Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: Starter Telescopes for Beginner Astronomy
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents Objects to Observe in the December 2020 Night Sky and place a focus on sky events to help newcomers find Geminid and Ursid Meteor Showers, Lunar Libration Craters, Comets plus a detailed guide on how to watch The Great Conjunction Unfold!
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
Today’s sponsor: Big thanks to our Patreon supporters this month: David Bowes, Dustin A Ruoff, Brett Duane, Kim Hay, Nik Whitehead, Timo Sievänen, Michael Freedman, Paul Fischer, Rani Bush, Karl Bewley, Joko Danar, Steven Emert, Frank Tippin, Steven Jansen, Barbara Geier, Don Swartwout, James K. Wood, Katrina Ince, Michael Lewinger, Phyllis Simon Foster, Nicolo DePierro, Tim Smith, Frank Frankovic, Steve Nerlich
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Transcript:
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Chris Beckett: And welcome to Episode 70 of the actual astronomy podcast. This is the objects to observe in the night sky for December 2020
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Chris Beckett: I’m Chris and joining me a sheen. We are amateur astronomers. That means we love to do astronomy and we love to share it with all of you folks out there listening. So thank you very much for listening.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, thank you. And you know, we also just like to talk to each other about astronomy. So there you go. When, when
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Chris Beckett: Good stuff. Well, she and I’m really excited about this podcast, the objects to observe in any given month have been some of our most popular episodes.
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Shane Ludtke: They have yeah and
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Shane Ludtke: I’m quite excited for this one for one particular event that
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Shane Ludtke: Is happening.
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Shane Ludtke: Towards the end of the month.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, other week. I know it’s in the notes. We’ll, we’ll get to it. Sorry.
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Shane Ludtke: I guess maybe teaser alert.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah. And one of the things that we do kind of talk about is. So with this, what, what we do. And I think, you know, we have lots of listeners now and I think people are realizing this is we focus
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Chris Beckett: Not only like on an astronomical event and and what you can see but kind of how does best see it and
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Chris Beckett: We don’t really talk about events that you cannot see in there. There’s quite a few events that you’ll hear you know we’re just talking about one before we came live
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Chris Beckett: Recently on the radio, which is an observable event. And we find that oftentimes more and more. These are being talked about. Sometimes even by professional astronomers
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Chris Beckett: Because they’re not visual astronomers and anyway so we we are really focused on making sure that you get the information on what to actually see
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Chris Beckett: In the nighttime sky and we’re just amateur people who look at the sky, just like you were we’re not professional astronomers so so I do say that, but that’s the take that we’re we’re giving you
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Chris Beckett: All right. So Shane move a few things happening. The one thing that I’m a little bit excited about this month is that we have the moon, and it is going to be giving us a little bit of a roll so libration on the moon occurs because
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Chris Beckett: It appears. Anyway, at least in the sky to kind of roll back and forth and it’s for a few different reasons but but one is that, you know, it takes slightly longer for it to go around.
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Chris Beckett: The earth and then that then the amount of time it takes to rotate on its axis. So, because of this, you end up seeing a little bit more than than half of the lunar surface and
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Chris Beckett: This varies from month to month but in December, there’s going to be more of this libration effect on the six
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Chris Beckett: We’re going to see more of the Western land and on the 19th, we’re going to see more of the Eastern limbs. So just, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to scroll down in the in the notes here, but I’ve kind of marked a few features on the moon to take, take a look at
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Chris Beckett: And we’ll get to those in a moment. There’s also a solar eclipse coming up. We have Venus still in the morning sky Mars is moving away.
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Chris Beckett: From us and it’s and it’s getting demarest actually going to lose pretty much a full magnitude over the course of the month in Jupiter.
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Chris Beckett: And Saturn. They’re going to they’re going to bunch up really close the nighttime sky. We’re going to talk about those soon and Uranus and Neptune.
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Chris Beckett: Remained sort of finished stars up in Aries and Aquarius, respectively. So anyway, getting down to this business of the of the lunar libration. This is
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Chris Beckett: Going to be pretty neat. So what happens is you’re able to kind of see sort of a little bit over the limb of the moon.
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Chris Beckett: And I’ve got these two images here. One is, is showing the eastern side of moon or that’s if you’re looking straight at the moon. That’s the right side, the western side is the left side and you see the I put a couple of new graphics on this. Do you see those
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, yeah, I do. I’ll tweet these out to so that people that are listening have that visual reference as well.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, sounds good. So I think, I think one is from sky and telescope. One is, I think, from sky at night.
