Jared May- What's Up: February 23 - March 2
The past several weeks have been plagued by nothing but cloudy skies day and night. Near the tail end of this week there may be some clear night skies. The temperature on these nights with windchill will be in the 20’s so prepare yourself and your gear appropriately. Sunset this week will be around 6:10 PM and will continue to get later and later as we creep our way into Spring. If we are lucky enough to have some gaps in the clouds, this week will bring the Lunar-Beehive conjunction, the full moon, a brilliant double star, and Mars (perhaps you heard the news about the Perseverance rover landing last week).
Wednesday will bring a close pass between the nearly-full moon and the large Beehive cluster (Messier object 44). Since the moon will be nearly full, it will blindingly bright and will likely wash out the fainter stars of this open cluster. To try spotting both the moon and the Beehive, use a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. Early next week, in the early evening when the moon hasn’t risen yet, the beehive will appear as a faint fuzzy blur. Messier 44 occupies a surprisingly large area of the sky, about as much as the moon itself.
The moon passes in front of the naked eye cluster, the Beehive (M44) on Wednesday evening. With the moon so bright, this cluster won’t be visible to the naked eye. However, those with binoculars might be able to make it out.
A simulated view of the full moon as it will appear this week.
Saturday will bring February’s full moon. It’s pretty typical luck for amateur astronomers and stargazers that one of the few clear nights in weeks coincides with a full moon. Regardless, the full moon can provide for some amazing viewing and photography opportunities. Binoculars are great for looking at the moon, but be ready to let your eyes adjust to the darkness for several minutes afterwards. If you are able to connect a camera up to your telescope using a T-ring and T-adapter, exposures on the order of 1/500 seconds are usually perfect for capturing the bright and dark spots on the lunar surface.
Double stars are not rare, but it can be difficult to find good double star from earth. The star Almach is a great winter double star to observe. One star is a bright blue and the companion is a brilliant orange. This double star system should make a good telescope target. Binoculars should work, but the extra stability and focal length of a telescope will make finding and seeing the double star mush easier. Almach can be found in the NW skies after sunset forming a triangle with the bright stars of Aldebaran and Capella.
Almach, a lovely telescopic double star, is setting in the west. Don’t forget the objects that are setting!
Mars will be up all week (in the NW skies as a noticeably bright red “star”) and made headlines last week – not Mars itself, but the rover that NASA landed on the red planet. The Perseverance Rover touched down on Mars February 18. This is a car-sized rover that contains seven primary instruments, 19 cameras, some microphones, and even a small drone. That’s right! Soon NASA will be attempting the first powered flight on a different planet. This rover is very similar to the one that landed in 2012, Curiosity. The landing maneuver was one of the most impressive feats of the mission. After the heatshield fell away and the radar found a safe landing site, the rover and skycrane dropped out of their protective shell. The skycrane is basically a jetpack for the rover itself so it can have a slow and controlled powered descent. The skycrane then descended the rover to about 70 feet above the surface when it began to lower Perseverance by cables all while the skycrane rockets were controlling the landing. Perserverence then sat suspended 21 feet below the skycrane. When the rover landed the cables were cut and the skycrane flew away to crash on the surface far away from the rover. To top it off, this was all done by onboard computers, so we on earth just had to sit and wait for the landing computers to make the decisions and report the results. The rover’s overall scientific goals are to look at the past Martian environment, look for evidence of microbial life, collect various samples, and make detailed measurements about the atmosphere in preparation for manned missions to Mars in the near future.
The Perseverance rover in the process of being set down on Mars. This image was taken by the Entry system’s “Sky Crane”, whose only function was to perform this delicate task.