Highlights: Comet Journal, Martian Landers, Planet Plotting, Meteors, Depths of Space, November Moon
Focus Constellations: Pegasus, Andromeda, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cygnus, Draco, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Camelopardalis
Comet Journal
Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) has descended into evening twilight in the southern sky and dropped to 9th magnitude.
C/2007 Q3 (Siding Spring) has remained at 9th magnitude after passing perihelion on October 7th. It rises between Leo and Virgo in the eastern sky at 3AM EST and can be more easily viewed as it moves into Coma Berenices. It will pass by numerous galaxies in the latter half of November as it moves in front of the Virgo-Coma galaxy cluster.
Comet 88P/Howell (2009) moves eastward in November through Sagittarius which sets at 7:30PM making observation of the 9th magnitude comet extremely difficult. It passed perihelion on Oct. 16th and is slightly outside the orbit of Mars pacing Earth's motion through space so it will to move slowly through the early sunset sky as it pulls away from Earth in the first half of 2010.
Martian Landers
Fourteen sols of driving by Sol 2028 (October 7, 2009) produced 245.24 meters of progress for Opportunity. The rover is on the westward leg of a circuit that will avoid a large area of sand with unusually large ripples blocking the southward route to Endeavour Crater. From Sol 2028 to Sol 2042 the rover completed another 359.59 meters and examined two more pitted meteorites (Shelter Island and Mackinac) with diameters of about 0.5 meters.
Spirit became embedded in soft soil at a site called “Troy” five months ago, more than five years into a mission on Mars that was originally scheduled to last for three months. The rover team suspended further driving attempts with Spirit while evaluating possibilities from tests performed at JPL simulating the Troy situation.
After completion of the readiness tests and analysis of results by the rover team, an independent panel is now examining the driving plans developed by the rover team as a result of the experiments conducted in the last five months. Unless that review recommends any further preparations, Spirit will probably begin extrication moves within two weeks after the review.
Spirit has spent much of its time at Troy actively examining its surroundings, including analysis of layered soil at the site. In September, a new issue began affecting operations. Data from Spirit indicated that a brake on the motor that rotates the rover’s dish-shaped high-gain antenna was not working correctly. The team has been getting more diagnostic data and developing a work-around strategy similar to work-arounds already used for rover-motor brakes that showed similar symptoms earlier.
Planet Plotting
Jupiter and Mars are the evening planets, Saturn and Venus are the morning planets of November. Jupiter (-2.4) in Capricornus, the Sea Goat, dominates the stars of surrounding constellations as it moves from the southern sky after sunset to set in the southwest before midnight. It is 18.5 times brighter than nearby Altair (+0.77) in Aquila, the brightest star in the southwestern evening sky. Neptune (+7.9) is 2° north of Delta Capricorni and 5° east of Jupiter on November 1st. By the end of the month Jupiter closes to within 2.5° of Neptune. Uranus (+5.8) crossed the boundary of western Capricornus last month and is now in extreme eastern Aquarius.
Mars is high in the south in Cancer just before dawn and rises before midnight EDT on the 1st. By the 30th it will be 45% brighter and will rise at about 9:30PM EST. Observers throughout the world focus on Mars for about four months every other year when it passes through opposition. Its proximity to Earth at that time makes it brighter than magnitude 0.0 and its disk size exceeds 10 seconds of arc so that surface features can be detected with that old standby of amateur astronomers, the 8" diameter telescope.
This opposition occurs between the end of November and mid-March. It is currently Spring for the northern hemisphere of Mars and its axis is tilted opposite its direction of travel in orbit. Earth trails Mars about one quarter of an orbit, and the north pole of Mars leans toward Earth providing views of the polar cap. As Spring progresses the Earth will catch up and Mars will appear bigger and brighter, but the polar cap will start to melt and diminish in size.
Saturn (+1.1) rises in Virgo about 3:30AM EST at the beginning of November and at 1:30AM EST at the end of the month. The rings are tilted slightly southward providing a view of the northern face. Two months ago they were edge-on and almost invisible. Venus (-3.9) appears quite small in the telescope because it is on the other side of the Sun. It rises in Virgo 1.5 hours before dawn and descends in sunrise in November rising about an hour before the Sun on the 30th. Mercury is at superior conjunction on the 5th and is hidden behind the Sun in November.
