The Hill Country is filled with miles and miles of areas where you can escape the glow of city lights and enjoy a dark sky. Dark skies at night provide excellent stellar viewing opportunities. Find a hilltop on a county road away from town where you have a good view of the horizons around you and you’re in for a treat! Share the experience with kids or turn it into an evening with that special someone (in my case, that’d be my yellow Lab dog Honey! Oh well!!).
The moon will not be visible at night on August 10, 2010. And it won’t be visible for much of the night during the 3-4 days on either side of the 10th. If you are in a dark spot out in the country and “if” we don’t have clouds, the stars and satellites should be great for viewing that night. You can monitor the time that the moon rises and sets for any day of the year at http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/rs-one-year-us . There you will find that the moon will set at 8:44 PM on the 10th, at 9:21 PM on the 11th, and at 9:58 PM on the 12th.
The planets Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Mars will be setting on the western horizon near 10PM on August 10th-12th . Scorpio and the Big Dipper will also be visible at this time. Jupiter will rise above the eastern horizon around 11 PM.
There’s a great website that can be used to show you in advance what the skies will hold on any given night, at any given time and at any give location. Type in your location and it does can provide you with a map of what the skies will show that evening. It will even show you exactly when and where that satellites will pass over! Find this website at http://www.heavens-above.com/ . See the photo above from this website which features the night sky on August 10 at 10 PM.
And to top it off, the annual Perseids meteor shower peaks on the night of August 12 and the dawn of August 13 (but be seen to a lesser degree on the 3-4 nights either side of the 12th). Most of the meteor action will be seen during the hours of 1 AM to 6 AM on the 13th. You can expect to see 25-50 or so meteors per hour as they shoot across the northeastern sky. We’re lucky this year in that the moon will not be up during prime viewing times. In 2009, the moonlight spoiled the whole show! Jupitor will be overhead most of the dark early morning hours on the 13th.
The meteors are certainly bright, but they are actually only tiny objects, usually no more than a grain of sand. They travel at mind-blowing speeds of 71 kilometers per second which helps these small particles put on such a brilliant show year after year.
For photographing the meteors, a digital camera mounted on a tripod helps to steady the images that race across the sky. A quick trigger finger also helps. Even random clicks during the height of Perseid "prime-time" will guarantee that you'll catch something! Be sure to have the camera focused on infinity and, if your camera permits, leave the shutter open for several minutes for the most spectacular photographic effects.
Pack comfortable chairs, bug spray, food and drinks, blankets, plus a red-filtered flashlight for reading maps and charts without ruining your night vision. Binoculars are not necessary. Your eyes will do just fine.
Now let’s just hope for “no clouds” on the nights of the August 10-12!
–Don Gray
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