Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 24, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 ■ High above the Moon this evening, by 3 or 4 fists at arm’s length, shines Altair, the southernmost star of the Summer Triangle. The other two, Vega and lesser Deneb, are nearly overhead. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 ■ By 10 or 11 p.m. bright Jupiter […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 18, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 ■ Look very low in the west-southwest in early twilight for the waxing crescent Moon. Can you see Spica twinkling 3° or 4° lower right of it? Use binoculars. Then look due west, about 25° to the right of the Moon, for Comet Nishimura at […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 13, 2023 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In 2019 China’s leading space corporation, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), was behind a proposal to create “an Earth-Moon economic zone by 2050” that could generate $10 trillion. But according to a report in the Chinese publication China Space News, in late […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 4, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 ■ Jupiter’s four bright Galilean moons are roughly the size of our own Moon, but at 1,800 times the distance, they appear in a telescope as hardly more than pinpoints. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot should transit the planet’s central meridian tonight around 1 a.m. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 27, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, AUGUST 28 ■ Different people have an easier or harder time seeing star colors, especially subtle ones. To me, the tints of bright stars stand out a little better in a sky that’s the deep blue of late twilight. For instance, the two brightest […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 15, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, AUGUST 14 A winter preview: Step out before the first light of dawn this week, and the sky displays the same starry panorama it does after dusk around Christmas. Orion is striding up in the southeast, with Aldebaran and then the Pleiades high above it. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 10, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 ■ The Big Dipper hangs diagonally in the northwest after dark. From its midpoint, look to the right to find Polaris (not very bright) glimmering due north as always. MONDAY, AUGUST 7 ■ A few Perseids trickle in starting in late July, then they […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 15, 2023 Mercury brightens this week but remains lost in the glow of sunrise. It is best seen 30 or 40 minutes before sunrise, well to the lower left of brighter Jupiter. Venus is the brilliant “Evening Star” in the west from twilight into late evening. It’s not as high in […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 31, 2023 SATURDAY, MAY 27 First-quarter Moon (exact at 11:22 a.m. on this date EDT). Jupiter and Mercury low in the dawn, May 27, 2023 By now Jupiter is getting easier to see low in the eastern dawn. And little Mercury is barely coming into view. Bring binoculars. SUNDAY, MAY 28 […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA] How big is Jupiter’s moon Io? The most volcanic body in the Solar System, Io (usually pronounced “EYE-oh”) is 3,600 kilometers in diameter, about the size of planet Earth’s single large natural satellite. Gliding past Jupiter at the turn of the millennium, […]
