Watch these stars while watching the Perseids
30 comments Print Me Email to FriendTonight is Friday, Aug 08 2008
During the lulls between Perseid meteor sightings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings – August 11, 12 and 13 – you might want to check out a couple of old friends in the eastern predawn sky.
A tilted V marks the face of Taurus the Bull. This V of Taurus is easily found and usually is pictured as the Bull’s turned-down face charging the mighty Hunter, Orion. Most of the V is formed by an open cluster of stars, called the Hyades. The Hyades stars are all bound as a group by gravity and are about 150 light years away. The exception is Aldebaran, the brightest star of the V-shaped Hyades, which at about 65 light years is much closer and not part of the cluster.
The Bull is charging down at Orion, which at this time is a large horizontal rectangle, with Orion’s three-star belt in the middle. You can imagine Orion as a man lying on his back, with the star Betelgeuse as his right shoulder, and Rigel as his left knee. We in the northern hemisphere think of Orion as a winter constellation, because he is best seen in the winter and spring evening sky. But in the cool of August mornings before dawn, early risers can experience these winter stars!
Please tell me what the star is in the evenings – very very bright in the South, quite low, lower and to the West of Vega. It is the brightest star in the sky at the moment.
And where is Jupiter at the moment – how do i spot it?
Thanks
Robin,
I have no doubt that you were looking at the planet Jupiter!
Bruce
I have been staring at what I think is the same object. The last few nights, in the south/southeast sky from Portland. It is extremely bright; brighter than anything else in the late evening to about midnight. I think it is Jupiter but would like to know for sure. Thanks
Revan,
Yep, that’s Jupiter.
LS
I have a question about something in the sky this night as well as night before. I live in a suburb of Chicago and when looking to the North/North East there is something very bright. It kind of flickers which is why my friend were convinced it was a plane, however it really didn’t move. It would take at least 2-3 hours to move all the way across the sky, and it moves to the east. It cannot be a plane because of its speed and we noticed it two nights in a row now. I thought it must be a planet or a space station or a satellite, but from what I can find on the internet satellites would only be visable for a couple of minutes, not hours, and the same would go for a space station. And apparently there are no northern planets right now. So do you have any idea what this could be?
Cody, assuming that you were looking at the same object both times, by your description of position and motion it was not any astronomical object, if for no other reason than that they do not appear to move eastward in the sky. Planets on rising can appear in the east-northeast, but not very far, and in 2-3 hours move a significant way across the sky, but not all the way, and they move to the west. You said that it takes 2-3 hours to move all the way across the sky, but that it starts in the north-northeast and moves to the east. But in that case it wouldn’t have far to go.
One bright star in the northeast, rising at roughly midnight right now, is Capella. It would appear to twinkle, and would move very slowly across the sky. At any given moment it would appear still, but over 15 minutes or so you could tell that it had moved, but upward to the right (which is westward in that part of the sky). But since you say it moved to the east, that seems to rule this out.
It also does not sound like a satellite, as the motion is far too slow for a satellite. Weather balloons can sometimes appear as very slow moving stars, and typically in your area would be moving east. Certainly you could see them in the northeastern sky. However, sighting them is usually restricted to a few hours after sunset or before dawn. You didn’t state a time, but if it appeared in the northeast, then if it were a balloon, it would be the predawn time due to the angle of sunlight needed to make it shine. However, it is fairly unusual to sight a balloon in the same place at the same time on two consecutive nights. It is NOT impossible by any means, and just last week someone else reported just that, and it was confirmed by local authorities (the weather service as I recall). Anyway, it wasn’t a planet and if you were accurately judging the motion, the only possibility I can think of is a weather balloon.
Does it look like this?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2742697015_3de33944ff_b.jpg
If so yes it’s Jupiter. I’ve been noticing it from Los Angeles
Yes , my husband and I see Jupiter now! Are you going to do a podcast on this? I thought it was a plane at first but my husband pointed out that it wasn’t moving. Pretty amazing if you ask me.
Cindy,
I suspect that Jupiter has been mentioned in a podcast, but I’m not sure. The fact is, Jupiter has been out there for weeks and will continue to be visible for several more months. But if you think Jupiter is impressive, just wait until Venus gets good in the fall. By October it should be quite a sight in the west after sunset.