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Chris Beckett: So we have lander Gus van deadliness
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Chris Beckett: Head of us and for near. Yes. And these are on the
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Chris Beckett: These are on the eastern side of the moon and they’re sort of below like
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Chris Beckett: The Sea of Tranquility area sort of on the south eastern side of the moon and these will be better placed for visual observing during that that’s sort of around the end of the first week of December, sort of, right around Sunday next week from today, then
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Chris Beckett: 12 DAYS LATER ON THE ON AROUND THE 19th, the western side will be more favorably placed and we’re going to be able to see Grimaldi a little bit better. That’s like a little Orang. It’s like a little round dark spot and that actually just knowing that that’s towards the west.
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Chris Beckett: Just a little bit below the equator on getting towards the lunar limb, you can actually probably find that just with that description alone. It’s pretty unmistakable.
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Chris Beckett: And then rate on the limits self and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this. This is pretty cool.
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Chris Beckett: So this is kind of neat to see and you’ll need a good set of binoculars, we’re a little telescope to see this as mirror orient how
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Chris Beckett: And that’s a huge impact basin on the on the western limb. And what happens is is that, you know, because of the various effects of the orbits of the Earth and the Moon.
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Chris Beckett: Does sort of appear to ally almost a pure over the edge. And it’s really need to go and take a look. So
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Chris Beckett: You know if people are out over the next couple nights, they can go and try to take a look and see if they can see me around hell but
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Chris Beckett: It’s rate sort of just south of the equator and it’s going to be raid on the rim and it’s very large, you can actually see sort of it as this huge impact basin.
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Chris Beckett: And kind of when you see that for the first time you kind of say, Whoa, how come I never saw this before. It seems pretty unmistakable but you kind of got to get it just on
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Chris Beckett: On those few nights right around the 19th and that that will give you the best view of it. Have you ever seen Marian hell.
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Shane Ludtke: No, I haven’t, I haven’t. I will, I will give that a try. That sounds pretty cool.
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Shane Ludtke: And this vibration effect is really neat. And if you go back to our to our lunar observing episode, I forget what number that is we talked a little bit about how that allows you to see some parts of the moon that just typically are visible because it does sort of role and expose
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Shane Ludtke: Some of these features that we just normally can’t see.
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Chris Beckett: Hmm. Yeah, I think that that you’re right and that best explains think the the lunar episode was just was just an October I think towards the is either the, the end of October, beginning of November, but it’s called basically your guide to observing the moon, I think.
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Chris Beckett: Mm hmm. So then, on December 7 that’s next Monday. We’re gonna have Vesta just right beside the moon now and it’s going to be an occultation. That means that the moon is going to appear to pass.
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Chris Beckett: In front of Vesta investor for is the fourth. You know, it’s a minor planet in our solar system very large
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Chris Beckett: Planet testable. I think it’s around 525 kilometers across. I just did a little bit of reading up on it.
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Chris Beckett: But Vesta is is going to be very close to the moon in our skies and think it’s going to be a few degrees away. If you look it up and planetarium software.
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Chris Beckett: Could be. Good night, define it, because I think it’s you know it’s around, you know, sort of the six or seventh magnitude. So pick it up and pair of binoculars probably
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Chris Beckett: But then, from, let’s see, it’s it’s any Europe Eastern Northern Europe.
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Chris Beckett: Russia says all areas, except the northeast and some parts of China, Japan, Philippines,
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Chris Beckett: In some other places, you’re going to be able to actually see the moon pass in front of Vesta, and sort of from other parts of the world. Other parts than
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Chris Beckett: The Western Hemisphere, you’re going to be able to to see it at least really close to the moon. And I think that would be pretty cool. That would be something you’ll need a telescope
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Chris Beckett: And we’re at least a pretty good sites pair of binoculars, like the kind of thing.
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Chris Beckett: To really be able to see this. Because as as finger objects close to the moon and it does become a little bit of a challenge to see them. So that would be kind of neat. But I looked and I ran the planetarium software not visible from
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Chris Beckett: North America Western Hemisphere, unfortunately.
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Shane Ludtke: That’s too bad. I’m not. I’ve never really spent much time observing asteroids, but you know anybody that has an opportunity to see that should that’s that’s a neat event.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, it’s pretty it’s pretty neat to be able to to identify them. So, you know, they, they say that Vesta, you know, it’s now a minor planet. It’s basically the largest object in the asteroid.
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Chris Beckett: Belt. I did just just look it up here now 525 kilometers cross so i think i didn’t say say that and that’s named after one of the Greek goddesses and it was recently visited it was visited by by the Dawn spacecraft there in 2011
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Chris Beckett: So there’s there’s lots of amazing photos online if you go in and look for besta should be able to to find something there. Anyway, it’s pretty neat.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, for sure.
