The Night Sky

Earth and her Moon from Artemis, in her far orbit of the Moon...

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/saturn-moon-titan-may-bellwether-043810041.html[/URL]

[[IMG alt="CBS News"]https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Qhb4jcajPR19qavIQ2xI0g--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTE4MDtoPTQ4O2NmPXdlYnA-/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2020-11/31ae7500-2b10-11eb-bfff-af54d62fa6aa[/IMG]]('https://www.cbsnews.com/')
[HEADING=2]Every planet in the solar system to be visible in rare "planet parade"[/HEADING]

The planets of the solar system will be lined up in the sky Wednesday night in an astronomical phenomenon, visible from Earth, known as a "planet parade."

The phenomenon, which was also visible Tuesday night, gives skywatchers a good view of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye. With a pair of binoculars or a telescope, Uranus and Neptune can also be seen.

The planet parade is not an extremely rare occurrence — it tends to happen at least every couple of years. In fact, the eight-planet alignment last happened in [June]('https://www.cbsnews.com/news/planets-align-2022-five-mercury-venus-mars-jupiter-saturn-2022-06-24/?ftag=YHF4eb9d17').

In order to see the phenomenon, it is recommended you look south after sunset. From east to west, the planets will appear in this order: Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, Venus.

"People should look southward about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset to catch Mercury and Venus before they're too close to the horizon to observe," said Vahé Peroomian, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Southern California. "Jupiter, Saturn and Mars will be visible once it gets dark, from southeast to east."

Planets can appear together in the same part of the sky during their orbits around the sun, Peroomian told CBS News.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/green-comet-approach-flyby-earth-222914189.html[/URL]

Cape Canaveral, just unloaded something, a visual from Fort Lauderdale remarkable… C22…
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Damn, didn't know where to see it or I would have been out there this morning, but I will be there tomorrow before dawn with my binoculars...

Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will have the best chance of spotting the comet if they look in the northwestern skies before dawn. Without a telescope, Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) will most likely look like a faint, greenish smudge in the sky rather than a bright object, and isn’t likely to have the dramatic, visible tail we saw on Comet NEOWISE in 2020. But it’s still worth checking out; this particular comet takes around 50,000 years to orbit the Sun, so an opportunity to see it will only come once in a lifetime.

COMET 2022 E3 IN STELLARIUM The position of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) in the night sky on Feb. 1, 2023, as seen from Pasadena, CA.Image: The Planetary Society/Stellarium

Damn, didn't know where to see it or I would have been out there this morning, but I will be there tomorrow before dawn with my binoculars...

Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will have the best chance of spotting the comet if they look in the northwestern skies before dawn. Without a telescope, Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) will most likely look like a faint, greenish smudge in the sky rather than a bright object, and isn’t likely to have the dramatic, visible tail we saw on Comet NEOWISE in 2020. But it’s still worth checking out; this particular comet takes around 50,000 years to orbit the Sun, so an opportunity to see it will only come once in a lifetime.

COMET 2022 E3 IN STELLARIUM The position of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) in the night sky on Feb. 1, 2023, as seen from Pasadena, CA.Image: The Planetary Society/Stellarium

Holy Shades of Comet Kohoutek Batman!!

Dragged my sorry azz outside this AM in the chilly 16°F air at 05:00 to see this "Naked Eye" object and saw bupkis with my naked eye or with my binoculars. In fairness, there were some high, light clouds, regardless, if this was such a significant celestial object, it should have been visible...

Picture of the rising crescent moon behind the Temple of Poseidon in Greece reminds me of my most memorable sailing experience. Did an all night sail from Port Jeff to Block Island and I had the helm going through Plum Gut to catch the rising crescent moon coming over the horizon just before the sun.

There goes the neighborhood for terrestrial and low orbit telescopes!!

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Hubble Telescope Faces Threat From SpaceX and Other Companies’ Satellites[/SIZE][/HEADING]
Scientists found that an increasing number of pictures made by the iconic orbital observatory are being disrupted by passing satellites.

The Hubble Space Telescope, known for recording awe-inspiring images of the cosmos while advancing the field of astronomy, is under threat.

Private companies are launching thousands of satellites that are photobombing the telescope — producing long bright streaks and curves of light that can be impossible to remove. And the problem is only getting worse.

