By Carol Lutsinger
Have you signed up to be notified when the International Space Station is passing across our Valley skies? If not, you might want to do that. For the moment there are two good opportunities for extended viewing on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, but they are both before dawn. If you want to sign up, use this site: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/extend.cfm
The lineup of the five favorite planets are entertaining lots of folks these days. This week you can see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn arranged along the curving path of the ecliptic. Although it seems they are in a line, remember they are really far apart, like concentric rings around an object dropped into lake. Nothing bad is going to happen because of the aligning, so don’t panic; just go outside before dawn and look east to southeast for the treat that happens infrequently enough for “news” sites to shout about it.
When the opportunity arises to head to a darker site, then perhaps you can see 50 or more stars, but there are thousands visible in the truly dark skies out in the Davis Mountains around the McDonald Observatory. Perhaps your summer travels will lead you up that mountain and show you the secrets hidden from our view down in the flatlands.
High overhead the kite-shaped constellation Boötes will circle for several more months. The right triangle of Coma Berenices circles with it. And the Messier 3 is between them. M3 was the first Messier object discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier. It is a globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici in 1764. He thought it was a nebula until 1784 when William Herschel discovered it to be thousands of stars instead; most recent observations believe there are more than 500,000 stars in the group. Most of them are variable stars which are a study in themselves.
Variable stars are intriguing and the major astronomer who uncovered their secrets was Henrietta Leavitt who worked for peanuts at the Harvard Observatory in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Her story is a fascinating one, as the secrets of those variable stars. Might be some good summer reading. For students Look Up Henrietta by Robert Burleigh is recommended. For adults The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel is one I have read twice and recommend heartily.
Facing west towards sunset the last views of Leo the Lion will sink beneath the horizon led by the Y of Cancer the Crab. Cancer harbors three Messier Objects, the Beehive cluster and M 95 and 96. The last two are multiple galaxies that can only be seen with a dark site and good telescope, but the Beehive cluster is manageable with binoculars usually. It truly is a beehive of more than a thousand stars seemingly attempting to enter their hive.
Thanks for joining me today. Remember to KLU.