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Chris Beckett: Then on the 12th, we have a similar situation with Venus. Again, we can’t see the occultation from here and Venus is going to be point eight degrees.
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Chris Beckett: Away from the moon and then by the time it’s in our morning sky there. There are several degrees, where you’d be able to get them in binoculars together.
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Chris Beckett: But the moon is going to appear to pass in front of Venus from a few different spots Eastern most Russia HAWAII WISH I WAS THERE NOW.
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Chris Beckett: And it says western North America, I don’t know, though, because, because you know we’re supposedly in the West. So I don’t know, maybe like Vancouver Island or
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Chris Beckett: Or Tofino or, or, I don’t know, maybe like Alaska or somewhere, I don’t know, you’d have to be, you know, might and, you know, we’re only I think 1000 kilometers away from Vancouver. So, whatever it is, maybe a little further. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was nowhere near visible.
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Chris Beckett: So it’s going to be a morning very, very much at sunrise kind of event for them. And I don’t know, I think probably your best bet would probably be like Hawaii. I think Hawaii is a good place to be.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, yeah. Hawaii is always a good place to be.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah yeah
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Chris Beckett: For sure. So, this morning we get up here in we woke up here in Regina. It was minus 22 with the wind fill and that Celsius and then the temperature has since dropped so it’s it’s now I think minus 28 with the wind chill.
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Chris Beckett: It did clear though finally we’ve had certainly important run of weather. So hopefully we do get a better December than, than the latter half of November, has been
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Chris Beckett: So moving along just going to talk about what’s happening on the 14th. So Shane. I’m not sure if you’ve
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Chris Beckett: Seen these images of of the solar eclipse that’s going to be occurring and the path. It’s going to be taking on the 14th.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, I have.
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Shane Ludtke: Not a lot of people will see this unless they’re in a boat. Yeah.
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Chris Beckett: Maybe going to Hawaii.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, so the path of the solar eclipse. On December 14 is going to be going over Chile and that’s of course in the for, you know, for our so in in South America.
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Chris Beckett: So unfortunately, we’re not going to see anything of it here.
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Chris Beckett: Should be a pretty good one. Like, I would think that would be a dry place there. I think I know there’s a lot of deserts. I’ve never been in that area of the world, but
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Chris Beckett: From, from what I’ve seen in photos in that they do get some harsh weather. I think it’s actually in a way I think it’s kind of similar to our weather here, but maybe like in the summer and
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Chris Beckett: Maybe they’re going to be able to have lots of lots of clear nights down there. I really, I enjoy looking at stuff online about about that region of the world because it is so so different from where we live, but
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Chris Beckett: But yeah, so what’s going to happen on the 14th is the moon is going to pass in front of the sun, and that track is going to go across both the South Atlantic and South Pacific and the greatest part of the eclipses is pretty much rate in kind of like the southern
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Chris Beckett: 10th or quarter of the of the South American continent, so it looks kind of neat. That would be really cool to see
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah. Do you know how long totality is
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Chris Beckett: I don’t, I was
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Shane Ludtke: Just trying to
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Chris Beckett: Look here and see. I don’t think it’s a it’s a crazy long when I think it was like a maybe a couple minutes or something like that. So,
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Chris Beckett: Now, I know.
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Shane Ludtke: You’re really quick. Yeah, I was trying to find it. That’s always the key thing with an eclipse is how long totality is
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Shane Ludtke: Because they do vary quite a bit like it can be a couple minutes to like six or seven minutes, maybe even
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Shane Ludtke: More than that.
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Shane Ludtke: Anyway, I’ll try to look that up and maybe come back to that because because it’s surprising, like, you know, two or three minutes of Eclipse time probably sounds like you know that’s a long time to observe one of those events but
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Shane Ludtke: Having done one in Wyoming and I think totality was like just around like
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Shane Ludtke: Two and a half minutes or something like that. That seems to go by, like, a boat as quickly as blinking your eyes.
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Shane Ludtke: Okay, I’m having I’ve got it here. It’s two minutes.
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Chris Beckett: Nine seconds and seven tenths of a second so
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Shane Ludtke: Okay. Not very long.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, so, and I’m just, I’m just looking at a sheet of paper here. But if people want more, they can go to www dot twice con. And that’s a Fred espenak
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Chris Beckett: Website should give people a little bit more information on the solar eclipse for December 14 which usually a lot of people travel for these solar eclipses, but I’m not really sure how much traveling
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Chris Beckett: People are up for on these particular days.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, I would imagine. Not as much as just a year ago.