A [study]('https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01903-3'), published Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy, reveals an increase in the percentage of images recorded by the Hubble that are spoiled by passing satellites. And the data goes only through 2021. Thousands more satellites have been launched since then by SpaceX and other companies, and many more are expected to go to orbit in the years ahead, affecting the Hubble and potentially other telescopes in space.

“We’re going to be living with this problem. And astronomy will be impacted,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who was not involved in the study. “There will be science that can’t be done. There will be science that’s significantly more expensive to do. There will be things that we miss.”

The [Hubble Space Telescope’s legacy cannot be overstated]('https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/23/science/space/unforgettable-hubble-space-telescope-photos.html'). Because of the observatory, we now know, for example, that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their centers and that stars form in violent processes. The Hubble’s images — including the gorgeous clouds of gas and dust in the “[pillars of creation]('https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/science/webb-pillars-of-creation-image.html')” and the view of nearly 10,000 galaxies in the “[Hubble ultra deep field]('https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30946')” — never fail to inspire.

But the number of satellites in orbit has significantly increased since the Hubble launched in 1990, and now it is staring at the cosmos through a field of satellites.

In May 2019, SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites, designed to broadcast internet signals across the globe. Soon after, an[ outcry]('https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-astronomers.html') emerged among astronomers who were concerned that Starlink’s streaks would jeopardize a number of campaigns to observe the universe from telescopes on Earth.

In response, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, [suggested]('https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1132897322457636864?lang=en') that astronomers bypass the issue by moving telescopes to orbit.

But Hubble, which lives in low-Earth orbit roughly 335 miles above Earth’s surface, actually resides less than 10 miles below most Starlink satellites. That means that the observatory and other orbital space telescopes are still facing interference from satellite constellations. “Not only do you have to put your telescopes in space, but you also have to put them above all the other traffic,” Dr. McDowell said.
“I think we’ll be forced to do that in the decades to come,” he said. But that isn’t possible for current telescopes in low-Earth orbit or spacecraft that governments are building and launching in the coming years.

To quantify the effect of satellite constellations on Hubble, Sandor Kruk, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, and his colleagues analyzed an archive of images taken from 2002 through 2021.

They had help from hundreds of citizen scientists who pored through images to tag those with clear satellite streaks. That dataset was then used as a training set for a machine-learning algorithm that analyzed more than 100,000 individual Hubble photos. Their results show that the chance of seeing a satellite in a Hubble image from 2009 to 2020 is only 3.7 percent. But the chance of seeing one in 2021 is 5.9 percent — an increase that they say corresponds to Starlink. By the date of the analysis, 1,562 Starlink satellites were in orbit. Another company, OneWeb, had lofted 320 satellites.

[IMG alt="Three uninterrupted bright white streaks cross a distant view of space with galaxies and stars dotting the expanse."]
Three satellite trails in one Hubble image. The different angles, the researchers noted, are probably unrelated. Credit...NASA, ESA, Kruk et al.

Mark McCaughrean, an astronomer at the European Space Agency and a co-author on the new study, is confident in their analysis, but notes that this is only a minor issue at the moment. Typically, Hubble takes multiple images that are stacked on top of one another — a technique that will erase any satellites.

And NASA agrees. “While such analyses may show a gradual increase in detected satellite trails over time, most of these streaks are readily removed using standard data reduction techniques, and the majority of affected images are still usable,” a spokeswoman said in regard to the latest study. “Satellite streaks do not currently pose a significant threat to Hubble’s science efficiency and data analysis.”

That threat is higher when the Hubble surveys a large swath of the sky. Then it might take only one or two images before redirecting its camera. If a satellite photobombs one of those images, the image might have to be tossed.

In addition, the satellites could pose a serious threat to a telescope that hasn’t launched yet. At the end of this year, China plans to send Xuntian, also known as the Chinese Survey Space Telescope, into low-Earth orbit. Xuntian will have a larger field of view than Hubble, making it much harder for satellites to slip by undetected.

“It’s going to be very severely affected by these satellites right off the bat,” Dr. McDowell said.

And Xuntian can’t simply launch into a higher orbit. China’s plan is for the telescope to share an orbit with the Tiangong space station so that astronauts can refurbish it if necessary.

