Items Featured In TGP NOMINAL - June Skies 2019
Ross Hockham's June Sky Guide:
Now first things first, we need to talk about the elephant in the skies, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites……
There's been a lot of controversy and a lot of people talking about it in the Facebook Group.
Elon Musk has sent up a string of satellites called Starlink.
At the moment there's about 60 of them all in the line, orbiting, about every 90 minutes or so in the sky.
Now, I didn't know anything about this, as I'm not really into spaceships, satellites and what's going on,
so my finger wasn't on the pulse on this one.
So, someone posted in our group, about that they seen this string of lights in the sky and wanted to know what were. Which led to more and more sightings, which instantly brings out the conspiracy theories, and talk of UFO's.
It's a bit like Marmite the astronomy world because there's lots of people,
like myself posting about how it looks absolutely stunning,
but then you got the other side where people are saying " that's the end of astronomy".
SpaceX's plan is to put 12000 of these satellites into space in a global net,
but as they only pass over every 90 minutes for about 3 minutes or so, when they spread out,
hopefully they won't be so bright.
Elon Musk actually said there's over 9000 Satellites (Not SpaceX) scattered about anyway and people don't notice them. Occasionally you do you get the Iridium ones, some of them are dying out now, so there's going to be even less of those.
There is a website called stuffin.space which shows every RECORDED object in space.
Whether it's a satellite, a piece of debris or whatever.
Each ones are colour coded, so you can work out what it is and if you click on each of the different objects.
It tells you what it is, when it was launched and all the information you need about it.
it is beautiful to watch because it's all in 3D, without having to have glasses.
So you can almost immerse yourself in this thing as it spins around the globe.
Yes it's beautiful but it's also pretty scary at the same time, thinking we have all this stuff floating around and that is just in orbit and a bit further out.
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But there are companies like Surrey Satellite Technologies that have built a spacecraft that actually acts like Wall-E, going around the Galaxy collecting rubbish. They use what Mark calls "the Gladiator spacecraft"
because it uses two things to collect the space junk,
a big net and a harpoon, so it's almost like having one of these trident things like the Gladiators used.
The program doesn't have a very imaginative name because it's called RemoveDEBRIS but it does what it says on the tin.
Now they looking for governments etc to fund it because it's governments that have put this rubbish into space. Surrey satellites are not the only company that are dealing with it there are other organisations that are hoping to get funding as well I say the more the merrier to be honest when it when you see how much junk is out there, it needs to be done.
For me Starlink is like something else to actually get people to want to go out and actually look up and inspire them to do something and go up into space or learn something , that's the way I look at it. Yeah it is a little bit controversial, but we should be worrying about light pollution on Earth, rather than bright objects in the skies.
When I was in London looking at the Starlink Satellites, the light pollution was worse than the flares themselves. I mean you can't get a decent sky now unless you go to Wales or Scotland or somewhere like that. We need to educate about light Pollution before it gets worse.
So let's see what else is happening in the skies for June
On the 5th, jump to Jupiter around 12.30 to see a double transit first Ganeymedes shadow crosses the planet,
then IO’s joins it at 1.30am.
This afternoon as the sun sets the thickening crescent Moon will be just to the left of Mars,
probably the last time to see the red planet for a while this month as its dropping below the horizon.
On the 8th, if you go to the Moon and search just north of the Mares called Serenitatis,
you will find a crater called Alexander.
If you have a peek at this at around 11pm, it will appear to have a delicate necklace of lights,
as the sun glances the tips of crater's ridges.
On the 9th, Jupiter’s moon Europa will transit the planet, chasing its shadow. Technically this will start just before Midnight on the 8th, but will appear in the centre of the planet around 1.20am. |
On the 13th Jupiter's Moon IO will start to transit the planet,
this time its shadow will be chasing the moon across the face of Jupiter.
With the GRS coming into view also.
Now while we're here. I read an article that Richard J Bartlett posted in the group talking about the Great Red Spot unravelling…. A Stream of gas detached itself on May 19th,
10,000km in length being carried away into a jet stream next to it.
This is happening on a weekly basis.