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Shane Ludtke: But if you are in that region and you have the opportunity to observe it a solar eclipse is one of the most majestic things. I think you can see with your own eyes. It’s an incredible event.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, getting on the path of totality is essential. And if you have solar eclipse classes, those are very helpful because they will help you know protect your eyes because if you do look at the sun at any point during the eclipse, other than totality. You certainly risk permanent damage.
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Chris Beckett: And actually have all kinds of solar eclipse classes. Still here at bought a bunch for a partial eclipse few years ago.
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Chris Beckett: I was keeping the modem my class so still have some spares
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Chris Beckett: They’re very colorful
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Chris Beckett: fluoresce I bought the fluorescent ones I get the green and the yellow and the orange so oh
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Chris Beckett: Gosh. Yeah. But for those of us who can’t make it to the eclipse. There’s another event. It’s going to be taking place.
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Chris Beckett: Yes evenings of the 13th and 14th of December and this actually really takes place.
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Chris Beckett: For a couple of weeks, really the best nights are the fourth of December, until the 17th, but a peak night, sort of like the 13th, 14th is when we get 50 meteors per hour as part of the Geminids meteor shower.
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Chris Beckett: And the Geminids are. And I know you’re really big Meteor fan of fact you’re a meteorite collector of sorts.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, I have some media rights in my possession. Yeah, they’re kind of fun. I don’t usually make a big point to go observe a meteor shower but it is nice. When they coincide with a new moon.
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Shane Ludtke: Because you go out to observe your regular stuff and you happen to catch a bunch of meteors that night, too, which is fun.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, so we are rate, just a boat at New Moon that night as well. The new moon occurs within four hours of the peak of the Gemini meteor shower.
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Chris Beckett: So if it’s if it’s clear and not too cold here. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go out and tried to take a look, I’ve certainly seen lots of meteor showers. Over the years, so
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Chris Beckett: Definitely had my fill and but but this one could be pretty good 50 an hour, like you said, We’re rate on new moon that night.
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Chris Beckett: Really you go out and there’s there’s lots of Geminids
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Chris Beckett: Anytime in the evening and early morning you’ll be able to see them basically from 11 o’clock on word
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Chris Beckett: It’s fine. And they’re bright and they can have lots of colors I find I did go to see them one year and I was I was watching them and I found they were sort of like cobalt colored almost
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Chris Beckett: But I was much younger than maybe my eyes were better. And let’s see, they don’t go that fast so often you see like beautiful
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Chris Beckett: Chains or ionization trails with them, which is really neat. And you can also see these in the southern hemisphere. So that’s one of the other things. And the one thing that I was interested. Look up. So I was trying to remember this, I think, going why now is there, they’re actually
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Chris Beckett: Associated with a comet want to say this one. It’s like faith on it’s like 3200 faith on. Sorry. And that is an asteroid. I’m going to say
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Chris Beckett: Well, it’s not a common it’s
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Chris Beckett: It’s an asteroid.
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Shane Ludtke: Let’s change because because most meteor showers are a result of comets. This is interesting.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, and so
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Chris Beckett: This is one of those objects.
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Chris Beckett: This 3200 on which
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Chris Beckett: I think that there was a bit of Tyner anyway. It’s a at Apollo type asteroid and it could be a potentially hazardous asteroid to the earth. So you know the the asteroid is in the same orbit as these meteorites.
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Chris Beckett: But, you know, they’ve been collecting
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Chris Beckett: Observations for about 30 years on it and they haven’t been able to find any kind of really close encounters sort of for for like a 400 year time period, but
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, there’s a few times where it does get in with within you know several, you know, millions of kilometers. I think like 2 million kilometers, it gets within in a 30 year time period. So that is getting fairly close by astronomical standards.
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Shane Ludtke: But the Geminids are often considered by astronomers to be the best meteor shower of the year.
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Shane Ludtke: And they don’t always align with the new moon. Sometimes the rain showers will happen with the moon in the sky, which really washes out the meteors or diminishes the the spectacle. So when meteor showers align with the new moon.
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Shane Ludtke: It’s a great opportunity to get out and see them so
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Shane Ludtke: You know if meteors are your thing, or you never seen a meteor shower. This is a real good one to put on your calendar if the skies are clear.
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Chris Beckett: Mm hmm. And then right after the Geminids we have the Earth’s it
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Chris Beckett: And they start on the 17th and run until the 26th the the Geminids running from the fourth until the 17th and then these ones take over. So you kind of get meteors
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Chris Beckett: All month all night all December. So it’s kind of neat like that. It’s just unfortunate. It’s often so darn cold or or snowy or whatever and
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Chris Beckett: The actually peak rate around Christmas so you only see about five to 10 an hour and you know they’ve they’ve recorded occasion over. So a couple dozen or so. An hour and they kind of
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Chris Beckett: Appear someone unrelated, but the progenitor comet is eat P Tuttle I think I saw that once I think that it’s a periodic comment.
