Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: The Objects to Observe in the January 2022 Night Sky
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents Objects to Observe in the January 2022 Night Sky and places a focus on when and how to see the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Uranus minor planets Ceres and Iris and when the Moon will pair with these solar system bodies. We also talk about when you can see the Lunar X and Lunar Straight Wall this month as well as say goodbye to Comet Leonard while another binocular comet is on the way for binocular observers.
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: Rob Leeson, David Bowes, Ron Diehl, Brett Duane, Benett Bolek, Mary Ann, Frank Frankovic, Michael Freedman, Kim Hay, Steven Emert, Frank Tippin, Rani Bush, Jako Danar, Joseph J. Biernat, Nik Whitehead, Semyon Torfason, Michael W, Cherry Wood, Steve Nerlich, Steven Kluth, James K Wood, Katrina Ince, Phyllis Foster, Don Swartwout, Barbara Geier, Steven Jansen
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Transcript:
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Chris Beckett: Welcome to episode 183 of the actual astronomy podcast the objects to observe in the January 2022.
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Chris Beckett: Night sky addition i’m Chris enjoying the machine, we are amateur astronomers who love looking up at the night sky and this podcast Is anyone else likes to go out under the stars, so in this episode we’re going to talk about what you can see in the night sky this first month of.
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Chris Beckett: And we’ll talk, talk about that in a moment, but this podcast is going to be released on December 30 on our feed, however, we also put these out on the 365 days of astronomy.
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Chris Beckett: And because of our cadence with them, it won’t vote until January 6 so this sometimes will happen from time to time, so if people want.
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Chris Beckett: They can always subscribe to our direct feed as well at pod bean COM, you can just go and search for actual astronomy and and you can subscribe there, in addition to being a subscriber to the 365 days, of course, so shane what are you excited to see this month.
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Shane Ludtke: i’m i’m kind of excited to see the the the very thin crescent Venus and how it will change from the start of the month, until the end of the month, I think that’ll be pretty cool.
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Chris Beckett: How will it change.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, so on the very first day so January 1.
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Shane Ludtke: At sunset.
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Shane Ludtke: Venus will be about a 2% illuminated so it’ll be a very, very thin crescent.
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Shane Ludtke: I think it’ll.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah I think it’ll be stunning in a telescope just to see this thin line of light.
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Shane Ludtke: It might be a little challenging to track down you’ll have to know where to look in the sky, but you know I I think it’s quite doable.
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Shane Ludtke: But by the end of the month well so it’ll Actually, I think, by about the eighth or ninth of January it’ll only be a 1% illuminated crescent.
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Shane Ludtke: But then, by the end of the month, it will have grown to 14% so you, you know you’re going to see this rapid change and how much of Venus you can see, and.
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Shane Ludtke: You know from 2% to 14% will be you know 14% is still thin but you’ll you should notice quite a difference between the start of the month, in the end.
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Shane Ludtke: So i’m yeah i’m quite excited for that, in fact.
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Shane Ludtke: I wonder how well binoculars would pick that up or what size of binoculars you would need for something like that.
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Chris Beckett: not sure like an ad like an html right thing, probably.
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Chris Beckett: yeah or or like a higher power like a.
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Chris Beckett: Really, high quality like 15 by 50 might might might pick it up, but doesn’t come around to the mornings doesn’t come around to the morning Skype at the end of month.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it transitions mid month to to a morning object.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah so that’s so you get to kind of follow it on the on the journey around around our horizons.
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Chris Beckett: yeah cool cool yeah well, the first of the month is going to be a big day.
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Chris Beckett: We have the new moon, are you giving me deep sky picture excited about for new moon this month.
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Shane Ludtke: i’m not at the top, I, I just want to get out observing Chris you know we’ve been we’ve been under a shroud of cloud and now some deep freeze cold so.
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Shane Ludtke: I will take whatever I can get this month and I will enjoy it if if we can get out to you know some dark sky observing that would be outstanding.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah very cool yeah i’m totally there with you it’s been exceptionally cold and the forecast is for.
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Chris Beckett: Even colder we’re seeing in the last podcast we’re getting down to the minus 30s but the wind chill and we’re set to get them to the very, very low.
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Chris Beckett: minus 30 without the wind chill and maybe even approaching minus 40 well we’re forecast be minus 37 without the wind chill I think over the next few nights and.
