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Astronomy
Welcome to the Boston Astronomy website ...

This website has been created by and is supported by a group of Boston, MA - area amateur astronomers. It is intended to be a convenient site to access news and information about astronomy and space-related activities of interest to the community and the public.


















       

            


           

           

 May Astronomy-Related Events in the Boston Area  

                          

             

Thursday, May 11th, 8:00 PM - 10 PM

Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB) Monthly Meeting

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

60 Garden St.

Cambridge, MA 02138

http://www.atmob.org

Topic and Speaker: "Adventures in Chile: 24/7 Astronomy", Kelly Beatty
Sky & Telescope's recent tour of Chile took 24 eager travelers — some advanced observers and some complete newbies — on a 9-day trip to see this amazing country and the even-more-amazing southern sky that arches overhead each night. Come along on our visits to five professional observatories and four "observatorios turísticos" that provided telescopes for hire up to 28 inches in aperture. Take in a geyser field at 14,200 feet (higher than Mauna Kea's summit), a walk through vast salt fields, and a little R&R at an organic winery. Kelly Beatty, a Sky and Telescope Senior Editor, writes many of the feature articles and news items found in the magazine and on their website. He joined the staff of Sky Publishing in 1974 and served as the editor of Night Sky, a magazine for beginning stargazers, in 2004-07. Specializing in planetary science and space exploration, Kelly conceived and edited The New Solar System, considered a standard reference among planetary scientists. He also taught astronomy for six years at the Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has been an ATMoB member since 2004. Besides being honored twice by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society, Kelly has also received the Harold Masursky Award for meritorious service, the Astronomical League Award for his contributions to the science of astronomy, and in 2009 the inaugural Jonathan Eberhart Journalism Award and the American Geophysical Union's Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism. Kelly hails from Madera, California. He holds a Bachelors degree in geology from the California Institute of Technology and a Master's degree in science journalism from Boston University. During the 1980s he was among the first Western journalists to gain firsthand access to the Soviet space program. Asteroid 2925 Beatty was named on the occasion of his marriage in 1983, and in 1986 he was chosen one of the 100 semifinalists for NASA's Journalist in Space program.        
   
          
Thursday, May 18th, 2017; 7:30 PM
CfA Public Observatory Night
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/publicevents
Topic and Speaker; "First Probe to the Stars", Zac Manchester and Blakesley Burkhart, CfA
To quote Douglas Adams, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is." Until now, traveling to other stars has been considered impossible. But the impossible might become reality. The audacious goal of Breakthrough Starshot is nothing less than sending a fleet of probes to the nearest star at a fraction of the speed of light. The technologies required would also open up the solar system to a new level of exploration.  
         
       
      
Plus (ongoing):
      
    
Tuesdays:
Clay Center
Dexter Southfield School
20 Newton Street
Brookline, MA 02445
617-454-2718
Public telescope nights most Tuesdays in Spring and Fall
http://www.dextersouthfield.org/about/clay-center/public-telescope-nights.cfm

  

   

Wednesdays:

Boston University

Boston, MA.
Open Night at Coit Observatory most Wednesdays 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM. (Register in advance.)

617-353-2630
http://www.bu.edu/astronomy/events/public-open-night-at-the-observatory/  

    

     

Thursdays (every 3rd Thursday), 8:30 PM:

CfA Public Observatory Night

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden Street

Cambridge, MA 02138
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/publicevents

          

      

Fridays (every week), 8:30 PM

Guilliland Observatory

Museum of Science

1 Science Park

Boston, MA 02114

617-589-0267

https://www.mos.org/public-events/astronomy-after-hours

       

          
          
          
   

Supernova Style Science News

 with Ms. Julie Seven Sage

                  

I would like to give a big shout-out to Ms. Julie Seven Sage. She is a 13-year old aspiring astrophysicist; did I say "aspiring"? I think she's most of the way there!

    

She has an unquenchable thirst for all new things in science - not just astronomy, but physics, biology, paleontology, materials science, and, as she puts it, "the people of science". She has been producing, with  the help of her parents, professional-quality videos discussing the latest news and developments in science and engineering. Julie is an amazing, enthusiastic young woman who will go far!

