FunAstro News

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Naked Eye Objects

Since it’s none too warm this time of year I thought I would start by talking about the objects you could see in a short run outside your car or house with your naked eye or binoculars! Of course you do need to give yourself a few minutes to get dark adapted even then. The good news is that you can do some observing early in the evening this time of year and still make it back inside in time to have some hot cider and catch a movie.

No other planet in the solar system has such an unusual companion. The inner planets Mercury and Venus have no moons at all. Mars has two tiny misshapen satellites, and the moonlets of the gas giants are tiny in comparison with their mother planets. Only Pluto has a satellite that is so similar in size, but Pluto itself is a little odd, being smaller even than the Moon and at such a great distance from the Sun.

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“The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water,” said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. 

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Solar System Objects
This third week of August, all the major planets have set already and we are left with only Jupiter in the SouthWest, even more west than last month, but it is never to be missed due to all it has to offer. Uranus and Neptune are not too difficult to find if you are comfortable using star charts. At magnitude 5.7, Uranus is within easy range of binoculars. Its blue-green disk shows up easily through a small telescope at moderate magnification (150x). I always know I am looking at Uranus when I see a star that just looks “eerie” to me. The color is very different than that of the other stars around it.

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Solar System Objects
This third week of July, all the major planets have set already and we are left with only Jupiter in the SouthWest. Jupiter can pull its weight just fine however, as it has a wealth of contantly changing detail to observe due to the planet’s extremely quick rotation period and fast orbiting satellites, Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede. The satellites are usually stretched out along a horizontal axis aligned with Jupiter’s cloud belts. When the satellites are just about to go behind or in front of the disc of jupiter, their rapid motion is particularly apparent, with motion detected about every minute or so. Tip: if you see an inky black dot on the face of Jupiter it’s not the shadow of an alien spacecraft, it’s the shadow of one of the moons!

During the early morning hours of Monday, July 3rd, asteroid 2004 XP14 will fly past Earth barely farther away than the Moon. The closest approach is around 4h44m UT (Universal Time) July 3 when this 600-meter/yard diameter asteroid passes only 268,873 miles from the Earth, just 1.1 times the distance to the moon away. XP14 is large enough and bright enough (11th magnitude) to see through backyard telescopes as it races across the star-fields of the Milky Way.

What You Must Know About Power to Select the Right Telescope

Thousands of your fellow astronomers get together in remote places to stare off into outer space! What could be a better excuse to get out of the house?

Your local astronomy club has star parties all the time, but I’m talking about a different phenomenon, the GIGANTIC STAR PARTY!

To find out what planets are out, go to this page and
click “View Sky Chart”

Sky & Telescope Interactive Star Chart

Note: the star chart requires Internet Explorer and if you have a pop-up blocker installed you’ll need to hold the Control key down when you click the link or otherwise temporarily disable it.

There are three major things you’ll need to enjoy amateur astronomy: the telescope, the sky and your interest. Anything beyond that is just an accessory!

An accessory is by definition a “supplementary component that improves capability.” In this edition I’ll talk about eyepieces.

The Planisphere

Just who is Celestron and why would I devote an entire newsletter to this company? As part of your education in amateur astronomy you simply have to learn about the brief history of this interesting company that is owned and operated by amateur astronomers.

So what exactly is a telescope, and what is it made of? Most people will tell you that telescopes have tubes and lenses, and what else is there to know you may ask?

Telescopes have tubes and lenses, what else is there to know you may ask? Well, let me take you for a short journey in which I will dispel some myths about the history of the telescope.

The Refracting Telescope

For cleaning eyepieces and filters, there is nothing better than a microfiber cleaning cloth available at camera stores. It may cost $10-$15, but it does wonders. I keep my cleaning cloth in a plastic sandwich bag and I only handle it by the edges so as not to get oil from my fingers onto the cloth. The cleaning techniques described below will also work for finderscopes.

One of the readers of Telescope 101 recently asked

“What is the easy way to clean mirrors without damaging them? I have had my scope for a little over a year, the mirrors have never been cleaned. Do i need to take the primary out to clean it? What do i clean them with? Thanks, James