By Mike P. Usher
usher34105@earthlink.net

There are several dog constellations in tTonight we have a rare visual treat! We have not two, but three planets in conjunction, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury. Technically, a pair of planets are in conjunction when they share the same right ascension, the celestial equivalent of longitude, but the word is commonly used whenever planets make a close pass.

In this case, Jupiter has been moving towards the western horizon for some time now. Earlier this month Venus appeared very low in the west and has been rising a little higher each evening as Jupiter sinks. About the 19th Venus was joined by Mercury which seems to be racing to catch up to its brighter cousin. Mercury will brush past Venus on the 24th and pass Jupiter two days later on the 26th.

Facing West, 8:45 PM May 26. Submitted Photo

At this point Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will be within 5 degrees of each other; all three planets may then be viewed within the same field of view of a pair of binoculars. Naked eye stargazers should have no problem spotting the planets if they wait until about a half hour after sunset. Venus is much the brightest of the three, shining with a pearly light at magnitude -3.8. Mercury is rather fainter at -0.69, but still brighter than any star in this evening sky except Sirius. Jupiter is of intermediate brightness, -1.77. The biggest problem with observing this conjunction will not be the bright twilight, but clouds. Our rainy season is approaching!

The planets of course are not really very close to each other, they merely appear that way due to our line of sight. Jupiter is well over 400 million miles from Venus for example and even further from Mercury.

After the 26th Mercury shoots by Jupiter on it’s way to greatest eastward elongation in mid June while Venus does a close pass by Jupiter on the 28th of May being only one degree away at its closest point. Venus will remain our evening star for the rest of the year. Jupiter will continue sinking into the west until it slides behind the Sun and pops out in our morning sky in a few weeks.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

There are several dog constellations in the sky, but there is only one wolf – Lupus. Consisting of 2nd and 3rd magnitude stars it is a modestly bright constellation in the deep south lying between Scorpius and Centaurus. It appears to be on its back next to the Milky Way.

In very ancient times the constellation was considered to be part of Centaurus but about 2,200 years ago it was split off and was included in Ptolemy’s catalog, who additionally was the first one to refer to it as a wolf.

Most of the brighter stars in Lupus are a part of the OB association Scorpius-Centaurus. An association is a sort of very spread out cluster whose stars are no longer gravitationally bound to one another but are still moving through space at the same speed and direction. The OB is a reference to the hot, bright stars it contains. Several hundred stars have been identified in this association, in addition to the aforementioned stars of Lupus. Antares is the brightest member of the group, located in nearby Scorpius.

A number of the Scorpius-Centaurus association stars have blown themselves to bits in the last few million years via supernovas – most recently in the year 1006. That supernova was the brightest ever seen during recorded history, reaching -7.5 magnitude – about as bright as a half Moon!

In nearby Scorpius there is a most interesting star. During 2000, with no warning Dschubba suddenly became a variable star. At times it has become the second brightest in Scorpius, noticeably affecting the appearance of the constellation. Dschubba has a close companion star that has recently been implicated in the flareups.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

Once a year, it’s always nice to revisit the Southern Cross, technically known as Crux, as a reminder of just how far south Marco Island is located. Although the Cross rises above the horizon every day of the year, it is usually hidden by daylight, clouds or the ungodly lateness of the hour. Only at the end of April to mid-May can the Cross be seen by casual stargazers at a reasonable time.

An additional problem with Crux is that while it is visible to Marco Islanders, it is just barely visible. The constellation is quite bright, it’s just so low in the sky; the top three are still pretty easy to see, the problem is the bottom star Acrux. Just barely one degree above the horizon a stargazer must have a completely flat horizon and haze free skies. Although one of the brighter stars in the sky, Acrux did not receive its name until comparatively recently when navigators in the southern hemisphere gave it a shortened form of it’s Bayer Catalog designation of Alpha Crucis.

