Southern Sky Watch

January Skies


Sorry for the lateness, lack of internet access and other issues held up the posting of this issue. But there is still lots to see. Check out the upcoming events for the lowdown on 2008.

Useful info for visitors from New Zealand, South Africa and South America.
Mars just past Opposition. January 6, Venus near Crescent Moon. January 9, Mercury near Moon. January 1-9; Quadrantid Meteor Shower. January 19, Mars near Moon. January 24-25; Moon occults Regulus. January 25, Moon near Saturn. January 26-31; Venus and Jupiter close. Comet Tuttle and Comet Holmes visible in binoculars.

Looking up at the stars is still a rewarding pursuit, despite the increasing light pollution in our major cities. The southern sky is full of interesting objects, many of which go unseen in the northern hemisphere. All you need for a good nights viewing is yourself, a good idea of where south and east are, and your hands. Optional extras are a small pair of binoculars, a torch with red cellophane taped over the business end and a note book. A great many tips for backyard astronomy may be found here, although many of them are more relevant to the northern hemisphere. A general article on amateur astronomy from New Scientist is here (May require subscription otherwise see the TASS site.).

This page is designed to give people a simple guide to the naked eye sky. In the descriptions of planet and star positions, distances in the sky are given as "fingers width" and "hand span". This is the width of your hand (with all the fingers together as in making a "stop" sign, not bunched as a fist) or finger when extended a full arms length from you.

[updatedAstroblog Updated astronews and images at Astroblog!] [Astronomy Media Player] [Aurora Alert! ] [Coming events and Updates ] [Out in Space ] [ The Moon] [Planets] [Mars Opposition] [Meteors] [ Comets Tuttle and Holmes ] [ Occultations ] [Stars] [Star Maps] [Using the Maps] [Iridium Flares and the International Space Station pass predictions (via Heavens Above)] [updatedLinks Updated 29/11/07] [Charts, Books and Software for Astronomy] [newCelestia scripts and add-ons Gliese 581] [Previous Months] [Feedback] [newIan's Astrophotography gallery Animation of Jupiter] [Email alert service] [Images of past aurora]
Summer is here once more, and the beautiful constellations of Orion, Taurus and the magnificent rambling constellations of Carina, Puppis and Vela grace our skies again. The December school holidays will be an ideal time to head out somewhere dark and view the stars and planets at their best. Summer also means very long twilights in southern Australia, so you may have to wait to see these delights. Despite the warmth of the days, nights are often cool, so don't forget a light jumper before doing any extended star watching. A blanket or rug to sit on is a good idea. Some mosquito repellent will be a must.

While these pages are primarily intended for the use of people observing in Australia, non-Australian Southern Hemisphere observers will find most of the information here applies to them. The star information will be most helpful, when you correct your location for latitude (see the Stars section for appropriate location information). Most Moon phase, planet, comet and asteroid information will be very similar to what will be seen in New Zealand, South Africa and South America. Countries close to the equator (eg Indonesia) will have somewhat different southern and northern views, but the eastern and western views should be similar enough to get a good idea of what is going on.

Occultations, eclipses and aurora are highly location dependent, and it would be best to get a local almanac for these events. If there is no local almanac available, email me and I might be able to help you. I do try and give general info for occultations and eclipses in the Oceania area of the Southern Hemisphere.

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Aurora Alert UPDATED 21/01/08: Sunspot cycle 24 has offically started. We are still in Solar Minimum, but expect things to begin to pick up aurora-wise towards the end of the year. .

Auroral images and description from past geomagnetic storms are now at the auroral image web page.

While we are at solar minimum, it will still be possible to see the occasional aurora. Tasmania, King Island and Southern Victoria are the most likely places to see aurora. However, on August 24, 2005 there was a massive auroral storm seen as far as northern NSW. Naturally, the best views of any aurora will be away from the city and bright lights. Aurora occur when charged particles from the solar wind enter earths outer atmosphere and interact with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms producing eerie displays of coloured lights. During solar maximum, which occurs every 11 years, the number and speed of the particles are higher, allowing them to penetrate the Earth's magnetic field at lower latitudes than normal. Observers in Tasmania are likely to see green glows or sheets of light in the southern sky. Observers in Southern Victoria are more likely to see a red glow in the southern sky, although more spectacular displays are possible.

