Tag: Research

Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/23/2020

Next week’s night sky The moon reaches its full stage, halfway through its rotation around Earth, on Tuesday. This is a great time to look more closely at the moon! With a good set of binoculars, you should be able to make out the detail of the craters and planes of the lunar surface. On Saturday, the moon and Jupiter will be only around 1 degree apart. Just wait about half an hour after sunset, and then look for a reddish brown-object shining right near the moon. […]

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Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/16/2020

Next week’s night sky Tuesday this week is the first quarter moon. It will be in the sky all evening, making for some great casual observing. If you have a camera attached to a high powered telescope, you may be able to catch a time-lapse of the terminator (the line dividing day and night) sweeping across the surface of the moon! On Friday about 45 minutes after sunset, Jupiter is just a few degrees away from the moon. If you look around the moon for a big […]

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Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/9/2020

Next week’s night sky: There is an exciting planet-related event happening this week! On Saturday, August 22, there will be a rare double shadow transit over Jupiter! A shadow transit occurs when the shadow of a moon passes over a planet. Shadow transits quite regularly to Jupiter, which has a lot of moons. However, these shadow transits last only minutes, making a dual shadow transit extremely rare. This shadow transit will happen at 06:32 GMT on Saturday, August 22. The moon becomes a new moon on August […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/26/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, August 3rd, the moon will be a green corn full moon. This means that the moon is near the Aquarius or Capricorn stars, which always happens in August. On Thursday, August 6th, NEOWISE will pass Messier 53. This is a great photo opportunity if you have a good telescope! A destroyed cluster Scientists have recently discovered the long-lost remnants of a globular cluster ripped apart by the Milky Way! A globular cluster is a huge, spherical collection of more than a […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/19/2020

Next week’s night sky The moon will reach its first quarter on July 27. Under some magnification, the sunlight striking the craters and the valleys along the terminator that separates the light and dark sides will be quite interesting! On Tuesday, July 28, the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower peaks at around 3 in the morning! This shower commonly drops around 15-20 meteor per hour, so 15 minutes of looking should get you to see at least 5 meteors! Meteors usually come in clouds, so they will […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/5/2020

Next week’s night sky A lot of cool things are happening early  this week! On Sunday 7/12, the moon will be in its last quarter. On Monday, July 13, ceres will reverse direction! If you have a telescope, this is an incredibly cool thing to watch. To find ceres, navigate to this website: Stellarium Web Online Star Map, and then look up ceres. On Tuesday, July 14th, Jupiter will be at apposition! This means that it will be brightest and closest it will be all year! You […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 6/28/2020

Next week’s night sky: This is a great week to take a look at the moon! It will be especially bright on Monday, so be sure to look for its large craters and dark seas. Look down below for a map of what you can see on the moon. On Monday, at 5 in the morning, the moon will be only 2 degrees away from Saturn! Look around the sky near the moon for a brighter object. If you have binoculars or a telescope, you should be […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 6/21/2020

Next week’s night sky: The  Boötid meteor shower is active! This shower only rarely produces significant numbers of meteors, usually only at most 1-2 per hour. However, on those rare occasions, when it is extremely active, viewers can see up to one hundred meteors per hour! For observers in the middle of the United States, the best time to watch will be right after nightfall. Because most meteor showers occur at around 2 in the morning, this is an amazing opportunity for most casual watchers to try […]

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