Magnitude Group Horizon View

[Jonathan Garcia]

EachJuly and August the Earth encounters debris left behind from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. This comet has an orbit of 133 years and last entered the inner solar system in 1992. Even though the comet now lies in the outer portions of the solar system, far away from Earth, we still encounter debris that has been left behind during the many trips this comet has made through the solar system.

This meteor shower is perhaps the most popular as it is active during the summer months in the northern hemisphere. There are stronger meteor showers but they appear during the colder time of year in the northern hemisphere when conditions are less inviting. The strength of each Perseid display varies year to year, mainly due to lunar conditions. If a bright moon is above the horizon during the night of maximum activity, then the display will be reduced. Most of the Perseid meteors are faint and bright moonlight will make it difficult to view. Such was the case in 2022 when a bright full moon spoiled the display. No such problem exists in 2023 as the moon is a thin crescent phase will not interfere this year.

Note that date as the usual Perseid maximum occurs on the morning of August 12th. This year it will occur on the morning of August 13th. Due to the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun in 365 1/4 days, the maximum time of each shower advances 6 hours with each passing year. This is why the time of maximum activity shifts forward year to year. This is also why we need a leap year every 4 years to accommodate that extra 24 hours.

As the Earth rotates and the time approaches local midnight, the Perseid radiant has risen higher into the northeastern sky. The meteors are now shorter and last only a few tenths of a second. You still only see about half of the actual activity as the remainder still occur beyond your line of sight below the horizon. As the morning progresses, the activity will increase as the radiant climbs higher into the sky. Theoretically, the best time to watch the Perseids is just before the break of dawn when the radiant lies highest in a dark sky. This is usually around 04:00 local daylight saving time. Experienced observers often say the hour between 03:00 and 04:00 is usually the best, not 04:00 to 05:00. Perhaps this is due to fatigue as observers have watched for several hours by then and may have trouble staying alert.

Not all meteors seen will be Perseids. There are minor showers active at this time that produce around 5 meteors per hour. There are also random meteors, not associated with any recognizable shower, that contribute up to 10 meteors per hour. These meteors are easily distinguished from the Perseids as they move in other directions compared to the Perseids and are usually slower. All Perseids, no matter where they appear in the sky, will trace back to the area of the radiant in the constellation of Perseus (see illustration below).

Blank meteor forms for your personal data are available here. To share your data we suggest filling out a form on the website of the International Meteor Organization, a partner with the AMS in meteor observations . You will need to register here, which is free. This will give you a lifetime profile page where your data is stored. Once you have a profile page you will have access to uploading you data on a summary page. We monitor observations shared with the IMO and you can too by visiting the Visual Campaigns.

The American Meteor Society, Ltd. is a non-profit scientific organization founded in 1911 and established to inform, encourage, and support the research activities of both amateur and professional astronomers who are interested in the fascinating field of Meteor Astronomy. Our affiliates observe, monitor, collect data on, study, and report on meteors, meteor showers, fireballs, and related meteoric phenomena. Please note that the AMS does not deal in meteorites.

The 10 galactic gatherings highlighted below include three or more bright galaxies in the same field of view. Some are groups comparable to the Local Group, while others are dense regions within larger clusters.

Globular clusters are old, usually spherical groups of stars that can contain from a few thousand to a million members. The most well-known examples are 47 Tucanae and Omega Centauri.

Open clusters, on the contrary, are much younger and smaller; they contain hundreds or thousands of stars. These star clusters tend to lose a gravitational bound over time and spread out, becoming loosely clustered. Due to this, they are more irregular in shape. You can notice this by observing the Pleiades, Hyades, or Beehive Cluster.

The easiest way to find Collinder 39 is to locate its brightest member, Alpha Persei or Mirfak, which is also the brightest star in the constellation Perseus. In the Northern Hemisphere, this star cluster is above the horizon every night of the year, although it stays very low in spring.

In 1990, the Wishing Well Cluster became the first target the Hubble Space Telescope ever observed. Through binoculars or a telescope, NGC 3532 resembles silver coins at the bottom of a well (hence its nickname); to the naked eye, it appears as a hazy patch in the sky.

The second biggest and brightest globular star cluster 47 Tucanae has an extremely dense core that you can see via binoculars. To the naked eye, it appears as a slightly blurred star, similar to the head of a tailless comet. Even its discoverer initially mistook it for a comet!

The neighbor of the above-mentioned Messier 7, Messier 6 is a smaller group of stars that looks like a swarm of fireflies through binoculars. To the naked eye, this cluster appears like a nebula without stars.

The brilliant Jewel Box star cluster has about a dozen stars in various shades of blue, yellow, and orange; to the naked eye, it appears as a fuzzy star. You can easily recognize the cluster by its A-shaped asterism formed by its four brightest stars.

Messier 41, sometimes referred to as the Little Beehive star cluster, is located near Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. You need to look for a faint object that looks fuzzy and differs from pinpoint stars.

Bottom line: now you know at least 15 beautiful star clusters that can be seen without special equipment. On the next clear evening, go outside and try to spot some of them! Also, share this article with your friends if you found it useful.

After a spectacular once in a generation show of the Aurora Borealis Friday night, a new Geomagnetic Storm Watch has been issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, CO, as another large group of charged solar particles approach Earth. This means another potentially good night to view these amazing colors in Colorado's sky. Additional bands of energy have been released by the Sun and will provide continued activity over the next few days. It is unlikely that views tonight will be as strong as last night due to the rarity of Friday night's event. However, the Aurora is still expected to be widespread, and potentially visible in parts of Colorado.

Clouds are more likely to disrupt your view tonight relative to last night. Optimal viewing conditions will generally lie in northern Colorado into Wyoming: Cheyenne, Steamboat Springs, and points north where clouds will be a non-issue and the Aurora will be higher on the horizon.

You will be able to see the Northern Lights in Colorado this weekend - including Friday night, if you know where and when to look. The most powerful solar geomagnetic storms in at least two decades are currently slamming into Earth at one million miles per hour. On Friday afternoon, space scientists in Boulder, Colorado confirmed the first of several rounds of solar energy had arrived. As of 5:30PM MDT on Friday, G5 solar storm conditions were observed, on a 5-point scale with G5 being highest. The National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a Geomagnetic Storm Warning as a result with widespread impacts expected.

The last G5 event occurred over 20 years ago in October of 2003. In addition to producing the Northern Lights, this severe solar storm is a big issue for our electronics and utility companies. Cell phone towers, GPS and weather satellites, and even our power grid will all be impacted - and our utility and related infrastructure companies are taking steps to ensure everything continues to function smoothly. Here's everything you need to know: the science, the aurora forecast, and the potential electronics issues and history.

We get weather in space. The Sun has a magnetic field. Because of that, and because the Sun's outer shell (corona) is made of plasma...the Sun emits a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind.

These particles move around a million miles per hour. At that speed, you could go from Colorado Springs to Denver in less than a second. But, because the Sun is 93 million miles away...it typically takes 3 to 3.5 days for these particles to reach us.

Sometimes, the sun's magnetic field gets tangled like a twisted and stretched rubber band. Eventually, the band snaps, releasing a lot of particles all at once. This is called a Coronal Mass Ejection.

The bigger the snap, the more particles get sent off. If the band snap happens to be facing Earth, the particles hit Earth's magnetic field, and atmosphere, and produce a solar storm. These storms are more common at certain points in the solar cycle, which lasts 11 years. We happen to be in an active period now.

You may have heard of sunspots before - small dots on the Sun that look dark (viewed from special telescopes). These are regions where the magnetic field has become twisted. Although they're called spots - they're massive. A sunspot currently facing Earth is 17 times the size of the entire planet. It's that sunspot that produced not one, or two, but now at least 6 CMEs in the last few days. At least two of those were sent directly toward Earth. The first was released on May 8th, and arrived Friday afternoon. It is producing the mega-solar storm we're experiencing. But, with another CME on the way, a long and unusually powerful period of solar impacts are likely.

3a8082e126