The moon is back. Were you able to locate his thin crescent yesterday? If not, try again tonight while we aim the binoculars and telescopes at the lunar soil.
Tammy Plotner and Jeff Barber, Universe Today
The moon is back. Were you able to locate his thin crescent yesterday? If not, try again tonight while we aim the binoculars and telescopes at the lunar soil.
Look almost in the center of the border between the bright and shadowy part for the prominent Langernos crater. Depending on the site and time of observation, the crater may be partially shadowed, but will still be recognizable. With a diameter of 85 kilometers, the steep and rugged walls reach a height of about five kilometers above the crater floor and you can see their clear outlines on the western edge. Can you locate the central peak? It is small for a crater of this size and will be a challenge for binoculars.
And if we're already out, let's pay another visit to the Cancer Nebula in the Taurus Group - there is so much to learn and see in this special hit nebula.
The classification "planetary" is clearly a misnomer. Unlike many bearing this description, the M1 hardly looks spherical and is unusual in other important ways. Most planetary nebulae have a central star that emits atmospheric gases regularly - but not this nebula. M1 did everything at once, and we know exactly when it happened.
As one of only twenty supernovae seen before the invention of the telescope, 11th-century Chinese astronomers thought it four times brighter than Venus. While visible in daylight, the supernova remained visible for more than three weeks and continued to show in the sky for nearly two years. The location recorded for the Fourth of July, AD 1054 discovery now matches that of the Cancer Nebula.
Translation: Amit Oren
