Saturday: Before
you fall back on to your bed tonight, set your clock back one hour to the real
time. Daylight savings ends early Sunday morning at 2 a.m. This means one more
hour of sky watching at night because the Sun will set one hour earlier. Ben
Franklin proposed the idea of “saving daylight” by adjusting our clocks way
back in 1784. Daylight savings time was first utilized during World War I as a
way to save electricity. After the war, it was abandoned. It was reintroduced
during World War II on a year-round basis. From 1945 to 1966, some areas
implemented daylight savings and some did not. Also, it was not implemented
with any uniformity as to when it should start and stop. The Uniform Time Act
of 1966 codified the daylight savings rules.
Sunday: At
5:15 p.m., Saturn is about one fist above due southwest at 5 p.m. I will be a
bit of a struggle to find it in the twilight glow. But Venus, directly to the
left of Saturn and a little bit south of due southwest will be easily visible.
Mars is two fists above due south.
Monday: Did
you look up Elisabeth and Johannes Hevelius based on last week’s Halloween
costume suggestion? They were the astronomy version of Bennifer or Brangelina
of the mid to late 1600s. Johannes Hevelius spent four years mapping the lunar
surface and published his work in Selenographia, sive Lunae descripto
(Selenography, a description of the Moon). He also discovered seven
constellations still recognized today. When Elisabeth was a child, she started
working with Johannes. Shortly after his first wife died, he married the much
younger Elisabeth. She started to take over his astronomy work, finishing and
publishing their star catalog called Prodromus Astronomiae. Many people
consider Elisabeth the first female astronomer.
Tuesday: Jupiter
is two fists above the east-southeast horizon at 6 a.m.
Wednesday: Deneb, one of the three bright stars in the Summer Triangle, is
nearly straight overhead at 7 p.m.
Thursday: While Stonehenge is an ancient burial ground visited by religious
people for thousands of years, MIThenge is an 825-foot long hallway on the
campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited by the Sun’s rays
twice a year. Every year in
November and January, the setting Sun lines up with a narrow window at the end
of the long hall and the light shines down to the opposite end. This season’s
alignment is from November 10-12. For more information, visit http://goo.gl/0hwFQf
or visit MIT. In addition, challenge yourself to find a similar alignment
Friday: We
wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry Martinmas. We wish you a Merry
Martinmas. And a happy Friday. Martinmas is a holiday in many parts of the
world commemorating Saint Martin of Tours. He was buried on November 11, 397.
What does this have to astronomy? Not much except that the celebration on
November 11 often doubles as a cross-quarter day celebration, a day that is
halfway between an equinox and a solstice. Also, according to an agricultural
calendar, November 11 marks the practical beginning of winter.
And what
better way to spend Martinmas than by watching a meteor shower. The Northern
Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight. These are slow moving meteors that result
in the occasional fireball. The Taurid meteor showers produce a few bright meteors
every hour so the waxing gibbous Moon won’t be much of a problem. These meteors
appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull, near the open star cluster
called the Pleiades. This point is about three fists above the east horizon at
8 p.m. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one
fist above the V-shaped Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran
(pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran). Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the
atmosphere when the Earth runs into them. These rocks are broken off parts of
Comet 2P/Encke.
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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