Friday, June 28 Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) should glow around 10th magnitude this week, so you’ll need a telescope to follow its trek back into the solar system’s depths. Fortunately, it remains on view all night for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. Tonight, it lies approximately midway between the 3rd-magnitude star Gamma (γ) Ursae Minoris and 4th-magnitude Thuban (Alpha [α] Draconis), the brightest star near the North Celestial Pole between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago when the ancient Egyptians built their largest pyramids. Saturday, June 29 Mars returns to view in the morning sky during late June, but just barely. The Red Planet lies among the background stars of Taurus the Bull and appears just 5° high in the east-northeast 45 minutes before sunrise. Mars shines at magnitude 1.5 and should show up as a ruddy dot through binoculars. It won’t return to prominence, however, for several weeks. Sunday, June 30 Last Quarter Moon arrives at 12:54 a.m. EDT (9:54 p.m. PDT yesterday evening). It rises around 12:30 a.m. local daylight time and climbs higher in the southeast as dawn approaches. During this period, our half-lit satellite lies among the dim background stars of Pisces the Fish. From Astronomy - The Sky this Week
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:12:32 +0000
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