{"id":339,"date":"2011-07-24T00:00:34","date_gmt":"2011-07-24T00:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=339"},"modified":"2011-07-23T16:59:28","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T16:59:28","slug":"jupiter-brightens-up-a-celestial-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/24\/jupiter-brightens-up-a-celestial-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Jupiter brightens up a celestial neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

SkyCaramba astronomy blog for the week ending July 30, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

Jupiter is well placed for viewing before sunrise. As dawn\u2019s light increases, you\u2019ll find the gas giant about halfway up the eastern side of the sky. If you\u2019re far north, look a bit southeastward. If you\u2019re far south, look northeastward. Jupiter\u2019s the brightest thing in that part of the sky right now.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"Jupiter<\/a>If you have a telescope, you\u2019ll know Jupiter by its telltale cloud bands striping the planet\u2019s disk. Binoculars are enough to see the big dot that is Jupiter with a few smaller dots lined up nearby. They are the moons that Galileo saw. The closest is Io. Next is Europa. Ganymede is third closest, and Callisto is farthest. Sometimes they disappear in Jupiter\u2019s shadow or hide in plain sight right in front of the planet. Those are just four of more than 60 natural satellites orbiting Jupiter. Io is slightly larger than Earth\u2019s moon which will pass by Jupiter around August 20.<\/p>\n

When a bright object like Jupiter is in an area of the sky where the stars are dim, it\u2019s a good time to learn to recognize the constellations those dim stars form. Months or years later after the planet is gone, you can still recognize the constellations.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with something easy. East of Jupiter is a V shaped asterism called the Hyades. Those stars are the horns of Taurus the bull. The brightest of that group is orange Aldebaran. It\u2019s 65 light years away. In Arabic, its name means follower<\/em> because it follows the Pleiades. You may have noticed that cluster of stars a little north of the line from Jupiter to the Hyades.<\/p>\n

\"Jupiter,<\/a>The Pleiades look like six stars arranged like a diamond shaped kite with a tail. Those stars are also called the Seven Sisters. Numerous legends say only six are visible because the seventh is hiding. Each sister has a name and for each name there\u2019s at least one legend as to why she\u2019s the one who\u2019s hiding.<\/p>\n

Jupiter is just north of the head of Cetus. Although Cetus looks more like the sea monster it did to the ancient Greeks, today\u2019s it\u2019s usually called a whale. In the sea monster\u2019s neck is Mira, a star that fades beyond what the naked eye can see then brightens to easy visibility every 11 months. Mira\u2019s getting brighter now and should be brightest in September.<\/p>\n

West of Jupiter are two fish called Pisces. They\u2019re tied together as they swim away from an angry fire god.<\/p>\n

Aries the ram, north of Jupiter, is rather hard to visualize. All you can really see are the broad horns. Triangulum, further north, is much more obvious. As imaginative as the Greek observers were 1,800 years ago, they thought enough of the simple triangle to name one up there.<\/p>\n

Jupiter\u2019s currently moving eastward from morning to morning, but by late August it will appear to be holding still. Then in September, it will reverse course. In late October, Jupiter will be up all night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jupiter is well placed for viewing before sunrise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[174,173,178,171,92,172,176,170,5,89,175,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339"}],"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=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}