The entire last year has been a disaster on this blog. For the entire year I managed only one post and that too thanks to an accidental spotting. While I am determined to make at least one post per month this year, I am not entirely sure how the weather would work out.
Thankfully, the year started with multiple events of astronomical significance. The 1st January was a full moon day that causes some interesting religious/cultural effects in Sri Lanka. It was also a supermoon. But this post is not about that.
The month of January this year saw another interesting astronomical event; planetary conjunction of Mars and Jupiter. A planetary conjunction is an event where two planets appear at a very small angle in the sky. In laymen's terms, the two planets look very close to each other.
In the conjunction that happened in January, the closest apparent angle between the two planets was about 0.25 degrees. What does that really mean? That means something close to half the width of the Moon as seen from Earth. However, based on the data from Stellarium, at the time of my photoshoot, the two planets have drifted apart to roughly 0.43 degrees (or almost the width of the Moon).
While the two planets appear visually close, they are still very far away from each other. At the time of the photo, Mars was about 283.37 million km away from Earth where as Jupiter was about 877.160 million km away.
This is also a good time to compare how massive the biggest planet of our solar system is. Despite being more than 3 times away then Mars, Jupiter still appears as a larger blob. Thankfully I managed to take a slightly better set of photos for comparison purposes through my Nexstar 4SE.
Due to blurred edges, Jupiter appears to be about five times the width of Mars. However in reality, at this point, Jupiter had an apparent width of over seven times that of Mars.
Planetary conjunctions are not rare events. However given two planets, they don't occur every year. The next Jupiter-Mars conjunction for example happens in 2020 where as few other conjunctions are to happen in 2018.
If you are interested in observing the next conjunctions, you could have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conjunctions_(astronomy) to find the rest of the conjunctions that are to happen this year. You could use a software like Stellarium to find out where the planets are going to be on a given date/time. Just keep in mind, naked eye visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. You would be able to observe the conjunctions with Neptune and Uranus with a strong telescope but you would need absolutely clear skies.
There you go then, that's the first post for the year. Keep observing!
Thankfully, the year started with multiple events of astronomical significance. The 1st January was a full moon day that causes some interesting religious/cultural effects in Sri Lanka. It was also a supermoon. But this post is not about that.
The month of January this year saw another interesting astronomical event; planetary conjunction of Mars and Jupiter. A planetary conjunction is an event where two planets appear at a very small angle in the sky. In laymen's terms, the two planets look very close to each other.
In the conjunction that happened in January, the closest apparent angle between the two planets was about 0.25 degrees. What does that really mean? That means something close to half the width of the Moon as seen from Earth. However, based on the data from Stellarium, at the time of my photoshoot, the two planets have drifted apart to roughly 0.43 degrees (or almost the width of the Moon).
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| Composite image of 1st Jan 2018 super moon over Jupiter-Mars conjunction. Canon 550D - 400mm |
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| Jupiter and Mars conjunction - Jan 2018. Canon 550D - 400mm |
While the two planets appear visually close, they are still very far away from each other. At the time of the photo, Mars was about 283.37 million km away from Earth where as Jupiter was about 877.160 million km away.
This is also a good time to compare how massive the biggest planet of our solar system is. Despite being more than 3 times away then Mars, Jupiter still appears as a larger blob. Thankfully I managed to take a slightly better set of photos for comparison purposes through my Nexstar 4SE.
 |
| Jupiter-Mars conjunction composite image. Nexstar 4SE - Cannon 550D - 2x enlarged |
Due to blurred edges, Jupiter appears to be about five times the width of Mars. However in reality, at this point, Jupiter had an apparent width of over seven times that of Mars.
Planetary conjunctions are not rare events. However given two planets, they don't occur every year. The next Jupiter-Mars conjunction for example happens in 2020 where as few other conjunctions are to happen in 2018.
If you are interested in observing the next conjunctions, you could have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conjunctions_(astronomy) to find the rest of the conjunctions that are to happen this year. You could use a software like Stellarium to find out where the planets are going to be on a given date/time. Just keep in mind, naked eye visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. You would be able to observe the conjunctions with Neptune and Uranus with a strong telescope but you would need absolutely clear skies.
There you go then, that's the first post for the year. Keep observing!
I am plannign to buy Celestron Astromaster 130 AZ Telescope
ReplyDeletehere is the specs suggest me good one
Newtonian Reflector
130 mm (5.12 in)
650 mm (26 in)
f/5
20 mm (0.79 in)
33 x
10 mm (0.39 in)
2 65 x
Built-on StarPointer
307 x
19 x
13.1
1.07 arc seconds
0.89 arc seconds
(Compared to human eye) 345 x
Celestron Astro Master 130.