The Astronomical Society of Tasmania has a webpage devoted to this phenomenon. The Australian IPS radio and space services covers Aurora and related phenomena in very great detail (too much if you don't know much about them) but has a nice education page. Flinders Uni also has real time magnetometer readings, however, this will probably not mean much to most people.

Aurora will generally follow solar flares by about 2 days, and a number of instruments are watching the sun for these outbursts. The solar mimiumin should occur in 2006, and sunspot numbers, and hence flare rates are dropping considerably, sometimes months will go by without an alert, then you have three in a week. The space weather site at http://www.spaceweather.com gives notice of when solar winds likely to cause aurora will arrive. Alternatively, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject and I will send you an email alert of any likely auroral event (or other interesting sky phenomena). However, even a strong solar flare is no guarantee that you will be able to see aurora, but it does increase the probability.

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Email alerts I try to update this page fairly regularly outside of the monthly postings. However sometimes things happen which I can't get in fast enough, or you forget to mark your calendar. If you would like to be alerted to or reminded of interesting astronomical or sky phenomena, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject. This is the old aurora alert list, but with auroras rare as we climb out solar minimum (except for the occasional humdinger, like the August 2005 auroral event), it is doing double duty. Astroblog will have images when possible of these events soon after.

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Coming events

25 January 2008; Occulatation of Regulus

31 January 2008; Venus and Jupiter close

1-2 February 2008, Venus and Jupiter very close

2 February 2008, Occultation of Antares

7 February 2008, Partial Solar Eclipse

24 February 2008, Opposition of Saturn

6 March 2008, Venus, Mercury and Moon very close

30 April 2008, Occultation of Neptune (Northern Australia)

1 May 2008, Saturn and Regulus close.

6 May 2008 Eta Aquarid meter shower

9 June 2008, Saturn and Moon close to Regulus.

1 July 2008, Mars and Regulus very close together, Saturn nearby.

6 July 2008, Good alignment of Mars, Regulus, Saturn and Moon.

9 July 2008, Opposition of Jupiter.

14 July, Occultation of Antares.

10-21 August 2008, Venus, Mercuy and Saturn close together

17 August 2008, Partial Lunar Eclipse

1-18 September 2008, Mercury, Mars and Venus close together.

12 September 2008, Mars and Venus very close together.

4 October 2008, Occultation of Antares (WA).

1 December 2008, Very close meeting of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon.

29th December 2008, Occultation of Jupiter by Moon, Mercury nearby.

Out in Space

Cassini has some beautiful images of the moon Atlas and the rings.

The NASA Mars rovers SPIRT and OPPORTUNITY have been on Mars for 4 Earth years (well OPPORTUNITY makes 4 on January 24th) see here for a retrospective.

Mars Express has observed cloud shadows on Mars.

Mars Reconaissance Orbiter has animations of the winter frost advance.

Mercury MESSENGER has sent back images from its first flyby of Mercury.

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The Moon:

Current Phase of the Moon.
This is a JavaScript applet kindly supplied by Darren Osbourne. It shows the Moon as Southern Hemisphere viewers see it, and is upside down from the Northern Hemisphere perspective.

O New Moon is on the 8th
C| First quarter on the 16th
O Full moon on the 22nd

D Last quarter on the 30th

On the morning of the 5th the crescent Moon is close to Venus. On the evening of January 9 the thin crescent Moon is close to Mercury. On the evening of the 19th the waxing Moon is close to Mars. On the morning of the 25th the waning Moon is close to Saturn.

An interactive calendar of the Moon's phases.

A view of the phase of the Moon for any date from 1800 A.D. to 2199, US based, so that the Moon is upside down with respect to us. The image above is from this source.

The phases of the Moon have been linked in the popular imagination to activities as diverse as madness and menstruation. However, careful study has shown that there are no such links. This web page outlines how the Moon is unconnected with a wide range of human activities.

