This is the Classical Astronomy Update, an email newsletter especially for Christian homeschool families (though everyone is welcome!)
Please feel free to share this with any interested friends.
From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's
name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations, and his
glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the Lord our God,
who dwelleth on high.... - Psalm 113:3-5
IN THIS UPDATE
New! Eclipse Ebook
2017 Sky Preview
Hello Friends,
Happy belated new year! This is the first newsletter of the American Eclipse Year of 2017! Better late than never! It's become an annual tradition to give a "sneak preview" of sky sights for the coming year. There's not much to talk about for 2017
except this August's BIG total solar eclipse, now only 200 days away.
2017 marks the 15th year that I've been creating this newsletter for homeschoolers. I've been creating some sort of newsletter since 1996, but I recast it as the Classical Astronomy Update in 2002, when we had a crop of little homeschooled kids. Now three of our five kids are all grown up and this newsletter
has expanded to nearly 4000 readers. Thanks to everyone for your ongoing interest in the LORD's amazing sky!
Just a reminder about our website for the 2017 eclipse, American Eclipse USA. I hope you'll all come to visit the site and learn more about
the amazing eclipse phenomenon that will pass over the USA in another seven months. If you haven't yet done so, please like us on the American Eclipse USA Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter.
Eclipse Ebook!
I'm happy to report that the first installment of our eclipse ebook series is now available! Eclipses Illustrated: Book 1 - The Eclipse Experience is created to provide a
comprehensive understanding of what you can expect to see during solar and lunar eclipses. This first volume is especially useful for preparing the reader for what you can expect to see during this summer's American eclipse!
Like our Signs & Seasons curriculum, Eclipses Illustrated uses the visual medium of illustration to provide a visual understanding of the visual subject of eclipses. All of the many eclipse phenomena are illustrated so that the reader knows exactly what to look for during the eclipse... before, during and after totality. The celestial causes of eclipses are also depicted so that the
reader can envision what is transpiring overhead to produce this amazing sight.
No other eclipse publications are as lavishly illustrated as Eclipses Illustrated. And best
of all, the ebook is very inexpensive, only $2.99. I purposely priced it as cheap as possible so that more readers would take a chance and give it a try!
Since it is so lavishly illustrated with so many high-resolution images, Eclipses Illustrated works best on larger tablet devices. Readers are especially encouraged to take the time to enlarge the images and study them closely, since a lot of conceptual information is included in the images. Young readers especially will
enjoy taking the time to linger over the images.
If you do decide to take a chance on Eclipses Illustrated and if you like it, please consider leaving some positive feedback at
the Kindle Store. Thanks very much!
Book 2 in this series is nearly completed, and will hopefully be released by March. We'll keep you posted of our progress in future
newsletters!
Eclipse Shades!
Thanks to everyone who took our suggestion of ordering our Classical Astronomy Eclipse Shades to send with their Christmas cards! Everyone in the USA, all 300 million Americans, will want a pair handy on Eclipse Day, including ALL of
your friends and family! But we can expect that these safe solar viewers will be in short supply, and a LOT of people will miss out!
Eclipse
Shades are very lightweight, made from cardstock frames with mylar lenses. You can look at the Sun anytime, before and after the eclipse. Also, if you take care of them, they last for years. I've still got a pair that I got in 1994. There are MANY American partial eclipses coming up in the 2020s, so now is a real good to get your hands on a pair.
Please visit our Eclipse Shades page at our website. Our Shades are printed with the date of the USA eclipse, August 21, 2017. As you can see from the pricing, with even a small bulk, our Shades cost less than a buck apiece.
These Shades will be in high demand this summer, and are likely to sell out early from us and all other vendors. So why not beat the rush and order some right now, to share with your family, friends and neighbors?
Thank you friends for your
orders!
For more information about topics from Classical Astronomy discussed in this newsletter, please check out
a homeschool astronomy curriculum (but popular with adult readers too!)
Visit our archive of previous editions of the Classical Astronomy Update newsletters, going back to 2007.
Visit this page to subscribe to the Classical
Astronomy Update and the Northeast Ohio Astronomy (NEOastro) newsletters.
*****
2017 Sky Preview
Recent years have been great for sky events such as planetary conjunctions, Venus transits and lunar eclipses. 2017 will not be as jammed-packed with interesting sky events as
some of these recent years. However, the compensation will be the AMAZING Total Eclipse of the Sun over the Lower 48 of the USA. We'll take a quick look at a couple interesting highlights that we will hopefully cover in detail as the times approach.