    

I cannot recommend strongly enough her videos and news clip updates.  Please visit her sites and see for yourselves: 

      

Website: www.supernovastylesciencenews.com

   

YouTube: Supernova Style Science News

 

She is also on Instagram,

   

Email: julie7sage@supernovastylesciencenews.com

 

News Email: news@supernovastylesciencenews.com

          

 

The Sky Report for the Month of May 2017      

                   

Current Night Sky: At A Glance

                        

The Moon & Planets: 

                   

Phases of the Moon: 

         

 

First Quarter

May 2

10:47 PM EDT

Full Moon

May 10

5:42 PM EDT

Last Quarter Moon

May 18

8:33 PM EDT

New Moon

May 25

3:44 PM EDT


 

                                                                          

         

Planet Visibility:

    

In Evening (after sunset):

    Mars, in NW

    Jupiter, in SE

             

 At Midnight:

    Jupiter, in S

    Saturn, in S

     

 In Morning (before sunrise):

    Jupiter, in W

    Saturn, in SW

    Neptune, in SE

    Venus, in E

    Uranus, in E

    Mercury, in E 

              

          

Comets:

 

      •      Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak moves from Hercules into Lyra, passing within 4° of Vega on May 2nd – 3rd. It returns to Hercules for the second half of the month. The comet may fade to magnitude 8 during May.
  •          

Meteors:      

  •     
    •     The Eta Aquariid meteors peak on the night of May 5th – 6th. Conditions should be good once the waxing gibbous Moon sets before 4:00 AM. This shower can produce 50 meteors per hour under dark, clear skies.
  •       
            

                                                            

                             

                    

                                         

On the night of May 2nd – 3rd, Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak lies within 4° of brilliant Vega.

Though still well placed for observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the comet has begun to dim as it recedes from the Sun.

 (For reference, the yellow circle in the lower right is ½° across – roughly the width of the Full Moon.)

 (May 3, 2017, 12:00 AM EDT).

                                          

         

                                                  

  

                      

In May, the moons of Jupiter undergo several double shadow transits; in this phenomenon, two satellites cast their tiny black shadows onto Jupiter’s disk simultaneously. In the depiction above, the two satellites themselves are visible to the right of their shadows as sunlight comes in from that direction.

Though Europa is plain, Io itself is more difficult to see than its shadow.

The disk of the moons present little contrast against the colored background of Jupiter’s cloud belts.

(May 19, 2017, 12:06 AM EDT).

                 

             

                       

     

                         

Three-quarters of an hour before sunrise on the 21st, the waning crescent Moon, Venus, and Mercury form a line.

Venus will continue to gain altitude for several weeks, while Mercury has begun descending closer to the horizon.

(May 21, 2017, 4:30 AM EDT).

       

                                                              


                                          

 Cassini's "Grand Finale"              

     

The Cassini spacecraft was launched from Earth in 1997; it reached Saturn and went into orbit around the planet in 2004. Upon arrival, it detached a small probe – Huygens – which penetrated through the opaque atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon: Titan. It was the first landing of a human-built artifact on any body in the outer Solar System. Meanwhile Cassini itself was making major discoveries. Using radar and infrared detectors, it detected the presence of lakes of liquid methane on Titan – the only place in the entire Solar System besides Earth where liquid is known to exist on the surface. Cassini discovered that Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus produces geysers (of water!) and may have a subsurface ocean. It has watched storms in Saturn’s atmosphere and has discovered a perplexing hexagonal feature near the planet’s North Pole. And it has revolutionized our knowledge of the planet’s awe-inspiring rings.

 

Now, the mission is coming to an end. With the spacecraft running low on attitude-control fuel, NASA has decided to dispose of Cassini by directing it to burn up in Saturn’s atmosphere. This decision was made to avoid the chance – however remote – of the derelict spacecraft impacting on Titan or Enceladus. Since these bodies are now of interest as possible habitats for life, NASA wanted to insure against the even more remote chance that any long-surviving organisms that Cassini may carry will contaminate these worlds. Cassini will burn up in Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15, 2017.

 

But Cassini has more work to do in the meantime. Beginning in late April, course changes have altered is trajectory such that the spacecraft is now passing inside the ring system - as opposed to the 200+ orbits the spacecraft completed while observing the Saturn system from outside the rings. In a mission phase called the “Grand Finale”, Cassini will make 22 passes through the gap between the topmost part of Saturn’s atmosphere and the innermost ring.

ugh many today presume that nineteenth-century astronomy was an exclusively male profession, in the late 1800s a small group of women at the Harvard Observatory painstakingly measured the positions - and, later, the spectra - of stars on photographic plates taken by the observatory's telescopes. Their job involved measurement, calculation, and recording of the data, and they were thus referred to, in the archaic sense of the word, as "computers."

    

  

  

             

After its last orbit in the safe regions outside the rings,

Cassini will begin a series of 22 dives through the narrow gap between the top of Saturn’s atmosphere and the inner edge of the rings.

(Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.)

          

      

      This mission phase is not without risk. The gap between the rings is only about 4000 miles wide, and may contain unseen debris that would disable or destroy Cassini in the event of a high-speed collision. During some orbits, the spacecraft flies within just 1,100 miles of Saturn’s cloudtops!