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Chris Beckett: And that will easily get pushed well into the minus 40 with with any bit of breeze but you know no bugs at these temperatures you don’t see you hardly see mosquito with their.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah leave the mosquito spray at home.
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Chris Beckett: strings strings that one year I went for a hike.
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Chris Beckett: around this time, you were having cold temperatures and warmed up a little like you know into like the negative single digits and I was out walking I found a wolf spider just out like wandering around on the snow like out in the fields I was blown away.
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Shane Ludtke: Very resilient spider.
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Chris Beckett: Very resilient spiders are here yeah so um let’s see we’ve got up a planetary grouping or a swoosh i’m going to call this the great swish so we have.
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Chris Beckett: A planetary it’s not really a line a lineup there’s no real angle to it, but we have Jupiter Saturn mercury and Venus at dusk.
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Chris Beckett: On these dates so when you when we go to observe that thing crescent Venus well, even if we don’t get that then Venus crescent like maybe there’s going to be clouds on the horizon.
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Chris Beckett: Above and to the left of Venus this is looking in the desk in the evening sky and.
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Chris Beckett: you’re looking towards the South West Venus will be almost read on the horizon and just above and to the left or to the North East will be mercury, followed by Saturn and followed by Jupiter.
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Chris Beckett: So it’s a it’s going to be a pretty cool planetary a lot of, although I think with our conditions anyway and with these planets getting low down, I think, seeing much the main details will be a bit of a challenge, at least for us.
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Shane Ludtke: You know yeah it’s it’s really just to say you saw we we won’t see any detail when it’s close to the horizon too much atmosphere, to look through.
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Chris Beckett: yeah the cool part is that, if it is really cool I might just take a pop out with with my binoculars and.
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Chris Beckett: And just go for a quick scan and that might be all the observing.
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Chris Beckett: I do on January 1.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’s that’s probably me too.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and then on the Third, we have some meteors peak and so so shane, and these are called the coin drafted meteors and but we don’t have to be we don’t have a constellation that’s named the quadrant.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah well we don’t anymore, a long time ago there used to be, I believe.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah yeah and this meteor shower is you know, one of the better ones to see throughout the year, like this one can reach 200 meteors per hour at its peak so.
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Shane Ludtke: This one has a lot of action around it.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so the these meteors appear to come out of the sky near the handle of the big dipper they’re actually over the line into the constellation of boots or boo Otis and.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, there was an old and now defunct the constellation are called quandaries quadrants miraculous, and this was a constellation that was dreamed up by an astronomer name Jerome land in 1795 and what it was showing here was a wall quadrant.
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Chris Beckett: That his nephew had charted the celestial sphere, using and in any way it was between the constellations of boots draco and ursa major and now these contain the stars beta Buddhists and.
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Chris Beckett: And some of the other stars in or some major and I did put a diagram here from I think this is from Wikipedia or somewhere and it kind of shows it sort of very loosely.
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Chris Beckett: drawn out doesn’t really look like a quadrant and I guess some of the stars are in Hercules even Hercules boots.
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Chris Beckett: Are some major draco kind of spans like you know sort of like the four corners and these these stars are not bright i’m not sure how they dream, this one up but I kind of want to go and chase it down if if you want.
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Chris Beckett: This was depicted in bodes eating when you’re in a graph via star atlas and.
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Chris Beckett: Anyhow, so it’s one of those little interesting constellations.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah this kind of need to the history of so many of these constellations that are no longer recognized is is pretty interesting sometimes.
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Shane Ludtke: You know and and I think a lot of people probably have done this multiple times in their lives or you look at the stars and you sort of create your own lines between them, and you know, sometimes your own constellations.
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Chris Beckett: yeah eventually it was trashed by the I you in around 1920 but if people want to learn more about this and other different constellations in red piff.
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Chris Beckett: Has it start hills book online or or it’s you know he’s broken it out into into web pages, and you can go to enrich pits COM star tales and quadrants is is one of them, he has tons of other constellations that these detail there as well, but yeah I mean you can go out.
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Chris Beckett: You know in in the early morning hours of January 3 and look off the handle of the big dipper and you might see.
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Chris Beckett: Some meteors I don’t know if I will be out that night I think then yeah that’s it’s very, very cold here and we’re under these extreme cold morning, so not not advisable to go running around in the prairie in the middle of the night.
