Eastern predawn sky 5:30 AM Aug. 29, 2017. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.The eastern sky before sunrise is getting busy! Venus is accompanied by several bright stars, and the easily recognizable constellation of Orion is higher each morning; winter stars are on their way!
Moon Saturn Conjunction – Aug. 29 & 30, 2017. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.There will be a conjunction of Saturn and the Moon in the southern sky on the nights of the 29th and 30th; the first quarter moon will be very close to Saturn, and likely wash it out a bit when observing through a telescope.
Double Star Albireo in Cygnus. Credit: Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
Albireo (or Beta Cygni, β Cygni) in Cygnus. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.The Constellation Cygnus is overhead after sunset, and the star Albireo, makes for a very interesting object through a small telescope. To the naked eye, Albireo appears to be a single star; in a telescope, it resolves into a beautiful gold and blue double star. Tip: If you slightly unfocus your telescope when observing Albireo, the colors will spread out, and you can see them a bit better.
Double Stars orbit around their center of mass – called a Barycenter. Credit: Space Engine / Bob Trembley.It is unknown if Albireo is a true binary star, or an “optical double” – a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth, but are different distances away. The image above is a representation of what the orbits of the Albireo binary pair would look like IF it is a true binary star; the orbital period is on the order of 100,000 years.
The Sun – Aug. 28, 2017 –Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). Image courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams. / Bob Trembley.
New sunspot group AR2673 is rotating into view on the limb of the Sun, and AR2671 has rotated out of view. SpaceWeather.com reports: “Sunspot AR2672 has a stable magnetic field that poses little threat for strong solar flares.”
The Sun’s Corona – Aug. 28, 2017 – Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) 211 angstroms. Image courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams. / Bob Trembley.The Sun currently has several Coronal Holes – these areas expel the solar wind at speeds about twice the average; SpaceWeather.com reports that the velocity of the solar wind at the time of this writing was 327.9 km/sec.
The Sky Overhead – Aug. 29, 2017 5:30 AM. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.
The Sky Overhead – Aug. 23, 2017 10 PM. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.
The Solar System – Aug. 29, 2017. Credit: NASA Eyes on the Solar System / Bob Trembley.Apps used for this post:
Stellarium: a free open source planetarium app for PC/MAC/Linux.
Universe Sandbox ²: a physics-based 3D space simulator.
NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission app – free for the PC /MAC.
Space Engine: a realistic virtual Universe you can explore on your computer – free for the PC.
