This weeks episode finds Sky and Telescope magazines Tony Flanders tracking Comet ISON in the pre-dawn sky through the constellation Virgo, where it will pass nearly in line with Virgos brightest star, Spica, and then appear to sideswipe the planets Mercury and Saturn (at the 1:36 mark in the video). Next we see the course of the waning gibbous moon from Taurus the Bull (and its two major star clusters, the Pleiades and the Hyades) on Monday, and on through the constellation Gemini the Twins as the week proceeds. Tony also gives us a close look at the Pleiades and the Hyades, which are not really as close to each other as they appear. The Hyades are closer to us than they are to the Pleiades, which is why the latter looks so much more compact. Finally, we get a close-up of the Bulls brightest star, Aldebaran, 43 times our suns diameter, which only looks like its a part of the Hyades cluster. (Pictured in thumbnail is Comet McNaught, which made a spactacular but brief appearance for southern hemisphere observers in January 2007.) (5:03)
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 05:07:10 +0000
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