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Planets:

Finding planets, even with the directions below, can sometimes be difficult if you are unfamiliar with the sky. However, the Moon is very obvious, and can be a guide to location planets. Not only that, the combination of the Moon and bright planet(s) is often very beautiful. Thus the guide below gives the dates when the planets and the Moon are close together.
Morning sky, 5:00 am

The Morning sky facing east in Melbourne on January 31 at 5:00 am AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 5:00 am ACDST Adelaide.

Evening sky, 10:00 pm

The Evening sky facing north in Melbourne on January 19 at 10 pm AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00 pm ACDST Adelaide.

Mercury is in the evening sky this month, but will be very difficult to see. Mercury will be at its greatest diarnce from the Sun on 22nd, and will be a mere handspan above the horizon half an hour after sunset. Shortly after Mercury is lost in the twilight and will reappear as a morning object next month.

Venus is prominent in the early morning skies in January. Venus starts the month in Scorpius then moves into Ophiuchus, then finally into Sagittarius late in the month. On January 1, Venus is 3 handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before Sunrise and a fingerwidth from the star beta Scorpii. On January 5th Venus and the crescent Moon are a handspan apart, forming a triangle with the bright red star Antares. From around the 19th Venus is joined by Jupiter, and during the weeks they come closer together. By the 31st Venus is still 3 handspans above the horizon an hour before Sunrise, and is just 2 fingerwiths from Jupiter, under the "Teapot" of Sagittarius.

Mars is fading quickly now that opposition is over. However, it still is a very respectable brightness, and is in a beautiful part of the sky. The red stars Betelguese and Alderbaran, together with Mars form a distinct wide, red triangle in the late evening sky. Mars is still an obvious disk in even small telescopes (like my 50 mm refractor), but seeing markings becomes progressively harder. On the 1st Mars is 4 handspans above the north-eastern horizon at 11:00 pm daylight saving time. By the 15th Mars is 4 handspans above the northen horizon at 11:00 pm daylight saving time. By the end of the month Mars is still 4 handspans above the horizon at 11 pm daylight saving time, but sklightly to the west of north. It's reddish/orange colour makes Mars easy to spot and it is the brightest object above the northern horizon. Mars is in Taurus all this month, and slowly closes in on the bright star Elnath (beta Taurii). On the 19th, Mars, the waxing Moon and Elnath make an interesting sight.

For more details, links and observing hints, see my Mars Opposition page.

Jupiter enters the morning sky late this month. It's closeness to the horizon makes observing it almost imposible in telescopes, due to atmospheric turbulence, and following its moons in binoculars is will be difficult. However, late in January it has a nice close encounter with Venus. On Januart 19, Jupiter is a handspan above the horizon, an hour before sunrise. On January 31 Jupiter is nearly 3 handspans above the horizon, and hour before sunrise, just 2 fingerwiths from Venus, under the "Teapot" of Sagittarius.

This table was created using The Planets 2.02 a free program available from http://www.cpac.org.uk

Times are AEST, subtract 30 minutes for ACST and 2 hours for AWST. Add 1 hour for Daylight saving time.
GRS = Great Red Spot. S = Shadow Transit, T = Transit

