Late October Astrominute

Julia Giannini reads the latest Astrominute

Below is a text version of the new Gettysburg Astrominute, with some iillustrations. You can listen to the astrominute here and several times a week on WZBT, Gettysburg's address for the best new music! 
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Here is your Gettysburg astrominute for late October 2015. The sun is now setting before 6:30 PM Daylight Time, but be ready for that to jump back an hour when we switch to Standard Time on November 1. The moon is prominent right now--first as a waxing crescent in the western evening sky but reaching first quarter on Oct 20 and Full on the 27^th. There are no bright planets in the evening right now, but to compensate there’s a great show going on in the predawn sky, where you can see Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and even Mercury. Get outside around 6:30 AM to a place with a flat eastern horizon. Venus will be by far the brightest thing you see in the east. In the middle of the month, it is also the highest, but that will change. Below Venus and a bit left are Jupiter and Mars, with Jupiter the brighter of those two. You might also see Mercury just a few degrees above the eastern horizon. By the last week of the month, Mercury will drop from sight, but watch as Jupiter and Mars close the gap with Venus. On the 25^th and 26^th, Venus and Jupiter will be as close as the width of a finger at arm’s length. Then in the first days of November it will be Venus and Mars in conjunction, with Jupiter a few degrees above them. We hope you can get up early and enjoy the sight! The astrominute is a production of Gettysburg College and WZBT. 

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Here are some helpful illustrations for our location, created with Stellarium. The first shows the view, looking east, on Oct 17 at 6:30 AM. Grid lines are 10 degrees (about a fist-width) apart.

 In the view below, on the morning of the 25th, Mars and Jupiter have moved higher while Venus is holding fairly steady. Jupiter catches up to Venus while Mars is just below.

In the final scene, November 3 at 5:30 AM (note the switch back to standard time) Mars catches up to Venus while Jupiter is above. Both planets will be plainly visible, but at magnitude -4.3 compared to Mars's 1.7, Venus will be much brighter. How much brighter? Each magnitude is 2.5 brighter than the next higher one, so about 250 times brighter!

2.5^(1.7 - -4.3) = 244.14

"Remnants," Time-lapse by Nate Atwater, '14

Remnants from Nate Atwater on Vimeo.

Here is the wonderful video by recent grad Nate Atwater, that we featured in the October show.He made it with his brother over two weeks living out of a Ford Escape. Nate says he planned the sequences "using a compass and some basic orienteering skills I learned from GRAB and astronomy 101 with Prof. Johnson."

Early October Astrominute

Below is a text version of the new Gettysburg Astrominute, with some iillustrations. You can listen to the astrominute here and several times a week on WZBT.

Here is your Gettysburg astrominute for the first half of October, 2015. On October 8 (the middle of our astrominute period) the sun will rise at 7:12 and set at 6:41, eastern daylight time. The moon will not be in the evening sky – it reaches Last Quarter on October 4 and New on the 13^th. As it gets dark, the Summer Triangle is overhead, dominating the sky. Meanwhile, look for the Great Square of Pegasus in the east. [Check out www.skymaps.com for a downloadable monthy map.]

The best show right now, however, is in the morning sky. Venus stands brilliantly in the east before sunrise, and below it the planet Jupiter is coming into view. Though fainter, Mars and the star Regulus are both nearby. Better yet, the waning crescent moon will be passing through on the 8^th through the 10^th. Look for the crescent moon, 17% illuminated, near Venus on the 8^th.

10/8, 5:45 AM. 10 deg. = fist at arm's length.

As it gets closer to the sun each morning, it will be near Jupiter and 11% illuminated on the 9^th, and below Jupiter and only 6% illuminated on the 10^th. That is still 70 hours before new moon on the 13^th, so quite visible if you go out before 6AM. If you’re an early riser, you might also notice that Jupiter and Venus are drawing close together. They will be very close indeed at the end of the month. More on that next time. The astrominute is a production of Gettysburg College’s Hatter Planetarium and WZBT. For a text of the astrominute, with illustrations, visit the Gettysburg Skies Blog.

Images created with Stellarium.

10/9

10/10.