I owe some astronomy news, even though the weather back here in northern Europe makes one doubt there are such things as stars. Here is tomorrow evening’s whole southern horizon.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
Over in the east, the Moon is rising. It will soon flood the sky with light, having been exactly Full just 3 hours before the time of the picture. That was when it passed the “anti-Sun.” It is in a part of its orbit slung south of the ecliptic, so that at this time it is nearly on the celestial equator, which is why it has risen almost at the east point on the horizon,
In the west, Venus has just set. Having passed behind the Sun on August 14, it is slowly circling back toward us, and, each evening, will be a little higher into view. (And this could be a metaphor for my Venus book which I am yearning to get ready before the end of the year. There have been delays, but it took quite a long step toward elongation today.)
I was going to delete dwarf planet Pluto from the picture – you certainly can’t see it – but spare it because of noticing that it happens to be near the point called the Antapex of Earth’s Way, away from which our planet is hurtling in its orbit.
And we and the Sun and all those planets are hurtling much faster in the Milky Way, toward Deneb and Vega near the zenith of the scene. You can get giddy if the rain clears away and you can see all this.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
The full Moon has been beautiful these past few nights. The sunlight this time of year has a distinctive golden glow, and the moonlight has been quite silver. A magical time.
Thanks for the diagram. I’ll be looking for the Summer Triangle asterism after sunset.
I needed to look higher in the sky, out our bedroom window at midnight Pacific time, to find the moon. Then I remembered what you just posted about the moons path along ecliptic ! I could almost see a line inscribed from due east to the moon. I’ve been busy tracking the position of the setting sun from the North Bay southward over the SF peninsula.
Travel from the comfort of home.
Thanks!
It is clear Saturday night at my house in Oklahoma. I expect to observe tomorrow night and look forward to moon rise on Sunday night.
Venus is beginning its first evening apparition of the (almost) exact kind for which the last two, in 2004 and 2012, resulted in transits. For the rest of our lives, all we’ll have is Mercury transits lol. I hope I can focus my camera better in attempting to image the Mercury transit in November than I did on this image of the Venus transit in 2012:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/starvergnuegen/7158646509/
Even the young kids now won’t be around for the next Venus transit, but my daughter at least has some proof that she was there to see the one in 2012:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/starvergnuegen/7347007772/
Eric mentions “..the young kids…” in relation to Venus transits. In 2012, I did my best to allow one or two people to (probably) be the first humans to witness a Venus transit in a telescope from different transit-pairs. I invited my nephew and the son of a friend — both 5 years old — to view the 2012 transit. With some luck, they’ll live long enough to view the 2117 transit. My reasoning is that anyone younger wouldn’t retain a memory of the first event and anyone older would have less chance of surviving until the 2117 transit. Wishing good health and clear skies to Michael and Maverick.
Good point. I’ll mention it, with credit to you, when writing about transits.