Today is Thanksgiving!

It is also a crescent moon out and it was bright enough to see the entire outline of the moon. With a telescope (only 40x) I could see craters along the edge of the brightened and dark side. One feature I saw was a large crater like feature whose name I think is Mare Crisium or Sea of Crisis. I also looked at Altair, Polaris, the stars of Cassiopeia, and the Seven Sisters which was just rising in the east. I stayed out for about 15 minutes or so, starting at around 6:15 pm.
The sky was clear but still bright, so you could only see the brightest of stars.

On Sunday night at 7:30-9:30 I went to an observing secession out in myakka. There we identified several nebulas, clusters, and stars. I also saw a meteor shooting from south to north overhead. Some nebulas and clusters we saw was M2 in Aquarius (and the water jug does NOT look like a water jug, well only a little if you squint real hard), M103, and the double cluster in Perseus. We also saw a planetary nebula, which is M2, and looked at it through different types of eyepieces. We also saw the open clusters of the Haydes and Pleades, both located in Tarus.
As for stars we saw Polaris which is a binary and its second star was 1 o'clock from the primary star. Also, there was Gamma Andromeda another Binary star, and Albireo whose stars are blue and white. There seems to be quite a lot of Binary stars.
We were pointed out several constellations as well. We saw the circlet of Pices, Ares, Taurus, the rising stars of Gemini, as well as Orion, and the River.
There were several 1st magnitude stars too, but I only remembert some of the names. Like the summer triangle, Beetlejus, Capella, and Albediron(sp?).
The Night was fairly dark, with some high level thin clouds, but it was freezing cold!

APOD post: Children of the Sun

This unique picture was taken from the satellite SOHO (SOlor Heliospheric Obervatory). Using a coronograph, SOHO blocked the sun's light enabeling it to see the background stars as well as four planets: Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury. The view only spans 15 degrees so its rare to find four planets all within the stated degree. Mercury is rapidly moving left and was earlier transiting across the sun. Jupiter and Venus are so bright despite the blocked sunlight that they caused an overload thus the white streaks across the planets. To the left of Mars there is a binary star- Zubenelgenubi (zoo-BEN-al-je-NEW-bee) and its companion star. The stars are in the constellation Libra and is 77 light years away, and seperated from each other by 730 light hours. Zubenelgeubi was once considered the southern claw of the constellation Scorpius. The Greeks thought that Libra was the claws of the scorpion. The northern claw was the star Zubeneschamali.

APOD: Janus- Potato Shaped Moon of Saturn

Janus is one of the smaller moons of Saturn, in fact it is the 10th largest moon. Irregularly shaped, it is 190 km at its largest diameter. Janus has a sister moon, Epimetheus, they both share practically the same orbit only 30-50 km apart. Every four years the two moons head towards each other but instead of colliding they exchange orbits. They are about 91,000 km above the surface of Saturn and travels within the gap of the F and G rings. They are believed to also play a role in maintaining the outer age of the A ring.
The moon is photographed in front of Saturn. The Picture was taken from the Cassini satellite orbiting the planet.

Apod: McMurdo Panorama from Mars

This week's Apod picture is not a star or nebula, it is a view of Mars from the rover Spirit. Landed in 2004, November 1 was the 1,000 day of its mission that was to last 90 days. The view is from Low Ridge hill, a place where the rover will be spending its Martian winter. The colors have been exaggerated and the panorama has been flattened to fit the screen. The winter is almost over and when it is, Spirit will continue to explore the Columbia Hills and Gusev Crater.