Venus will be an "Evening Star" only through the winter of 2017, disappearing in the Sun sometime in
March. It will then rule the morning skies as the "Morning Star" for the remainder of the year, reaching its maximum morning elongation on June 3.
We don't usually discuss Mercury very much in this newsletter, since this swift planet is very elusive and hard to see under the best circumstances, sticking close to the horizon in the glow of the sunrise or sunset.
But Mercury will have some well placed maximum elongations during the warm months, in the morning on May 17 and September 12, and in the evening on July 30. If Mercury can be seen at all, it'll be highest above to the horizon at these times.
2017 is the off-year for Mars, since this planet is only conspicuous at opposition, which occurs every two years. The last time was in
2016 and the next time is 2018. But Mars will turn up in some interesting groupings this year when it might be easily noticed.
Jupiter reaches opposition on April 7, and will be seen in the evening skies for the warm months thereafter. Jupiter is always a standby object in the sky, and is often the brightest "star" at times when Venus and Mars are not conspicuous.
The monthly lunar conjunctions are always a treat and are great times for pointing out Jupiter to friends and family who are unaware that this dazzlingly bright planet is actually visible in the night sky. We usually promote these alignments of the Moon and Jupiter on our Facebook page.
Saturn is at opposition on June 15, and will be seen in the evening sky throughout the summer and into the fall. Due to the relative differences in the speeds of their orbits, Jupiter is drawing closer to Saturn in the night sky, and these two planets are approaching their regular 20 year alignment coming up in December, 2020.
Though Mercury, Venus and Mars will not be putting on a great show in 2017, you'll have an uncommon opportunity to view them in the daytime during the USA Total Solar Eclipse on August 21. When the daylight is extinguished by the Moon and the stars come out, these planets will be readily visible during the 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality. At such a time, you might be able see the Sun and three planets lined up along the plane of the solar
system. But you might be too overwhelmed by the amazing eclipse experience to notice!
Notable Conjunctions
In the current season, Venus and Mars are sharing the same
space in the evening sky. These two planets will not have a proper "conjunction in celestial longitude" because Venus has already passed its maximum elongation, and is currently retrograding to the west, while Mars is continuing its regular eastward movement through the constellations. However, these two planets have drawn together in what they call an "appulse" which means a "close encounter" in the sky that's not quite a conjunction.
If you see Venus shining brightly in the evening sky, see if you can notice the fainter, yellowish "star" nearby. This is the planet Mars. These bodies will be a lot easier to identify on the evening of Tuesday, January 31 when they are joined by the four-day-old waxing crescent Moon. These three bodies will make a neat little triangle in the western evening sky on the
last evening of January, during and after nightfall. Clear skies permitting, be sure to also look at these bodies on the evenings before and after, on Monday, January 30 and Wednesday, February 1. It's amazing how much the Moon skips across the sky from day to day.
The Moon will pass through the same part of the sky in late February and early March, but Venus and Mars will not be as closely aligned. After that, there will mostly be the usual monthly lunar
conjunctions with the planets. There will also be some close passes between the Moon and a couple of the bright, first-magnitude stars, Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus and Regulus in the constellation Leo. However, these alignments will not favor North America and will be best visible from other locations on the globe.
An exciting dance of the planets will occur in September, when Venus and Mars cross paths again in the morning sky, and this time aligning again with the Moon, and also Mercury and the star Regulus in Leo. Between now and then, Venus will slip in front of the Sun, ending its apparition as the Evening Star, and will emerge to the west of the Sun, becoming visible as the
Morning Star. Meanwhile, Mars will disappear behind the Sun, on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, and will also reappear in the morning sky. And Mercury will also swing into the scene, being near maximum elongation at that time and thus highest above the horizon. So all of Earth's nearest planetary neighbors will cluster up in the same general direction in the morning sky of late summer.
During a 72 hour period in mid-September, these bodies will have various conjunctions with each other and also the Moon. Mercury will be
extremely close to Mars on the morning of September 16, within 0.06 of a degree, or 1/5th of a lunar diameter. A series of occultations with these bodies and the Moon will take place on September 18, in which the Moon blocks in front of these objects. Venus is the first, followed 4 hours later by Regulus, Mars 15 hours afterwards, and then Mercury 3 hours after that. However, none of these occultations will be visible from North America, but instead mostly over the tropics
and the southern hemisphere, from New Zealand and Australia, through Africa, South America and into the Pacific islands.
