Sunday: Saturn,
Mars, and Antares make an equilateral triangle about a fist and a half above
the south-southwest horizon at 9 p.m. Mars, the brightest of the three objects,
is on the right hand side and Saturn is on the top.
Monday: Let’s
all sing the galactic black hole monster song: “D is for dusty, that’s good
enough for me. D is for dusty that’s good enough for me. D is for dusty that’s
good enough for me. Oh dusty, dusty, dusty starts with D.” Astronomers know
that spiral galaxies such as our own have super massive black holes in the
center, black holes that are billions of times the mass of the Sun. They
thought they got to be this massive by mergers where two galaxies collide and
the gas, dust and black holes at the center of each colliding galaxy form a
larger central black hole. But many distant galaxies show no signs of galactic
mergers. Astronomers think the black holes at the center of these galaxies grew
simply by snacking on the gas and dust that comes from supernova explosions and
normal star formation. Just like the Cookie Monster gains weight by snacking on
individual cookies rather than eating a cookie factory. Cookie crumbs, I mean
dust, block your view of the center of our galaxy. It is about one fist above due south at 10 p.m., between the
constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/L9ppJf.
Tuesday: Hit
the road Mercury. And don’t you come back no more, no more. For a few weeks,
Mercury has been hitting the road and moving away from the Sun in the sky.
Today, Mercury is as far away from the Sun as it will get on the evening half
of this cycle. This is known as its greatest eastern elongation. Yet, this
distance does not translate into good viewing because Mercury will be very low
in the sky…. Wait a minute. Look back at the April 16, 2016 entry of this
column. I wrote the exact same thing. Am I just lazy, taking advantage of the
secret organizations paying me a million doll hairs to write this column? Yes,
I am. But, the statement is true once again and will be true in a few months.
As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury moves back and forth from the morning
to the evening sky several times a year. In addition, it never gets very far
from the Sun in the sky so it is almost always difficult to view.
Tonight, Mercury
is less than a half a fist above due west at 8:30 p.m., between the much
brighter Jupiter to its left and Venus to its right. Over the next few weeks,
Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. After it passes in front of the
Sun, it will appear in the morning sky by the end of September.
Wednesday: Need a caffeine pick-me-up? Make it a double. Need an astronomy
pick-me-up? Make it a double double. Find Vega, in the constellation Lyra the
lyre, nearly straight overhead at 10:00 tonight. Less than half a fist to the
east (or left if you are facing south) of the bright bluish star Vega is the
“star” Epsilon Lyra. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through binoculars, it looks
like two stars. If you look at Epsilon Lyra through a large enough telescope,
you will notice that each star in the pair is itself a pair of stars. Each star in the double is double.
Hence, Epsilon Lyra is known as the double double. The stars in each pair orbit
a point approximately in the center of each respective pair. The pairs
themselves orbit a point between the two pairs.
Thursday: The
August full moon was called the full sturgeon moon by Midwest and northeastern
Native American tribes because the sturgeon in lakes in this part of the
country were easiest to catch during this full moon time.
Friday:
Hercules stands six fists above the southwest horizon at 10:00 this evening.
Four moderately bright stars form a lopsided square that represents his body,
while his head points southward.
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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