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Chris Beckett: You know discovery number of years ago. Anyway, at strictly a northern hemispheric event because of course they’re going to be in the for
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Chris Beckett: Northern part of the sky and I think they’re pretty much just like going to be like regular looking meteors that you’re going to want to look
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Chris Beckett: Rate into sort of the ursa major area of the sky just probably just off to the crank up a little bit and then you’re going to be able to see these meteors streaming in
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Chris Beckett: In in and around the bowl of the Big Dipper kind of thing. So sort of an easy area in the sky for people to identify and then then to see see these sort of more northerly meteors coming in.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, you know, very, very cool. And I guess December could be called Meteor month with
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Meteor
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Chris Beckett: And there you go. Yeah. So what was the event that
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Chris Beckett: That you were really most looking forward to this month, you said the third week, I’m guessing it’s the one I i’ve got up here now. So there’s
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Chris Beckett: This third event that you’re excited about. Why don’t you tell us
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Shane Ludtke: Yes, it is a very, very close conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.
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Shane Ludtke: And and if you haven’t heard about it yet. You probably well I think this is one of those astronomy events that the media will probably pick up on because
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Shane Ludtke: He’s one of these extremely I guess the event isn’t rare like conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn happen all the time, but it’s how close they will be
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Shane Ludtke: I believe it’s like like 400 years since it’s been since they’ve been this close or, you know, it’ll be another 400 years before they’re the same distance
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Shane Ludtke: It’s quite an event.
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Chris Beckett: Now they do pass each other about every you know dozen or so years I think. But yeah, I wasn’t aware that it was it was that rare that they get this close
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, next time that they so they will be 6.1 art minutes apart so like so close, the next time that they are less than one degree is going to be in the year 2080
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Shane Ludtke: And that one. It’s not really optimal because that one will happen 25 minutes before the sun rises, whereas because this one’s that sunset.
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Shane Ludtke: You know you hopefully you get a little bit longer to observe it.
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Shane Ludtke: The other thing, too, about this one. That’s really neat is IO and Ganymede will call each other during this time to
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Shane Ludtke: Wow, so
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Shane Ludtke: It is really neat. So, you know, accounting means you know one passes in front of the other, so you’ll be able to witness like some Solar System movement.
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Shane Ludtke: Of these
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Shane Ludtke: Galilean moons around Jupiter and see, you know, Jupiter and Saturn that close.
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Shane Ludtke: Something I’m going to try. Chris So there are 6.1 art minutes apart that night.
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Shane Ludtke: Okay, now there’s sort of a famous naked eye. Double in Ursa Major miser and elk or
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Shane Ludtke: That, you know, with a, with good eyes. In fact, I don’t even know if you need really good vision, but as long as you’re seeing 2020, you should be able to see both of these stars there, but there are 11.8 arc minutes apart.
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Chris Beckett: Mm hmm.
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Shane Ludtke: Jupiter and Saturn will be 6.1 so half that I’m really curious to see if we can separate Jupiter and Saturn naked eye that night.
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Shane Ludtke: That’s what I’ll be looking for.
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Chris Beckett: Mm hmm. Sounds good.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, but because this event is so rare. This is one of the
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Shane Ludtke: One of the times where I’m going to be checking the weather forecast for quite a while.
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Chris Beckett: And I’ll probably have some driving locations in my mind of where I can go east, west, north, south,
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Shane Ludtke: To get to clear skies, if I can.
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Shane Ludtke: Because this is one. I just don’t want to miss.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, this is similar to like Venus.
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Shane Ludtke: transiting the sun, you’re not going to get another opportunity to see this event or to see Jupiter and Saturn disclose in your lifetime.
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Chris Beckett: Yes. Now, even I know that it’s rare and I can be a bit cynical on rare events so so that’s how rare it is
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Chris Beckett: But the way that I kind of mapped it out. No, no one how finicky. The weather can be at this time of year.
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Chris Beckett: Where We Live anyway with, you know, sometimes you can have, like, you know, we’re going to be two degrees. We were two degrees yesterday or minus 22 degrees or colder this morning.
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Chris Beckett: Sundance we get snow, it’s clear right now. This is the first clear sky with head just about in a week and then
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Chris Beckett: What we’re going to see, though, and this is what I’m really interested in for this event is from the period of December 16 to the 24th and we should have some clear, clear enough evening skies during
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Chris Beckett: You know that period of time, which is what like eight days or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: You’re going to see a few things. So on the 16th. The moon is going to appear just below into the right or just to the southwest.
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Chris Beckett: Of Saturn and Jupiter and you’ll still be able to see Saturn Jupiter separated
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Chris Beckett: IN THE NIGHTTIME SKY. If you have a pair of binoculars, with about a six degree field of view or wider many small binoculars have a field of view.
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Chris Beckett: About that size, you’ll be able to get Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon, all in one field. So that’s going to be kind of pretty. So a couple nights sort of from 16th and 17th, you’re going to see the moon skirt by Jupiter and Saturn and then
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Chris Beckett: And what would be Nietzschean is your you were talking about being able to
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Chris Beckett: See them split in the nighttime sky on this, this night of the 21st. I think right that’s what you were
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Shane Ludtke: It’ll be a naked eye test.
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Shane Ludtke: To see if you can split them because they are so close.
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Chris Beckett: So wait, where you can try. This is what I would suggest, like I said, we’re visual observers and so we’re we’re kind of walking you through
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Chris Beckett: How to do some of this stuff. What I would suggest doing this, what I’m going to try to do because
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Chris Beckett: This will allow most people to see this, because this is going to be visible for more than a week and that’s that from the 16th to the 24th.
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Chris Beckett: You can watch basically Jupiter and Saturn. Kind of. Kind of. The not really doing this but they kind of look like they swap spots in the nighttime sky. And so if you start following kind of night tonight. You can kind of train your eyes a little bit maybe
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Chris Beckett: And then the child. I
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Chris Beckett: Do. Yeah. And then, then on the 21st. Okay, sort of, fingers crossed. I really hope it’s clear.
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Chris Beckett: For us, but if it doesn’t happen to be clear that night, then you’ve you’ve had that best opportunity to see
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Chris Beckett: To see them really close in the sky together. And the other thing is if you can’t separate the moment I did it should look like one thing anyway. And it’s getting kind of low
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Chris Beckett: They’re getting kind of far away from us. So together, they’re probably not even going to look much different than what
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Chris Beckett: What Jupiter looked at its at its brightest the summer. So, so there’s kind of that aspect as well but
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Chris Beckett: I certainly intend to see this. I think it’s a I think this is a rare event, but I think the event is
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Chris Beckett: Is that 16th to the 24th date. I think once that moon joins them in the nighttime sky. I think that’s really going to look like something. So if we just focus on that 21st date.
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Chris Beckett: I think that’s, that’s sort of one aspect of this event, but I think this event last a lot longer. And it’s going to give people a lot more opportunities to go out and see and I think you can say that from the 16th to the 24th. Third, they’re definitely
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Chris Beckett: You know, close enough to say that you’ve you’ve definitely seen them sort of pair together so tightly in the sky that
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Chris Beckett: It’s going to be a long time before you’ll see them that close. Again, I think that that’s going to make a little bit easier for for people to see instead of trying to
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Chris Beckett: kind of hit that one night where where maybe it’s clear or you might have other plans to do the holidays, but probably this year, people don’t have as many plans anyway.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, the, the magazine BBC sky at night they there was a line in there that really resonated with me and it’s they said that this is the closest ever of the telescope age for Jupiter and Saturn.
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Chris Beckett: There you
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Shane Ludtke: Know, think about the telescope age that’s you know about 400 ish years is
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Shane Ludtke: Kind of what it’s considered to be. So yeah, this is a, you know, it’s kind of a first and we all get. Are we all hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to see it. And I like your suggestion of observing it over a week because, well, the 21st is the closest they’re really close the entire time.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, to the 24th.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, and I think it’s an it’s an event worth worth watching during that period of time and then, you know, if you don’t happen to get lucky that one night that they are the closest even on those other nights. They’re exceptionally close
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Chris Beckett: And oftentimes, when we do have the planets close in the sky. They’re not this close for this long. So, because I think the chances of having a clear night.
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Chris Beckett: Over this eight or nine day period is probably like a really good chance. Right. I think we probably have like you know any of your 90% chance of having at least one really good evening.
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Chris Beckett: To see, you know, the pairing, or maybe even, even the moon going by and on the 16th and 17th would be would be a pretty neat event to you to see as well. I think that’s the real photographic opportunities that
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Chris Beckett: 16 evening, because you could get the moon low down you can get something in the foreground with the moon and then see Jupiter and Saturn just above it and they’re all going to be pretty close. It’s going to be pretty neat to see
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, yeah. And part of my observing plan.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, each night that I tried to observe this I will probably be setting up about a half an hour before sunset, just to make sure that all my gear is ready and it’s out and I’m not fumbling around with eyepieces or anything like that.