Just above and to the left of Crux is one of the wonders of the sky, Omega Centauri – the largest globular cluster visible in Earth’s sky. (It is marked w Cen on the chart.)

How large is it? Omega Centauri is larger in apparent size than the full Moon! Wait for a moonless night and view it with your binoculars; then you will see what ten million stars look like all gathered in the same place. Without binoculars, Omega Centauri is still faintly visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy spot.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

In the gap between Virgo and Leo lies one of the showpieces of the sky and all it takes is a pair of binoculars to glimpse it. In this area, mostly devoid of naked eye stars, lie a countless number of galaxies of which about a dozen are visible in 9×50 binoculars. In a dark spot rest your elbows on a sturdy object like a car roof and scan this area of the sky carefully. In the accompanying chart each galaxy is represented by a tiny circle; ones bright enough for binoculars have either names or Messier numbers. The galaxies will appear as tiny wisps of fog – as well they might, being some 45 million light years away!

The Virgo supercluster, of which our galaxy is a distant member, is just one of millions of superclusters throughout the universe. As superclusters go, it is one of the least impressive ones but is highly visible to us for two reasons: 1) it is relatively close and 2) it is situated well away from the disk of the Milky Way where dust hides almost everything truly distant – at least in visible light.

For naked eye observers, we have Boötes (both o’s are pronounced) rising in the east dominated by the bright star Arcturus. It is the 4th brightest star in the sky and the brightest in the northern hemisphere, although it is so close to the celestial equator it is easily visible everywhere in the world except Antarctica. In the unlikely event you have trouble finding Arcturus, mentally extend the curve of the handle of the Big Dipper and Arcturus is the first bright star you come across. Arcturus is a very old star, about as massive as our Sun, but 170 times brighter and has a distinct orange tint. In fact, our Sun will look very much like Arcturus in 5 billion years or so.

Continue the arc of the Big Dipper’s handle beyond Arcturus and Spica is the next bright star encountered. Spica is one of the few 1st magnitude stars found near the ecliptic and is occasionally occulted by the Moon and very rarely by planets, perhaps once every few centuries. Spica is one of the closer stars to Earth expected to end it’s life as a supernova – but don’t expect that to happen for many millions of years yet!

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

Tonight, we return to one of my favorite areas of the sky – the Taurus, Auriga, and Perseus section of the northern Milky Way. Here we are looking directly towards the outer rim of our Galaxy through the thinnest sector, and consequently, the Milky Way is somewhat dimmer here. Nevertheless there is a lot going on; binocular owners that sweep across the sky will pick up a number of star clusters in their field of view. Naked eye viewers have no trouble picking out two clusters, the famous Pleiades and the somewhat more spread out Hyades near Aldebaran.

The brightest star in the area, and indeed one of the brightest in the whole sky, is Capella the goat star; so called because in old drawings of Auriga a goat is located there. In a bit of whimsy the three stars just to the left of Capella are called “the kids.” The pure white color of Capella provides an interesting contrast to the orange of the nearby Aldebaran. There are at least three star clusters inside of Auriga bright enough to be seen with binoculars and one, M37 just outside of it.

Jupiter remains the brightest object in the sky this evening so don’t put your binoculars away without taking another look at it. A steady hand will reveal all four of its Galilean moons. Io is alone on one side of the planet, while on the other side Ganymede and Europa appear to be almost touching, and Callisto is the furthest out. (Description valid only for indicated time.) If your hand is too unsteady try resting your elbows on a solid object like a car roof.

For a naked eye test, take a look at Algol in the constellation Perseus. Normally it is almost as bright as the nearby star Mirphak, but once every two days, 20 hours and 49 minutes (yes, it is that precise) the star dims to less than half of its original brightness. In fact it becomes about as equally bright as the star just to its left. Algol belongs to that group of stars known as eclipsing variables. What actually happens is that a closely orbiting, but much dimmer, companion star moves in front of Algol and blocks most of Algol’s light.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

There are maybe a trillion comets orbiting the Sun in the Oort cloud; the grip of the Sun is very weak so far out, and every now and then a passing star may eject a few comets into interstellar space or cause them to fall inwards towards us. We have just such a visitor tonight.