Tue  1 Jan	4:54	Io : Shadow Transit Ends	T
Tue  1 Jan	5:03	Io : Transit Ends	
Tue  8 Jan	4:34	Io : Shadow Transit Begins        S
Tue  8 Jan	4:50	Io : Transit Begins	ST
Wed  9 Jan	4:25	Io : Reappears from Occultation
Thu 10 Jan	4:50	Eur: Disappears into Eclipse
Sat 12 Jan	4:40	GRS: Crosses Central Meridian
Sat 19 Jan	5:08	Eur: Shadow Transit EndsT
Thu 24 Jan	4:39	GRS: Crosses Central Meridian
Thu 24 Jan	5:04	Io : Shadow Transit Ends T
Fri 25 Jan	4:04	Gan: Shadow Transit Ends T
Sat 26 Jan	5:03	Eur: Shadow Transit Begins        S
Tue 29 Jan	3:48	GRS: Crosses Central Meridian
Thu 31 Jan	4:44	Io : Shadow Transit Begins        S
Thu 31 Jan	5:22	Io : Transit Begins	ST
Thu 31 Jan	5:27	GRS: Crosses Central Meridian
Saturn is easily visible in the eastern morning sky. Saturn is 7 handspans abover the northern horizon an hour and a half before Sunrise. This makes it accessible to telescopic observation, with Saturns rings becoming more edge on, saturn should be a fine telescopic sight. Saturn is also over a handspan to the right (east) of Regulus, the brightest star in Leo. On January 25, the waning Moon is ta handspan from Saturn, and will occult Regulus, this will be an excellent sky lineup. On January 31, Saturn is seven handspans above the northern horizon an hour and a half before Sunrise.

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Starshine 3 updated 21/1/2003 Starshine 3 came down in January 2003, on the 21st. See the Starshine home page for details and future missions.

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Iridium Flares, the International Space Station and other satellites

See this amazing site for images of the space station taken through a telescope.

Iridium flares add a bit of spectacle to the night sky. The Iridium satellite network was set up to give global phone coverage, so an Iridium satellite is almost always over head. Occasionally, one of the antenna of the satellites is aligned so that it reflects the sun towards an observer, giving a brilliant flare, often out-shining Venus. However, the visibility of Iridium flares is VERY dependent on observer position, so you need a prediction for your spot within about 30 km. Hence I'm referring you to a web site for predictions rather than doing it myself.

new See an Irridium Flare at your Location. Courtesy of Heavens above. Choose your location from the drop down box

Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Latitude: Longitude: City Time Zone:

new See the International Space Station at your Location. Courtesy of Heavens above. Choose your location from the drop down box

Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Latitude: Longitude: City Time Zone:
Another site, JPASS, doesn't do Iridium flares, but is very cool and does the International Space Station, and many other satellites. However, although the output is flashy, it's harder to use than heavens above.

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Meteor showers:

Date        	Meteor Shower       ZHR  Illumination 
4/1/2007  	Quadrantids         120   0.05

The figure ZHR is zenithal hourly rate. This is the number of meteors that a single observer would see per hour if the shower's "point of origin", or radiant, were at the zenith and the sky were dark enough for 6.5-magnitude stars to be visible to the naked eye. Illumination gives an idea of how dark the sky is, the lower the figure, the darker the sky.

The Quadrantids are a relatively reliable northern hemisphere shower, whose radiant lies below the horizon. They are difficult to see, but one can be rewarded by the (rare) sight of meteors shooting up above the horizon. The best time is to view between 4.00 am and 5.00 am, looking to the north east. A spotters map is here. The map shows the view to the east at 4.00 am (AEDST, 3.00 am AEST).

Outside of the showers, you can still see sporadic meteors. Rates seen from the Southern Hemisphere are around 5 random meteors being seen per hour during the late morning hours and 1 per hour during the evening. The evening rates will be reduced during the times around the full Moon due to interference by the Moons light.

A good page describing meteor watching is at the Sky Publications site.

The Meteor Section of the Astronomical Society of Victoria has some good information on meteor watching too.

Learn how to take a meteor shower photograph.

A Cool Fact about meteor speeds

A good page on detecting meteors using home made radiotelescopes is here.

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Comets:

Comet 8P Tuttle will be briefly visible to the unaided eye under dark skies, but will be visible in binoculars for most of the rest of this month. It is moving pretty fast, and has screamed through Cetus, and is now in Fornax heading for Eriadnus, a locator map for Tuttle and Holmes be found here.

Comet 17P/Holmes is amazingly still visible to the unaided eye in the northern hemisphere. I have not been able to see it though. Although it has an overall brightenss of magnitude 4-5, the comet is very diffuse and hard to spot without binoculars at southern latitudes. Around 10:00 pm (daylight saving time) see it very low to the northern horizon, almost due north, not far from Algol (beta Persii, the brighest star in that location). People with dark sky sites north of about Canberra should be able to pick it up in binoculars as a fuzzy dot. A spotters map for Tuttle and Holmes can be found here. It will probably fade slowly over time.

