[AstroNet] Soutpansberg Astronomy Club: Astronomy evening 26 Nov 2011

[Kos Coronaios]

Hi everyone,

Join the Soutpansberg Astronomy Club in Louis Trichardt after sunset for an evening of stargazing on Saturday 26th November and watch as two well known constellations make their appearance and disappearance.  The tail of the scorpion in Scorpius ducks behind the western horison as the shape of the Great Hunter in Orion appears on the opposite side of the sky.  

Venus, "the evening star" and Mercury will follow the setting Sun in the west and keen photographers should bring their equipment along to photograph the 1 day old crescent Moon sandwiched between the planets.   The giant gas planet of the solar system, Jupiter, with it's four Galilean moons will be visible in the north-eastern sky.  One of the planet's most famous features is a huge, long-lived storm forming an easily seen Great Red Spot (GRS) in the eyepiece of a telescope.  The GRS crosses Jupiter's central meridian at 18:57 (SAST) and should be seen one hour later when astronomical twilight ends and dark skies begin.  

Some of the deepsky targets on the evening will be the galaxies M31 and M33 (the Andromeda and Pinwheel galaxies), M77 a bright Seyfert Galaxy, and a favourite of mine, the globular cluster NGC 104, known as 47 Tuc as well as many others.  A few of the constellations that will be visible on the night will be Cetus (The Whale), Aquarius (The Water Carrier), Eridanus (The River), Hydrus (The Lesser Water Snake) and many more.

There will be an 8 and 10 inch telescope on the evening as well as live video imaging of some of the planets and deep sky objects that will be visible.

Everyone is welcome and those of you with telescopes are welcome to bring them along.  For further information and directions contact Kos Coronaios on 079 148 4934 or by email at elephantcastle at lantic.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.saasta.ac.za/pipermail/astronet/attachments/20111122/a8b00316/attachment.html>