Sky Report
The Griffith Observatory Sky Report
Anthony Cook
Astronomical Observer
This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the week ending Wednesday, July 8. Here is what’s happening in the skies of Southern California:
The moon is waxing this week and reaches full phase on Wednesday morning, July 7. The full moon skims the outer fuzzy shadow of the earth, producing a penumbral lunar eclipse between 1:33 a.m. and 3:44 a.m., P.D.T., but the effect will likely be too subtle to be observable. Before full, in gibbous phase, the moon passes the orange star Antares of Scorpius the Scorpion on Friday night, July 3.
We are nearing the end of the evening appearance of Saturn this year. Saturn, in Leo the Lion, is low in the west when darkness falls, and sets at 11:30 p.m. Observers with astronomical telescopes will be able to see the black shadow of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, will start to transit Saturn’s disk at 7:51 p.m., P.D.T. on Wednesday, July 1.
Jupiter, in Capricornus the Sea-Goat, is the brilliant yellow light that is prominent in the southeast by 11:00 p.m. The planet is 43 degrees high in the south at 3:41 a.m. Through a telescope, Jupiter’s disk appears 47 arcseconds wide.
The brightest planet, Venus, rises in the east-northeast at 3:00 a.m., and is 33 degrees high in the east at sunrise. The bright red star-like object visible 5 degrees above Venus while the sky is still dark is the planet Mars.
The International Space Station will pass almost directly over Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, July 8. The ISS will cross the sky from southwest to northeast between 5:11 a.m. and 5:17 a.m., and will appear highest at 5:14 a.m., P.D.T. It may rival Venus in brightness.
Griffith Observatory provides free public observing though its triple-beam coelostat-fed solar telescope, 12-inch Zeiss refractor, and 11-inch computer controlled telescopes. Special exhibits and talks related to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission will take place at Griffith Observatory between July 16 and 19. The next public star party, held by members of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society and the Los Angeles Sidewalk Astronomers, and our special guests–the Pomona Valley Amateur Astronomers–will be held on the Observatory’s front lawn on Saturday, July 25. For Observatory information, please visit our website, www.griffithobservatory.org, or call (213) 473-0800.
The Sky Report is updated every Wednesday. It can be heard as a recorded phone message by calling (213) 473-0880. From Griffith Observatory, I’m Tony Cook, and I can be reached at tcook@earthlink.net.