Planet......Constellation.....Magnitude......Planet Passages
Sun..........Libra/Scorpius..-26.8.......Mercury, Superior Conjunction,
........................................................6AM EST, 11/5
Mercury...Libra/Scorpius..-1.1 to -0.5..Sun, Superior Conjunction,
........................................................6AM EST, 11/5
Venus......Virgo/Libra.........-3.9
Mars........Cancer................+0.4 to 0.0
Jupiter.....Capricornus.........-2.4 to -2.3
Saturn......Virgo..................+1.1 to 1.0
Uranus.....Aquarius.............+5.8
Neptune...Capricornus........+7.9
Meteors
The Leonid Meteor shower is active Nov. 10 - 23 and peaks on the 16th and 17th. Following perihelion passage of Comet 55P/Temple-Tuttle in 1998, the mid-November transits of Earth through the stream of debris left by by the comet produced storms of over 1000 meteors per hour with spikes up to 3000 per hour in 1999, 2001 and 2002. In recent years hourly counts have been on the order of one to two dozen but over 100 per hour were observed last year. The 2009 Leonid shower is unlikely to produce a storm but may exceed 100 and approach 500 meteors per hour in dark sky locations. New Moon on the 16th ensures that interference by lunar glare will be minimal.
Depth of Space
The dim constellations of the southern skies of November were thought by the Greeks to comprise the domain of Oceanus, god of the ocean. They make up the "watery" region of the sky with two fish, a dolphin, a whale, the water carrier, a river, a fish-tailed goat, and the southern fish.
The southern galactic pole in Sculptor immediately south of Cetus, the whale, centers this region characterized by a dearth of bright stars and prominent constellations. Instead of viewing the nearby bright young stars and nebulae in the open star clusters making up the galactic disk, observers face into the depths of intergalactic space beyond the southern margin of the Milky Way Galaxy. Stars within the Milky Way Galaxy in this direction are for the most part limited to residents of dim, distant globular clusters which may be intrinsically bright but are so far away that large diameter telescopes are required for viewing.
The Milky Way is on the southern margin of the local cluster of galaxies, so the only other member that is visible in this direction is Barnard's Galaxy at over 100,000 parsecs. The nearest cluster of galaxies in the "watery region" of the sky is the Sculptor Group at 2-3 megaparsecs.
November Moon
November's Full Moon is at 2:14PM EDT on the 4th. It is the "Hunter's Moon" or "Frosty Moon". It was called the "Beaver Moon" in colonial America, "Snow Moon" in medieval England, and "Dark Moon" by the Celts. The Chinese named it "White Moon" and the Anishnaabe (Chippewa and Ojibwe) call it "Gashkadino-giizis(oog)" (Freezing Moon). The length of this lunation is 28.66 days.
Planet....Constellation...Magnitude..Moon Passage...Moon Phase/Age
Sun........Libra/Scorpius..-26.8......2:14PM EST. 11/16..
........................................................................New ~ 0 days
Mercury.Libra/Scorpius....-0.8.......2.8°S, 5AM EST, 11/17
.....................................................Waxing Crescent ~ 0.8 days
Venus....Virgo/Libra.......-3.9.........6.1°SSW, 11AM EST, 11/15
...................................................Waning Crescent ~ 27.5 days
Mars......Cancer..............+0.3.........3.0°S, 1AM EST, 11/9
....................................................Waning Gibbous ~ 21.1 days
Jupiter...Capricornus.......-2.3.........4.0°N, 5PM EST, 11/23
....................................................Waxing Crescent ~ 7.30 days
Saturn....Virgo................+1.1.........8.0°S, 8PM EST, 11/12
....................................................Waning Crescent ~ 24.9 days
Uranus.. Aquarius...........+5.8.........6°N, 1PM EST, 11/26
....................................................Waxing Gibbous ~ 10.1 days Neptune.Capricornus......+7.9.........3.0°N, 1AM EST, 11/24
....................................................Waxing Crescent ~ 7.63 days |
