What's Up: The Week of September 21


 

This upcoming week will perhaps offer a few clear nights (most likely Monday night) and reasonable temperatures. The daytime temperatures this week will be up in the 60’s and 70’s, but beware, the nighttime temperatures will drop into the 40’s and 50’s. The smoke from the western forest fires this week will likely be much less dense than last week.

A great weather tool for stargazers (in addition to the Weather Channel or the National Weather Service apps) is the “Clear Sky Chart” website. This site displays forecasted cloud coverage, transparency, seeing, and darkness for your location. Some things to look for in the upcoming nights include Mars, the first quarter moon, and some International Space Station (ISS) passes. This website has a link to the Clear Sky forecast for JGAP on the home page.

Sunset will be approaching 7:20 this week as the Fall is officially upon us. The Autumnal equinox falls precisely at 9:31 AM EDT Tuesday. This is when the Sun passes through the celestial equator and the length of day and night are just about the same, hence the name “equinox”.

As the sun sets, your eye will first be drawn to the moon hanging in the middle of the sky. The moon reaches its first quarter phase on Wednesday. This phase of the moon is an ideal time for binocular and telescope viewers to observe the lunar surface. Since the sun will be hitting the part of the moon facing us on Earth at such a shallow angle there are very pronounced shadows on the lunar surface. These shadows add contrast to surface details and make for a great photograph opportunity! Here is a composite image I took during a first quarter moon last year.

A composite image taken by jared May, processed to bring out detail in the shaded side of the moon, and reveal the stars behind.  No single image could capture both, but a composite image like this one can combine elements from regions of widely var…

A composite image taken by jared May, processed to bring out detail in the shaded side of the moon, and reveal the stars behind. No single image could capture both, but a composite image like this one can combine elements from regions of widely varying brightness.



Mars is also making a grand entrance into the starscape now peaking its head above the eastern horizon just after 8:30 PM. It will be easily distinguishable from other stars due to its color. Mars shines a brilliant red or orange against the black backdrop of space. The details of the surface, can only be seen with higher power telescopes.

For seeing details of other planets your attention should turn southwards towards Saturn and Jupiter which both outshine all nearby stars. A small telescope and good vision can resolve the red stripes found in Jupiter’s atmosphere and the ring system circling the gas giant, Saturn.

This week will also have a few good opportunities to catch sight of the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is a science lab that is as long as a football field and circles the Earth 254 miles above the surface traveling about 4.7 miles/second (one full orbit in 90 minutes). It is big enough that it can reflect large amounts of sunlight back for us to see. Here are the details of some of the passes for this week: Monday 9:07 PM appears 15° above NW visible for three minutes, Tuesday 8:19 PM appears 19° above NW visible for three minutes, Thursday 8:21 PM appears 11° above NW visible for three minutes. With a long focal length scope and an attached camera with a fast shutter speed it is possible to image the ISS from the ground! Here was my attempt at this four years ago (notice the brown spots are the solar panels and the brighter spots are the main body where the astronauts and experiments live).


A small telescope can reveal the International Space Station something more than a pinpoint of light, if you can keep it in view.  Image: Jared May

A small telescope can reveal the International Space Station something more than a pinpoint of light, if you can keep it in view. Image: Jared May

If the weather holds out for Ohio this week it will be a great time to grab your binoculars or telescope and peer into the cosmos. All that is visible to your eyes from your backyard appear flat and projected against a dome but are actually separated by anywhere from a few hundred miles to upwards of 15 quintillion miles (ex. Andromeda galaxy – quintillion is a 1 followed by 18 zeros!). Get outside to enjoy the clear skies and be humbled at all that it offers.

Clear Skies! 

Brad Hoehne