Comets are named for their discoverers, or in this case the instrument package that did the work – the full official designation is C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS). The C/2011 means a comet and year of discovery, the L4 is a sort of code indicating it was the 4th comet discovered in the last half of June.

As a comet drops inwards towards the Sun the increasing warmth vaporizes the ice producing a very temporary atmosphere known as the coma. It is this coma we see and recognize as a comet; the actual comet nucleus is so tiny as to be almost invisible even to powerful telescopes. The larger and more spectacular comets produce a distinct tail as the solar wind and radiation push the coma away from the nucleus. A peculiarity of comets is that the tail always points away from the Sun no matter if it is coming or going.

Comet PanSTARRS will be visible very low in the west starting March 7th although it probably will be almost impossible to locate before it sets. A much better chance will be on March 10th; the comet is expected to be 3rd magnitude then, but it will be quite difficult to spot in the evening twilight. In all likelihood this will be a binoculars only object. There will only be a very narrow window of opportunity to spot the comet on any given evening; 30 minutes after sunset the comet will be less than ten degrees above the horizon. This means the beach is the best possible place to be!

The comet is inside Mercury’s orbit and reaches its closest point to the Sun on March 10th. That makes Comet PanSTARRS the fastest moving object in the Solar System and it will be in a noticeably different spot each evening. Additional finder charts covering other days are available on the website www.coastalbreezenews.com. As the comet pulls away from the Sun it will rapidly fade from view; in a week or two it will be beyond the reach of binoculars.

There is always a chance a comet will beat expectations or fizzle out; we will find out what Comet PanSTARRS will do soon!

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

The title does not refer to the Olson twins, but the constellation Gemini is now at its zenith. As it is usually drawn in modern times, the constellation resembles two stick-figures holding hands; it is really quite easy to pick out once you locate Castor and Pollux. Pollux is the brighter of the two stars, but for some reason Bayer gave Castor the Alpha designation in his famous old catalog, while Pollux got the Beta designation. There has been some speculation over the centuries that either Castor has faded or Pollux has brightened since the early 17th century, but the most probable explanation is that Bayer was following tradition. In ancient mythology the twins are invariably referred to as “Castor and Pollux,” not vice versa, so Bayer went for the Alpha – Beta solution.

Just below Gemini is the excessively faint constellation of Cancer, the crab. Cancer has the odd distinction of having a Messier object in it brighter than any star of the constellation. Praesepe the Beehive cluster (M44) spreads out over an area three times that of the full Moon and is the perfect object to investigate with your binoculars. It’s too large to be seen in its entirety with a telescope and too faint to examine in detail with your naked eye.

Alas, the comet known as C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), is going to be a couple of magnitudes fainter than originally predicted. This is not an unexpected event as first-time comets often fizzle. Still, it should peak at about +3 magnitude which is brighter than any comet visible in the northern hemisphere for some years. Almost certainly you will require binoculars for the best view; however since the comet dives deeply into the Sun’s grasp anything could happen when it emerges. Next issue’s column will concentrate on comets in general and Comet PANSTARRS in particular, along with viewing instructions. The action begins on March 10th!

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

usher34105@earthlink.net

Rising in the east tonight is the constellation Leo the Lion. Leo is one of the brighter zodiacal constellations and quite easy to find; simply reverse the pointer stars direction in the Big Dipper and you land in Leo.

Leo is also one of the few constellations that bears some slight resemblance to the object for which it’s named. With a bit of imagination a crouching lion is revealed. Leo is also home to an asterism known as the sickle. It consists of the head and shoulders of the lion and really does look like a sickle – or probably for younger stargazers, more like a question mark.

