Archive for month: November, 2014

Focus Constellations: Cassiopeia, Perseus, Taurus, Auriga, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, Cepheus, Lyra, Cygnus, Aquarius, Pegasus, Pisces, Andromeda

Comet Journal

C/2012 K1 (PanSTARRS) has maintained a 6 to 7 magnitude since passing perihelion in August. After the 1st of the year it will rapidly decrease in brightness as it moves deeper into southern hemisphere skies then outward toward the outer solar system. By the summer of 2015 it will dim to 14th magnitude.

The next relatively bright comet is C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) which may reach naked eye visibility in January. It was discovered in August, will pass perihelion in January and is currently 9th magnitude in Puppis in southern hemisphere skies. It is moving northwestward and should arrive in northern hemisphere skies southwest of Taurus in January.

Comet C/2013 A1 (SIDING SPRING) has moved beyond perihelion and has decreased to 11th magnitude. It is going to stay close to the western horizon as it moves passed Ophiuchus and toward Hercules in the next few months as it continues northward toward the Oort Belt.

Mars Landers

Opportunity’s flash memory system was reformatted between August 20th and September 9th after which the rover embarked on a drive to a small crater slightly over 200 feet away called Ulysses. During the drive on Sol 3780 (Sept. 11, 2014), Opportunity experienced 3 flash memory amnesia events and two flash write errors which were considered to be relatively benign. The approach to the rim of the crater was halted by slippage on Sol 3791 (Sept. 22, 2014) causing the rover to change course and direct attention to numerous nearby surface targets in the ejecta field of the crater while experiencing intermittent benign flash amnesia events. As of Sol 3812 (Oct. 14, 2014), the rover was in good health except for the amnesia events which are still being investigated. Solar energy was maintained between 650 and 600 watt hours per day throughout the interval.

Ulysses Crater is punched into the southern end of a 500 foot long by 40 foot high ridge of ejecta material subparallel to and 600 feet away from Endeavor Crater’s western edge. Ejecta blasted out during the impact which formed Endeavor Crater makes up the large variety of rocks representing numerous layers of the terrain which preceded the impact. Ulysses Crater and its surrounding ejecta provides a convenient sampling of the varied rocks comprising Wdowiak Ridge.

On Sept. 19th Curiosity arrived at an outcrop called Pahrump Hills of the Murray formation, the basal geological unit of Mt. Sharp, the layered mountain in the center of Gale Crater. Three days later, the rover completed a “mini-drill” procedure at the selected drilling target, Confidence Hills, and determined that the rock was suitable for drilling.

The thinly laminated, mudcracked Murray Formation mudstone has resistant materials residing in cracks. They occur both as discrete clusters and as dendrites, where forms are arranged in treelike branching. Investigation of the shapes and chemical ingredients in these features may yield information about ancient composition of fluids at this location. The rock drilled here is softer and may contain more clay than any of the previous three targets where Curiosity collected drilled samples for analysis.

Previous rocks examined were primarily pebble conglomerates and sandstones with cross bedding evidence of deposition by flowing water. However the chemistry of these rocks is very similar to the basaltic source rocks crystallizing from volcanic lavas. Almost all rocks examined so far are sedimentary, the products of weathering, erosion, and deposition by water currents, processes which on Earth alter the basaltic chemistry of source rocks by removing sodium, calcium, magnesium, and iron ions in solution and transporting them far from where the coarser sands and pebbles are deposited. Why are the sedimentary rocks of Mars so basaltic? Was the transportation by water so sporadic and rapid that the fluids didn’t have enough time to work their magic? Clay is carried farther than sand or pebbles. If the soft rocks are found to be more enriched in the ions above which are transported even farther, answers to part of the puzzle may emerge.

Meteor Showers

The primary meteor shower of November and of the year is the Leonid Meteor Shower which lasts from the 6th to the 30th. Even though it peaks in the early evening of the 17th, you may find that meteor frequency is similar in the predawn and evening hours of the 17th and the predawn hours of the 18th. Meteor frequency is enhanced during the predawn hours because observers are facing in the direction of Earth’s orbital motion as it plunges headlong through the river of debris remaining from previous passages of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle which circuits the Sun every 33 years and last passed by the Sun in February of 1998.

The Comet was independently discovered to be a periodic comet by Ernst Tempel on December 19, 1865 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on January 6, 1866. More recently, astronomers have determined it to be the comet observed by Gottfried Kirch in 1699 and was probably the Great Comet of 1366 which skirted passed Earth at a distance of slightly over 2 million miles. Anecdotal accounts trace its passages back as far as 902 A.D (the Arabic “Year of the Stars”).

The ancient comet’s nucleus is currently thought to have a radius of over one mile. In the 19 passages by the Sun since 1366, it has dispersed copious quantities of gas, ice, and dust along its orbit as it circuited by the Sun. Each November, Earth dives though this debris producing numerous fireballs and meteors from the pea size and smaller particles which blast into our atmosphere at speeds approaching 44 miles per second. As the slam into the air, it is heated to incandescence, producing the luminous trails of glowing gas. Occasionally, Earth may plunge into particularly dense regions of the debris river and experience meteor storms with hundreds, thousands, or 100’s of thousands of meteors per hour such as occurred in 1799, 1833, 1866, 1965 and the 1999, 2001 and 2002 stretch when rates reached more than 1000 per hour.