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Shane Ludtke: Before, no, no it’s a it’s a little too cold for that kind of observing.
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yeah.
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Chris Beckett: But what happens that we will probably stand a better chance of seeing is a whole pile of these.
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Chris Beckett: I guess I guess parents of the moon and planet so starting with January thirds pairing of the moon and mercury, you can actually get both them in low power telescopes.
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Chris Beckett: or binoculars you just need to be able to get a bit of six degree field of view.
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Chris Beckett: I think this one might be a little bit on the tough side because the moon, is very, very slender so this, this will be, I think, as challenging.
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Chris Beckett: To see shane is your slender venusian crescent on the first impact it’s going to rival it, I think, for.
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Chris Beckett: For a challenge, but the moon will be almost directly below mercury on the third and you’d be able to get the moon just above the horizon.
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Chris Beckett: In your binoculars once you’re able to see mercury, this is going to be very brief observation rate as soon as after the sun goes down.
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Chris Beckett: You know sometime within that first hour after sunset and you always have to be a little bit careful, because when you’re when you’re observing mercury and Venus.
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Chris Beckett: Especially at this time there they’re going to be pretty close to the sun, so you have to you have to wait until after sunset your local time and then really.
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Chris Beckett: you’re going to need to probably another half hour so for the sky to get sufficiently dark to have any chance of actually sweeping them up, so we wait till that sun.
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Chris Beckett: Is down and then head out to nearby site with good horizons and by the time you get there might stand a chance of actually being able to pick up mercury and the moon that evening.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that would be pretty neat observation.
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Chris Beckett: yeah I think I said, our time at 5:46pm for being the time and when when we will have a shot.
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Chris Beckett: at getting those two but don’t fear, because the next night the moon and Saturn are going to pair up so if you miss the moon and mercury you can’t get it or it’s too low or clouds or whatever.
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Chris Beckett: you’re going to have a chance to see Saturn and the moon almost exactly six degrees apart for us anyway, it might be a little closer for for other people towards the East.
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Chris Beckett: But you’d be able to fit these into the same low power binocular field, and although sometimes like you’re not really going to see much in the way of detail it’s just really cool.
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Chris Beckett: To be able to see another planet and our moon and to kind of track it along so maybe there’s people out there that have never seen mercury.
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Chris Beckett: Before and certainly lots of people have seen her three before.
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Chris Beckett: You know that, on the third that moon is just going to be right below mercury and that’s going to be tough but mercury it’s going to be getting towards its greatest.
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Chris Beckett: Eastern elongation, so it is getting really high and it could prompt people to get out maybe try to track down, you can see, this beautiful line between Venus mercury Saturn.
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Chris Beckett: And Jupiter kind of making this switch in the in the evening sky.
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Chris Beckett: And then again if it’s cloudy or gold or whatever the following night we have Jupiter and the moon, and they just barely squeeze into a six degree field of view so you get this shot sort of night tonight tonight.
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Chris Beckett: Of the moon pairing up with mercury Saturn and then Jupiter and all after we try for that really difficult Venus crescent.
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Chris Beckett: But, but that first week of January it’s going to be a big planet Perry show and to be able to sort of plan of hop every night, including January 7 when we have that.
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Chris Beckett: greatest elongation East in the evening sky of mercury and that’s about now and sort of a boat, meaning that on a couple days or a few days and either side of the seventh you’ll have your best shot of seeing mercury.
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Chris Beckett: In the evening sky for for 2022 and this one should be pretty good, because of course here in the northern hemisphere anyway.
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Chris Beckett: The sun is setting super early so that means that, in the angle planets the sense that we have a good opportunity to see mercury Shan you’re going to try to get out and see mercury, on her about the seventh.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah you know if the weather cooperates in terms like like if if it’s clear for sure i’ll give it a try.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah because that’s fairly high in the sky for us actually as far as mercury goes.
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Chris Beckett: yeah I think I think it becomes visible when it’s still almost 10 degrees up so that’s that’s a pretty good that’s a pretty good shot there at being able to.
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Chris Beckett: Being able to see it needing sky think still around a quarter to six is when it should become visible i’ve been out a couple times and kind of making a bit of a plan and have have a spot picked out.
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Chris Beckett: still missing part of my tripod which is now buried in a field and snow somewhere, and I know exactly where it is.
