[ISTATALK-L] Skylights

[Jim Kaler <kaler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Skylights, University of Illinois Department of Astronomy.
Astronomy News for the week starting Friday, February 18, 2005.
Phone (217) 333-8789.
Prepared by Jim Kaler.
Find Skylights on the Web at
     http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/skylights.html, 
and Stars (Stars of the Week) with constellation photographs at
     http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html.

See "The StarGazer" at a planetarium near you: visit
     http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sg.html

Interested in Astronomy and Astro Education?  Join the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific (an international organization) to get the
outstanding astronomy magazine Mercury and a variety of other
benefits.  Call 1-415-337-1100, then press 1.

"Vault of the Heavens: Exploring the Solar System's Place in the
Universe," an accessible astronomy course on audio CD with 100 page
study guide narrated and written by Jim Kaler, is now available at
Barnes and Noble in stores and on line.

We begin, as always, with the wanderings of the Moon, which of
course does not wander at all, but is under the strict
gravitational control of the Earth and Sun.  Meander might be a
better word, since the orbit is not close to a simple ellipse, but
is quite amazingly complex.  Most of the week sees it waxing in its
gibbous phase until it passes full the night of Wednesday, the
23rd, about midnight (as it crosses the meridian) in central Leo,
to the east of the "Sickle," which makes the Lion's head, and the
star Regulus.

Earlier in the week, the nights of Friday the 18th, Saturday the
19th, and Sunday the 20th, watch the Moon pass through central
Gemini and above the planet Saturn, these two and Gemini's Castor
and Pollux making a wonderful quartet.  The next planet out,
Uranus, passes conjunction with the Sun the night of Thursday, the
24th.

For all of ancient times, Saturn was the last of the planets,
fainter than all the rest (though still quite bright) and with the
longest period relative to the stars, 29.5 years.  Then in 1781,
with his telescope, William Herschel came across much dimmer
Uranus, which is just barely visible to the unaided eye.  Though
seen before, Herschel was the first to make out its tiny disk.