I was looking north, but straight above me at 2 am this morning, and I saw 3 beautifully bright stars, far brighter than any others in the shape of an upside down triangle, I’m in Central Pennsylvania. Any help on what the names of these stars are as well as constellations they’re apart of would be much appreciated.
-thanks
Stephen,
Any three stars can form a triangle, and the “Summer Triangle” was high overhead at the time you mention, but it would not have appeared straight above you, but rather to the west (left if you were facing north). The three stars are among the 20 brightest stars in the sky, but I would not say that they are far brighter than any others, which makes me wonder if the Summer Triangle is what you refer to. This triangle is pretty big, and three stars are Vega (the brightest, in Lyra) which would have appeared on the west (left) side of the bottom of the triangle; Deneb (in Cygnus) to the right or east of Vega; and Altair (in Aquila), which would have been the apex or top of the triangle. This is as viewed overhead but facing north. However, you said that it was an upside down triangle, but the Summer Triangle would have appeared to have a base between Vega and Deneb, with Altair at the top, which I would consider to rightside up. Aside from that, I can’t think of anything else you likely would have meant.
Hi—woke this morning at about 2:00 am to see an incredibly bright, yellowish planet/star? in the southwest sky, low enough that it looked almost hung up in a tree. I live in upstate NY, near the Catskill mountains. Jupiter? Can anyone help?
Thank you!
Ashling — yep, undoubtedly that was Jupiter. I wouldn’t normally call it “yellowish,” although in fact it is actually tinged that way. But when you saw it, it must definitely have been low in the sky, which means that its light was passing through thick layers of Earth’s atmosphere. This tends to filter out the shorter (bluer) wavelenths of light, causing the object to appear yellower. In other cases, such as the setting sun, it causes more of a orange or red tinge. But, yes, that was Jupiter!
Larry,
thank you so much. I really appreciate your help!
stephen
There is a very bright odd shaped object in the sky over the eastern part of atlanta georgia. What is it? It is still noticible at present time of 12:32am est as it was last night.
Barb, it’s kind of hard to tell without more information. In what direction is it? What do you mean by “odd shaped”? Does it appear to move?
If it doesn’t appear to move visibly, and is in the southern to southwestern part of the sky, then all I can suggest is Jupiter, although I don’t know why you would describe it as “odd shaped.” Basically it looks like a very bright, non-twinkling star. The fact that was in the same place (poresumably) last night also indicates that it is Jupiter.
Not too familiar with any constellations, but these stars/planets were very bright. About 3:30 a.m. Eastern sky observed from southern Oregon, noticed five celestial objects, very large array, much like a five pointed star, with a cluster to the right point. Are these satellites? The array was so close, and the stars/planets were significantly brighter than other stars I remember. Is this cassiopiea?
Al,
Without further information I cannot say. What direction were you looking in the sky? North, northeast, northwest, south, what? Did they appear to visibly move (to your eye — as satellites definistely would)? Did they maintain the same relationship to each other and to other stars, as stars in a constellation such as Cassiopeia would? By “so close” what do you mean? How would it relate to say, the width of your fist held at arms length? Were they brighter than any other stars you could see in the entire sky, or just in that area of the sky?
It is possible that you saw Cassopeis, but without additional information, I just don’t know.
LS
Sorry, so excited to find out, I gave a very poor description. This evening, there is one star, very bright, same general vacinity, about 30 degrees from the horizon, to the south east, I guess. Could have sworn I saw two just moments, but then it faded, so that must have been a plane? Brightest, (largest?) star out this evening. It must be a planet, but bright like a star, yet seems too big, relative to other stars.
Al, Jupiter is very bright in the south-southeast in the evening, but sets in the southwest before dawn. Just before dawn, Orion and a number of bright stars are rising in the east. If it looked like one star that you saw only briefly and then it faded, I suspect that you are correct in it being a plane. Sometimes if they are on a landing path in your direction, the appear to hang more or less motionless for a minute or two and often are very bright. Then on final approach they pitch downward and the beam from the landing light is no longer toward you, so they fade from view.