A list of current comet ephemerides is at the MPC.

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Occultations:

Occultation of Regulus by the Moon January 24-25.

The Moon will occult the bright star Regulus on the morning of January 24-25. This event will be seen in most of Australia around midnight (WA, NT, QLD before midnight on the 24th, rest of Australia, after midnight on the 25th) and New Zealand on the early morning of the 25th. The Moon will be two days after full and reasonably high in the sky. Except for the hour, this is an easy occultation. Times listed are local times. This will also be good in binoculars or a small telescope. More details of this occultation, with contact times for other cities (mostly New Zealand) in UT time are here.

City Disappears behind bright limb Reappears from dark limb
Australia
Adelaide (ACDST) 00:23 (25th) 01:32 (25th)
Brisbane (AEST) 23:59 (24th) 01:24 (25th)
Canberra (AEDST) 01:07 (25th) 02:26 (25th)
Darwin (ACST) 22:31 (24th) 23:45 (24th)
Alice Springs (ACST) 22:50 (24th) 00:05 (25th)
Hobart (AEDST) 01:19 (25th) 02:27 (25th)
Melbourne (AEDST) 01:06 (25th) 02:19 (25th)
Perth (AWST) 21:25 (24th) 22:17 (24th)
Sydney (AEDST) 01:07 (25th) 02:28 (25th)
New Zealand
Aukland 02:56 (25th) 03:56 (25th)
Christchurch 02:53 (25th) 04:05 (25th)
Wellington 02:55 (25th) 04:05 (25th)

 

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Stars:

evening sky, 9:00 pm

The eastern evening sky at 10:00 pm AEDST in Melbourne on January 1 (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00pm ACDST Adelaide).

All descriptions here are based on the view from Melbourne at 10.00 pm AEDST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on 1 January and assumes a fairly level horizon. Starset occurs progressively earlier each day, so these descriptions are valid for 9.00 pm on the 15th and 8.00pm on the 30th. Readers for Central and Western time zones should see roughly the same views at 10.00 pm ACST and 9.00 pm AWST. Corrections for cities other than Melbourne are given below.

How do I find east, west, north and south?

Facing west, the battered triangle of Capricorn, the Goat, is 3 handspans left of west, almost directly on the horizon. To the right by 3 hand spans and up by two handspans is Aquarius.

6 handspans up from the western horizon and three hand spans to the left is bright Fomalhaut, the main star of Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish. Further off to the left is the battered cross of Grus the crane.

The faint constellation of Cetus, the whale is just below the zenith stretching from the west to south-west.

The Zenith is dominated by the rambling constellation Erandius, the river, and bright Achenar, alpha Erandius. Achenar is the 9th brightest star in the sky, and is a blue supergiant. Epsilon erandi is notable for being the 10th closest star to our solar system. A sun-like star, epsilon erandi has recently been discovered to have a dust disk which may indicate the presence of planets.

On the eastern horizon are the constellations of Hydra, directly east, and rectangle of Gemini, 6 handspans to the left. The bright stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux, will not clear the Horizon until about an hour later.

The constellations of Taurus, the bull, Orion the hunter and Canis major, Orion's hunting dog are now well above the horizon, and will be magnificent viewing later in the month, when the moon has waned.

Directly east, 8 handspans from the horizon is Canis major. The bright white star is Sirius (alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky. The constellation of Canis Majoris has a number of open clusters that are well worth exploring with binoculars, Most of these lie two handspans to the right of Sirius, amongst the V shaped group of stars that marks the tail of Canis major. Below Sirius by two hand spans, and one handspan to the right is M47. This cluster is quite nice in binoculars.

To the left of Sirius by about four handspans is the distinctive saucepan shape of Orion's belt. The handle of the saucepan is Orion's sword, which contains some good naked eye open clusters, and the final star in the handle hosts the famous Orion nebula, which is visible to the naked eye under clear skies. Directly above the handle of the saucepan is bright Rigel (beta Orionis). Directly below the saucepan is the bright reddish Betelgeuse (alpha Orinonis), a red giant star.

