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The Night Sky Podcast | Mercury In The Evening Sky
Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of the night sky podcast. My name is Billy Newman. And I’m Rena Hansen. And this time, we’re going to be talking about what’s going on in the stars above us for the second week of April 2016. Yeah, I guess it’s still the first week of April, oh, a few days, it’s a couple days into April, and we’re gonna be asked for the fourth. I’m not sure when people are gonna listen to it, but probably the next couple of days and, and yeah, we’re going to be talking about some of the scholarship events that are going to be going on. And I guess the beginning of April, like the others would be kind of been talking about a couple different topics through each episode that we, we have a discussion on, but this time, we’re going to be talking about Mercury, which is cool. So we were talking about that during the time that we were outside doing some observations earlier, is that Mercury is going to be on the rise in the evening sky after the sun is set. That’s going to be cool. So this week is going to be going to mark the start of the time that Mercury is going to be visible. We heard about that.
Yeah, that’s really cool. It’s showing up again.
Yeah, this year, more than I think in other years, in the past that I’m trying to remember, there’s there’s just been more opportunities to see Mercury, throughout the year, like we had, at the beginning of the time that we started recording this podcast, we had mercury setting in the evening sky at the end of December. And then it flipped real fast to the other side of the sun, where it started in the morning during the sun’s rise. And that’s when we have like the five planets visible in the morning sky, with mercury included in the morning. And then now Mercury’s dropped back off, like at the end of February, and drop back off close to the sun in the now. I don’t know, month later, it’s kind of picked itself back up onto the other side of the Sun into the evening side. And so it’s going to be rising into the evening sky just a little bit by a little bit over the next three weeks. This is what we have to look forward to. And this is what we’re going to try and observe over the next couple of weeks too. And there’s going to be a couple markers that we’ll try and keep an eye on and we’ll go over those in a minute. But over the next three weeks, we’re going to see mercury move out to its greatest elongation, which I think is if I understood right, the longest angular separation of mercury from the sun. So if we have like the sine at the point in the center, that’s gonna be the point where Mercury is going to be the furthest observationally away from the sun. And in our case, what it’s going to be is further up the ecliptic line so that mercury sets later than the sun. And that makes it visible in the evening sky for us. Hey, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, it’d be really cool. We should definitely check it out. This, it’s tough with mercury, because like we’ve talked about, even though this year kind of proves opposite to what I’ve been saying. It’s difficult to make observations of mercury even during this year, when Mercury’s seeming seemingly to have been in the sky. A lot of times, there’s not been very many times we’ve had good viewing conditions where we could actually see mercury often because it’s just so close to the horizon. And it’s really only visible for a short period of time, in the morning sky, you know, because it rises if it’s in the morning, right before the sunrise. And then as as the evenings coming on, it’s right, it’s still doing Twilight is still really essentially wiped out, you can see very few other stars. But since it’s a planet, you can sometimes make it out often, it requires really good.
Well, how would you say, a really good angle of view of the western sky. So you can see like the horizon line, you don’t have mountains or trees, kind of obscuring your view, when that allows you is like another 1520 minutes, half hour viewing time for this for this guy to get dark out. So, so like if you try to make a sighting of mercury too early, it’s just going to be like blue sky out, you won’t be able to see that many stars. But as you let the sky get darker and darker, eventually you’re going to be able to make it out better, or you’re going to be able to get a better viewing of it back in at the end of December or early January. I remember we had a pretty good viewing of it for probably a half hour 45 minutes after sunset. And it was it was really quite bright at that time of year. I’m not sure what the magnitude that’s going to be representing with this time around it’s going to be but we’re going to start seeing it April 8, I think is the might be able to see if you if you start looking right now you might be able to make it up. But the period that I think that the the first time that it may be easy to spot, it might be April 8 and the reason for that is we’re coming into the point where we have a new moon I think it’s a crescent right now. And then it’s gonna switch over we’re gonna have a new moon and then on April 8, it’s going to be The first sliver of a moon, that first night after New Moon. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And so when it’s at that sliver, we’re going to look to, to the sunset, the sun will have just gone under the horizon, we’re going to be able to spot the crescent moon made me see some of that Earth shine, we should look for it on the eighth, and see if we can see anything cool, we should probably fought like the telescope or something, or even just the big lens, we should put the big camera lens and try and get some cool photographs. If you find, yeah, but there’s a cat. So this is another complicated thing, I should take a second explain that too. This is a cool new moon. Because like we were talking about with the draconic cycle, like last month, when there was a new moon that was a solar eclipse. And then this month, it’s just a little bit off from that draconic cycle node, like we were talking about with that 27 and 29 day period has just a little bit off. But what we’re going to come into is the moon goes through this period where it’s its new moon period hits, and then the next day, the moon is some distance away from where the location of the sun. And that’s the first night that we see the crescent moon. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so on some months, it’s an allocation that’s much closer to the sun. And on some months, or in some nights. It’s further away from the sun. Does that make sense? Okay, and so if yet if you think for a moment that like the moon, and its progression of being a crescent, and then moving to a total moon, is a constant change, so that it doesn’t happen in one day, and then two day and then three day. And so sometimes when we get our opportunity, our moments to view that crescent moon in the evening sky, after after New Moon, it’s going to be a thinner Crescent. And then sometimes it’s going to be a thicker Crescent, because because of the 24 hour period part that we’re going to get to see the moon. And so this time, it’s special, it’s specific, because we have the new moon, and then we have the first crescent moon that’s visible is supposed to be what’s considered a very small or very thin Crescent of the moon, visible for the first crescent moon of the month of April. Okay to see, Yeah, that’d be cool. And so when we can see this on the eighth, what’s going to be just to, I guess, to the north, or just down on the ecliptic line, from the New Moon from the crescent moon that we see is going to be a point of light. And that’s going to be mercury. That’s the, that’s the easiest way, or the clearest way that we’re going to have kind of a clear way to find mercury in the evening sky, when it’s still probably Twilight out, are still probably fairly light out. And it given them Mercury is probably going to be dim right now. It’ll be complicated to see. And so the moon being there, the crescent, is going to be a really good guide, just to give you a general sense of the location to keep your eyes so that you can try and resolve that real fine point of light. It’s really complicated to do sometimes, if it’s if it’s too bright out. It’s, it’s very difficult to get a good sighting of a dim star object like that be really tricky. Yeah, there’s a couple couple tricks you can do. Have you heard of side vision before? I think that you’ve told me that side,
it’s a strange, it’s a strange thing when you see a work. And you might try and do it, you might try to employ the trick sometime. If, if you’re trying to make an observation of something that’s a dim light, or like a low magnitude star, something that’s like a, like a fourth or fifth magnitude star in the sky. But I remember learning this once in the past is that it’s sort of the biology of the way that your eyes is built, is that you have cones and rods in your eye. You heard of those before? Yeah, I don’t know much about biology. I don’t know much about how eyes are built. But I remember the cones and the rod cells on the back of a back of the retina, I believe, right. And so I think I could be wrong. But I think that the cones were the cells that were there to interpret color. If I understood, right, and the rod cells were the ones that were there to interpret contrast, and black and white, if I could, or if that’s what I understood, right. And so what I had heard is that in the center of your vision, you have more cone cells, things that are better at selecting color, but at the fringes in your periphery, if your vision field, you have more rod cells. And so when you look directly at something, you’ll be able to isolate the color of the object better than you could at the fringes at the periphery. But you can still act bright or dark better at your periphery. So if you’re looking at something that’s a dim object in the sky, something that’s a fourth or a fifth magnitude star, let’s say or let’s say in this specific case, on April 8, you’re looking at the crescent moon and you’re trying to find a really dim planet in the twilight Setting Sun above the western horizon, that what you might try and do is use your side vision. So you look directly at the point that you want to see. And then you try and concentrate your focus as you look away from it and use the peripheral vision to try and get a better look at it. And it’s strange that sometimes it really works, things that you can’t quite make out, or get a good view of, through your direct vision, you can see more clearly or you can see like fainter magnitude things by concentrating on your side vision when you look,
that’s really interesting. That’s a cool trick.
