{"id":243,"date":"2011-05-29T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2011-05-28T21:22:07","modified_gmt":"2011-05-28T21:22:07","slug":"porrima-and-saturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/29\/porrima-and-saturn\/","title":{"rendered":"Porrima and Saturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>SkyCaramba astronomy blog for the week ending June 4, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

Some of you have noticed already what appear to be two stars very close together (in the southern part of the sky for those in the northern hemisphere and in the northern part of the sky for those viewing from far south). You\u2019re really looking at two stars and a planet. One of the two objects you\u2019re seeing is a double star.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saturn\u2019s approaching one of the few stars in the sky whose name didn\u2019t go through the Arabic language before it had a name in English. Porrima is called the prophecy star (think of the words portend<\/em> and portentious<\/em>). I\u2019m sure someone is busy trying to figure out what a close call involving Saturn and Porrima means for our future, but I don\u2019t bother with things like that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When Virgo is drawn, Porrima is often shown as an elbow on the arm holding a spike of wheat. The spike is the bright star Spica. If you draw a line from Spica to Porrima and keep going, you\u2019ll get to Denebola in the tail of Leo the Lion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As Saturn pulls close to Porrima, those of you with telescopes will naturally want to see them both in the same view. If you\u2019re lucky you may see one or two of Saturn\u2019s moons as well. And if you\u2019re really lucky, you\u2019ll be able to see both stars of Porrima in the same view as Saturn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I say really lucky because that view will be a challenge. The two Porrima stars orbit each other every 169 years and they\u2019re still pretty close after their last close call in 2005. Many smaller telescopes can\u2019t separate them at all now. If your telescope can separate them, you still have the challenge of getting Saturn in the same view. If you can get half the full moon in a view at that magnification, you have a good shot at it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t afford a bigger telescope right now, so for me time is the answer. I\u2019m told that if I wait ten to twenty years with the equipment I have now, I\u2019ll be able to see the two stars distinctly. It\u2019s interesting to me that backyard astronomers of just a half century ago waited in anticipation of Porrima A and Porrima B being as close as they are now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll settle for the view of Saturn and a singular appearing Porrima and probably a couple dim stars near it. Don\u2019t confuse those eighth and ninth magnitude objects for either of the Porrima pair. On a good night at my location, I can also see Saturn\u2019s moon Titan which is about ninth magnitude.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For most of us, Porrima is nicely placed for viewing in May and June. It\u2019s close to the meridian (a line overhead from north to south) as darkness sets in. That makes it an easy target for the evening observers that most of us are. Take a look around so you can continue to find Porrima after Saturn leaves.<\/p>\n

Here’s a movie of the Porrima orbit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of you have noticed already what appear to be two stars very close together. They’re actually two stars and a planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[80,43,139,614,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}