To the left of Orion's belt by about 4 handspans is Alderbaran (alpha Tauri), another red giant which forms the base of the V shaped group of stars called the Hyades, which forms the head of Taurus. Further to the left again is a faint, but pretty, compact cluster of stars called the Pleiades (the seven sisters). The Pleiades are particularly beautiful through binoculars.

Facing directly north, about three handspans up is Perseus. Six handspans up is the Peliades. The large square of stars that forms Pegasus, the flying horse is six handspans to your left on the north-western horizon. Andromeda, and the famous Andromeda galaxy, is two handspans below the bottom right hand star of the square, and one hand span to the right, near a faint star. Andromeda is best seen through binoculars or a small telescope on a dark night. However, as Andromeda is so close to the horizon, it may be difficult to see anything.

Looking south, the bright, distinctive alpha and beta Centauri, the so called "pointers", are two handspans from the southern horizon, with alpha being the yellow star which is furthest from the horizon, and beta the blue white star below and to the left. Most of the rest of Centarus, the Centaur, is too close to, or below, the Horizon to be seen properly.

Alpha Centauri is the closest star to our sun at around 4 light years. However, recent measurements with the Hippacaros satellite put the system 300 million kilometers further away than previously thought. Alpha centauri is actually a triple star, consisting of two sunlike stars and a red dwarf, Proxima centauri, which is the closest of the triple stars to earth.

Returning to alpha Centauri, following a line east through the "pointers" brings you to the Southern Cross, one and a half handspans from beta Centauri to beta Crucis, and two handspans above the horizon between the 7 o'clock and 8 o'clock position on a clock. A high definition map of Centaurus and Crux is here.

The Southern Cross is, as expected, a cross shaped formation with Acrux (alpha Crucis) and gamma Crucis forming the long axis of the cross (pointing down to the south-east, with bright Acrux on the end of the axis away from the horizon). Beta and delta Crucis, forming a nearly horizontal line, form the cross piece of the cross. Just to the right of Acrux is the coal sack. This dark area against the glow of the milky way represents a large dust cloud and is usually clearly visible in dark skies, but will be hard to see this close to the horizon. The Jewel box in the Cross is a small open cluster just above Beta Crucis. It is quite beautiful, but requires strong binoculars or a small telescope to see properly, and is unlikely to be good viewing this close to the horizon.

Above and to the left of the Southern Cross is Carina (the keel of the former constellation Argo Navis). A high definition map of this region is here. It is now far enough from the horizon to appreciate its many faint objects. Looking almost anywhere in the area of Carina will reveal an interesting cluster or star formation. However, the area between the Southern Cross and the false cross (which is just above the south-eastern horizon), is particularly rich. Here you will find the "Southern Pleiades" surrounding the tail star (Theta Carina) of a prominent kite shaped group of stars, with theta Carina two handspans up, and one handspan to the left of Acrux. Smaller and less spectacular than their northern counterparts, they still look very nice in binoculars. Four fingerwidths below the Southern Peliades are two rich open clusters, and the barely visible star Eta Carina. Eta Carina's spectacular nebula is only dimly seen in binoculars. Two handspans to the left and four handspans up from the Southern Cross is the False Cross, seven handspans from the southern horizon. Just to the left of the False Cross is a good open cluster. Canopus (alpha Carina) is a bright yellowish star sitting 11 handspans above the south-eastern horizon (and about 4 handspans up from the False Cross.

Vela, the sail of Argo Navis, and Puppis, the poop deck, (to the left and below Carina respectively) are now well above the horizon and their collection of clusters are quite visible now. When, Argo Navis was broken up into Puppis, Vela and Carina in 1750, they forgot to assign alpha and beta stars to Vela, and its brightest star at magnitude 1.5 is Gamma Velorum. Gama Velorum is a double star which may be resolved in good binoculars. The Milky Way passes through Vela, and there are many open clusters which can be seen with binoculars or the naked eye. One of the best of these is NGC2547, a little below gamma Velorum. Vela is also home to the spectacular Gum nebula (which can only be seen in telescopic photographs), and the second pulsar to be observed optically. Kappa and delta velorum, with iota and epsilon Carina, make the "false cross" (about 7 hand spans above the southern horizon). A high definition map of Vela is here.

