LISTEN to this week’s Sky Report
This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the week ending Wednesday, June 12, 2013. Here is what’s happening in the skies of Southern California:
The innermost planets, Mercury and Venus, continue to be visible above the west-northwest during evening twilight, starting about 30 minutes after sunset this week. Through a telescope, brilliant Venus appears in nearly full phase, while faster-moving Mercury changes from half-lit on the 6th to crescent phase. The crescent moon will appear to the lower left of the pair of planets on the 10th.
The planet Saturn, in Virgo the Maiden, is high in the south-southeast as darkness deepens, crossing the meridian at 10:00 p.m. This is an ideal time to see the spectacular rings of Saturn through the public telescopes at Griffith Observatory.
The waning crescent moon can be seen at dawn until Thursday the 6th, and is new on the following Saturday. The moon re-appears in waxing crescent phase on Monday the 10th.
This week’s finest evening appearance of the International Space Station from Los Angeles should occur on Wednesday, June 5. The orbiting laboratory, home to an international crew of 6 astronauts, is expected to exceed Venus in brightness as it crosses the sky. The ISS will travel from southwest to northeast between 8:49 to 8:56 p.m., P.D.T., and will pass overhead at 8:53 p.m.
A crew of three Chinese astronauts, two men and one woman, is expected to launch aboard the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft as early as 2:37 a.m. P.D.T. on Tuesday, June 11. The launch will be carried live from China on the English-language CCTV-9, available as a digital TV broadcast on Channel 31.9 in the Los Angeles area, or on the Internet at http://english.cntv.cn/live/. The 15-day mission has the goal of docking with the Tiangong-1 space station. Tiangong-1 will pass directly over Los Angeles on Thursday night, June 6, crossing the sky from the west-northwest to the east-southeast between 8:42 and 8:47 p.m., P.D.T. , and will be overhead at 8:45 p.m., nearly equaling the brightness of the brightest stars.
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 through Griffith Observatory’s telescopes Tuesday-Sunday before 9:30 p.m. Check our website for our schedule. The next public star party on the grounds of Griffith Observatory, hosted by the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, the Sidewalk Astronomers, and the Planetary Society, will take place on Saturday, June 15.
From Griffith Observatory, I’m Anthony Cook and I can be reached at griffithobserver@gmail.com.