Hi Larry,
I was up from 3 a.m. – 5 a.m. to watch the Perseids and it was spectacular. I saw a couple of fireballs! I was lying down on the ground and the contellation Perseus was right above me and Taurus was on the east side. Larry, I have a question. At around 4:40 or so, I saw about a total of nine slow moving grain-size stars with the exception of one that moved a little faster. I noticed the first one when it flashed and then it moved very slowly in a downward direction way down low until it faded. Then suddenly another one very close to it moved in the opposite direction. They couldn’t be airplanes. These were tiny stars that were stationary and then all of a sudden they moved. One star traveled upward while the one next to it went down. From where I was it looked like God was re-arranging the stars. What’s your explanation to this? Thank you very much for your time.
bdaygirl,
I’m glad you had a good experience with the meteors. However, I have no idea what you saw with the group of “grain-size stars.” There is no natural phenomenon I know to explain this, and it is certainly not the way satellites move. Frankly it doesn’t sound to me like any formation of airplanes, experimental or otherwise, or any technological device that I know about. Taking your reported observation at face value, I cannot explain it, but be careful about jumping to any conclusions. I don’t know all the factors involved, but I suspect that if we could know it all, the real answer would not involve anything that is either not natural or not human-made. But again, taken at face value without any of the missing information, I cannot proffer an explanation.
Thank you so much for your time Larry. The sight was awesome and it just made my birthday unforgettable. My mom and I both saw this wonderful phenomenon. Would an illustration help?
I’m in Portland, OR, and got up around 4 so my kids and I could look for meteors. It’s the first time we did something like this, and I was so very disappointed to discover that the sky was beginning to lighten (we made it outside around 4:30). The article I’d read said the best time would be after 4AM. Sunrise was at 6AM, but the sky stops being dark really early. None of the amateur skywatching guides mentioned this possibility! We saw maybe two meteors, watched the stars fade, and watched dawn breaking (and the sprinklers at the park came on and got us wet!). I may try again tonight, after the moon sets.
You old hands should regularly tell newbies that sunrise isn’t actually the time when the sky starts getting light. :)
bdaygirl — glad to be of help.
corinna — My guess is the brightness of the sky was due to city lights or something other than the coming sun. Sunrise in Portland this morning was scheduled at 6:08 a.m. and by 4:30 a.m. the sky should still have been plenty dark to see any meteors. Astronomical twilight — that time at which the sun was 18 degreees below the horizon and the sky was still quite dark, astronomically speaking — did not occur until until 4:10 and nautical twilight wasn’t until 4:55 a.m. You likely wouldn’t have noted much lightening at all until then, due to the sun. Frankly, my guess is that in the absence of extraneous lighting and given truly clear skies, you could have seen some meteors until nearly the time of civil twilight at 5:36 a.m. Obviously I don’t know where in Portland you are, but if it is anything like most cities, there is a lot of light pollution that makes the sky appear light — and blocks out the chance of seeing any but the brightest meteors at any time.
Hi,
About 11:30 last night (8/12/08) my friend and say what appeared to be a star moving accross the sky. It moves at a constant rate in a straight line until we could no longer see it. We followed the “moving star” for about 5 minutes before we lost sight of it.
Any ideas?
my friend and I saw*
Mark, almost certainly it was a satellite, and even possibly the International Space Station, depending on where you are located and so on. You can find out future opportunities on this NASA page:
Sighting Opportunities
LS
i am just wondering what direction is the sky, considering we all live north,south,east,west, etc.? so really where is the sk? I am just a regular person who is wondering.
Wendy, I can’t say that I am clear as to what you are asking. Astronomers use several coordinate systems to specify where an object is in the sky, but East-West-North-South (“cardinal point” directions) refer to directions on Earth. Occasionally, astronomers and others who need to specify how high something is use a angular measurement called “altitude”, which is how high something is above the horizon. It runs from 0 degrees for an object on the horizon (such as the rising moon) to 90 for something straight overhead (the zenith). For example, if a star is halfway from the horizon to the point overhead, it has an altitude of 45 degrees. There is no exact equivalent of East-West-North-South in the sky, at least not in this system. However, another measurement, around the horizon, goes hand in hand with altitude. It is called “azimuth.” Most commonly, azimuth starts at the due north point, which is 0 degrees, and runs clockwise to the right. East is 90 degrees;south is 180 degrees; west is 270 degrees and so on.
Does this help or did you have something else in mind?