              

 

        

Cassini will faithfully transmit its data until the very end, as it burns up in Saturn’s atmosphere and becomes part of the planet.

(Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.)

    

     

Nevertheless, the opportunity to visit regions where no spacecraft has gone before promises a scientific bonanza. As one mission scientist suggested, it may be that Cassini’s greatest discoveries are yet to come as it performs its “Grand Finale”.

          

                
  
         
A Schedule of Events - May 2017
      

May 2 Tue. 10:47 PM EDT First Quarter Moon
May 4 Thur.   Star Wars Day
May 5 Fri. 8:00 AM EDT Spring Equinox in N Hemisphere of Mars
May 7 Sun. 5:00 PM EDT Moon 2° N of Jupiter
May 7 Sun. 8:25 PM EDT Eta Aquariid meteors peak (20 - 50 meteors / hour)
May 10 Wed. 5:42 PM EDT Full Moon ("Full Flower Moon")
May 11 Thur. 9:59 PM EDT - 10:05 PM EDT Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter (Io, Europa)
May 12 Fri. 3:51 PM EDT Moon @ apogee (406,210 km / 252,407 mi)
May 13 Mon. 7:00 PM EDT Moon 3° N of Saturn
May 13 Sat. 9:00 PM EDT Sun enters Taurus
May 17 Wed. 7:00 PM EDT Mercury @ greatest western elongation (26° W); Morning "Star"
May 18 Thur. 8:33 PM EDT Last Quarter Moon
May 18 / 19 Thur. / Fri. 11:54 PM EDT - 12:42 AM EDT Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter (Io, Europa)
May 20 Sat. 2:00 AM EDT Moon 0.5° S of Neptune
May 22 Mon. 9:00 AM EDT Moon 2° S of Venus
May 23 Tue. 1:00 AM EDT Moon 4° S of Uranus
May 23 Tue. 9:21 PM EDT Moon 1.6° S of Mercury
May 25 Thur. 3:44 PM EDT New Moon
May 25 Thur. 9:21 PM EDT Moon @ perigee (357,207 km / 221,958 mi)
May 26 Fri. 1:47 AM EDT - 3:19 AM EDT Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter (Io, Europa) (Jupiter sets @ 3:06 AM EDT)
May 26 Fri. 10:00 PM EDT Moon 5° S of Mars
May 27 Sat. 8:16 PM EDT - 8:40 PM EDT Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter (Io, Ganymede)

  
   (bold = cool or important)   
   