Facing East, 9 PM February 16th. Leo’s neighbor Hydra is such a long constellation it can’t fit completely into the picture.

Bright star Regulus lies almost exactly on the ecliptic where it is occasionally occulted by the Moon or rarely by planets and asteroids. In fact Regulus is due to be occulted by 163 Erigone on March 20, 2014; unfortunately, although visible in New York, it will be invisible from Marco.

Amateur astronomers tend to get a little bit excited when they see Leo rising, because the Virgo Supercluster rises just behind it. The lion’s tail points directly towards it. The Supercluster consists of thousands of galaxies spread out over a fairly large area of sky, from Leo to Virgo; our own galaxy is a distant member. A handful of the brighter galaxies are visible in binoculars, but don’t bother trying until Leo rises much higher in the sky.

Speaking of binoculars, a pair will greatly enhance your stargazing. Almost any pair will do, although a pair optimized for astronomical use is the best (and most expensive!). Binoculars are described by two numbers: 7×35 are very common; 9×50 are better for stargazing. The first number gives the magnification; the second is the width of the lens in millimeters. Anything larger than 9×50 is difficult to hold steady due to its weight; image-stabilized binoculars are available but it’s probably just easier and cheaper in the long run to use a camera tripod. A useful pair of binoculars for general use can be had for under $100 from online vendors.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

By Mike P. Usher

usher34105@earthlink.net

Facing South, 9 PM February 2nd. Do you see a ship’s stern rising? SUBMITTED PHOTO

Nearly due south tonight burns the second brightest star in the sky – Canopus. This star can only be seen in southerly latitudes of less than 38 degrees and really only shines with its full brilliance in latitudes under 30 degrees; in Florida for example! Canopus is the brightest star in the constellation of Carina, the keel of the old ship constellation Argo Navis. In ancient mythology a man named Canopus was the navigator for Menelaus, the husband of the famous Helen.

Argo Navis, after dominating the southern sky for a couple of millennia, was broken up in the eighteenth century into three smaller constellations, Carina, the keel; Puppis the stern; and Vela, the sails. Argo Navis sat squarely in the southern Milky Way and was considered too unwieldy by astronomers who were busy cataloging the sky. If Argo Navis were still a constellation today, it would be the largest of them all.

All, or very nearly all of the old constellation will rise above the horizon on Marco – but not at the same time; the island is not quite far enough south for that. In a few hours the stern will set before the bow completely rises. Two thousand years ago tonight the entire constellation was visible above the horizon on Marco. In the intervening millennia between now and then the ship has sunk southward several degrees. The stars themselves have not moved but the Earth has wobbled due to precession of the equinoxes.

For binocular users there are several bright star clusters in Puppis; particularly NGC 2451, which would certainly have earned an M number had Messier been far enough south to have seen it. There are still three Messier objects in Puppis but they are in its far northern regions (as the modern boundaries are drawn) and are much fainter.

In a month or so we may have a bright comet to look at in the west; I’ll keep an eye on it both literally and figuratively and let you know about its progress. Now would be an excellent time to invest in some binoculars if you don’t already own a pair!

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples

By Mike P. Usher
usher34105@earthlink.net

Facing South, looking nearly straight up. 9:00PM January 18th. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Tonight, Jupiter is very near the zenith (straight up); this is the best time to observe Jupiter with your binoculars. To be comfortable lie down in a pool chair, you can brace your elbows on the chair arms or chest to steady the binoculars. Through the binoculars you will be able to see the tiny disk of the planet itself and all four of the Galilean satellites. Io is by itself on the left side of the planet and on the right are Europa, Ganymede and Callisto moving outwards. The satellites are easy to distinguish from stars as they are usually in a straight line and of similar brightness. Please note that unless you observe Jupiter at the same date and time indicated in the caption, the number, positions and order of the moons will vary – they move after all!