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Chris Beckett: But it may be some months before i’m able to retrieve part of my tripod but i’m able to kind of sort of get it working and and hopefully still be able to get some observations and.
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Chris Beckett: Then coming up on January 8 to the 17th so I put this into kind of bracket it probably the best name is going to be the 12th but Saturn and mercury are going to be in the same binocular field for about a week or maybe even a little bit more, so this.
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Chris Beckett: will be kind of neat.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’ll be a really interesting observation of you know, an extremely distant planet and one that is very close to the sun.
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Chris Beckett: mm hmm yeah so kind of a bit mind bending when you think about it like that, because mercury.
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Shane Ludtke: Is the.
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Chris Beckett: closest planet to the sun, and of course Saturn being you know outside of the orbit of Jupiter you know and and our seventh planet or eighth planet don’t wait six planet from from this just talking about this live this isn’t in the notes or anything.
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Chris Beckett: But it’s it’s one of those things were just because they’re in really different parts for solar system doesn’t mean that the can occupy.
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Chris Beckett: A very similar area in the sky now this isn’t like a great conjunction or anything like that, but actually think seeing mercury and Saturn together in the same field of view.
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Chris Beckett: With that that’s going to be pretty interesting and I think they do get close enough i’m going to say about four degrees.
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Chris Beckett: might be able to get them in my 32 million or mass cma in my four inch telescope I think that would be pretty cool to see, but if, if not they’ll easily fit in in like my STD or a 16 millimeter wide field scope so so we’ll be able to get those together in the same field pretty neat.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah that’ll be a really cool observation.
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Chris Beckett: And then on kind of skipping around a little bit because that that sort of a week or so you’re probably best bet is sort of the night of the January 8.
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Chris Beckett: peaking on the 12th is is probably your best bet to see Saturn mercury in that seemed binocular field, but you have several days in reading, like the magazines and other things I see they’re just kind of focused on the 12th but.
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Chris Beckett: You know I ran the software simulation and it actually is, is a prolonged pairing is what i’m calling this the prolonged pairing of Saturn and mercury.
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Chris Beckett: So I think if people are aware of that it kind of gives them an opportunity to get out it’s not a it’s not a one night one shot kind of thing they never really get that close but they stay about that same four degree distance for for many, many nights.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah good to know.
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Chris Beckett: should be good lunar X visible on January 9 for all of North America.
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Shane Ludtke: Well that’s you know if anybody has not seen it that that’s a good thing to put on your list it’s pretty cool to see it it’s it’s a clear obscure effect so it’s not an actual.
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Shane Ludtke: Like it’s not an actual feature of the moon it’s just a shadow play with how the sun reflects off of some high points, and while the some low points are in shadow it stands out as this bright X right along the terminator and then, if you look.
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Shane Ludtke: I guess to the northern part of the moon you’ll see a lunar V as well on the.
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same.
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Chris Beckett: yeah pretty cool.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’m not sure if i’ll maybe i’ll try to get that night kind of hoping that we get into maybe the weather will warm up a little bit like I said.
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Chris Beckett: Like i’m good as long as it’s warmer than negative 28 with or without the windchill i’m i’m good but but really once you get much colder than that it just gets so cold so fast, so that.
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Chris Beckett: You know if it is like minus 28 here at my house with a little bit of wind it’s usually minus 35 and then, if I go to the observing site then it’s minus 37 or minus 40 so it it just so so quickly gets.
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Chris Beckett: very dangerous the cold and right now it’s so cold here that when you ask Google the temperature which i’m not going to do, because she’ll she’ll chime in here.
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Chris Beckett: But she won’t even give you the windshield typically she does but it’s so cold all she does is tell you to knock out do not go outside it’s too dangerous.
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Chris Beckett: Basically yeah usually should give the windshield but then actually just saying there’s an extreme cold morning so well.
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Chris Beckett: The lunar is true, I have you ever seen the Lunar straight while you’ve seen this I mean.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah that’s another really neat thing to observe.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s only visible at certain points in the month because you need a shadow cast from this Ridge that exists on the moon.
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Shane Ludtke: And through a photograph it’s kind of jagat and it’s got some kind of bends in it.
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Shane Ludtke: But through a telescope it looks like this inky black you know straight line and it’s quite large it’s quite extensive and again this is another one of.
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Shane Ludtke: These interesting lunar features that is a bit of a clear obscure effect in terms of you know you need the right lighting to see it.