Though we won't see the
occultations when Moon passes in front of these objects, North America and the rest of the northern hemisphere will see an interesting clustering of these celestial bodies over the mornings of September 17 and 18.
There will also be some other interesting alignments of planets later in the year. We'll cover those as the time approaches, and especially on our Facebook page.
Eclipses
The long-awaited USA total solar eclipse of Monday, August 21 is the big eclipse news of 2017. However, it is not as well known that there are always at least two solar eclipses each year and also at least two lunar eclipses. This is because of the celestial circumstances that produce eclipses. To make a long story short, there are two months out of each year when the shadows of the Earth and
Moon line up together. During each of these months, at the time of the New Moon, the shadow of the Moon passes over the Earth, producing a solar eclipse. Two weeks later (or before, depending), at the time of the Full Moon, the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth, producing a lunar eclipse.
Even though there are always at least four eclipses, solar and lunar, in a given year, most people don't usually hear about them. No single eclipse is visible everywhere in the world. Some spots on the globe are turned away from any given eclipse, so that if you can see it in the USA, you can't see in in
China, and vice versa. Also, some eclipses are not much to see, such as penumbral lunar eclipses, which only produce a slight dimming of the Moon and are thus not very noticeable.
The following eclipses will occur in 2017:
2017 Feb 10-11: A penumbral lunar eclipse, centered over the Atlantic, with the latter portions visible from North America in the early evening. The Moon passes through the Earth's "penumbra" and is only slightly dimmed compared to a normal Full Moon.
2017 Feb 26: An annular solar eclipse, visible from South America, the Atlantic, and Africa. An annular eclipse is type of partial eclipse that is similar to a total solar eclipse. But unlike a total solar eclipse, the Moon is far away in its orbit and appears smaller than the Sun. Thus, the Moon does not fully cover the Sun's bright disc, but leaves a circle (or "annulus") of bright
sunlight, never totally eclipsing the Sun.
2017 Aug 7: A partial eclipse of the Moon, centered over India and China. This will be a very shallow partial eclipse in which the southern limb of the Moon will pass through the northern edge of the Earth's full umbral shadow. Some portion of this eclipse will be visible from Europe, Africa, Asia
and Australia, but will miss North and South America entirely.
2017 Aug 21: This will finally be the BIG, long-awaited USA total solar eclipse, also being billed as "The Great American Eclipse." The centerline of the path of totality of this eclipse will pass over 12 states of the USA: Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The edges of the path of totality will also nick the corners of two more states: Montana and Iowa. These are very small areas of each of these latter states, only about a square mile or so each.
This is the first Total Eclipse of the Sun to pass over the Continental USA since 1979. Moreover, this is the first total solar eclipse to span
coast-to-coast across the USA in nearly a century, since 1918. This is a REALLY. BIG. DEAL.
Some people are under the impression
that we've had other total solar eclipses over the USA in the meantime, and that they have already seen one from right here at home. These folks might be confusing a TOTAL solar eclipse with the more common PARTIAL solar eclipse. We've had several of those over the last couple decades, most recently in 2014.
But whatever you've seen before in the sky, whether it be a lunar eclipse, a partial solar eclipse, an aurora, or a rainbow, there is NOTHING else that can be seen on Planet Earth that can compare to a TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE - when the Sun is extinguished at midday and the amazing SOLAR CORONA can be
seen.
The above image is only a crude
representation, and cannot compare to the glory of the actual sight. There are many amazing attendant phenomena that are visible before, during and after totality. But you can only see them from somewhere along the path of totality, shown on the map above. Everywhere else in the USA will see a very deep partial eclipse. This is a nifty enough thing to see, very unusual, but we Americans have seen many before and we'll see many again. People travel all over the world
to remote locations on the globe just to experience a few minutes of totality, and this year this amazing experience is coming home, right here to the USA. It would be a shame if anyone casually dismissed this rare opportunity and skipped the eclipse.
We'll have more information in future newsletters this year. But please take my word for it... ECLIPSE MANIA will explode this summer, when the media finally gets on board with the story. But by then, it will be too late to make
advance plans. Please friends, don't be among the sorry ones!
For more information about sky events, please visit our website and keep an eye on our Facebook page. Til next time, God bless and clear skies,
- jay
The Ryan Family Cleveland, Ohio, USA
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? - Psalm 8:3-4, a Psalm of David
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