The Astronomer's Wife: May 2016

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Mars is now it's closest to Earth

If you were wondering what that really bright "star" in the sky is, it is Mars!

Because of the way our orbits work, Mars and the Earth line up about once every 2 years. (You probably learned that watching "The Martian"). Mars now rises at sunset and is up all night. By about 9pm it is high enough in the southeast to be easily visible. Although it is hazy tonight, you can still find it near the full Moon. (After tonight, the Moon will be getting farther from Mars in our sky, so not as useful as a landmark.

See more at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160520-watch-mars-opposition-biggest-brightest-planets-astronomy/

-AstroTom

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Mercury transit report

On the roof in Rosh Haayin (thanks to Monica)

On Monday the weather was rather hazy here. I brought my Mead ETX 90 with a solar filter to the roof at work in Rosh Haayin to share the view with my co-workers. You can see how hazy it was by the lack of shadows in the picture above. (See more pics) We did get a few moments of good seeing when we were able to spot Mercury.

As it turns out later in the afternoon the sky did mostly clear up, but by then I was on the road. However my friend Gadi, in Petah Tikva was ready and captured some nice photos and video. See his report in English or Hebrew.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Transit of Mercury next week

When Mercury swung in front of the sun on November 8, 2006, it appeared as a small black dot (lower right of center), not nearly as conspicuous as the big sunspot at the left edge of the solar disk. Photo by Brocken Inaglory.
(from http://earthsky.org/?p=234431)

Next week on Monday May 9th will be a rare transit of Mercury across the face of the sun. This means our innermost planet will be passing directly between the Earth and the Sun. The last time this occurred was 2006, but was not visible from Israel. It will not happen again till 2019.

(For pictures of the 2006 transit captured in Efrat see here.)

In order to view the transit you will need special equipment. There will be a public viewing in Bet Shemeh by the Dubeh HaGedolah group. See this link for info and to sign up.

If you can't make it to Bet Shemesh you can see a great simulation at http://www.shadowandsubstance.com/ There will also be a live streaming event at http://www.ccssc.org/webcast.html starting at 2:00pm Israel time.