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Skywatch
 
By CHRIS PAGAN
Published: 6/10/2007  5:25 AM
Last Modified: 6/10/2007  5:26 AM

Sunday: At the end of twilight tonight, the asteroid Vesta is visible in the southeastern sky. The asteroid is currently located 10 degrees (or the width of a fist at arms length) above Jupiter. Vesta is slightly harder to find than a few weeks ago, since it is not close to a bright star to reference. The best way to locate the asteroid is to find the star Han positioned 12 degrees above Jupiter. Next, with binoculars look for Vesta 5 1/2 degrees to the slight lower right of Han. Vesta should be the brightest object in the field of view.

Monday: An hour before sunrise, the crescent moon will be visible 11 degrees from Mars in the eastern sky. Mars is currently the brightest star-like object in the east during the predawn hours. If the horizon is clear to the southwest, Jupiter might just be visible over the horizon.

Tuesday: Tonight Venus is passing very close to the Beehive Cluster in Cancer the Crab. Venus will be visible shortly after sunset. It will be the brightest object in the sky. Around 10 p.m. it will be dark enough to look for both Venus and the Beehive Cluster with binoculars. Venus is less than one degree to the right of the cluster. With both objects in the same field of view, only some of the brighter stars in the Beehive Cluster will be visible due to Venus' brilliance.

Wednesday: Anyone who wakes up early this morning just might be able to see a very small sliver of the moon. At 5:30 a.m. the moon is beginning to slide in front of

the Pleiades star cluster. The moon will pass directly in front of the cluster, occulting many of the stars. The sun rises at 6:06 a.m. today, so before the moon visibly passes in front of some of the stars, the sky will be too bright to see any stars so, unfortunately, the occultation will not really be visible.

Thursday: The new moon occurs tonight at 10:13 p.m. With the moon not visible tonight, you might be able to see what is believed to be a double star in the constellation of Lyra the Harp. If the sky is free of light pollution, the two stars of Delta Lyrae might be visible. The brighter of the two stars is red, while the fainter star is blue. You'll want to use binoculars or a small telescope. Both will easily show the two stars and their respective colors. These two stars have a very large separation so they may not actually be a double star, but a close pairing in the sky.

Friday: During the summer is a great time to locate many globular clusters in the evening sky. One of the most prominent northern hemisphere globular clusters is M 13, the "Great Globular Cluster in Hercules." To find this globular cluster, locate the group of four stars in Hercules that form a keystone east of overhead at 10:30 p.m. The northwest star in the keystone is known as Eta Herculis, and M 13 is located 2 1/2 degrees from this star. M 13 is barely visible to the unaided eye under dark skies and appears a fuzzy path of light through binoculars.

Saturday: At 9:45 p.m. the sky is still darkening, but the crescent moon and a pair of planets should not be difficult to find. A very thin crescent moon is visible low in the west-northwest. Higher and to the west of the moon is Venus, brighter than anything but the moon in the evening sky.


Chris Pagan is planetarium director at Tulsa Air and Space Museum www.tulsaairandspacemuseum.com

By CHRIS PAGAN

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