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Shane Ludtke: This this this features is pretty cool so if you’ve not seen this one it’s another one that I would highly recommend.
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Chris Beckett: And this is going to be on January 11 I mean it’s like pausing and like January terribly pretending with January already, but on January 11 of this lunar street well, it will be visible and it’s it’s a rufus Rector.
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Chris Beckett: Is up yes cool yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and it’s a.
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Chris Beckett: it’s a fault line and.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it’s it’s pretty neat and like I say it’s, it is quite long I don’t know, do you have any fault length 110 kilometers.
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wow.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and like a lot of the craters that you’ll see depending on your aperture like the diameter of some craters are 20 to 30 kilometers so you know something that’s 110 kilometers really, really stands out as a large feature.
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Chris Beckett: hmm wow that’s pretty cool so with with both the with both the Lunar street Wall and the letter X.
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Chris Beckett: I wonder, can you see those in binoculars or are these telescopic features i’ve seen them in telescopes.
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Chris Beckett: But I don’t think i’ve ever seen them in binoculars for any gift if they’re binocular visible you’re going to need like a like a fairly large ish binocular tripod mount and kind of deal I guess.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’s a good question Chris you know if it’s clear and i’m observing that night i’ll try my 12 by 36 is to see if I can pull it in my guess is you’ll need a little more aperture but you never know until you try and, to be honest i’ve never tried so i’m not sure.
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Chris Beckett: You know I looked up really quick like in our local sky news magazine here in Canada, so, as you can see them in high power binoculars so kind of.
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Chris Beckett: Just what I just said so yeah i’d be i’d be curious i’d be curious to hear if you can actually see those in your because you have 12 by 36 hours which.
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Chris Beckett: they’re not you know large and aperture but they’re decent and power, and you have the stabilizing feature there, so I think that’d be a good test just just to see if, if that is visible i’d be i’d be interested to know.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah i’ll give it a try, if it’s clear.
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Chris Beckett: yeah it’s both 300 meters high oh don’t fall off.
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Chris Beckett: If you visit the moon watch out for that.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah maybe there’s a railing there to protect you.
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Chris Beckett: yeah talk about one small step, a.
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Chris Beckett: bad joke there Okay, I guess it’s like a giant cliff then.
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Shane Ludtke: So yeah.
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yeah.
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Chris Beckett: Maybe i’m reading some people say it’s more of a gradual grade some people say it’s kind of like cliff, I guess, I guess, just like the angle of it or something that makes it makes it look steeper but maybe you would tumble down, more so than just just sort of fall off into the abyss.
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Chris Beckett: hmm interesting just kind of reading a little bit about it but anyway we’ll we’ll move ahead we’ll move ahead to January.
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Chris Beckett: So January 12 what is happening on January false chain.
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Shane Ludtke: will move our moon and.
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Shane Ludtke: Money minor is series of minor planet, or just.
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Shane Ludtke: It is yeah yeah.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, so yeah it sort of has transitioned.
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Chris Beckett: from being an asteroid to Meijer planet at some point in time, I think it’s gotten back and forth.
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Chris Beckett: A little bit, but it’s now seen as a minor planet.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah cool so so series is something we’ve been talking about for a few weeks on the podcast since I think the beginning of December, but on January 12 series passes within two degrees of the moon.
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Shane Ludtke: And it gets I think even closer for people that are further east than us on the planet Earth, so if you haven’t seen series, yet this is a great opportunity to find it because the moon, is a good anchor object to kind of base your observation from.
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Shane Ludtke: And if you’re going to try this observation and just know that series will appear stellar it will look like a star.
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Shane Ludtke: But if you come back you know if you observe it early in the evening and then note it’s positioned amongst the star field and come back, maybe at the end of the night, or even the next day.
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Shane Ludtke: You might notice that it’s shifted a little bit compared to the background stars and anyway it’s a great opportunity to observe a minor planet.
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Chris Beckett: yeah probably even if you started early enough in the evening.
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Chris Beckett: The moon’s up moons up and good at sunset that night pretty much.
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Chris Beckett: you’d be able to probably detect that motion of series of course than ever, but that.
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Chris Beckett: image that Stephen had sent us there back in late November early December and had plotted it even over the course of just just I think was like two or three hours or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: And you could actually see that that motion and when it’s when it’s when series is going to be near something like the moon in the sky is going to be rotating a bit to SIP to kind of take that into account, but.
