Welcome to the Observatory's Front Page. Included here are some of the latest news and articles that may be of interest to our visitors.
FAU's Astronomical Observatory is housed under a four meter diameter dome on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University. We welcome students, faculty, staff and members of the general public to join our scheduled observations or our public viewing events. Our telescope is mounted on a small platform, at the top of stairs, looking out of the roof of our building, over Boca Raton, to space and beyond!
Palm Beach State College is hosting a Carl Sagan Day. We are participating in their event with views of Saturn, Neptune, our Moon, some nebulae and the Andromeda Galaxy. See more about the activities schedule at: https://www.fau.edu/newstudent/family/weekend/
Due to a football game on Saturday, we’ll hold our night session on Thursday, Nov. 6th. This will offer plenty of things for us to see, as all the giant planets will be available to view! The Waning Gibbous Moon will rise at 1828 hrs. The Ring Nebula and the nearby bright star Vega and its stellar spectra will be available. We’ll have Cygnus’s Veil Nebulae (NGC 6992 & 6960), the “Blue Snowball” (NGC 7662) and the “Saturn Nebula” (NGC 7009) planetary nebulae, as well as the globular “Jellyfish Cluster” (NGC 7099), to see early on in the night. And to the south, we may be able to see the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253), which is 10 million light years away, and above and closer in, the Andromeda Galaxy, at 2.2 million light-years away, and the globular cluster M15 in Pegasus.
During the evening, an edge on ringed Saturn will be transited by its moons Dione, Titan and Rhea. The smaller moons will cast their shadows above the rings, while Titan’s will pass right over planet’s north pole. Its other moons will appear at its side.
We’ll spy on the sky-blue planet Neptune and have a chance to see Neptune’s doomed moon of Triton. While the pale aqua planet Uranus will be seen near the Pleiades on the 6th. ts spin axis is obliquely tilted over by 98° from the ecliptic plane. Because angular momentum is conserved, its axis always points out in the same direction in space. But now in its 84 year orbit, the planet has traveled around the Sun so that its north pole is oriented back at the Sun and us as well. So, when we observe it, we’ll be looking right upon its north pole.
The Earth is orbiting nearer and nearer to Jupiter, but it still has a few months to go to reach opposition. It rises at 2215 hrs on Thursday night. It is becoming quite noticeable in our sky, especially as it appears so high up on the ecliptic. Its height from the horizon means that there will be less atmosphere in our way, so we can get more exquisite and detailed views of it. We’ll find it to the east of Pollux in Gemini. Most of its moons will all appear west of the planet. While Europa will be occulted by the gas giant until 2352 hrs, when it’ll emerge from behind it, taking about 4 minutes to do so. It is one thing to “know” that its moons orbit the great planet, because that is what the textbooks tell you that they do. It is quite another thing to personally witness evidence of such dynamic celestial mechanics for yourself.
