TGT #24S - Viewing Comet 2023 A3 - "Fireball" Orionids Peak in Moonlight - More Stories & Sky Info.
TGT 10/17/24: All Five Planets in Evening...At Some Time; Shower of Fireballs; AEL—Mini-Moon, Go Away Quick!; Observing Comet 2023 A3 in Evenings; TCA-Resources, Pedagogical Ideas from DPS & Rubin
Cover Photo - Comet’s First Evening Appearance in Millennia
In This Issue:
Cover Photo — Comet’s First Evening Appearance in Millennia
Welcome to Issue 24S!
Sky Planning Calendar —
* Moon-Gazing - A Real Super Moon* Observing—Plan-et - The Evening is Filling Up with Planets; Orionids Peak
* Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in the Evening
* Border Crossings - Total Disagreement 2TCA - Towards Cosmic Awareness - Resources from the Division of Planetary Sciences Meeting, and More: Resources, Ungrading, Public Reasons for Attending Outreach Events, Rubin Observatory Investigations.
Astronomy in Everyday Life - Mini-Moon, Go Away Quick!
Welcome to The Galactic Times Newsletter-Inbox Magazine #24S!
Happy Comet Watching!
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas (C/2023 A3) is my nightly exercise partner. I wander over to a nearby park (unfortunately near a brightly lit shopping strip-center) and seek out this cosmic visitor last seen by my Neaderthal X-many-times grandparents. On the first two nights, as I write this, the 12th and 13th of October, it has been low, barely above the horizon and stores and lights, but spotted in binoculars it is plain to see, very long and pencil-like but with a slightly fan-shaped 2-3 degree long tail. As it gains altitude nightly, about two degrees per, I am anticipating an easier time spotting it in darker tones of twilight or night skies, above the low altitude sky haze. It is not quite as bright as Venus but well above the 6th magnitude predictions.
I managed to get some grainy cell phone photos (See Cover Photo) —surprisingly it is easier to be captured by phones than by the eye, which has not yet seen it with certainty—and poorer photos initially with a camera and an iPad. I hope to gain better images on later dates, even as it fades as it gains that height in view. Later on my digital camera got the best images, see the article below.
If you have not tried to see it, yes, it can be seen even in light polluted skies, though electronic/digital devices and binoculars are better at viewing it, and having a VERY low horizon within a few degrees of due West will help in viewing this object.
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Personal news: I will be in Sylacauga, AL, on November 30th, the actual anniversary date for the Meteor That Hit a Mrs., back in 1954. I will be among the speakers talking about the event—myself on the astronomy and the current status of it all—and I invite any readers who can get there to say hello!
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Speaking of meteors, we have a decent, if in somewhat moonlight-washed skies, meteor shower this half-month. The Orionids peak on the 21st, normally just about 20 per hour, but this shower is known for a high percentage of fireballs so the Moon may not wash out that many from view. It would be half that number the next night but slightly less moonlight.
All five naked eye planets are in the evening sky, though not all at the same time and one never makes it into truly post-twilight sky. Jupiter and Venus are more or less in opposition to each other; as Venus sets, Jupiter rises over the horizon. They will both be in dark skies next month. Mercury sets always in the twilight but will be at least visible almost until twilight ends.
Enjoy!
Publisher — Dr. Larry Krumenaker Email: newsletter@thegalactictimes.com
Sky Planning Calendar
Moon-Gazing
Moon passages by a star, planet or deep sky object are a good way to find a planet or other object if you’ve never located it before.
October 17 Full Moon, Perigee (10 hours earlier), and thus a legitimate Super Moon.
October 19 The Moon passes by the Pleiades star cluster.
October 21 Not terribly close but you can watch the Moon creep by Jupiter the previous evening and be 6-degrees away in the pre-dawn today.
October 23 The Moon is less than 2-degrees (3.5 lunar diameters) South of the star Pollux and 4-degrees North of Mars. This is mostly during Europe’s evening but not too far off in the Americas.
October 24 Last Quarter Moon.
October 26 The Moon passes by the heart star of Leo the Lion, Regulus.
October 29 The Moon reaches Apogee, its farthest point from Earth this orbit.
October 31 No Moon to guide anyone trick-or-treating this year, but if you are stumbling around earlier in the late pre-dawn, you’ll see it hanging out very close—a half-degree or so—from the spring star, Spica.
Observing---Plan-et
==All Planets Visible at SOME Time in the Evening==
==Venus Guides You to a Comet==
Mercury is entering the evening twilight but isn’t very easy to find. It sets 45 minutes or a little more after the Sun only during October 25-31st but even then it is never out of the twilight glow. Its apparition will peak in November.
Venus, on the other hand, is now easy to spot, 15 or more degrees above the horizon for latitudes near 33 degrees. It sets 30 minutes or more after evening twilight ends. It is your guidepost to finding Comet A3, see below. Venus will be 3.7-degrees above the red-giant star Antares, about an hour after Sunset, around the 27th. A good chance to compare colors, although Antares, a first magnitude star, doesn’t come near to Venus’ magnitude of -4.
