Eyes on The Sky - July 15 thru July 21

Salutations celestial sight seers! I'm David Fuller, welcome to Eyes on the Sky; what's up this week? Did you know that you can see Neptune -- the furthest planet in our solar system (sorry Pluto!) - with just a pair of these? That's right; you can see the 7.8 magnitude gas giant with only binoculars, and I'll show you exactly how to do it too. At this time of year, you'll need to stay up pretty late -- at least til 1 or 2 oclock in the morning. But no worries; the planet remains in the same general part of the sky until the end of this year, so you can find it earlier in the evening later in summer or autumn. There are two ways to go: One is from Capricornus. 2.9 magnitude Deneb Algiedi and it's closeby companion to the west, 3.7 magnitude Nashira, nearly point right to Neptune. Follow the line made by those two stars to the east, locating 4.3 magnitude Iota Aquarii just 5 degrees away -- or less than a binocular field of view. Then follow the same direction, but this time a degree or so farther, and stop at slightly dimmer, 4.8 magnitude Sigma Aquarii. The next brightest star in the area is quite closeby -- 6.3 magnitude 58 Aquarii, about 1/3 of a degree away. Twice as far from Sigma, but in the * opposite * direction, is Neptune. It will be moving slightly to the west all week, but it's the only object in that area that close to Sigma. Next, we'll find Neptune from the north. Dark Sky Fact: Do the "Needless" UK one here -- short and sweet! This time, start at the brighter star Enif in Pegasus. This is a 2.4 magnitude star that looks slightly orange. Well below it, but probably looking similar in brigthness despite being magnitude 1.2, is Fomalhaut. It will be hard to miss it; it's the ONLY bright star or object over 3-rd magnitude in that area, but it is a good 40 degrees away from Enif too. Aquarius takes up the space in between, but with that constellation's brightest star at magnitude 3, you won't mistake any of them for Fomalhaut. Neptune is just about halfway in between these two stars, and you could perhaps use the dual-thumb/pinky measuring tool to find the area, but that can be tough to do accurately. So starting at Enif, use binoculars or a finderscope and drop down on a line from Enif towards Fomalhaut to the Alpha star in Aquarius, Sadalmelik. This is quite a distance -- a good 10 degrees. Under darker skies, you can see this star naked eye at magnitude 3.0. Now move \in the same direction, almost as far, to 4.2 magnitude Theta Aquarii. You'll pass sort of a shovel-shaped set of stars here, then a small grouping of three stars including Theta. Continue on, but leave Theta at the edge of your field; Sigma Aquarii should be visible to one side of your field of view. From there, follow the previous directions to locate the planet. It really does have a pale blue color to it, and has a way of NOT appearing like a star, likely because it's light is reflected sunlight that took 4 hours to bounce BACK to our eyes here on Earth. Or maybe it's because it is not a point-source of light, as a star is. You can actually see a VERY tiny disk of 2.3 arc seconds with a telescope. True, you won't see any detail, or much of anything but a pale blue disk for that matter, but you WILL be seeing the furthest planet from Earth in our solar system. And that's pretty cool -- plus, it's not hard to do. And to top it all off? You can do it with just these. Along The Ecliptic: The Moon is at first quarter on the 16th, and that evening it skims very close by to the bright star Spica. The following evening, look for the Moon near the planet Saturn. That's all for this week. Keep your eyes on the sky and your outdoor lights aimed down, so we can all see, what's up. I'm David Fuller, wishing you clear and dark skies.