November’s 1st Friday Public Viewing Session Rescheduled to the 8th:
FAU will host Univ. of South Florida to a football game in the stadium on the 1st starting at 7:30 pm. So, our regular night observation session will be rescheduled for the 2nd Friday, Nov. 8th.
Target Observations for Nov. 8th's Session:
The night of the 8th will offer plenty of things for us to see! We will have an almost 1st Quarter Moon, then. 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”, 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.
That evening, a near edge on ringed Saturn will be transited by its moon Enceladus (from 8:04 pm until 10:31 pm) with its shadow appearing immediately below its rings, while the planet will occult its moons Tethys (9:47 pm - 1:14 am) and Dione (11:15 pm – 3:02 am). Unfortunately, their emergences will happen after setting behind the building.
The Earth is orbiting nearer and nearer to Jupiter, so it is more 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. The planet rises at 8:30 pm that night. From 9 pm until 12:30 am, its Great Red Spot, an anticyclonic hurricane on Jupiter that is as big as our own planet, will be visible to us. Jupiter’s moon Io will appear to transit the huge planet starting from 10:30 pm until 12:43 am. As the Earth has not reached a syzygy alignment with it and the Sun, we currently see Jupiter and its moons somewhat “from their side”. This means that Io’s shadow on Jupiter will appear to precede the moon AND from 10:37 pm until 11:37 pm, the shadow will cast upon the superstorm itself. So, for that hour, we will have a chance to “spot a spotted spot!” 😁
The pale blue planet Uranus will be seen near the Pleiades on the 8th. Its 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. So, when we observe it, we’ll be looking right upon its north pole. There is a small possibility that we could see up to 4 of its moons, too.
We’ll spy on the blue planet Neptune, and as our Moon will be over 42° away, then we will have a better chance to see Neptune’s doomed moon of Triton than we had in sessions past.
NOTE: On Nov. 10th, our Moon will occult (“pass in front of”) Saturn from 10:27 pm until 11:07 pm.
Corona Borealis ("CrB") or the "crown north", is a faint constellation of a circlet of stars that lies midway between the star Arcturus in the constellation of Boötes and the "keystone" of Hercules. In this part of the sky, a giant stellar explosion called a nova, is expected to happen. Our Observatory staff is keeping an eye on it and you can too. Read more.