On the 16th, As the Full Moon rises giving you a fantastic illusion of it looking larger as it peeks up from the horizon.
Jupiter will rise with it just to the Moon's right. A fantastic chance to get both in a Photo..
All Jupiter’s main moons lie east of the planet, if you look before midnight.
You may wonder where Europa is, it's behind the planet coming into sight, just after.
The 21st sees the coming of the Summer Solstice.
A solstice occurs when one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun.
The summer solstice is when the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky,
and is the day with the longest period of daylight.
Today is that day, so a great time to safely peek at our Sun. IF YOU HAVE THE PROPER EQUIPMENT.
With Longer days and shorter brighter nights, I would take advantage of the days by observing our Sun.
In fact astronomically speaking, dark skies won’t start to appear until late July.
You should never look at the Sun as its extremely dangerous and unless you want to go blind,
never look through binoculars or a telescope at it unless you have a certified filter.
What can you see? Sunspots, if the Sun is behaving you will notice black spots on its surface, these spots are lower cooler material being pulled up to the Sun’s surface by its magnetic field.
If you're lucky enough to own a Hydrogen Alpha scope you can actually see the prominences coming out from these magnetic loops, on the edges of the Sun which is twist up and snap can throw material into space creating flares.
On the 24th, Mercury reaches its greatest Eastern Elongation.
As the sun sets, its your best chance to spot the planet. Just to Mars’s left slightly, higher than the god of war.
June marks the start of the Noctilucent Cloud season.
Noctilucent Clouds are a build up of meteor dust and ice crystals in our upper atmosphere,
being lit from below, as our sun shines up from below the horizon.
The best time to spot these wispy silver blue clouds are within an hour’s window after sunset,
but also can be seen before sunrise. They tend to get more frequent and better as the Month wears on.
Object Of the Month:
For our first guest "Object Of The Month" we have the pleasure of welcoming Dr Maggie Lieu an astrophysicist working at the European Space Agency in Madrid and TGP NOMINAL Honorary Crew Member.
Maggie has chosen chosen the M51 whirlpool Galaxy as her Object Of The Month for June.
It's a majestic spiral galaxy with giant spiral staircase like Arms,
filled with stars gas and dust and this makes for the ideal location to form new stars.
This Galaxy is actually the first Galaxy to be classified as a Spiral Galaxy.
It has particularly pronounce spiral arms,
and this is believed to be due to the interactions with a nearby Dwarf Galaxy NGC-5195,
tugging on one of the M51 spiral arms and triggering more star formations.
It is also a good region to find transient objects,
so in the last 25 years Eleven Supernova explosions have been observed here.
At start the Month with a New Moon it's a great chance to spot the M51.
The Whirlpool Galaxy can be found by first finding the Plough, or Big Dipper,
or as Ross Hockham calls it, "The Saucepan", because it’s easier to explain how to move along it.
It’s an Asterism in the Constellation Ursa Major and is up all year round in the UK.
So to how to find it this time of year, the ‘pan’ part is facing down toward the horizon,
follow the handle up to its last star Alkaid.
The Whirlpool Galaxy can be found by hopping to a couple of stars just to its lower left, so not far.
A 25/20mm eyepiece will be best to find it as they have a wider field of view.
Once you see a faint fuzzy object, try other higher magnification eyepieces till you get the right one.
Use averted vision and in a dark sky you will notice there are actually two interacting galaxies here (M51 and NGC-5195) .
You can make out its spiral arms with a moderate sized scope and decent skies,
We are inviting special guests to send in their chosen object of the month.
For example Astrophysicists, other Scientists and people in the Space Industry,
but we thought it would be nice also invite you guys,
because amateur Astronomers and Astro-Photographers out there,
might have something that they've seen in the sky that they think is worth talking about.
So if you want to do that, just get in touch, our email address is: [email protected]
From one man in a field to a field full of friends! - Emberton Sports & Social Club 04/05/2019
Ross Hockham returned to the place where UK Astronomy started,
'Emberton Sports and social Club',
for first in a range of events to celebrate UK Astronomy's Fifth Anniversary.