Galileo had the clever idea of using the moons of Jupiter as a very accurate clock; such a clock would be incredibly valuable to the sailing ships of the day as an aid to navigation. This would work in theory but the calculations involved were utterly impractical by 17th century standards. He quickly realized this and dropped the idea.

Look again at Jupiter on the 21st; the Moon makes an extremely close pass by the planet that evening. In fact, the Moon will not come so close again until 2026! At the time of closest approach the two will be less than one degree apart. Occasionally the Moon will actually cover Jupiter, an event known as an occultation; but, alas, there will no occultation in the near future.

As long as you have the binoculars out take a look at the nearby Pleiades; six stars are visible to the naked eye – how many can you see with the binoculars? There are actually two star clusters visible to the eye in Taurus. The second one, the Hyades, is a little more spread out than the Pleiades and form the “v” shape of Taurus’ head. Aldebaran is also part of the “v” but not part of the Hyades cluster being only about half the distance away.

Two bright asteroids, or what passes for bright in asteroids, are also in Taurus tonight: Vesta and Ceres. Both are just below naked eye brightness, but are easy to see in binoculars. Vesta will be quite difficult to positively identify as it is buried in the Hyades cluster lost among similarly bright stars, but Ceres should be fairly easy. In your binocular field of view just to the right of Alnath and just under the “line” of the horns of Taurus are 3 stars of similar brightness. Ceres is the middle one. These directions are only valid for the week on either side of the 18th of January; as in the case of Jupiter’s moons – Ceres moves! See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

By Mike P. Usher
usher34105@earthlink.net

Looking East, 9:00PM January 4th. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Stargazers can look at this section of the sky for hours. Monoceros, the unicorn in the center, is not much to look at of course, but the Milky Way does run through it and there are some fine clusters awaiting inspection by binocular users. In particular, try to find M47 near the border with Canis Major.

Sirius the Dog star is the brightest star in the sky, only the Moon and several planets are brighter. Not that anyone ever needs help finding it, but the belt stars in Orion point right towards Sirius. Strangely, in absolute brightness terms, Sirius is the dimmest naked eye star in Canis Major. The other stars in Canis Major, the big dog, are huge bright suns, perhaps a hundred times brighter than Sirius, but are hundreds of light years off and the distance dims their splendor. Sirius is one of the Sun’s close neighbors in space, only 8.6 light years away.

During the summer Sirius shares the sky with the Sun; the ancients believed (wrongly) that the heat of Sirius added to heat provided by the Sun made the season so hot. Even today we refer to the Dog Days of Summer.

While looking at Canis Major, use your binoculars to locate M41, a star cluster, which hangs like a dog tag on the constellation. In dark sky areas like those near Copeland, M41 is visible to the naked eye and has the possible distinction of being the dimmest object ever described in ancient text.

Another close neighbor of the Sun is Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor, the little dog; at 11.4 light years it is only slightly farther away than Sirius. Canis Minor is perhaps the easiest constellation of all to memorize – it contains only two stars!

Not far from Canis Minor lies the constellation Gemini, the twins, with two almost equally bright stars, Castor and Pollux. For those that have trouble distinguishing which star is which, Castor lies just slightly closer to the Pole star than Pollux. Binocular users should try to pick out the Cone Nebula near the foot of Gemini, it’s a fairly bright cluster with some associated nebulosity.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7 PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples.

By Mike P. Usher
usher34105@earthlink.net 

SUBMITTED PHOTO
Looking West, 9:00PM December 21st. Can you find the Great Square?

It’s been a couple of years since we have discussed star names. There are only about a couple of hundred stars that have actual proper names; the vast majority are only known by catalog numbers. Of the two hundred stars that do have names only about two dozen are in common use by astronomers. The charts attached to this article have a lot more names displayed than are in actual daily use; these names are only of historical interest and are useful mainly for amazing your friends with your intimate knowledge of the sky.

