texas

skywatchers report


Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers' Report for Monday November 23rd through Sunday November 29th.

The moon is at first quarter late on the evening of Monday the 23rd, so we will have a waxing gibbous moon all of this week. Look for the moon and Jupiter to make a nice pairing on Monday night. Jupiter is now setting at 11:00 p.m. at midweek.

Mercury is still very close to the sun and sets around 6 p.m. Mars is now rising at 10:40 p.m. at mid-week. Saturn is rising at 2:45 a.m. and Venus is now rising at 6:00, shortly before the sun.

Photos and meteor counts from last week’s Leonid Meteor shower are up at spaceweather.com. Some parts of Asia did see an outburst of over 100 meteors an hour, while lower numbers were reported over North America.

The space shuttle lifted-off on schedule last Monday on a mission to the International Space Station. There will be several opportunities to see the Station pass over Austin this week. Go to www.heavens-above.com and choose your city to generate a chart of ISS passes, planet rise and set times and more. You can follow the shuttle mission online at nasa.gov

There will be no public viewing nights on the UT campus telescopes this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Next week will be the final week of public viewing nights for the fall semester. Spring viewing will resume in late January 2010.

Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers' Report and have a great Thanksgiving holiday.