Starry Starry Evening: Take pleasure in Guam’s autumn skies | Way of life

Greetings everybody! We’re heading into late fall and winter and the times are positively getting shorter.

We’ll lose 9 minutes of morning daylight this month and fairly a bit extra within the subsequent couple of months. But sundown instances are a bit unusual in November. I’ll inform you extra about it later within the month.

If you watch certainly one of our magnificent sunsets, because it begins to develop darkish and your sky is evident to the west, you would possibly see two brilliant stars fairly near the horizon.

The decrease one might be crimson they usually aren’t stars. That’s Mercury and Mars. They’re entangled within the claws of Scorpius the Scorpion and by the top of subsequent week, Mercury will disappear out of your night sky and Mars might be passed by the top of the month. So take a look this week.

Although we’re shedding two of our night planets, you’ll nonetheless have the ability to see one within the night sky. Just face due east and measure two fist-widths to the precise and 5 fist-widths up and also you’ll discover Saturn.

The different two planets which are seen to the unaided eye are in your early morning sky. Go out at 5:30 and face due east. If you’ve an unobstructed view of the sky to the horizon, it is best to see a really brilliant star near the horizon. That’s not a star; it’s Venus and by the top of the month, it is going to not be seen within the early morning sky because it circles to the opposite aspect of the solar from us.

Look straight overhead at 5:30 and also you’ll see a line of brilliant stars that tracks from north to south. The two stars on the north aspect of the road are Castor and Pollux, the 2 brightest stars in Gemini the Twins.

The brilliant star simply to their proper isn’t a star. That’s Jupiter. A fist-width to the precise of Jupiter is Procyon and three fist-widths to the precise of Procyon and barely to the west is Sirius, the brightest star in earth’s skies.

The full moon was yesterday, and it’s normally referred to as the Hunter’s Moon. The moon might be at perigee, its closest method to earth so that you’ll most likely see it known as a supermoon. Go out this week and see if you happen to suppose it seems to be “super.”

And since that brilliant moon might be gone from the early night sky by the weekend, let’s take a look at a few of the seen stars.

Guam’s autumn skies don’t have too many brilliant stars as a result of we see an astounding quantity in spring, however you possibly can see a number of now. Mainland stargazers can by no means see 5 of the 20 brightest stars. We see all 5 of them right here on Guam and two are in our early night autumn skies.

Fomalhaut, the 18th brightest star, is nearly due south this week and it’s 4 fist-widths above the horizon and two fist-widths to the left.

The different “southern star” is Achernar and it’s the ninth brightest star. Achernar may be very near the southeastern horizon at one hour after sundown this week and it’s simpler to see if you happen to exit a bit later within the night.

Of course, there are different brilliant stars in our autumn skies apart from Fomalhaut and Achernar. High overhead within the west is the Summer Triangle created from Vega, the fifth brightest star, Altair, quantity 11, and Deneb, the nineteenth brightest star.

Although we solely see 5 of the 20 brightest stars in autumn, the sky greater than makes up for it in spring when you possibly can see 15 of the 20 brightest stars all on the similar time.

Guam’s autumn skies are pretty, get pleasure from them tonight!

Pam Eastlick was the coordinator for the previous University of Guam planetarium for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties. She has been scripting this weekly astronomy column since 2003. Send any questions or feedback to [email protected] and we are going to ahead them to her.