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Chris Beckett: Are you going to photograph it
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Shane Ludtke: I doubt it. I’m not looking to planetary photography. I’m
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Shane Ludtke: Probably just observe it with my eyes and you know treasure the memory for the rest of my life.
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Chris Beckett: There you go.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, well, I’m definitely going to get out and and take a look and you know really really enjoy it on on that period of period of time.
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Chris Beckett: So it can be seen. It’s getting kind of low. I’m not sure what would be possible to see through the telescope, but who knows, so I’ll probably try to put some sort of telescope on it. But like I said,
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Chris Beckett: Having that period of time from the 16th to the 24th give lots of opportunity to to see it with the iron through binoculars to see them kind of get close together, and then
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Chris Beckett: Break apart and sort of swamp spots. And then on the 24th sort of that the last night that that that event really is sort of at a tight and then of course. After that, you’re going to see them, but they’re going to get lower and lower, lower and then disappear over the western horizon.
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Chris Beckett: But on the 24th, the moon and Uranus are also going to be very close in the nighttime sky, and I think that they’re just about three degrees.
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Chris Beckett: Apart with Uranus just being three degrees north of the moon on the evening of the 25th that’s Christmas Eve. So that’s sort of an exciting Christmas present early Christmas present there too.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, great ones for the planets again.
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Chris Beckett: Are you going to try to hunt it down, you haven’t. I don’t think you’ve seen Uranus and a little bit. You were saying
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Shane Ludtke: Oh yeah, Uranus. I haven’t Neptune I captured that I think about a month ago.
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Shane Ludtke: Okay, I had the star field, pretty sure it was in there.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, I was using my 76 millimeters. So it really you know look like a star.
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Shane Ludtke: I think a tinge of color to it, but I haven’t tried for Uranus, so I probably should this month.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, I think that’s a good opportunity and I think it should be visible in binoculars to so
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Chris Beckett: On the night of the 24th. If you take out your handheld binoculars and you point them.
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Chris Beckett: At the moon just about the moon, you’re going to see brightest approximately 5.76 men to start to faint to see with your eye gonna be way to think to see next to the moon.
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Chris Beckett: But I was able to see it binoculars and a decent sized pair of binoculars were small telescope for sure you’ll be able to see Uranus and the moon together in the nighttime sky. So that’s pretty cool too.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, for sure.
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Chris Beckett: Alright, how are we looking for comments.
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Chris Beckett: In this coming month
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Shane Ludtke: Well, there is one of note it is comet in three Atlas and actually a observing friend out east sent me an email. When was this year. This is just a couple weeks ago on the 16th of November.
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Shane Ludtke: So he caught the comet. He said snuggling up to Bella tricks. Two nights ago
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Shane Ludtke: He was, you know,
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Shane Ludtke: 10 by
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Shane Ludtke: Or sorry 10 by
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Shane Ludtke: couldn’t manage it, but I have a wonderful pair of very rare actually William optic
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Shane Ludtke: Their economies of tack floor rights.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: I said they manage the job.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, so, you know, a small telescope is probably more more appropriate for this, or more likely to be possessed by people rather than
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Shane Ludtke: You know, bigger binoculars like that. But anyway, it kind of slices up through Ryan through tourists and then
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Shane Ludtke: Array.
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Chris Beckett: Array. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like it’s going to spend most of December, cutting through a rigger, and what’s what’s kind of neat is if and I don’t know what the bottom right stories in a rig. I should have have it up here, but
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Chris Beckett: It’s gonna pass by that star just the writer, just to the west, very early in the month as it comes at a tourists and then a heads almost straight towards Capella
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Chris Beckett: So it’s going to basically slice almost rate across
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Chris Beckett: And it’s gonna going to go across that really rich area, which some of us refer to as the leaping minnow.
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Chris Beckett: In a ray get sort of going to pass read through that region, which is where that flaming starting emulates and it gets eliminated by at or reggae which is like one of the escape stars from another region of the sky.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, that that’s very interesting region and that will be one of the things that I hope to take a look at around sort of like the 12th, 13th of December is as it’s passing through Auriga. Yeah, it should be kind of interesting.
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Shane Ludtke: I don’t do know what the magnitude estimates are for this comment.
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Chris Beckett: Eight. Yeah, so that’s telescopic yeah for sure. Yeah, so you need a really big pair of
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Chris Beckett: Binoculars me tripod or parallel parallelogram mounted binoculars will do an episode on on mounting binoculars sometime soon.