The apparent 33 year interval of meteor storms closely approximates perihelion times for the comet.

Planet Plotting

The evening planets of November are Mars, Neptune, and Uranus. Mars (+0.9 to +1.0) in Sagittarius is well positioned in the southwestern sky after sunset in November. It sets about three hours after the Sun. It dims slightly during the month as its apparent diameter is reduced from 5.5 to 5.1 arcseconds. Neptune (+7.9 in Aquarius) and Uranus (+5.7 in PIsces) are visible in the south and southeast respectively after sunset and set before dawn.

Saturn, Venus, Mercury and the Sun appear to play tag in Libra in the sunset and sunrise skies. Saturn is at Solar Conjunction on the 18th and is lost in the glow of sunset and dawn all month. At the beginning of November it sets less than an hour after the Sun and is already buried in the sunset for naked eye observers. It will reappear before sunrise at month’s end and will be within 2° of Mercury on the 25th when neither is visible in the glow of the rising Sun. By the 30th, it rises an hour ahead of the Sun and is more easily seen.

Like Saturn, Venus is too close to the Sun to see in November. After passing through Superior Conjunction on Oct. 25th, it sets about 10 minutes after the Sun at the beginning of the month and will remain low in the west southwest throughout November. It will appear higher in the evening sky in December.

Mercury presents its best morning apparition of the year as it moves through Virgo, Libra, and into Scorpius while brightening from -0.6 to -1.1 in the east-southeast sky before sunrise during the last week of October and the first half of November.

Jupiter (-2.1 to -2.2) in Leo is a morning planet. It rises about 1AM before the transition to standard time and at 10PM EST by the end of the month and is the brightest planet in the night skies.

Planet……Constellation……Magnitude……Planet Passages

Sun…..Virgo,Scorpius……-26.8…………New Moon, ………………………………………………………11/22, 7:32AM EST Mercury..Virgo,Libra,Scorpius..-0.6 to-1.1..Max. West. Elong. …………………………………………………………11/1, 9AM EDT ………………………………………………………..Saturn, 1.6° NNE, …………………………………………………………11/25, 7PM EST
Venus..Libra,Scorpius,Ophiuchus..-4.0/-3.9..Saturn, 1.5° NNE ………………………………………………………….11/12, 7PM EST
Mars……..Sagittarius……………+0.9 to +1.0
Jupiter…..Leo………………………-2.1 to -2.2
Saturn…..Libra…………………….+0.5…………Solar Conjunction ………………………………………………………….11/18, 4AM EST
Uranus….Pisces…………+5.7
Neptune…Aquarius…….+7.9

November Moon

The New Moon of October 23rd at 5:57PM EDT marked the start of Lunation 1136 which ends 29.57 days later with the New Moon of November 22nd at 7:32AM EST.

The Full Moon of November in Aries on the 6th at 5:23PM EST is the “Frosty or Beaver Moon.” Colonial Americans used the latter term whereas Celts called it the “Dark Moon” and to Medieval English, it was “Snow Moon.” Chinese call it “White Moon” and Anishnaabe (Odawa and Ojibwe) of northern Michigan call it “Gashkadino-giizis(oog)” (Freezing Moon). In his 2014 Astronomical Calendar, Guy Ottewell quotes Bede as saying that pre-Christian English heathens called it the “Blood Moon” because “they sacrificed to their gods the animals they killed” (for winter food and to save on winter fodder).

The Moon is nearest (perigee) in its orbit (228,589 miles or 57.68 Earth Radii) on November 2nd at 7:29PM EST. Apogee distance (maximum distance) is 251,243 miles (63.39 Earth Radii) from Earth on the 14th at 8:56PM EST. The Moon again reaches perigee at 6:12PM EST on the 27th at a distance of 229,800 miles or 57.99 Earth Radii.

Planet..Constellation..Magnitude..Moon Passage..Moon ……………………………………………………………Phase/Age

Sun…….Virgo……-26.8…………………7:32AM EST, 11/22 ……………………………………………………..New ~ 0 days Mercury..Libra…..-0.9……………..2.1°NNE, 3PM EST, 11/21 ………………………………………..Waning Crescent ~ 28.88 days Venus…..Virgo…..-3.9……………….3.9°N, 9PM EST, 11/22 …………………………………………Waxing Crescent ~ 0.31 days
Mars…Sagittarius..+1.0………………..7.0°N, 5AM EST, 11/26 ………………………………………….Waxing Crescent ~ 4.16 days Jupiter….Leo……….-2.1………….5.0°S, 1PM EST, 11/14 ………………………………………….Waning Crescent ~ 21.79 days Saturn…..Libra……+0.5……………1.66°NNW, 11PM EST, 11/21 ………………………………………….Waning Crescent ~ 29.21 days Uranus….Pisces…..+5.7……………….1.3°N, 1PM EST, 11/04 …………………………………………..Waxing Gibbous ~ 11.79 days Neptune..Aquarius..+7.9…………….5.0°N, Midnight EDT, 11/1 …………………………………………..Waxing Gibbous ~ 8.25 days Neptune..Aquarius..+7.9………………4.0°N, 4AM EST, 11/29 …………………………………………..Waxing Crescent ~ 7.42 days