LISTEN to this week’s Sky Report
This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the week ending Wednesday, October 17, 2012. Here is what’s happening in the skies of Southern California:
The planet Mars is nearly as distant and faint as it ever can be seen from earth. Scorpius the Scorpion’s brightest star, Antares, can help you find Mars late in evening twilight. Remember that your clenched fist held at arm’s length appears about 10 degrees across. If you look to the southwest at 7:00 p.m., glittering, orange Antares will be 13 degrees above the horizon. Fainter Mars is less than 10 degrees to the right of Antares. Binoculars will show that the color of Antares and Mars are nearly identical. Antares means the “Rival of Mars” in Greek.
The brilliant planet Jupiter can’t be missed in the east-northeast in Taurus the Bull starting shortly after the planet rises at 9:00 p.m. By dawn, the giant planet is nearly overhead in the south.
Venus, the brightest planet, rises in the east-northeast at about 4:00 a.m. It can still be seen, 36 degrees high in the east, at sunrise.
The moon can be seen in the early morning in waning crescent phase until the 14th, and is new on the following morning. It reappears in waxing crescent phase, low in the west-southwest in evening twilight, on the 16th. The moon appears next to Venus on the 12th, and binoculars will help you to find planet Mercury only 1 degree to the left of the moon on the 16th.
The International Space Station will make two notable passes over Los Angeles this week. The first lasts from 6:53 to 7:00 p.m., P.D.T. on Wednesday the 10th. The space station will travel from the south-southwest to the east-northeast horizon, appearing 41 degrees high in the southeast at 6:56 p.m., P.D.T. On Friday the 12th, the ISS will move from west-southwest to northeast between 6:52 and 6:59 p.m., P.D.T. It will appear highest, 49 degrees above the west-northwest horizon, at 6:55 p.m., P.D.T.
Free views of the sun during the day and of the moon, planets, and other celestial objects at night, are available to the public in clear weather five days a week (Wednesday-Sunday) through Griffith Observatory’s telescopes before 9:30 p.m. Check our website for our schedule. The next Griffith Observatory public star party, hosted by Los Angeles Astronomical Society and the Sidewalk Astronomers is scheduled for Saturday, October 20.
From Griffith Observatory, I’m Anthony Cook, and I can be reached at griffithobserver@gmail.com.