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Chris Beckett: You should kind of be able to see them sort of past one another you’d be able to detect some significant motion there between the moon and series moving across the sky would be pretty cool to see, I think.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure.
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Chris Beckett: January 13 asteroid iris is an opposition and magnitude 7.7 in Gemini so it sort of rate on that canis minor Gemini border border region and it’s coming in at magnitude 7.7 so that I think that places it well within binocular range, I think, even from the city thing.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure.
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Shane Ludtke: Very accessible to a lot of folks definitely need optics of some kind, and same approach observe it sketch its position, what you think is iris sketch its position versus the background stars and then come back hours later, or a night or two later and see if it’s moved.
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Chris Beckett: And one of the cool things about this, and one of the places that i’ve gone when we were laying this out is to try to put stuff in here.
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Chris Beckett: That you and I can see quickly when it is so cold through our equipment and then also we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from our listeners who who have gone out and and who go out and observe these.
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Chris Beckett: Minor planets and and watch them traverse the skies and sketch them and just just observe them in general, which is, which is really cool so if it’s something maybe that you as a listener haven’t attempted yet.
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Chris Beckett: This can kind of be a new thing to try, especially in the winter, if you live somewhere.
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Chris Beckett: Like us, that gets very cold and you, you need to you know get that astronomy fix in you just want to do something really quick, maybe, something you haven’t haven’t really done before.
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Chris Beckett: structure observing legs, a little bit hunting down something like this is a good place to start because.
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Chris Beckett: You should be able to do a pretty pretty quick and easy make your observation, then get out a few nights later and make it again.
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Chris Beckett: And even if it is like pretty cold, this is something you should be able to do you know, like 15 or 20 minutes Max kind of thing that that’s, all I can handle on these temperature machines so hey I was just wondering, are you able to put these these images up on our show notes.
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Shane Ludtke: Will that work it yeah so so every month when we do the objects to observe I put I put.
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Shane Ludtke: Basically, everything we’re talking about including the Finder charts will be uploaded to actual astronomy calm no membership is required, you can just go there download it and then you have all these references, if you wish to observe any of this stuff.
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Shane Ludtke: And also, if you want, you can sign up just to receive notifications of when we post something new, we don’t do anything with the information it’s really.
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Shane Ludtke: Just sort of a convenience thing if, if you want it.
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Shane Ludtke: We don’t post show notes for every episode, but certainly this one we do.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, very cool and thank you for doing that chain clearly you’re the one that does this and and and I appreciate it or listeners appreciate that as well.
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Chris Beckett: And I make the the finer charts up using sky surprised when I was looking at this.
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Chris Beckett: There is, there are some notes in sky safari and this one says that iris is the fourth brightest objects in the asteroid belt, and it is the seventh asteroid ever discovered identified on August 13 and I looked it up, I think that was that was also a Friday.
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Shane Ludtke: really interesting I think so.
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Chris Beckett: In 1847 video in English astronomer at G or hint of hinz variable nebula fame and I remember that from when we did our episode on minor planets and asteroids that you can see, and we actually.
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Chris Beckett: talked about this a few months ago, sorry I just banged my head knows that against my microphone there, so there might be a bit of a bump.
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Chris Beckett: and ask asteroid iris is named after the Greek rainbow goddess and attendance to hero, and so this is particularly fitting is Juno is the Roman version of the goddess of here and iris was first discovered following.
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Chris Beckett: Three Juno that asteroid but less than an hour of right Ascension so iris is regularly coming within about point four astronomical units of Mars.
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Chris Beckett: it’s well tilted at 85 degrees, and that means that nearly a whole hemisphere, of the asteroid receives constant daylight or constant darkness for an entire season, so the surface of iris.
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Chris Beckett: Experiences extreme temperature differences in the asteroid is probably composed of nickel iron metals magnesium and iron silicate iris is about 200 kilometers in diameter so that’s pretty big.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah that’s a good size for for something in the asteroid belt.
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Chris Beckett: yeah pretty neat, so I think i’m going to try to i’m trying to trying to go take a look at these these asteroids is one of my job’s is the REC observers calendar editor.
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Chris Beckett: I i’ve come to know that there’s stuff that that in the observers calendar which is stuff that I typically don’t observe so i’m trying to.
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Chris Beckett: take on some of these things as my own sort of observing project because I kind of feel like I can’t I can’t be putting stuff in that I never really.
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Chris Beckett: Gone and observed as much myself, although, to be honest, I I usually do track down a couple asteroids everyone Swann when they’re they’re particularly well, please so.
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Chris Beckett: we’re losing Comet Leonard but we’re gaining Comet P 19 braley shane how bright is this going to get.
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Shane Ludtke: Let me.
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Shane Ludtke: get further down there.
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Chris Beckett: somewhere.
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Shane Ludtke: In there yeah so right right now it’s about nine and a half to 10 is what one of our or what Charles one of our listeners that indicated.
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Shane Ludtke: I don’t see where you got it in the notes here.
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Chris Beckett: I think its.
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Chris Beckett: way yeah sorry its way down there, I think, somehow it got it got pushed down to the bottom it’s it’s 9.5 but it’s brightening and I think it’s going to get up to maybe 7.9 or so so that’s going to place it well within the range of up and on.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and the nice thing, especially for us northern hemisphere people is that it’s not on the horizon, this one is is much higher up in the sky, which will make it.
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Shane Ludtke: Hopefully easier to observe, because the downside to Leonard was that it was so low on the horizon at sunset that it really was lost in the twilight khloe you really couldn’t visually observe it I don’t even know if you could photograph it but.
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Shane Ludtke: You know Leonard was more of a morning object.
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Shane Ludtke: Whereas, this will be should be easily observable in the evening, as long as it’s clear.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and.
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Chris Beckett: i’m excited to see this one, because it’s sitting pretty much read between Neptune.
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Chris Beckett: And uranus it’s in I think it’s in the constellation of setups the whale but it’s sitting right between status and and pisces so it’s sort of read in that in that border land and.
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Chris Beckett: Maybe it will grow a tail I don’t know I know I know trial said it was it was getting fairly bright, he was able to well see it at 100 power in his sixth century factor.
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Chris Beckett: And so i’m thinking that that by middle of next month, probably what was the date that I promise I put January 20 on is kind of the date that i’m picking for when it kind of should be getting to towards its best because.
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Chris Beckett: it’s going to be brightening up to that point, you know I don’t think I did put in the magnitude on here, but I did I did look it up, and it was like seven seven or seven nine or 7.7 or 7.9.
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Chris Beckett: By that point in time, so I think that that will be well well visible there shane so yeah so what size telescope would be best used to view this and what are some tips for people to to try to enable them to see Comet braley.
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Shane Ludtke: will probably you know any telescope will will work, you know I think anything 50 millimeters and up an aperture will will work.
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Shane Ludtke: Usually to sweep in a Comet having a little bit of a wider field of view is kind of Nice, so I would recommend, starting with some wide field, I pieces and then, once you see it, you can you know, increase the magnification.
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Shane Ludtke: If you would like just to see how it changes.
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Shane Ludtke: But when it comes to comments, especially ones that are naked eye visible.
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Shane Ludtke: The more aperture you have sometimes the better, especially to take in any of the faint tail that might exist or or the coma around the nucleus more aperture will reveal more detail on these things so there’s a I would say, take as much telescope as you got.
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Chris Beckett: One thing that’s need if if people kind of when people go to go to observe your sermon just just after I think like about 117 years after its discovery.
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Chris Beckett: was discovered by Alphonse braley atmar sign on December 28 1904 so you could go chain we’re gonna we have this information ahead of time, so we could go out here, in the next few nights on Tuesday night, you could observe that, on the anniversary of its discovery that’d be cool.
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Shane Ludtke: That would be pretty neat actually yeah.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so let’s see it’s it’s kind of coming and gone and, as far as close approaches to Jupiter goes and that’s kind of moved its orbit a little bit it had a close approach to Jupiter several close approaches in.
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Chris Beckett: and
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Chris Beckett: And, and then six close approaches to earth, followed by to further closer approaches to Jupiter.
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Chris Beckett: And these were in about 1936 and 1972 so it’s kind of moved around a little bit and what’s neat about comma Bradley is, I think this was the one that the deep space one impactor flew into back in 2001.
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Chris Beckett: And it was it was steered towards the content and and and you know they took a look at it for a while, so.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, just just kind of neat Bradley seems to be broken into two pieces in Canada about 15 degrees so has sort of these two Bowling pin.
