Night Sky Astronomy

On the morning of the 21st December, the moon moved into the Earth’s shadow and caused a total eclipse.  Luckily enough, it was a clear morning with great visibility and the moon was perfectly positioned between two houses for the beginning of the eclipse at 06:15.  I was looking at it from our bedroom window and could see the shadow gradually moving across from left to right.  It was a great site to behold, but I had a bad cold and wasn’t able to watch the full event, so had to go back to bed.  When I woke up to take a look a little later, the moon had moved behind some houses so I was unable to see it.  It was a shame, but i’m glad that I saw the beginning of the event.

Unfortunately I didn’t see many of the Geminid meteors at all.  I went out on the 12th December for about an hour, intending to solely keep an eye out for them, but got sidetracked by the Moon and Jupiter.  They were both high up in the sky and shining brightly. It was a very clear night.  I had both the telescope and the binoculars out and the moon showed up brilliantly.  Looking at Jupiter, I couldn’t see any of the moons this time which was a shame.  This may be because Jupiter is getting darker and further away now, since its peak in November.  In between looking at these two, I did scan the night for the Geminids and saw two shoot over the sky, coming from a Northerly direction and moving towards the West.

I went out occasionally over the next three nights, but there was a lot more cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see anymore Geminid meteors, so will have to wait until next year’s show!

Time: 20:00 – 21:00, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North and East

Well last night was an amazingly clear night for looking at the stars and constellations.  Scores of starts littered the night sky, all twinkling in the frosty air. The most amazing scene was the great Orion constellation looking down on the world. From my back step, Orion filled a large area of the sky and was perfectly placed to view.  It was an amazing sight!

In the end I spent about 20 minutes just gazing up into the night sky, and I didn’t even use my telescope or binoculars as the view was great as it was.

I was also hoping to view some meteors as a friend of mine commented on Twitter recently that they had see three shooting starts in one night. These were probably meteors meeting the Earth a little before their scheduled full arrival on the 13th December. Collectively they are known as the Geminids and they reach their height in a few days time.  Hopefully it will be a clear night on that day, although it will be best to view them after midnight due to the predicted brightness of the Moon on that night.  It should be an awesome sight though and one to enjoy for sure! Am looking forward to it.

Time: 21:10 – 21:30, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North East

Finally, with the help of my wife, we managed to calibrate the telescope correctly so that the viewfinder was lined up almost perfectly with the telescope lens and pointed it at the moon.  The sky was clear so the moon showed up bright and crisp, with the craters showing in great detail.  It was an amazing view, but then is started going hazy due to the cold night.  We are hoping to catch it on a clear night again soon and use greater magnification to really see it in detail.

Earth’s Moon (source: Science On A Sphere)

Time: 18:30 – 18:45, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North East

Finally the skies cleared and I was able to use my new binoculars for the first time.  It also coincided with the moon coming into range outside of our back door, so it was excellent timing.

The view that greeted me was excellent.  The moon was crisp and bright and was magnified enough to almost fill the whole viewing area.  As the binoculars only have a magnification of 10, I wasn’t really expecting much more, but the view was a lot better than what I had with my other pair.

As Jupiter was still shining brightly in the sky, I decided to give looking at it a go as well.  Jupiter is much much farther away,  so I didn’t think for one minute that I would see anything bar a small ball of light in the sky.  And I didn’t.  But to my surprise, I could just about make out two bright dots slightly to the right of the planet, which I assumed to be two of Jupiter’s moons.  So if any one can clarify that the two dots were the moons, please leave a comment on this post, as I would very much like to know. 😉

So all in all, I was very pleased with the new binoculars, and for £15 it was a very good buy.

Time: 19:30 – 19:45, Longitude: 50.435423, Latitude: -4.093217, Viewing: North East