Hello, Mid-May Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of May 19th, 2024 by Chris Vaughan. Feel free to pass this along to your friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics. You can also follow me on Twitter as @astrogeoguy! Unless otherwise noted, all times are expressed in Eastern Time.…
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A rotating model of Saturn’s moon Iapetus. Its variation in surface brightness causes it to change in apparent brightness as it travels around Saturn over 80 days. On November 29, 2023, Iapetus will appear brighter as its reaches it western elongation. (Wikipedia) Hello, Stargazers! Here are your Astronomy Skylights for the week of November 26th,…
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This image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the fascinating Aristarchus Plateau. The crater Aristarchus at lower right is very prominent, and can be seen even with unaided eyes as a very bright patch. To its left is the similar-sized, but darker crater Herodotus. Vallis Schröteri, the largest sinuous rille on the moon, starts…
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I’ve annotated this image of the full moon taken by Michael Watson of Toronto. The dark maria are labelled in yellow with their Latin names. Major craters and those with ray systems are in blue. the red numerals show the Apollo landing sites, although the equipment is not visible from Earth. Hello, Autumn Harvest Stargazers!…
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On Friday, July 23, the moon will reach its full phase. On that evening, the libration of the moon will cause the moon to appear to tilt downwards and twist to the left a bit, allowing Earthlings to see features along the moon’s northeastern limb that are normally not visible (green labels). Major lunar features…
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This annotated image of the Lyrids Meteor Shower was captured by Petr Horalek when the Lyrids streaked over Seč Lake in the Czech Republic in April, 2020. The meteors appear to radiate from a point in the sky in Hercules near the very bright blue star Vega of Lyra (the Harp). Don’t watch the radiant…
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