A spokesman from SpaceX declined to comment on the new study, but pointed toward the company’s past efforts to mitigate the effects of Starlink. The company has tried a variety of methods to darken its satellites, including a [mirror film]('https://api.starlink.com/public-files/Gen2StarlinkSatellites.pdf') designed to direct light away from the ground. But Meg Schwamb, a planetary scientist at Queen’s University Belfast who was not involved in the study, worries that the light will be directed up instead and could potentially worsen the situation for space-based telescopes.

There are simply too many unknowns at the moment, including the ultimate number of satellites.

SpaceX hopes to eventually expand the size of its fleet to 42,000 Starlink satellites. Many other companies are in the market, too: Amazon, the British satellite provider OneWeb, a Chinese company called Galaxy Space, and even governments. A combined[ 431,713 satellites]('https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html') are planned to launch in the coming years.

“It’s a bit of a feeding frenzy at the moment,” Dr. McCaughrean said.

That estimate is based on filings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the International Telecommunication Union. But even if only 100,000 satellites launched, that would increase the number of satellites in orbit by a factor of 10 since the new study took place — meaning that roughly 50 percent of Hubble’s images would spot a satellite. And if every other image had a satellite streak, the researchers worry about how much usable science could be gathered.

“When will Hubble not be useful anymore?” Dr. McCaughrean asked. “That might be 10 or 20 years away, but it’s not inconceivable that there’s a point at which you say, ‘Let’s not bother anymore.’”

They've updated the night sky world map and for most of us, the ability to appreciate celestial events in our backyards is severely limited to only the very bright ones.

Maps below from this website: [[SIZE=5]Night Sky Darkness Map[/SIZE]]('https://cires.colorado.edu/artificial-sky')

Here's the LI and fringes of the Tri-state area. You're F'd!! No blues anywhere!!

Snowbirds also screwed, only light blue in the middle of the Everglades and offshore

Midcoast Maine Map, Mud in the red/orange blip just east of Brunswick, I'm in the blue section of Lincoln County along the coast.

And in the case the grits with breakfast crew is interested, here it is, better, but not great. Only area of blue in the middle of the Chesapeake...

For those of you interested, the Color Legend:

for the most part and from my experience, this high haze area of Florida, limits basic stargazing anyway… there are other views which are more entertaining… such as moon rises, sunrises… cellfish…
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I'm sure it will be cloudy here...

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article272925140.html[/URL]

I'm sure it will be cloudy here...

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article272925140.html[/URL]

I may get a peek[COLOR=rgb(226, 80, 65)] [/COLOR][COLOR=rgb(226, 80, 65)][SaturdayA slight chance of rain between 10am and 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 48. Windy, with a northwest wind 21 to 26 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Saturday NightPartly cloudy, with a low around 34. North wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.]('https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.70857460000008&lon=-75.74548349999998')[/COLOR]

[COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 0)]I'll head out onto my front porch just in case.[/COLOR]

Saw them once when visiting my friend in college up by the Canadian border - would love to see them again.

Saw them once when visiting my friend in college up by the Canadian border - would love to see them again.

as a kid - my family used to vacation at Great Sacandago LAke every summer probably from the time I was 10 to 17

Saw them once when visiting my friend in college up by the Canadian border - would love to see them again.

Heard on the radio this morning theres a map of where they can be seen now they said long island was in the area to see them if conditions were right

Damn, you could see it in Poughkeepsie last night.

Damn, you could see it in Poughkeepsie last night.

Depends on the definition of "SEE". The morning news here had a great photo, but reported the photographer could not actually see it. It took a long-exposure photograph to visualize it. I didn't feel so bad when they relayed that message, because I was a witness to that in Norway. Everyone said "There's an aurora over there!", but I couldn't see it. Then someone with a camera showed me his long exposure shot from "over there" and yup, there was an aurora in it.

Depends on the definition of "SEE". The morning news here had a great photo, but reported the photographer could not actually see it. It took a long-exposure photograph to visualize it. I didn't feel so bad when they relayed that message, because I was a witness to that in Norway. Everyone said "There's an aurora over there!", but I couldn't see it. Then someone with a camera showed me his long exposure shot from "over there" and yup, there was an aurora in it.

Not sure of the Poughkeepsie exposure time, but normally you'd see boat traffic regardless of the time of year.
Then again everything can be edited out - the rise of AI.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://time.com/6293168/northern-lights-u-s-this-week/[/URL]