          
 An Overview of Major 2017 Astronomical Events
     
2017
Jan. 3 Tue. 7:14:38 AM EST Latest sunrise of year in Boston
Jan. 3 Tue. 9:00 AM EST Quadrantid meteors
Jan. 4 Wed. 9:00 AM EST Earth @ perihelion (0.98331 AU / 147,101,111 km / 91,404,393 mi)
Jan. 12 Thur. 8:00 AM EST Venus @ greatest eastern elongation (47.1° E); Evening "Star"
Jan. 12 Thur. 6:00 PM EST Venus 0.4° N of Neptune (21' 57" in Boston)
Jan. 17 Tue. 8:00 PM EST Vesta @ opposition (mag. 6.3)
Jan. 19 Thur. 1:00 AM EST Jupiter 2.7° S of Moon
Jan. 19 Thur. 5:00 AM EST Mercury @ greatest western elongation (24.1° W); Morning "Star"
Jan. 31 Tue. 6:00 PM EST Mars, Venus, and waxing crescent Moon fit into circle 6° in diameter
Feb. 11 Sat. 5:34 PM EST - 9:53 PM EST Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
Feb. 17 Fri. 2:00 AM EST Venus @ greatest illuminated extent
Feb. 26 Sun. 7:10 AM EST - 12:38 PM EST Annular Solar Eclipse (SW Africa. S. Atlantic, South America)
Feb. 26 Sun. 8:15 PM EST Mars 34' N of Uranus
Mar. 1 Wed. 10:00 PM EST Neptune @ solar conjunction
Mar. 12 Sun. 2:00 AM EST Daylight Saving Time begins
Mar. 17 Fri. 6:53 AM EDT and 6:53 PM EDT Equilux - times of daylight and night are equal in Boston
Mar. 20 Mon. 6:29 AM EDT March Equinox
Mar. 25 Sat. 6:00 AM EDT Venus @ inferior conjunction
Apr. 1 Sat. 6:00 AM EDT Mercury @ greatest eastern elongation (19.0° E); Evening "Star"
Apr. 7 Fri. 5:00 PM EDT Jupiter @ opposition
Apr. 12 Wed. 2:00 PM EDT Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak @ perihelion (mag. 5?)
Apr. 14 Fri. 2:00 AM EDT Uranus @ solar conjunction
Apr. 22 Sat. 8:00 AM EDT Lyrid meteors
Apr. 22 Sat.   Cassini Titan flyby begins Proximal Orbit Phase ("Grand Finale")
Apr.29 Sat. All day National Astronomy Day (spring)
Apr. 30 Sun. 12:00 AM EDT Venus @ greatest illuminated extent
May 4 Thur. 9:00 AM EDT Eta Aquarid meteors
May 17 Wed. 7:00 PM EDT Mercury @ greatest western elongation (25.8° W); Morning "Star"
Jun. 2 Fri. 10:00 AM EDT Venus 2° S of Uranus
Jun. 3 Sat. 7:00 AM EDT Venus @ greatest western elongation (45.9° W); Morning "Star"
Jun. 3 Sat. 8:00 PM EST Moon 2° N  of Jupiter
Jun. 3 Sat. 10:24 PM EDT - 12:21 AM EDT Double shadow transit on Jupiter (Io, Ganymede)
Jun. 12 Wed. 4:00 AM EDT Comet C/2015 V2 (Johnson) @ perihelion (mag. 6?)
Jun. 14 Wed. 5:07:00 AM EDT Earliest sunrise of year in Boston
Jun. 15 Thur. 5:00 AM EDT Saturn @ opposition
Jun. 19 Mon. 10:06 PM EDT - 10:38 PM EDT Double shadow transit on Jupiter (Io, Europa)
Jun. 21 Wed. 12:25 AM EDT June Solstice
Jun. 27 Tue. 8:25:22 PM EDT Latest sunset of year in Boston
Jul. 3 Mon. 4:00 AM EDT Earth @ aphelion (1.01668 AU / 152,093,193 km / 94,506,329 mi)
Jul. 10 Mon. 12:10 AM EDT Pluto @ opposition
Jul. 26 Wed. 9:00 PM EDT Mars @ superior comjunction
Jul. 28 Fri. 9:00 PM EDT Moon 2° N of Jupiter
Jul. 30 Sun. 12:00 AM EDT Mercury @ greatest eastern elongation (27.2° E); Evening "Star"
Aug. 7 Mon. 11:50 AM EDT - 4:50  PM EDT Partial Lunar Eclipse (Eastern Hemisphere)
Aug. 12 Sat. 3:00 PM EDT Perseid meteors
Aug. 21 Mon. 11:46 AM EDT - 5:04 PM EDT Total Solar Eclipse (Partial 9:28 AM EDT - 11:59 PM EDT in Boston)
Sept. 5 Tue. 12:00 AM EDT Neptune @ opposition
Sept. 12 Tue. 6:00 AM EDT Mercury @ greatest western elongation (17.9° W); Morning "Star
Sept. 15 Fri. 8:07 AM EDT Cassini enters atmosphere of Saturn, burns up
Sept. 16 Sat. 2:00 PM EDT Mercury 0.03° N of Mars (3.2' in Pacific, 18' in Boston)
Sept. 22 Fri. 4:02 PM EDT September Equinox
Sept. 23 Sat.   OSIRIS_REx Earth flyby
Sept. 25 Mon. 6:35 AM EDT and 6:35 PM EDT Equilux - length of daylight and night are equal in Boston
Sept. 30 Sat. All day Astronomy Day (fall)
Oct. 5 Thur. 9:00 AM EDT Venus 0.2° N of Mars
Oct. 7 Sat.   Mars @ aphelion
Oct. 19 Thur. 1:00 PM EDT Uranus @ opposition
Oct. 26 Thur. 2:12 PM EDT Jupiter @ solar conjunction
Nov. 5 Sun. 2:00 AM EDT Daylight Saving Time ends
Nov. 5 Sun. 9:03 PM EST - 9:59 PM EST Moon occults Aldebaran
Nov. 13 Mon. 1:00 AM EST Venus 0.3° N of Jupiter
Nov. 17 Fri. 12:00 PM EST Leonid meteors
Nov. 23 Thur. 7:00 PM EST Mercury @ greatest eastern elongation (22.0° E); Evening "Star"
Nov. 28 Tue. 5:00 AM EST Mercury 3° S of Saturn
Dec. 8 Fri. 4:11:42 PM EST Earliest sunset of year in Boston
Dec. 14 Thur. 1:00 AM EST Geminid meteors
Dec. 21 Thur. 11:29 PM EST December Solstice
Dec. 21 Thur. 6:00 PM EST Saturn @ solar conjunction
Dec. 22 Fri. 10:00 AM EST Ursid meteors
Dec. 30 Sat. 7:28 PM EST - 8:21 PM EST Moon occults Aldebaran
            
     
  
   May 15, 2017
   
10:00 PM EDT   
      
     
  
  
    

   

          

the era of “extremely large telescopes”.