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Chris Beckett: But really, like you said, probably, like, like a four inch telescope is is where you’re going to really start to be able to see it and
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Chris Beckett: You know, maybe, maybe even be able to see a nucleus in like a eight or 12 inch. Lots of people have
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Chris Beckett: Six inch and larger reflectors, and that would be really the instrument of choice. I think for writing this down. But of course, you know, whatever you have pointed out, and maybe it’s an outburst that night. You’ll, you’ll pick it up, even in binoculars or something.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, yeah, it’s always exciting to try to capture a comment and get some observations of it. And, you know, while it’s. We had a great comment over the summer. Those aren’t very common but comments of same magnitude eight those do happen, somewhat frequently
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Shane Ludtke: So those are very observable through a telescope and there are a lot of fun.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, very good. Well, anything else that you’re looking forward to taking a look at. I was gonna say this summer, but I think I’m just, I’m still thinking of Hawaii there.
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Yes.
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Shane Ludtke: But in this early winter sky.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, one of the things that are one of the constellations that I look forward to in December is Gemini.
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Shane Ludtke: It’s very easy to find in the sky. You know the end. It’s kind of an interesting constellation, you know, Gemini represents twins Castor and Pollux
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Shane Ludtke: But what’s very interesting is, those are two names stars that look basically identical to each other. There are two twin stars that represent the hands of the twins in the mythology mythology, which is kind of a you know a neat.
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Shane Ludtke: Neat construction or neat representation of the mythology.
280
00:38:11.730 –> 00:38:18.090
Shane Ludtke: So anyway, it’s very easy to find because of those two stars Castor and Pollux they’re very bright their clothes.
281
00:38:19.230 –> 00:38:26.310
Shane Ludtke: And they’re prominent within the constellation of Gemini. There’s a few open clusters that I like to have a look at every year.
282
00:38:27.120 –> 00:38:29.310
Shane Ludtke: There’s colander 89 so this is
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00:38:30.210 –> 00:38:37.290
Shane Ludtke: This would be down by casters like West foot. So, like, kind of in around that region is is where I’m going to hone in on
284
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Chris Beckett: So is that near the arm of a Ryan sort of
285
00:38:40.350 –> 00:38:41.070
Shane Ludtke: Where this
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00:38:41.130 –> 00:38:42.450
Chris Beckett: And 35 is
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00:38:42.540 –> 00:38:43.500
Shane Ludtke: 100% yeah
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00:38:43.560 –> 00:38:45.270
Chris Beckett: Oh yeah. All right. Yeah, exactly.
289
00:38:45.750 –> 00:38:54.060
Shane Ludtke: Yeah, so there’s colander 89 there’s NGC 2129 and then like you mentioned, there’s em 35
290
00:38:54.120 –> 00:38:57.720
Shane Ludtke: Which is a really nice bright open cluster.
291
00:38:58.020 –> 00:39:03.840
Shane Ludtke: And if you’re under a dark sky in 35 is visible to the naked eye, if it’s, if it’s a good night.
292
00:39:04.410 –> 00:39:20.130
Shane Ludtke: And, you know, if you put a telescope or binoculars on that on in 35 you’ll see many stars, but that whole region is very rich and it’s a fun area just to pan around in. And there’s also a planetary nebula 2392 up there.
293
00:39:24.150 –> 00:39:28.980
Chris Beckett: There’s a couple tough nebula there to like the jellyfish nebula, which I may have seen one.
294
00:39:30.420 –> 00:39:56.880
Chris Beckett: Is in that area, but I’ll give people a really quick way to find this region, very simple on the Knights of December 2 as well as the night of December 29. The moon is going to be point to just quarter of a degree away just north of em 35 so so that will point out. Now, of course, the moon.
295
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Chris Beckett: You know, it’s, it’s still pretty full. So it’s going to, you know, blank out most of the sky, but that will that will give you that region of sky so then on subsequent nights when the moon is is not in that area of sky, you’ll be able to to kind of locate the region number talking about
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, a great tip so like on December, the second, take a look at where the moon is in the sky and that star field and then come back in two weeks when there’s no moon in the sky, and then you can observe a lot of these clusters and try for some of the nebulas as well.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah, very good. Well, that’s, that’s some great advice. They’re showing me will do up a little finer chart or something and tweet that out.
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Shane Ludtke: Yeah, yeah. That sounds like a great idea.
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Chris Beckett: Alright, cool. Anything else you wish to chat about for the December night sky addition.
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Shane Ludtke: No, I think that covers everything, Chris. Thank you very much.
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Chris Beckett: Yeah. Well, thanks so much.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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