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This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report through November 14th, 2019. Here’s what’s happening in the skies of southern California.
The tiny silhouette of the innermost planet, Mercury, will cross the sun’s face on Monday the 11th. The rare event, called a transit of Mercury, will be in progress when the sun rises, at 6:22 a.m., and it will end at 10:04 a.m. Because the sun will be at full brightness, and the disk of Mercury is only 1/194th as wide as the sun, there is no way to watch the event directly that does not call for a telescope that is equipped especially for solar viewing. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WATCH THE TRANSIT WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT! EYE INJURY MAY RESULT! Techniques for safely viewing the sun, applicable to the transit, are discussed on a Sky and Telescope webpage.
Griffith Observatory will show the transit live through our telescopes on our YouTube channel that you can find linked to our webpage. Because the transit falls on Veterans Day, Griffith Observatory will not be able to host public telescope viewing, but some astronomy clubs have scheduled public observing events through safely filtered telescopes at other locations. Historic Mt. Wilson Observatory will host free public viewing with one of its famous solar telescopes. Caltech also will provide several telescopes for Mercury transit viewing on the Beckman Lawn public square on it’s Pasadena campus starting at 8:00 a.m. These, and other transit observing opportunities may be found on NASA’s calendar of astronomy club activities, the Night Sky Network. The next transit of Mercury, visible from southern California, will occur on May 7, 2049.
The bright planets Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are visible shortly after sunset. Venus, the brightest planet, is so bright that it can be seen at sunset, low in the southwest. A few minutes after sunset, the second brightest planet, Jupiter become visible higher in the southwest, to the upper left of Venus. Saturn, third in brightness, is high in the south-southwest, to the upper left of Jupiter.
The moon is brilliant through most of the night time hours. Its phase is gibbous until the night of the 11th, when it becomes full; the time of full moon is 5:34 a.m. on the 12th. On the 14th, the waning gibbous moon rises at 6:44 p.m., just as darkness falls.
The International Space Station will pass directly over Los Angeles at dawn on the 12th. Second in brightness to anything then in the sky after the moon, the ISS will travel from the northwest to the southeast horizon between 5:17 and 5:23 a.m., and it will be overhead, and only 261 miles above Los Angeles, seconds before 5:20 a.m.
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 from Tuesday through Sunday, before 9:30 p.m. Check our website for the schedule. The next free 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, December 7th between 2:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Follow The Sky Report, All Space Considered, and Griffith Observatory on Twitter for updates on astronomy and space-related events.
From Griffith Observatory, I’m Anthony Cook, and I can be reached at griffithobserver@gmail.com.