Skywatch

[Palehorse]

Lets use this topic to post upcoming astronomic events that some amongst us may be interested in observing. I'll start off the new topic in the new year with this:



If you snooze you'll lose Wednesday morning, when a little known but active meteor shower will start 2012 for people stalwart enough to brave the chilly hours before dawn.

The Quadrantids, named for a now-extinct constellation, will be visible for two hours early Wednesday, from about 3 to 5 a.m. local times.

The shower is likely to produce up to 100 falling stars an hour, making for a good show. People across North America who stay up late enough, and who have a clear sky, should get a nice view, says Conrad Jung, an astronomer at Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland. . .

http://www.indystar.com/article/20120103/NEWS/120103009/Meteor-shower-kick-off-2012?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

[Henry Hawk]

supposed to be partly cloudy skies....I may set my alarm and go out to check this out.  I LOVE to watch them.  I'm not sure why, but I do.

[Locutus]

Thanks to this frigid arctic air mass that moved through, we have crystal clear skies here.

[followsthewolf]

We have ~20" of snow. Shoveled 3 times yesterday and twice today.

Come get winter, PH.

[Anne]

Dang, FTW, what part of the country do you live in?

[followsthewolf]

Western PA -- Lake effect snow in the snow belt

BTW -- 20" at a crack is not unusual when the Great Lakes snow machine cranks up.

[Locutus]

Holy cow!!  FTW will need 3 or 4 pairs of long underwear to watch the shower.  It's down to 44 here.  Did I somehow relocate from South Florida and not know it?

[Palehorse]

Cloudy here right now. I don't think we'll be seeing this! 

[damfast]

got up at 330 and nothing but cold nose.  geez.

[libby]

I got up a bit later, but didn't see anything either. It was way too cold and windy to stay outside for more than a few minutes.

[Y]

Yup!  Too cold to even contemplate it. 

[Anne]

Western PA -- Lake effect snow in the snow belt

BTW -- 20" at a crack is not unusual when the Great Lakes snow machine cranks up.

We have relatives in Buffalo, NY, and they are always telling us about all their snow. They got smart and go to FL in the winter now.

[libby]

We missed the falling stars but can still see the planets. This is from the Washington Post Sky Watch:

Venus Starts Year with Star Turn at Sunset

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr., Published: December 31, 2011

Set down your champagne and gaze west, as the bubbly planet Venus kicks off Sunday night's first evening of the New Year.

See this splendid planet about 23 degrees above southwestern horizon at sunset. You can't miss this ultrabright beacon — about negative fourth magnitude — skimming over the treetops. By mid-January, Venus hangs 30 degrees above the horizon at sunset, and the planet sets about 8:10 p.m.

On Jan. 24, a waxing young moon begins to ascend toward Venus in the western heavens. The lunar crescent sneaks closer to alluring Venus on Jan. 25, and by the evening of Jan. 26, the moon has passed by our neighbor planet.

Like a 1950s teenager at a diner, Jupiter loiters in the east-southeast sky at dusk, in the Aries constellation. It's a negative second magnitude (very bright) object. The waxing gibbous moon approaches this large planet Sunday and snuggles closer Monday evening. By Tuesday, the moon has passed Jupiter, but have no fear, we get an "instant replay" from Jan. 28-31.

Bright enough to see from the light-polluted Washington area, Mars and Saturn, both zero magnitude objects, become the New Year's late-night revelers. The reddish Mars rises just before midnight now in the east. A few hours later, at 1:30 a.m., the ringed Saturn ascends the east-southeast. By late January, both planets loiter in the Virgo constellation, as Mars will rise about 9 p.m. and Saturn appears just before midnight.

Find fleet Mercury now before sunrise in the southeast, in the constellation Ophiuchus, hugging the horizon.
....
Blaine Friedlander can be reached at PostSkyWatch@gmail.com.
© The Washington Post Company

P.S.  I think Mr. Friedlander got an early start with the bubbly   

[Bo D]

More evidence that we are probably not alone - even within our own galaxy.

..............................................................

Many Billions of Rocky Planets in Habitable Milky Way Zones

A first direct estimate of the number of light planets around red dwarf stars has just been announced by an international team using observations with the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. A recent announcement, showing that planets are ubiquitous in our galaxy, used a different method that was not sensitive to this important class of exoplanets.

"Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40 percent of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," says Xavier Bonfils (IPAG, Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble, France), the leader of the team. "Because red dwarfs are so common — there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way — this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone."

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news-DS-Many-Billions-of-Rocky-Planets-in-Habitable-Milky-Way-Zones-032812.aspx?et_cid=2563642&et_rid=41373174&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.scientificcomputing.com%2fnews-DS-Many-Billions-of-Rocky-Planets-in-Habitable-Milky-Way-Zones-032812.aspx

[Henry Hawk]

Kind of mind boggling when you think about it....