The Night Sky Guy

Tonight: Moon Hangs out with Planets

Face the western horizon at dusk today and use the Moon to locate Venus and Mercury

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Tonight: Moon Meets with Planets

Check out the striking waxing crescent Moon in the western horizon at dusk tonight as it huddles together with Venus and Mercury for a beautiful sky show. Try using binoculars to spot Mercury more easily.

Thursday evening Moon/Planet alignment; Click image to enlarge

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Mercury and Venus at their Best

Mercury and Venus together; Click image to enlarge

A great Easter holiday treat for skywatchers will be the two innermost planets in the solar system dominating the evening skies for the next week or so.  Planets Venus and Mercury will be appearing together in the western twilight sky 30 to 60 minutes after sunset. Venus will be the brighter of the two and the easiest to spot with the naked-eye. Make sure you have a clear view of the low western horizon so that you can find the planets.

Mercury is usually quite a challenge to spot because of its proximity to the Sun’s glare, but Venus will act as a great guidepost to finding the innermost planet in the sky. The cosmic duo will appear their closest together (conjunction) from Saturday through Monday (Apr.5); only 3 degrees apart -that is equal to 6 full moon disks.

If you have a small telescope you can easily see the disks of these neighboring worlds. Mercury will appear smaller than Venus, but will look more interesting through the eyepiece because it will resemble a miniature crescent Moon. It;s appearance is caused by the planets position in its orbit around the Sun in relation to Earth.

Sky and Telescope editors point out that this apparent proximity between the worlds is really an optical illusion. “Although the two planets appear close together, they’re not. Venus is about 1.5 times farther away. On April 3rd Mercury and Venus are 94 million and 146 million miles from Earth, respectively. That means it takes their light 8.4 and 13 minutes to reach us.”

For more details on this cool planetary alignment read my National Geographic story

Don’t  forget you can always get late-breaking stargazing news anytime by following me on Twitter and Facebook, or get  email alerts sent directly to your inbox

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Gotcha Lil’ Mercury!

I actually braved the crazy cold weather in Montreal to catch Mercury on film. Caught both the Moon and the little planet super low to the horizon! Took this photo at 5 pm with 1.5 second exposure using a Canon TX-1.  If you can, get out side and check out the most elusive of all classical naked-eye planets for yourself!

Crescent Moon and Mercury Friday night in the western sky

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Moon Matchup at Dusk

Moon points to Mercury Friday at dusk; click image to enlarge

Since ancient times astronomers have known of five planets that are visible to the unaided eye. Four of them are fairly easy targets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) even for newbies to find in the sky, but  little ole Mercury can be quite a challenge most of the time. That’s because it is so close to the Sun the innermost planet is lost in its glare. 

But tomorrow at dusk Mercury will be at its greatest elongation – about as far away from the Sun in the sky it can get – about 20 degrees, making it easier to track down. As added help the Moon will act as a great guidepost to finding Mercury too, being only 1.4 degrees south of the faint planet.  Best time to look for the pair is at your local dusk tomorrow, looking towards the low southwest horizon. The razor thin crescent moon should be your first target and then once you have found it, scan the sky about 3 full Moon disk to the lower right to find the faint star-like Mercury. Binoculars will really help in spotting the planet but it should clearly pop into view if you are looking in the right place in the sky.  BTW – if it’s mind-numbing cold where you are – like here in Montreal (- 19) then you can try catching the show looking through your home window – both objects should be bright enough to see – only remember you really need a clear line of sight towards the SW horizon. If you get clouded out friday Mercury will still be well placed for a few days thereafter.Good luck planet hunting!

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Worlds Gather in the Morning Sky

Thursday at, Saturn dawn

If you can wake up before sunrise tomorrow (Friday) morning then look towards the low eastern horizon to see a clustering of planets and the Moon. Use the thin waning crescent Moon as a guidepost to help find three planets, Venus, Mercury, and Saturn. Easiest to spot will be Venus, also known as the ‘morning star’ – it is the brightest of the three star-like planets. The goddess of love will be located just to the upper left of the Moon. Dimmer Saturn will be to the upper right of Venus.