It is pretty cool. Yeah. And AI, it’s a variable, increasing the ability to see something, it’s not going to resolve something that you can’t see, it’s just going to help you see something you can see that sort of falling in and out of, you know, the level of brightness, that threshold that your eyes can, can pick up that night, but it’s good. Yeah, if even in dark skies really is probably would be most effective, where you don’t have a lot of other light trying to compete and then probably concentrate or dilate your pupils down where the dial out and what is it when it constricts. Would that be called when your pupils constrict, to like, let less light in, during a sunset, it’s going to be a competitive environment for your eyes, because there’s probably going to be so much light coming off of the sky, that it’s going to be a lot of light for your eyes to deal with. So they’re gonna want to close down and let less light and let you see less bright object or less dim objects in the sky. So like little star points are going to be almost impossible to pull out because they’re going to be blown out in the sky, because you’re not going to want to expose for that. And so that’s why he has to get a little bit darker for the side vision check to work quite as well. So that’s why I like in dark skies, it’s a you’re looking at the Pleiades and you’re trying to find that seven star that’s in there, that really dim one in the center, the top of the Little Dipper section, you might try and use your side vision to see if you could make out where that stars. And that’s when you’d be using your seifish in like in a dark sky situation. Which is cool to do. It’s hard. It’s hard to do. But it’s kind of fun to try and see like more stars that you can’t see, or, or like spot something with binoculars, and then pull them down and see if you can try and spot them. It’s kind of cool. People try and do this. But yeah, so Mercury is going to be out this month, greatest elongation is going to be on April 18. So that means we have I guess about three weeks for trying to get good observations of mercury starting on April 8, like that one that we’re talking about. And then for this point away from the Sun is going to be April 18. And then it starts making its move back westward on the ecliptic line down toward the sun as it moves back down below the horizon. And then I’m not sure when the next time we’re going to be able to see it is at this rate, like this year has been going we’re probably going to find some note of it being in the morning sky, you know, sometime June or something? Who knows our late May. But But yeah, be cool. We’ll try and keep a track of mercury and its rise in the evening sky over this next month. And be cool. Yeah, that’ll be cool. Check out. I’ve got that crossett Yeah, yeah, we should definitely try to like get that. That’d be cool to try and photograph to be fun. Or try and get a picture of, of the new moon. I’m going to try and get some more photos of it over this cycle. Especially if we have clear nights. I think that’d be really cool. Yeah, we should definitely take advantage of the clear nights. Yeah, we should try and do as much as we can over the summer. We were talking before we started Yeah, we should we should get a telescope we should get a like a deep sky. Or whatever that piece is that deep sky. So the NASA got the entire sky. And we should get a camera for the telescope. Like a camera connector kit. Right? telescope so we can like set? Yeah, I mean, try and get some photographs and stuff. I think that’d be really fun to try and do just as like a hobbyist thing try get some cool Nebula photos that we make ourselves or picture of the Andromeda galaxy that we made ourselves. Picture the planet, you know, planets, are the makers, like Saturn’s rings or Mars is an icecaps. Probably becoming into a good time of year to get a view of that if we could, because it’s that close pass. That’s the time that you can, you can get the best, the best amateur photographs of it. Because if that is closest to you can get kind of the best resolution with the equipment that you have. But we can easily get like Jupiter’s moons, or the storm on Jupiter, anything like that. That’d be fun to try. Be Cool. Or just other stuff. Other features. We should try to do that this summer, though. Yeah, I want to get that set up put together.
