Sunday, September 20, 2009

Jupiter is now visible in the night sky


Jupiter is putting on a show this month and if you have a spotting scope or even a pair of binoculars, you can take it in.<br />It begins shining brightly in the southeast sky beginning around 9:30pm, and viewing it through a pair of average birding binoculars tells you this isn't just any star in the sky.  Even at only 8x magnification, Jupiter shows as a disc in the sky.

Jupiter will be clearly visible at sundown just above the horizon in the east. Jupiter will spend the rest of the night crossing from east to west following the same path the Sun took across the sky during the day. This path is called the ecliptic. All the planets follow this path as they travel through the constellations that comprise the zodiac. Jupiter is hanging out in Capricorn at the beginning of September.

Jupiter will be very easy to distinguish from the stars, because at a magnitude of -2.7, it shines more brightly than all of the stars in the sky. Even the dimmer planets like Mars are easy to recognize. Just remember the song "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". It doesn't go "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Planet". Planets don't twinkle.


*by Tanja Diederich

Posted on a MAC
Posted on a MAC

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