{"id":33644,"date":"2022-07-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=33644"},"modified":"2022-07-21T14:13:27","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T14:13:27","slug":"the-big-three-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/07\/20\/the-big-three-11\/","title":{"rendered":"The big three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The top sights to observe or image this month <\/span><\/p>\n\n

DON\u2019T MISS<\/strong>: Mercury and Regulus \u2013 a daytime target<\/h5>\n\n

BEST TIME TO SEE: <\/strong>3 and 4 August around 14:30 BST (13:30 UT) <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Can you find Mercury and Regulus under daylight conditions on 3 and 4 August? ALL PICTURES: PETE LAWRENCE <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Although nights are slowly getting longer, there\u2019s an awful lot of day to contend with too. An interesting opportunity occurs at the start of August, when Mercury appears close to the brightest star in Leo the Lion, Regulus. <\/p>\n\n

This will be nigh on impossible to see after sunset due to low altitude, so other arrangements need to be made. <\/p>\n\n

Mercury will shine at mag. \u20130.4 on 3 August and \u20130.3 on 4 August, bright enough for the planet to be seen in daylight, as long as you know where to look. Regulus shines at mag. +1.3 but, being a point source of light, can also be seen during the day. Consequently, if your telescope is pointing at the right place in the sky, you should be able to see both Mercury and Regulus together in broad daylight. <\/p>\n\n

At 14:30 BST (13:30 UT) on 3 August, Mercury is due south at an altitude of 50\u00ba from the centre of the UK. At this time, the planet is located 1.6\u00ba from Regulus. At the same time on 4 August, the pair are in a similar sky position, separated by 44 arcminutes. <\/p>\n\n

Closest separation occurs earlier that morning at 10:00 BST (09:00 UT), when planet and star are just 40 arcminutes apart. There are various ways to locate Mercury during the day. If you have a Go-To telescope set up the night before, it should locate Mercury easily. If this isn\u2019t an option, and if your Go-To allows you to sync on the Sun, it can be used as a jumpingoff point \u2013 as long as you remember to filter the telescope and cap any finders.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

If your mount has setting circles, an appropriately filtered view of the Sun can be used to locate Mercury manually. Here, with the solar filter fitted, centre on the Sun accurately, focusing on its disc. Look up the Sun\u2019s RA and dec., adjusting the setting circles to match. Look up the coordinates for Regulus and slew the telescope to that position. Check the Sun is out of the field of view (it should be 18\u00ba to the west), remove the filter and look for the planet. <\/p>\n\n

As ever with daylight observing, please take great care not to allow the Sun anywhere near your telescope\u2019s field of view when you are looking through the eyepiece. If you do navigate to the target using the Sun as a jumping-off point, make sure you have all optics protected with the appropriate filters or safety caps. <\/p>\n\n

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A daylight photo of Regulus near the Moon captured using a DSLR on 23 May 2007 <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Mars, Uranus and the Pleiades <\/h4>\n\n

BEST TIME TO SEE: <\/strong>Mornings of 2 and 19\u201323 August <\/p>\n\n

Mars has a couple of interesting encounters this month, passing close to Uranus and the Pleiades. On 2 August, mag. +0.2 Mars sits just 1.3\u00ba south of mag. +5.8 Uranus. Both planets rise around 00:00 BST (23:00 UT) and reach an altitude of 25\u00ba above the eastern horizon as the darkest part of the night comes to an end at around 03:00 BST (02:00 UT). <\/p>\n\n

Mars slowly drifts east from Uranus over the following mornings, but remains fairly close to the dimmer planet for several days. On 5 August, for example, Mars and Uranus are 2.3\u00ba apart. <\/p>\n\n

After this planetary encounter, Mars continues tracking east, appearing to pass 5.7\u00ba south of the Pleiades open cluster on the morning of 22 August. Before this, on 19 August, both planet and cluster are joined by the last-quarter Moon, located 5\u00ba west of Mars on this date. The Moon will pass 2\u00ba north of Mars at 13:00 BST<\/p>\n\n

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A simulation of the planets through 7×50 binoculars at 2 August, 02:00 BST (01:00 UT). The variable runaway star 53 Arietis is close <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

(12:00 UT) on 19 August under daylight conditions, while 16\u00ba above the western horizon. On the morning of 20 August, the now 41%-lit waning crescent Moon sits 7.7\u00ba east of Mars. <\/p>\n\n

Mars has now reached its opposition constellation of Taurus and will remain within this constellation\u2019s boundaries for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. As it does this, it\u2019ll also be performing a retrograde loop, reversing direction to head west before repeating the action to resume its eastern track. <\/p>\n\n

If you\u2019re interested in long-term astrophotography of the position and brightness of Mars against the backdrop of Taurus, the coming weeks will allow you to record and present the retrograde loop against the stars of the Bull. It will also offer an opportunity to compare the colour of Mars with the orange-tinted Aldebaran (mag. +0.8 Alpha (\u03b1) Tauri).<\/span><\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

Lunar X and V <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

BEST TIME TO SEE: <\/strong>Evening of 4 August just before sunset <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The lunar X and V appear like letters embedded in the terminator <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another opportunity to see the popular lunar X and V clair-obscur effects occurs late in the afternoon on 4 August. The effects take place when the Sun is up, adding an extra element of difficulty in seeing them. The X and V appear in their letter forms near to the lunar terminator for a short period of just a few hours. On 4 August, they will appear optimally around 20:00 BST (19:00 UT) when the Moon is 20\u00ba above the south-southwest horizon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunset will be approaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The V forms when the lunar dawn\u2019s early light illuminates elevated features near to the 23km crater Ukert, which appears just above the central point of the Moon\u2019s disc on 4 August. Similarly, the lunar X is formed when rim sections of three craters 58km Blanchinus, 68km La Caille and 118km Purbach catch the lunar dawn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrast will be reduced for both effects because of the daylight conditions, but using a small telescope, it should still be possible to see them. If you\u2019re into imaging, consider using an infrared sensitive mono high-frame-rate camera combined with an infrared pass filter. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top sights to observe or image this month <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":33640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"46","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"46","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_46-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_46-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"August-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"August-2022","purple_external_id":"August-2022-46-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"August-2022-46-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000086555||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086555||","purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"075fab74-0a21-4201-866a-899d6c41c40c","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[14],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e.jpg",1578,1002,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e-300x190.jpg",300,190,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e-768x488.jpg",768,488,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e-1024x650.jpg",800,508,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e-1536x975.jpg",1536,975,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/148dac89-d6b0-4aca-9ba9-5ee09373248e.jpg",1578,1002,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The top sights to observe or image this month","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33644"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34308,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33644\/revisions\/34308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}