Draw an imaginary line down through these planets, towards the horizon and you will meet up with much fainter Mercury. While the planets will be visible with just the unaided eye, binoculars will help in initially spotting Mercury which is never far from the glare of the rising Sun.

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New Weather Network Episode

Check out this week’s new Night Sky show episode taped this Friday.

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Mercury in Morning Spotlight

Saturday morning; Click to Enlarge

Check out the innermost planet in the solar system with the unaided eye as it rises to its best morning showing for 2009. Little Mercury will be at its greatest elongation – or farthest away from the Sun it can get from our vantage point. This means that the planet will be the easiest to spot, especially for casual skywatchers because it will be higher up in the eastern sky, away from the glare of the rising Sun. Mercury is quite a tricky target to obseve, especially for beginner stargazers because it is never far away from the Sun. It is also a small planet, only one-and-a-half times larger than our own moon and orbits our star in just 3 months.

If you face towards the eastern sky at dawn over the course of the next week, you get a three-for-one planetary deal with Venus,  Mercury and Saturn. The three planets will actually line up diagonally in the sky this weekend. Venus will be the brightest and highest up the sky of the trio and so the easiest to spot.  

Oct.8; click to enlarge

By Tuesday, October 6th Mercury will officially reach greatest elongation west at 18 degrees- meaning it will be about 36 full moon disks away from the Sun in the sky. This elongation for Mercury is not the best ever – it can be as much as 27 degrees. The next time this happens is the evening of August 7, 2010 when it will be 27.4 degrees.

Not to be missed, on Thursday, October 8th, (image left) Mercury will have a spectacularly close conjunction with planet Saturn . The pair will only be 0.3 degrees apart – that is about the same width as the quarter Moon in the sky. Of course the two planets are much farther apart in space – about 1.4 billion km to be exact. Binoculars or telescopes, will show off the pair even better revealing both worlds as disks with Saturn presenting its razor thin rings.

Editor’s Note: Want to get an idea of the major stargazing highlights in store for October? Then check out the newest video diary feature you will find on my Sky Tonight page, courtesy of folks at NASA.  So stop by at the beginning of every month for the latest editions. Also don’t forget that at the top of the same Sky Tonight page, right above the video, you will find a brief calendar highlighting what’s happening in the skies just in the upcoming few days. A great way to plan your skywatching sessions.

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Seeing the Previously Unseen

Click image to Enlarge

Yesterday, as the MESSENGER spacecraft approached Mercury for the mission’s third flyby of the Solar System’s innermost planet, it captured this striking view  (image on right). This image shows portions of Mercury’s surface that had remained unseen by spacecraft even after the three flybys by Mariner 10 in 1974-75 and MESSENGER’s two earlier flybys in 2008. In this image, just returned to Earth early this morning, the newly imaged terrain is located in a wide vertical strip near the limb of the planet (on the left side of Mercury’s partially sunlit disk). This image is just one of 11 taken through the camera’s narrow-band color filters, and this set of images will be used to examine color differences on Mercury’s surface and to learn about the evolution of crustal rocks on the planet.

In this image below, Mercury’s northern horizon cuts a crisp line against the blackness of space. The surface in the lower right corner of the image is near Mercury’s terminator, the line between the light dayside and dark night side of the planet. Looking toward the horizon, smooth plains extend for large distances, similar to volcanic plains seen nearby during MESSENGER’s second flyby of Mercury. Members of the MESSENGER Science Team are gathered today at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, discussing these high-resolution images in detail.

Click to enlarge

-Announcement and photos courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

 For more info on MESSENGER probe visit the official mission website.

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David and Goliath Meet Tonight

While Saturn is the second largest world in our solar system, Mercury is the smallest planet, making for an odd pair indeed. If you have clear skies towards the very low western horizon just after sunset then you can catch sight of two extreme planets in one view. 

The Lord of the Rings, Saturn,  will be located only 3 degrees apart - 6 Moon disks – from the innermost planet, Mercury. 

Try using a pair of binoculars to hunt them down in the glare of the sunset. But be quick because the pair will sink VERY quickly – within an hour.

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