Yeah. We were talking about that while we were out on our walk. And we were trying to do some observations security for the show. And we’re trying to think of like what’s up right It now like what time it is, and sort of where the placement of the stars are. So we can see the, we’re calling the winter hexagon, that big spiral in the sky of this first magnitude stars we’ve been talking about a lot throughout this winter. And that’s kind of moved from the due south position. And it sort of moved past past its zenith point. And it’s now over, kind of pulling over the western horizon a little bit. It’s interesting how it does that. And does that a little bit more like where we’re at in the northern latitudes? Like right over the right over the equator? You see, the the constellations of the zodiac, are the constellations in the ecliptic lineup, really, just like from due east, they rise straight up over the sky at the highest point, the zenith, and then they set due west, so they stay kind of in a straight line. And that’s because you’d be at the equator. So there’s really no seasonal change, and there’s not as much it’s not precession. What is it? there’s not as much of a rotation of there is access for the seasonal change that we see. And so the reason that we see, you know, that that big kind of skew of aligning our sky, that stretch of the, like, Orion being up in the southern sky right now, but then, let’s say this summer, Scorpio being in that position, whereas right now, if we know, Orion is south or is below the ecliptic line, but it’s higher in the sky, the Scorpio is which is on the ecliptic line during the summer, it moves around for us because we’re in the Northern Hemisphere. So it’s kind of strange, like, watch how that stuff fits together. I mean, I don’t know. It’ll be it’ll be strange to see like how it comes together. But we were looking at the Winter hexagon, and those stars there and then we were starting to look at those spring constellations to I was looking at Leo. So we looked at, like, we name off like Capella, and then were the other ones. It was Castor and Pollux. procyon and then Rigel, right? Yeah, Rachel. Yeah. All abroad and you use fugees battle Jews. I don’t know beetle GIS entered before battle GIS. This. This is interesting. Yeah. I think that’s where I like Beetlejuice comes from. And I’m pretty sure like, battle Jews is sort of that one that’s been agreed upon. To not be. I don’t know. Did I sound like Beetlejuice, which is sort of an English term. So I don’t know. That’s just scientists trying to change the names of stuff. I don’t know why. But we were looking at Leo and I was gonna talk about Leo for a second because like Leo, is where Jupiter is right now. Probably the easiest constellations to find right now. Jupiter’s really bright. Yeah, only because Jupiter is so bright. I was looking it up. I think it’s a negative 2.3 magnitude right now, or 2.3 2.4 2.5, which is really it’s one of the brightest things in the sky. I think Venus gets up to like a negative three sometimes, but, but Jupiter, especially for being an opposition. It’s just super, super bright right now. And it just dominating in that part of the sky. But what you look at is, is the constellation Leo, that’s where Jupiter is right now. And it’s kind of in like the feet of Leo. So if you don’t know, Leo is the lion. And Leo is the the Zodiac constellation that’s in placed on the ecliptic. And I think it occupies the same position as the sun in the sky. During essentially the month of August. I think it starts a little bit. What is it like the last couple days of July, until the last couple days of August. But I think that’s a month of Leo for the Zodiac Ray. Now it’s high up in the sky. I think kind of rising in opposition. So write about is the time that the sun goes down, is when we see Leo kind of coming up into the air. And that’s where Jupiter is like we were talking about. And so there’s a couple of cool features of Leo and Alan darknight, you can make them up pretty well. Jupiter, though, kind of kind of pushes them aside in some sense, because it’s just so dominant right now. But you can see the sickle in Leo. That’s really the dominant feature that everybody pays attention to when they look at Leo, like that’s what you would spot right. You could see it a little bit tonight when we were out there looking. Hey, so yeah, it was a little blocked by
smooth. Yeah, there’s a lot of sea lights that we’re trying to fight off right now. But But when you when you look at it, Leo, the dominant thing of the constellation that you’re going to notice is the sickle shape or really what it is is a reversed question mark. That’s what it was always told to me as it’s just the easiest thing in the sky to see. And it’s one of those, I guess, you know, as they call it, like asterisms that make it more easy to find stuff that you see in the night sky, like, like the tea pot in Sagittarius. Yes, or the belt in the Big Dipper, or, sorry, the bow in Orion, or the Big Dipper itself, or the Pleiades, you know, whatever those are, it’s these little sections of constellation that kind of make them a little easier to pull out or find in the night sky. And so the sickle shape is this kind of called, is the one that is pretty easy for the constellation of Leo. And at the end of the circle at the bottom the.of. The question mark, if you will, that’s the star Regulus and Regulus is the bright star. That’s part of this part of the constellation Leo. That’s kind of a dominant, I think it might be I think it’s a second magnitude star is still pretty bright.
Yeah, I was thinking I looked pretty bright near Jupiter.
Yeah, like, first magnitude star though. But But yeah, that’s the star Regulus. And that’s a good one to now that one’s a cool a cool star. And then we have Jupiter, right out from that a little bit more toward the east. And then I think the other star that’s the Lions Head, Leo, the Lions Head is a star called then then a bola, then Ebola, which I think is a third magnitude star. So it starts to get a little bit more dim. And that’s the tough thing about a lot of the constellations. Yeah, is, is that a lot of the dominant stars, it was sort of make up some element of the shape that you’re really trying to find the dim star. And so they’re not really that significant. That’s why people are so attracted to constellations like Orion, where almost every star is pretty significant and pretty pretty well in a line or like an outline of the shape that you’re sort of, it’s trying to communicate. Yeah, similar to like Scorpio or the Big Dipper. But the the collection is, is kind of tight, and it sort of looks like or at least the human mind tries to have it look like something it’s a pattern that is pretty identifiable in the sky. And sometimes they’re not as identifiable.