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Chris Beckett: Type extensions to it so anyway yeah pretty pretty neat common people take a look at it’s about eight kilometers by four kilometers and yeah it’s it’s gonna be well worth taking a peek at it, as it brightens up towards the end of January, I think.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah hopefully we can get out and get some observations of it.
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Chris Beckett: sort of getting towards the end of the month January 29 we have the morning sky swoosh of the planets, which is the moon Mars Venus lined up in the dawn and you were saying that the Venus is going to show a 14% Crescent, but at this point in time, I think.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah by the end of the month, it should be at 14%.
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Chris Beckett: And then we have this pairing on that 29th of the moon very, very thin crescent moon and Mars, and I think they’re all going to be about four degrees apart in the sky easily fit in that sort of six degree.
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Chris Beckett: field of view that I that I set up in sky safari there so as as the moon rises and joins MARS and Venus in the sky it’s gonna be very, very close tomorrow should be pretty cool to see.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and and one thing to add about Mars, is that 2022 is the.
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Shane Ludtke: good year for Mars so every two years it gets closer to earth and that’s when we do a lot of Mars observing.
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Shane Ludtke: So I believe Mars reaches opposition or its closest point to us in.
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Shane Ludtke: December of this of 2022 and you know if there’s any passionate Mars observers out there it’s really cool to start observing Mars as early as you can and then watch it grow throughout the year.
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Shane Ludtke: And then also you know, have a real good log of all of the detail that you can see in the evolving polar caps and all of that kind of stuff so.
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Shane Ludtke: i’m excited for this, because this is really kicking off kind of the MARS observing season.
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Chris Beckett: yeah should be should be interesting yeah i’m really excited looking forward another myers opposition really enjoyed observing it from a four inch telescope last October, not this past October, but just over a year and a bit ago.
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Chris Beckett: During its last opposition this one’s not quite as good as that one but it’s but it’s going to be pretty decent when I think.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it’ll be well placed in the sky, for us, you know when the planets are visible in the wintertime they’re quite high, which means we we don’t have the as much atmosphere to deal with so i’m excited for it.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and let’s see, we have a couple more comments that are visible not super bright, we have we talked with comment Leonard which is, which is fading I think some.
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Chris Beckett: Estimates recently were a little bit brighter than forth many do you think it was put forth many to when I last saw it, but the middle of December.
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Chris Beckett: it’s feeding now it’s very low in the evening sky, some people have been lucky enough to make quite a few observations about which is, which is cool have Comet l three atlas.
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Chris Beckett: Which is steady around that ninth magnitude or so best in the morning sky we’re using i’m using data from the common observations site that clubs si.
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Chris Beckett: That seems you pretty good good spot to kind of get a get an overview there so put that in the show notes be be appreciated, then we have that 67 P and trim off.
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Chris Beckett: juris minkoff, which is that that comment that they think they tried to Atlanta rosetta on that time.
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Chris Beckett: And again it’s it’s about nine half magnitude but it’s but it’s fading and then we have comma brother, which is, which is brightening it’s going to get a boat.
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Chris Beckett: Maybe as much as too many to brighter than it is now and getting up into that 792 range is kind of the magical range because that’s when it gets placed into into binoculars.
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Chris Beckett: into the visibility of handheld binocular range for for backyard astronomers that’s when things start to get pretty exciting is is once we.
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Chris Beckett: get into seventh magnitude so but I don’t think it’s going to get much greater than seventh magnitude of though comments never cease to amaze and surprising.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’s they’re super unpredictable you never know what they will do you never know how bright or not bright, they will get so that’s part of the fun you just observe them and see what they do.
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Chris Beckett: yeah cool well do you have anything else anything else to add to this to this episode.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no that’s everything.
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Chris Beckett: yeah well thanks shane and thanks everybody for listening be sure to subscribe to actual astronomy in your pod catching software and that we’re always excited.
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Chris Beckett: to receive your observations and emails to actual astronomy at gmail COM thanks again shane and thanks again to everybody for listening.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Planetary Science Institute. Audio post-production by Richard Drumm. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes.
This show is made possible thanks to the generous donations of people like you! Please consider supporting to our show on Patreon.com/365DaysofAstronomy and get access to bonus content.
After 10 years, the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast is poised to enter its second decade of sharing important milestone in space exploration and astronomy discoveries. Join us and share your story. Until tomorrow! Goodbye!