To the left of the false Cross by about a handspan is a good collection of the open clusters to be found in Vela, and two handspans further along brings you to another collection of clusters in Puppis.

Directly above the southern horizon by 11 handspans is the extended nebulosity of the Large Magellanic cloud, the largest of the dwarf satellite galaxies. Binoculars will reveal a rather attractive nebula near it, the Tarantula nebula.

To the left of this by 4 handspans is the Small Magellanic cloud, the second largest of the dwarf satellite galaxies to the Milky Way. This feature is best viewed on a dark night, away from the city. In this nebulosity is what looks to be a fuzzy star, this is 47 Tucana (marked 104 on the map), a spectacular globular cluster that is very nice through binoculars. To the right of the Small Magellanic Cloud by about 4 handspans is the dim constellation of Tucana, the Toucan, the parent constellation of 47 Tucana.

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Sky Maps

How to use the maps

      map viewsky view

Comparison of a section of a skymap showing the Southern Cross (Crux) and pointers, with the appearance of the night sky. The map and sky are for August 1 at 10.00 pm, facing south. Both show approximately 30 degrees (5 handspans) of sky just above the horizon

The maps look a little busy, as they cover all sky from horizon to zenith. The grid lines are navigational helpers; each horizontal or vertical line covers 30 degrees of arc (the gridlines in the illustration show 15 degrees of arc), which is roughly five handspans (where a handspan is the width of your hand, held flat light a "stop" sign at arms length). As you can see from the way the lines bunch up. The map is a little distorted, due to trying to project a spherical surface on a flat surface. The horizon is the lowest curved line on the map (for technical software reasons I can't block things out below the Horizon). Constellations are linked by lines and their names are in italics. Stars are shown as circles of varying size, the bigger the circle the brighter the star. The stars are named with their Bayer letter (eg a - alpha, the brightest star in a constellation, a Crucis is the brightest star in Crux). Variable stars are shown as hollow circles, double stars are marked with a line (eg a, b and g Crucis are all double stars, that look quite beautiful in a small telescope). Clusters and Nebula brighter than magnitude 6.0 are marked as broken circles (eg the Jewel box cluster next to b Crucis above which is best viewed in binoculars or a telescope) and squares respectively. To find Crux for example, locate Crux on the appropriate map (eg see the illustration above). Holding the Map, face either east or west (depending on the map), then use the grid lines to determine how far over and up you should look, then look for the Crux pattern in that part of the Sky.

GIF Maps

A view of the Eastern January sky at 10.00pm AEST on 1 January can be downloaded here (jansky_e.gif 30 Kb) and a view of the western January sky can be downloaded here (jansky_w.gif 30 Kb). These are more compact files but don't have a lot of resolution.

If you wish to print the GIF maps directly from Netscape you must set the printer in landscape mode and you must set the margins to 0 cm (yes, that's right, 0 cm) or the maps will not print correctly.

PDF Maps

High Resolution PDF files can be obtained for the eastern (110 Kb) and the western (110 Kb) horizon maps.

The Zenith Map (110 Kb) shows you the whole sky. You will need to face the one of the compass points, then hold the map with the appropriate compass point on the map at the bottom of the page.

You will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat or GhostView to view and print them. They look slightly worse on-screen than the GIF files, especially as Acrobat 3.0-4.0 can only display them side on, but print much better and come with legends. However, Acrobat 4.05 and higher can display them in the proper orientation.

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[December Skies]

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Cheers! And good star gazing!

updated

Ian's Astrophotography Gallery

 Some of the photographs/images I have taken in recent years of astronomical phenomena that may be of interest.