Earth gets a shower….of meteors, not hurricane rain. The Orionids peak on the 21st, a night mostly lit up by a waning gibbous Moon. Although not the most bountiful of meteors, it is a shower with more than average number of fireballs, all streaming out of Orion. That constellation rises in the east around midnight (depending on whether you are on Daylight or Standard time) and is highest in the dawn. The number will increase as the hours go and will start streaming from the East but at dawn will head in most every direction. The shower has some strength the nights before and after.
Mars, just barely an evening star. It rises around 11:30 Daylight Savings Time.
Jupiter is entering into decent viewing, rising 40 minutes after evening twilight ends.
Saturn is the leader of the planets in the evening and most of the night, setting about 3 hours before morning twilight begins. Because it is past opposition (180-degrees from the Sun), telescopes can now see the planet’s shadow on its rings, at least a little bit.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (Comet 2023 A3) in the Evening
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) or simply Comet A3 for short, is rising from low in the twilight and is somewhere near magnitude 0 to +1 at the start date of our issue. It will be rising into easier view quickly but fading almost as quickly by month’s end. See the discussion in the Welcome to Issue 24S paragraphs above, and the Cover Photo. It appears as a slim V-shaped fan in the sky, from possibly having two tails. See photo above for a later image.
It will be directly above Venus around the 20th of October, the latter easily spotted now even in twilight. Another good chance, and interesting view, will be October 27th-28th when the then-dimmer comet is close to the second brightest star in Ophiuchus, Beta, and near the prominent 4-star Bull of Poniatowski asterism to its lower left.
Border Crossings
The reality and the unreality still don’t mix this half-month. The Sun spends time in Virgo, until after the 30th when it enters Libra. Astrologers say it has already been there and left that on the 22nd, entering Scorpio (which, if you hadn’t realized, isn’t a constellation—that would be Scorpius…..which is a story for November and December….).
TCA - Towards Cosmic Awareness
Yours truly got an unexpected opportunity to attend the AAS’ Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting which, unlike the large semi-annual AAS meetings, is nearly entirely hybrid.
Not as voluminous as the AAS offerings but still some useful educational resources. Such as the Explorer! resources from the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
Then there is a solar system activity collection:
So what should you and/or students do with these? Here is a plan that I really have a hard time seeing as legitimate. It is called Ungrading. It is a throwback to more experimental educational ideas from the late 90s to the early 2000s, perhaps. Set goals and have a rubric for the grades and let the students set the goals they want with a contract. A numerical grade is assigned only upon the amount of accomplishment actually done.
For a non-required course I could see this—those are for personal interest sake, not academic assessment. For a true science course, such as high school physics, or a required course (English 101), I suspect it would give too high a grade for what is done, and not necessarily all that is required to be known outside of class on the topic.
Here is a screen grab of the details of the Ungrading idea:
A second grab shows the methodology of the rubric:
If you are a teacher, would you agree to this?
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I found this bit of information on public events a bit disturbing—A survey result of asking “What motivated people to come to a public event, such as the April solar eclipse watching groups?”:
The four greatest motivations, highest to lower, were to 1) spend time with family and 2) something to bring children to, and a 3-4) tie between doing something in the community and THEN learning more about the eclipse. None of these are bad motivations, but learning more about science or scientific happenings are less primary to the respondents than the social aspects. Being free outweighed learning more about astronomy. I believe this follows along with two common societal attitudes—anti-science (or at least no interest in it), and ‘if it isn’t free it isn’t for me.’
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Though there was some discussion of these at DPS, I had an earlier email on these classroom investigations from the Vera Rubin Observatory, which is making a lot of good stuff for teachers. https://rubinobservatory.org/education/educators/investigations . Each of these is beyond run-of-the-mill astronomy exercises and mimics real science investigations. They take 1.5 to 2 hours each and, while not explicitly stated, it appears to be geared more towards high school students with some introduction already in the classroom to some advanced topics. It could be used in undergrad classes for non-majors as labs of a sort; in my judgement, not much of it, except in pieces, at middle school levels.
Brief descriptions are:
Coloring the Universe: Create multicolor images that are visualizations of science datasets.
Surveying the Solar System: Classify newly-discovered Solar System objects by analyzing their orbital properties.
Exploring the Observable Universe: Explore how galaxy redshifts reveal the evolving structure of the Universe.
Hazardous Asteroids: Determine if a newly-discovered asteroid poses a threat to Earth.
Expanding Universe: Use galaxy and supernova data to determine the expansion rate of the Universe.
Exploding Stars: Analyze light curves to identify types of supernovae and to determine the distance to host galaxies.
Stellar Safari: Compare properties of stars and find the distance and age of star clusters.
The Galactic Times will have some scientific results to report from the DPS meeting in the November issues.
Astronomy in Everyday Life
Spotted on YouTube. Don’t try to find this mini-moon, it is WAY too faint. But maybe that will keep it off the radars and out of harm’s way….
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Till next issue,
Dr. Larry Krumenaker