Instead, stars are known by their catalog designations. Among naked eye stars there are two in common use, the Bayer and Flamsteed catalogs.

The Bayer catalog is the oldest and was first published in 1603 by the German astronomer Johann Bayer. He assigned a lower case Greek letter to each star in a constellation, starting with alpha, beta, gamma and so on combined with the Latin name of the constellation in the genitive case. In this scheme we get designations such as Alpha Centauri, which in English might be translated as “Alpha of Centaurus”. Typically, Bayer assigned the brightest star in the constellation as alpha and worked his way down to dimmer stars – but not always. Occasionally he would use other schemes or even assign letters apparently at random. When Bayer ran out of Greek letters (there are only 24 of them) he switched to lower case Latin letters then upper-case Latin letters. His original list contained 1,534 stars out of about the 6,000 visible to the naked eye.

Some of the slack was taken up by John Flamsteed in 1712 when his catalog was published without his permission by Edmond Halley (famous for calculating the orbit of Halley’s comet) and Isaac Newton. Flamsteed used a scheme that seems more modern to us in the 21st century; he assigned a number to every visible star in a constellation working his way from east to west. Using Flamsteed’s system there are stars called 3 Lyrae and 61 Cygni.

It is important to note that a number of companies claim the ability to name a star for you or someone you designate for a fee. By international treaty, no company has the ability to name any heavenly body – all names are given by the International Astronomical Union. The IAU does not assign names to stars and has no plans to do so in the future.

See you next time! 

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month at 7:00PM in the Norris Center, Cambier Park, Naples. 

By Mike P. Usher 

usher34105@earthlink.net 

There is a lot to see in the eastern sky tonight! Both naked eye and binocular stargazers will be kept busy enjoying the sights nature is presenting this evening.

Orion the hunter, undoubtedly one of the most recognized constellations in the world, is rising in the east. Many of the bright stars in this region of the sky are loosely related to each other, being members of what is called the Orion OB1 Association – a sort of loose cluster that is no longer gravitationally bound together. The stars of the belt and sword are all members with Betelgeuse and Rigel being possible outliers.

Bellatrix was once thought to be a member of the association as well, but this is now thought not to be correct as it is much closer to Earth than the other stars. This blue-white shoulder star in Orion may now be better known to youngsters as the namesake of an evil character in the Harry Potter series. The Latin name can be translated as “female warrior” and that indeed was the function of the character in the books.

Saiph serves as the right foot of Orion and has a rather unusual property. It is about as far away as Rigel and of a similar size but appears noticeably dimmer. This is because Saiph’s surface temperature is so hot (46,000 deg. F) that most of the light emitted is in the ultraviolet range and invisible to the naked eye making it appear dimmer.

Orion has a rather useful property for beginning stargazers – it can be used to locate other stars and constellations. Extend the line formed by the belt stars to the left and find Sirius – the brightest star in the sky. Go the opposite direction and find Aldebaran in Taurus. Draw an imaginary line from Rigel through Betelgeuse then extend it until you reach Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Finally, extend a line from Bellatrix through Betelgeuse and locate Procyon in Canis Minor.

Even naked eye stargazers see the fuzzy area in Orion; binocular users will find the middle star in Orion’s sword is actually the giant Orion Nebula – a birthplace of stars. A few stars are visible in the misty area, but perhaps a thousand are still hidden.

See you next time! 

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month during the summer at 7:00PM in the Books-A-Million, at the Mercato, Naples. 

Looking West, 6:00AM November 23rd. How many planets can you find? SUBMITTED PHOTO

This morning, perhaps as you are walking the dog, look to the east and you have a chance to see three planets – Venus, Saturn and Mercury. Venus and Saturn are easy to spot, along with the first magnitude star Spica. Mercury is much more difficult as it is so close to the horizon. Wait a few minutes and it will rise higher – but wait too long and it will be lost in the morning twilight. Probably your best chance is to wait until November 30 when it reaches it’s farthest distance from the Sun (as seen from Earth).

