, the first two objects that will catch your attention will be the beautiful crescent Moon and a very bright “star” Venus, side by side in the sky. Slightly later, when the sky has darkens enough, Saturn and Mars will pop out of the twilight to join the Moon and Venus in a tight conjunction – all within a circle of 10 degrees in diameter.
Can you ask for more?
Surprising, yes you can…
If you think three planets plus one moon is not enough, then there’s more for you… move your gaze between the conjunction and the western horizon. If the sky is clear, you will notice another bright “star” (brighter than Mars or Saturn) about 10-15 degrees above the horizon – that’s the little planet Mercury.
The best part of this conjunction is that you do not need any telescopes or binoculars to enjoy it. All the planets and the Moon are bright enough to be easily visible to the naked eye. You can also set up a camera to capture the event. It’s quite simple actually, just mount your camera to a tripod, aim and shoot. You can do it even with a compact camera, not necessary an SLR camera, as long as the camera allows you to play around with its setting.
So there you go, in the same patch of the sky, you have seen four out of five of the planets known since the ancient civilisations (the missing one is Jupiter, which will rise in the east around 11 pm) plus one beautiful crescent Moon.
Can you ask for more?
Again, the answer is yes!
After the planets and Moon sets around 10 pm, things will only get better. If you think you have enough for the night and leaves, you are going to miss a display that’s even more exciting than the planetary conjunction – a meteor shower!
August is the time for Perseids meteor shower, which is one of the most reliable meteor shower of the year. This shower is active from July 17 to August 24. Starting slowly, with just a few meteors per hour, it’ll peak to a ZHR of more than 60 meteors on August 12/13, and then slowly subside again to a few meteors per hour.
The source of the Perseids meteor shower is Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Although the comet is now is receding back into the outer Solar System and is nowhere near Earth, the comet’s tail does intersect Earth’s orbit and we glide through it every year in August. Tiny bits of comet dust hit Earth’s atmosphere travelling at about 60 km/s, burns and gives us the Perseids.
Not all meteors that you see are Perseids; some may be sporadic (or random) meteors. So how do we know a meteor is a Perseid or not? Simple. Just trace back the path of the meteor and see if it ends up in constellation Perseus. If yes, then it’s a Perseid; if not, then it is just a sporadic meteor.
Remember, you don’t need any equipment such as telescope or binoculars to see meteors. All you need is just your naked eyes. Find a group of family or friends, go to a safe, dark site, lie down and enjoy! (to learn more about meteor/meteor shower and how to observe, go to Meteor Shower ABC.)
Clear skies everyone!
Always look up, and you will be rewarded with the beauty of the night sky…
I’ve just updated the Astronomy Cool Stuffs page with links to observation data, maps, tours of the sky, remote telescopes and simulators. Go and take a look!
I’ve also added a new page called Citizen Scientist where you, as a general public, can contribute to the astronomy world. Go and start playing around.
Today, the sky was very clear. When I came out from my office to go home, I saw a beautiful gibbous Moon hanging against the blue blue sky. When I came out from my house to go for dinner, I saw these, and my dinner was postponed for an hour…
Click the image for the annotated version.
Conclusion: Always look up, and you will be rewarded with the beauty of the night sky.
OK, there is always this thing that reminded me that it’s almost August now:
“Can we see two Moons in the sky?”
The answer is no.
Why do people ask this question? and why the answer is no? If you want to know why, then click here for the explanation I wrote two years ago.
I’m really too busy to write, but upon seeing this picture, I just have to share it!
At a distance of 36000km the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) took this image catching the planet Saturn in the background. Credits: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
The big lumpy world in the foreground is asteroid Lutetia, and the far away object in the upper left needs no introduction – a recognisable planet Saturn. Space is very empty, so to be able to catch two objects near each other is really rare, and beautiful…
This image is taken by a spacecraft from ESA called Rosetta. The main target for Rosetta is not actually this asteroid – it’s just passing by Lutetia on its way to explore Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
I’ve wrote about Rosetta before when it swingby our planet for a gravity assist last November and snap a lovely picture of our planet in crescent phase.
This flyby of Lutetia is providing us a close-up look of the asteroid which revealed a battered world of many craters.
Lutetia at Closest approach. Credits: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Awesome!
My Dark Sky
My Dark Sky 
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