August 2010
Sunday, 04 July 2010 18:34 | 
Written by tushev | 
| 
Almost all images now are like what you can really see in your scope. Sometimes high-quality closeups are also published as well.
Interesting objects an events:
Aug, 10
Venus, Saturn and Mars make their closest approach to each other:
Andromeda Galaxy:
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2,500,000 light-years (1.58?1011 AU) away in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own, the Milky Way, but not the closest galaxy overall. As it is visible as a faint smudge on a moonless night, it is one of the farthest objects visible to the naked eye, and can be seen even from urban areas with binoculars. It gets its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the Andromeda constellation, which was named after the mythological princess Andromeda. Andromeda is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which consists of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy
Andromeda galaxy can be observed even with binocular, and in dark sites evien with a naked eye!
How to find it:
Look for 4 stars of Pegasus making a square. Then move left, for "Andromeda branch". On the second star move up two stars once more (this time more faint stars), and near the last one you'll see large Andromeda Nebula:
(this is what you can really see in your telescope)
M81 and M82
These Galaxies are located in Ursa Major, and need a scope to observe them. (In fact, they are not inside the Ursa, however, they are inside its borders).
Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. M81 is one of the most striking examples of a grand design spiral galaxy, with near perfect arms spiraling into the very center. Because of its proximity to Earth, its large size, and its active galactic nucleus (which harbors a 70 million M? [8] supermassive black hole) Messier 81 is a popular galaxy to study in professional astronomy research. The galaxy's large size and relatively low apparent magnitude (lower magnitude implies higher brightness) also make it a popular target for amateur astronomy observations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_81
Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is the prototype[5] nearby starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The starburst galaxy is five times as bright as the whole Milky Way and one hundred times as bright as our galaxy's center.[5]
In 2005, the Hubble revealed 197 young massive clusters in the starburst core.[5] The average mass of these clusters is around 2 ? 105 M?, hence the starburst core is a very energetic and high-density environment.[5] Throughout the galaxy's center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_82
The Ring Nebula in Lyra
The famously named "Ring Nebula" is located in the northern constellation of Lyra, and also catalogued as Messier 57, M57 or NGC 6720. It is one of the most prominent examples of the deep-sky objects called planetary nebulae (singular, planetary nebula), often abbreviated by astronomers as simply planetaries or PNe.
Planetary nebulae are formed after medium or low mass stars, such as the Sun, exhaust their hydrogen fuel in the stellar core. At this point the structure of the star changes so it can achieve a new equilibrium condition in which it can continue to burn; the outer layers of the star expand and it becomes a red giant. Further internal temperature instabilities develop from the fusion reactions, causing the outer atmosphere to be expelled by hot superwinds either continuously or in several energetic pulses. This expanding gaseous shell forms the spherical nebula, brightly illuminated by ultraviolet energy from the central star.[10]
The nebula is 0.7 kpc (2,300 light-years) from Earth.[3] It has a visual magnitude of 8.8v and photographic magnitude of 9.7p. Photographically, over a period of 50 years,[11] the rate of nebula expansion is roughly 1 arcsecond per century, which corresponds from spectroscopic observations to 20–30 km?1). M57 is illuminated by a central white dwarf or planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) of 15.75v visual magnitude,[12] whose mass is approximately 1.2 M? (in solar masses.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_nebula
Planets
Jupiter - E, after midnight
Venus, Mars, Saturn - W, in the evening
With a scope you can observe planetar satellites: Io, Callisto, Ganimed and Europe near Jupiter, Titan together with Saturn.
Star showers
Enjoy the famous Perseids on Aug, 12! The moon will be young, so it's will set down early, after the Sun, and its light will not hinder meteor observations.
The Perseids is the name of a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so-called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. The name derives in part from the word Perseides, a term found in Greek mythology referring to the descendants of Perseus. The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 130-year orbit. Most of the dust in the cloud today is around a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1862.[1] The rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than for the older part of the stream.
The Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years, with the earliest information on this meteor shower coming from the Far East.[2] Some Catholics refer to the Perseids as the "tears of St. Lawrence", since August 10 is the date of that saint's martyrdom.[3]
The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity being between August 9 and 14, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky, but because of the path of Swift-Tuttle's orbit, Perseids are primarily visible in the northern hemisphere. As with all meteor showers, the rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since the side of the Earth nearest to turning into the sun scoops up more meteors as the Earth moves through space. In 2009, the peak Zenithal Hourly Rate will be about 120, but fainter meteors will be washed out by a waning gibbous moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids
Souther d-Aquarids stop on Thu, 19
Perseids stop on Tue, 24
a-Aurigids begin on Wed, 25
Sky chart
(top)
Moon
Last quarter - Tue, 3
New moon - Sun, 8
First quarter - Mon, 16
Full moon - Tue, 24
Constellations
As log as summer constellations, like Lyra, Cygnus, Aquila, remain on the sky, Autumn ones appear as well. You can also observe Taurus, Pegasus, Andromeda... Have a look at the map:
