September 2009 Night Skies over Tanzania
By Dr N T Jiwaji
ntjiwaji at yahoo dot com
CLICK HERE for LARGE MAP OF September 2009 Sky Map for Tanzania
The Moon will be in many people’s mind mid this month with millions awaiting the sighting of the Moon in the western horizon at sunset. On Saturday 19th it will be necessary to seek out the slim arc of the first Moon close to an obstruction free western horizon. The picture shows a simulation of what sharp-eyed observers could see while searching for the Moon on Saturday, just past sunset. The Moon will be a very thin crescent about 8 degrees above the horizon and about 8 degrees to the left of the Sun. Hence by Pythagorean squaring it will be more than 11 degrees away from the Sun, making it sufficiently far from the glare of the atmosphere near the setting Sun. Sunset is at 6:15 pm while the Moon sets at 6:49 pm giving observers about half an hour to search for the Moon if there is a clear view of the horizon under cloudless skies. If not, then on Sunday 20th a thicker crescent will be more than 20 degrees above the horizon at sunset and will set nearly one and a half hour later.
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER IMAGE
[DIAGRAM: OF MOON IN WESTERN HORIZON AT SUNSET ON 19 SEPT]
With a more than a billion dollar repair, the 19 year old famous Hubble Space Telescope got a new lease of life and upgraded it to look far deeper into space than what it already seen as witnessed by the thousands of spectacular images that it had already sent back. However the fist look by the telescope produced a result so unexpected as to be unbelievable - a butterfly shaped nebula commonly known as Bug Nebula but now named as the Butterfly Nebula after discovering its detailed shape of a butterfly.
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[DIAGRAM: OF IMAGE OF BUTTERFLY NEBULA]
The Planets in the evening sky is mighty bright Jupiter which you can’t miss in overhead skies. The Moon will be best seen on Saturday 26th September with a half moon with dark shadows contrasting the craters when seen through a telescope. That same day, just after 7 pm you can also track the GPS 2-04 satellite which will rise in the southwest and passing overhead between the Moon and Jupiter and setting in the northeast by 7:10 pm. Look for a star-like point moving gracefully across the sky. Venus and Mars are in the morning skies in the eastern dawn.
CLICK HERE FOR Satellite Pass Details for 26th September
Soon after sunset, the evening sky in September presents a scintillating star show with ten of the top twenty brightest stars in the whole sky seen simultaneously. These include: Formalhaut, Altair, Vega, Deneb, Alpha Centauri (also known as Rigil Kent) and Beta Centauri which makes a vertical pair, Antares, Arcturus and Spica. Achernar rises in the southeast by 8 p.m
[DIAGRAM: OF SKY MAP FOR SEPTEMBER 2009]
The Scorpio constellation can be clearly identified by its namesake the scorpion and can be seen high in the western sky. The eastern sky has two “birds”; one to the northeast, where you will see the Cygnus with its body and wings making a wide cross, while in the southeast you will see the smaller bird Grus with its head twisted sideways.
The Milky Way stretches as a band of numerous stars across the middle of the evening sky, passing through the Southern Cross in the southwest, through Sagittarius overhead, to Cygnus in the northeast. The portion of the Milky Way close to Sagittarius appears as a cloud that is not a real cloud but nebulae of dense interstellar matter that is hiding from our view a powerhouse (actually a massive blackhole) at the center of the Milky Way galaxy
Twenty second September is the day of Equinox when the length of day and night will be equal.
The International Space Station will be seen very brightly on 4th October crossing the sky from northwest to southeast. It will rise just after quarter to seven in the northwest, travel across the overhead skies and dropping down in the southeast horizon seven minutes later.
CLICK HERE FOR International Space Station Pass Details for 4th October