Yeah. Yeah,
there, that’s something I have a hard time with, especially living in the city. And I don’t have very good eyes. So I definitely noticed that I have a hard time, kind of finding my place in the sky. Sometimes when I’m first it can be real. I just can’t quite see all of the parts of the constellation.
You know, it’s a tough thing that a lot of folks, especially anyone, which I think what is now more than 50% of people that live in an urban area, or a city and even in a place like this, like Eugene OR like where I grew up in Grants Pass, it’s not an urban center, it’s not a city, it’s really considered a rural area. But still, the light pollution of just a downtown areas is such that you can’t see many stars. And so given that and given kind of a general disinterest in our focus in astronomy, or skywatching stuff people just aren’t familiar with the shapes of the stars that are above them are how they how they look as they pass over, you know, the different constellations that are there, it’s kind of gone and attended to like we’re talking about because it’s so difficult to see. And you can’t really make out the shapes that well, when, like when we’re out in the desert, or when similar to a place where it’s kind of removed from light pollution, maybe what humans would have seen a couple 100 years ago, and just about every place. But that’s also unfair to say too, because low elevations and a lot of water content in the sky, and all sorts of other things kind of impact the way and how often and how well the stars are viewable from where you’re at. But when you’re up in the mountains, and that crisp, crisp, cold high mountain air and you’re looking at the night sky when it’s really dark out, and you can see everything and you can see the Milky Way and really crisp detail. You can see a shadow. I don’t even know what that’s called sometimes, you know, that’s I bet right now, if we were out in Eastern Oregon are in some places really dark, you can see your shadow on the ground cast by Jupiter. Because Jupiter is so bright right now. You can make out shadow yourself or like light casts on the ground just from the planet Jupiter being reflected from the sun. Yeah, real strange. It’s really cool. I think, gosh, that’s a whole other rabbit hole. But like we’re eight minutes from the sun, eight light minutes from the sun. And then Jupiter is way further out from us. So I think it’s I don’t know what it is. I think it’s like almost half hour or almost 45 minutes to get out to Jupiter. And then that back to us, is how old that light from Jupiter is when we look at to Jupiter and see it, but it’s cool sometimes. Yeah. Like I remember, in Eastern Oregon, we were there’s no moon out but you can see a shadow cast on the ground like you see your shadow out in the moonlight. Yeah, you see it cast under the ground. Yeah, just planets. I don’t know if it’s planet shine. I’m not sure what you got. But it’s pretty cool. Yeah, we get to get to or like around really bright way that you could do that with Jupiter is a great one. I bet it’s I bet Jupiter is probably the best, I think that’s the one that would be known for it just because it’s the biggest planet, it’s going to show the brightest, the most often. And it’s going to be at a point of opposition where you can get a really dark night, and something where you could like to see a shadow from a really dim light source. Because otherwise like with Venus or something, which would also get just as bright, you’re really not going to be able to, to, to have that planet be visible at a point in the night which where it’d be dark enough that you would be able to see a shadow. It’s gonna be like Twilight or sunset or something like that. When the when the planet Venus is going to be up in the sky. Me strange. But yeah, it’s cool. Would you put it out like it is now? We should try and find it sometime or try and see that for ourselves. Yeah, that’s really cool. I think we got like two or three months while still hanging pretty high in the sky. At this time, time of the night, but yeah, it’d be really cool. We’ll definitely try and find it.
Yeah, sounds good. We should make a desert trip.
Yeah, it’d be cool. But, but yeah, I guess that’s most everything that we’re going to be talking about a lot of mercury rising and some of the stars and Leo. Hope you guys check out our podcast out on iTunes and subscribe. If you use something else like something on an Android I guess you can try and subscribe there to check out the night sky website. That’s night sky.io. My name is Billy Newman. And on behalf of Marina Hanson, I say thank you very much for listening to this episode of the night sky podcast.