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No planetary spectacle in tonight’s sky
By Dan Hicks
Contrary to CBC Radio reporting – there will be no “planetary spectacle” in tonight’s sky (nor in any ensuing nights).
I have excerpted the following basic planetary information for this week from the ever reliable Skyandtelescope.org website (below) which foresaw the possibility of some media night sky nuttiness about the planets.
To the Skyandtelescope.org information, I will add that we are past the waxing first quarter moon (as of yesterday) and tonight’s all-night March 28 moon is 50% illuminated (diminishing the visibility of all other astro stuff).
THIS WEEK’S PLANET ROUNDUP skyandtelescope.org 2023-03-24 F
Don’t be misled by media hype about a great lineup of planets shining in the west this week.
Most people will only see Venus (pictured) and, high above it, much-fainter Mars – similar to stars in its general area.
Mercury and Jupiter are very low in bright twilight and will likely need binoculars before they set.
Uranus, near Venus, is invisible to the naked eye.
See below for what really to look for!
Mercury and Jupiter are very low in the glow of sunset.
Look due west about a half hour after sunset, far to the lower right of Venus.
Binoculars will help.
Jupiter is magnitude –2.0 and Mercury is not far behind: magnitude –1.5 on Friday, March 24, fading to –1.1 over the next seven days.
Jupiter sinks lower day by day, but Mercury shoots up!
On the 24th Mercury is 6° to Jupiter‘s lower right and probably still out of sight.
They pass each other at conjunction March 27, with Mercury 1.3° to Jupiter‘s right.
By Friday the 31 Mercury is 6° above Jupiter.
Venus (magnitude –4.0, in Aries) is the brilliant “Evening Star” shining in the west during and after dusk.
It finally sets almost 2 hours after dark.
Telescopically, Venus is a shimmering little gibbous ball 14 arcseconds in diameter and about 78% sunlit.
Mars has moved from Taurus to cruise over the trailing foot of the Castor stick-figure in Gemini.
Look for it high in the southwest in early evening, lower in the west later.
It’s upper left of Venus by four or five fists at arm’s length.
Mars continues to fade: from magnitude +0.8 to +1.0 this week.
It’s very similar to Mars-colored Aldebaran (+0.9) some 18° below it, and Mars–colored Betelgeuse (currently +0.4) about the same distance to Mars’s lower left.
They form the big, temporary Orange Triangle, no longer equilateral.
It’s connected to the larger, brighter Winter Triangle at its Betelgeuse corner.
In a telescope Mars is now just a little orange blob 6 arcseconds wide.
That’s too small to show details visually, but notice its gibbous shape: 90% sunlit.
Saturn is just emerging into dawn view, very low in the east-southeast as the sky brightens.
Try binoculars about 40 minutes before sunrise.
Uranus, magnitude 5.8 in Aries, is in the west right after dark far in the background of Venus.
Uranus finder charts are in last November’s Sky & Telescope Magazine (page 49).
Neptune is hidden low in the sunrise.
I am deeply disappointed to see our public broadcaster descend into broadcasting such ridiculous astronomical hype.
Likewise, I am also somewhat disappointed to see our Cranbrook Public Library display a collection of “clinkers” as “meteorites,” and I commend local paleontological enthusiast Guy Santucci for properly identifying the clinkery display in his March 25 East Kootenay Paleo NewsPDF newsletter.
Such careless actions by established institutions serve to discredit accurate scientific communication; taking us further into a weird world where everyone can voice their own particular beliefs – unopposed (I was initially silent about the library display myself).
Furthermore, local astronomy enthusiasts might seem shamefully somnambulant in their ignoring what the CBC is promoting as miraculous must-see occurrences adorning the heavens above us; and of course there is no follow-up coverage – no stellar happenings having ever occurred in the first place.
I had been advocating for “65,” the delightful but scary Hollywood dino movie now playing on our silver screen, it is primarily entertainment, but contains some rather limited science-based information.
Now the CBC and our library has me wondering whether or not those with unfiltered perspectives might view everything portrayed in this imaginative movie as God’s truth.
Officially, 65 is already not for children, and I would now add – not for gullibly impressionable adults either, who risk being homebound, fearing both ferocious dinosaurs and inbound killer asteroids; and the latter threat is ever a possibility.
I thank those who have communicated to me regarding Uranus and benign non-killer Asteroid 2023 DZ2 which passed between our Planet Earth and our moon on March 25, and that this stellar stuff is “interesting.”
Given our ever-brightening waxing moon, I will not be arranging any special viewing of Uranus, but nevertheless, should there be a break in the clouds on March 3t, I encourage binocular-owners to view brilliant Venus and look 1.30 below and slightly left to see much dimmer Uranus; both planets will be in the same binocular field of view (full moon = 0.50/ I earlier communicated erroneously that this was to occur on March 26);
At magnitude 5.8, blue-green stellar-object Uranus would be visible in a wilderness sky (barely), albeit it is presently 8,000 times dimmer than Venus.
Seventh and eighth in our solar system’s outward planetary order, Uranus and Neptune are our ice giants, but uniquely, Uranus’s poles are oriented to the planetary ecliptic; ie the planet is the only one spinning on its side – orbiting the sun like a “rolling ball” every 84 Earth-years – its seasons are both long and extreme!
Lead image: Venus. NASA image