This is the time of year when everyone asks me, “what kind of telescope should I buy for my spouse/child/ grandchild?” The quick answer is none; take the money set aside for a telescope and purchase binoculars instead. There are two reasons for this: first, the expectations of what you will see through the telescope far exceed the reality. Second, a telescope is a precision engineered optical device and such devices are not inexpensive.

Still, with Christmas time fast approaching and money burning holes in pockets, people still insist on buying telescopes. I’ll throw out a few prices so you can help orient yourself and see what is a fair deal versus a rip-off. The prices given are for stripped down basic models with decent optics. Specifically, models called Newtonian reflectors with Dobsonian mounts (NOT tripods), minimum of accessories and NO electronics. Dollar for dollar they are the best buys today. Add $200 and up if you want electronics. Please note all telescopes come with a very steep learning curve! In my lifetime, I have never seen a pre-teen have the patience required to master a telescope although they really do enjoy viewing with one.

Quality telescopes are sold by aperture – the diameter of the mirror (or lens); all sizes given below are in reference to the aperture. The length of the telescope is four to eight times larger than the aperture, plus the mount.

6 inch (150mm) – the smallest size considered useful by amateurs, about $300. Easily portable, an excellent size for young teens.

8 inch (200mm) – possibly the most common size used by amateurs, about $350. Very portable, widely owned by amateurs of both genders and all ages.

10 inch (250mm) – recently became the average size used by amateurs, about $575. Starting to push the boundary of what can be transported by a standard sized car. They weigh about 50 pounds, and are rather bulky.

12 inch (300mm) – about $1100. You need a pickup truck or SUV here for transportation. They weigh about 80 pounds and are rather bulky.

For additional useful information and a list of manufacturers, please drop me an e-mail at usher34105@ earthlink.net

See you next time! 

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month during the summer at 7:00PM in the Books-A-Million, at the Mercato, Naples.

By Mike P. Usher 

usher34105@earthlink.net 

Looking East at 9:00PM, November 9th. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Tonight, Jupiter returns to the early evening sky after an absence of some months. Jupiter is nearing opposition which will occur on December 3; Jupiter will be 180 degrees away from the Sun and will rise as the Sun sets. Opposition is important because Jupiter will be at its closest point to Earth on this pass around the Sun. Jupiter will be extra big and bright the next couple of months just begging to be viewed with binoculars.

Viewing Jupiter with your binoculars tonight you will see four of its largest moons (Jupiter actually has more than 60!). Above the planet are Io, Europa and Ganymede working your way outwards, and on the other side is Callisto. They are easy to recognize as Jupiter’s moons as they always lie very nearly on a straight line. Each moon is an interesting world in its own right and all are about the size of our own Moon and larger. Ganymede in fact is larger than Mercury, but less massive, being composed of more rock and ice and less metal.

Jupiter’s moons constantly move around, shuffle their positions and move noticeably in just a few hours. Usually two or three are visible, often all four are; on rare occasions Jupiter may appear moonless for a very brief time. The next time that happens is in 2019, exactly seven years from tonight.

Jupiter is inside Taurus tonight; an extraordinary old constellation dating back to the Bronze age at least and possibly all the way back to the Neolithic. Taurus actually only depicts the head and forequarters of a bull with the head being the most prominent part. The V-shape of the head is formed by the star cluster called the Hyades; the bloodshot eye of the bull is the first magnitude star Aldebaran. Despite appearances Aldebaran is not a member of the Hyades but merely lies along the same line of sight less than half as far away.

Taurus is the home of the Taurid Meteor shower which occurs throughout the month of November. Taurid meteors are few in number, perhaps seven per hour, but tend to be remarkably bright.

See you next time!

Mr. Usher is President of the Everglades Astronomical Society which meets the second Tuesday each month during the summer at 7:00PM in the Books-A-Million, at the Mercato, Naples.