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Links

 Societies: updated Australian Resources: Australian Planetariums: Astronomy for Kids International Resources: Stunning sites: Useful programs:
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Charts, Books and Software for Astronomy

 If you would like to have charts available all the time, rather than relying on mine, for between $2-$10 you can pick up a planisphere from a newsagent or bookshop (or for a bit more you can get fancy ones from Australian Geographic, the ABC shop or the other Australian Geographic look alike shop, or the Wilderness Society, or even a binocular/ optical store). The planisphere won't give you position of the planets, so you will need to get the planet rise/set times. These can be found in most serious newspapers (the Age, the Australian, SMH etc. The Australian is probably the best bet for budding amateurs). The combination of planisphere and rise/set times is the best value for beginners though, if you are not too worried about identifying star clusters in your binoculars.

Or, for $19.95 US, you can have the Touring the Universe through Binoculars Atlas http://www.philharrington.net/tuba.htm which can print observing charts, but has a few annoying quirks. These include having no horizon line, and the planets are shown in the wrong places.

I use a combination of a 1962 star chart, the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac and SkyMap Pro 11.0 . I highly recommend the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. It is more helpful for planetary/comet/asteroidal observations and eclipses than for double stars, clusters galaxies etc, but is an excellent resource for Australian observers and anyone who would like to seriously follow the planets in Australia should have this almanac. It has easy to follow month-by-month summary information, as well as detailed charts, tables and whole sky maps. It is easily navigated. The Almanac is often in big bookstores or optical shops, or email info@quasarastronomy.com.au to purchase a copy directly for those outside major population centres. The Australian Astronomy almanac comes out in around November for the following year, and is now approx $24.

Sky and Space, the Australian equivalent of Sky and Telescope, is also very good, especially for breaking news. It is found in most big newsagents at $7.40 an issue. Disclaimer! I am now a contributing editor and write the planetary observation section for Sky and Space.

Sky and Telescope now also do an Australian version of their magazine.

For detailed chart drawing and timing of events, as well as satellite track predictions I feed the information from the almanac into the $150 AUD SkyMap Pro 11.0 , planetarium program. This is a very handy program which prints maps of every possible orientation and scale. The maps on this page are produced by SkyMap.

A shareware version of SkyMap that runs on windows 3.x, and win95 can be found here http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win3/desktop/skymp21a.zip this is approximately 640 Kb zipped.

A shareware version of the win95 only version 5.0 is here http://www.download.net.au/cgi-bin/dl?13607

Other highly recommended Sky charting packages (win95/98/2000/XP sorry) are:
Cartes du Ciel at http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ (FREE) a bit messy to install but very good.
Stellarium at http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/ (FREE) stunning photorealistic program, but requires grunty PC and OpenGL.
TheSkyVarious packages from $49 US to $249 US
Stary Night various versions from $49 us for the basic pack (10 day trial of the basic pack at http://www.siennasoft.com/english/downloads.shtml) up.
Earth Centered Universe $88 AUD (shareware version at http://www.nova-astro.com/)
On the other hand a standard Sky Atlas for serious observing (much handier than carting a computer with you) such as Norton's Star Atlas can range from $35 to $90.

This is not meant to be a product endorsement of any kind (outside of the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. For any budding astronomers out there, it is fantastic value and no, I don't have any commercial interest in it, but I did win bronze in their website Olympics). I am now also a contributing editor for Sky and Space so naturally take my enthusiasm with the appropriate grains of salt (although I was enthusiastic before I was approached to write for it).

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This page is provided by Ian Musgrave and is © copyright 2008 Ian Musgrave, except the meteor tables which are from the Astronomical Society of New South Wales Inc and the "Southern Sky Watch" logo, as well as any other ABC logo used on this page, is © copyright of the ABC. Sky maps are generated with SkyMap Pro 11.0 .

This page can be used freely for any non-commercial purpose but please attribute it correctly. However, see the disclaimer.

* Email: reynella@mira.net e-mail Ian with any suggestions
Created: Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 11:22:13 PM
Last Updated: Monday, 21 January 2008, 11:30:13 PM

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