Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that
star? Get the answers from mySKY--a
fun new astronomy helper from Meade. PLANETS
ALIGN: Venus and Saturn are converging for a close encounter
on June 30th when the pair will be only 2/3o apart. You
can watch the distance shrink in the nights ahead. Step outside
after sundown and look west. Venus is the brightest object in the
sky; Saturn is the yellow dot right beside it. Sky maps:
June 24, 25,
26, 27,
28, 29,
30.
DAYLIGHT FLYBYS: The International
Space Station is now bright enough to see in broad daylight. Yesterday
in Sonnenbuehl-Genkingen, Germany, photographer Martin
Wagner caught it gliding past the quarter Moon:
Photo details: 25cm telescope, f=1300mm,
Canon
EOS 300D, 1/800s, 200 ASA.
"I saw a light dot coming toward the Moon and
took a series of four pictures, hoping that one at least would succeed--and
one did! I'm happy to be so lucky," he says.
Would you like a call when the ISS is about to fly
over your home town? Sign up for SpaceWeather
PHONE.
BONUS:
Some flybys are easier to see than others. "We took these photos
of the US Navy Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornets passing close to the Moon
during yesterday's air show over North Kingstown, Rhode Island,"
write Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre. Photos: #1,
#2.
BALL OF FIRE: On June 14th,
photographer Mila
Zinkova stood on a beach near her home in San Francisco and
looked out across the waves. In the distance, a ball of fire emerged
from the smokestack of a passing ship:
Really, it was the sun. Green flash and mirage specialist Andrew
Young explains: "Thermal turbulence in the ship's exhaust
plume is scattering light from the sun into the plume, with a deflection
of several minutes of arc." Later, as the sun set even further,
the distortion grew, producing a
figure that "looked like a solar prominence," says
Zinkova. This was caused by the turbulent plume of a second ship
beyond the horizon.
It all goes to show, you never know what you might see when you
look
at the
sunset.
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