Category: Space

Saturn at Eastern Quadrature

Wednesday evening, September 13, 2017, at 9:59 p.m. CDT, Saturn reaches eastern quadrature as Saturn, Earth, and Sun form a right triangle.  Eastern quadrature is so named as Saturn is 90° east of the Sun.  This is the time when Saturn presents to us its most gibbous phase.  Even so, Saturn will be 99.7% illuminated due to its great distance from us.

A more noticeable effect will be the shadow of Saturn on its rings, a phenomenon best seen at eastern or western quadrature.

Saturn will only be 12° above our horizon in SW Wisconsin at the exact moment of eastern quadrature Wednesday evening.  Earlier that evening, Saturn crosses the celestial meridian at 6:51 p.m.—22 minutes before sunset.  If it weren’t for daylight, that would be the best time to observe Saturn: when it is highest in the sky and we are seeing it through the least amount of atmosphere.  If you have a telescope equipped with a polarizing filter, you can significantly darken the blue sky background around Saturn since the planet will be exactly 90° away from the Sun, where the scattered sunlight is most highly polarized.  Rotate the polarizer until the sky is darkest around Saturn.

Speaking of Saturn, the Cassini mission will come to a bittersweet end on Friday, September 15 around 5:31 a.m. CDT when the storied spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since June 30, 2004, will have plunged deep enough into Saturn’s atmosphere that it is no longer able to point its high gain antenna towards Earth.  Soon after that, Cassini will burn up in Saturn’s massive atmosphere.  We on Earth will not receive Cassini’s last radio transmission until 1h23m later—at around 6:54 a.m. CDT.

Emily Lakdawalla, who is arguably the best planetary science journalist in the world these days, includes the visual timeline of Cassini’s demise shown below and in her recent blog entry, “What to expect during Cassini’s final hours”.

Also, on Wednesday evening, don’t miss NOVA: Death Dive to Saturn, which will air on Wisconsin Public Television’s flagship channel at 8:00 p.m.

It may be a while before we visit ringed Saturn and its retinue of moons again.  But further exploration of Titan and Enceladus is certain to feature prominently in humankind’s next mission to Saturn.  Hopefully, that will be soon.

Satellite Crossings 2016-2017

Edmund Weiss (1837-1917) and many astronomers since have called asteroids “vermin of the sky”, but since October 4, 1957 another “species” of sky vermin made their debut: artificial satellites.  In the process of video recording stars for possible asteroid occultations, I frequently see satellites passing through my ~¼° field of view.

I’ve put together a video montage of satellites I’ve recorded between December 14, 2016 and August 5, 2017.  The component events are presented chronologically as follows:

UT Date
12-14-2016
1-15-2017
5-5-2017
6-7-2017
6-19-2017
7-25-2017 (2 satellites)
8-5-2017

Target Star
UCAC4 538-7253
Tycho 586-1051-1
Tycho 1422-911-1
Tycho 4997-136-1
Tycho 6799-309-1
Tycho 666-190-1
UCAC4 548-7392

Asteroid
2485 Scheffler
19807 (2000 SE16)
71612 (2000 EH12)
11133 Kumotori
68112 (2000 YC143)
491 Carina
151 Abundantia


In all cases, the asteroids were too faint to be recorded.  And, in all cases, the target star was not occulted by the asteroid (a miss).  In the final event, the satellite passed right over the target star (9:40:11.679 UT) during the period of time the event would be most likely to occur (9:40:10 ± 3 s)!  Fortunately, the seeing disc of the target star was never completely obliterated by the passing satellite, so I was able to determine unequivocally that the asteroid missed passing in front of the star from my location on Spaceship Earth.

Here’s a graph of the brightness of UCAC4 548-7392 during the last video clip.  You can definitely see the close appulse of the satellite with the star!

In general, the slower the satellite is moving across the field, the higher is its orbit around the Earth.  One must also consider how much of the satellite’s orbital motion is along your line of sight to the satellite.  In the following montage of two video clips, the first satellite is very slow moving and thus most likely in a very high orbit.  The second video clip shows a satellite that is quite faint.  Again, the asteroids are too faint to be recorded and no asteroid occultation event occurred.

UT Date
5-14-2017
6-8-2017

Target Star
Tycho 5011-133-1
Tycho 5719-308-1

Asteroid
190471 (2000 DG27)
321656 (2010 BM90)

References
Hughes, D. W. & Marsden, B. G. 2007, J. Astron. Hist. Heritage, 10, 21

In the Shadow of the Moon

Last Updated: August 11, 2025

Every once in a while a really great documentary comes along.  In the Shadow of the Moon is one of them. This 2007 British film, which like most documentaries (unfortunately), had a very limited theater engagement, is now widely available for rental or purchase.

It is the remarkable story of the Apollo missions to the Moon, told eloquently by many of the astronauts who journeyed there: Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 & 13), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), David Scott (Apollo 9 & 15), John Young (Apollo 10 & 16), Charles Duke (Apollo 16), Eugene Cernan (Apollo 10 & 17), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17).  You certainly get the impression that not only are these guys personable and intelligent, but that they have aged well and still have much insight and wisdom to offer us about the past, present, and future.

The historical importance of this documentary cannot be overstated.  There is nothing, and I mean nothing, like hearing about the first (and still only) human missions to the Moon firsthand from the astronauts who journeyed there.  And, sadly, these pioneering astronauts are not going to be with us much longer. Most have already left us.  In the years since this documentary was released, Edgar Mitchell, the last surviving member of the Apollo 14 crew, passed away in 2016, Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, passed away in 2017, John Young, the longest-serving astronaut in NASA history, and Alan Bean, the last surviving member of the Apollo 12 crew, left us in 2018, Michael Collins passed away in 2021, and Jim Lovell passed away in 2025.  The four surviving Apollo astronauts who shared their stories with us in this film are all octogenarians and nonagenarians: Buzz Aldrin is 95, David Scott is 93, Harrison Schmitt is 90, and Charles Duke is 89.

This is a story that needed to be told by those who can tell it best.  There is no narrator, nor is there any need for one.  Kudos to directors David Sington & Christopher Riley, producers Duncan Copp, Christopher Riley, Sarah Kinsella, John Battsek, & Julie Goldman, and  composer Philip Sheppard for making this a film of lasting cultural significance, a film that will be admired and appreciated a hundred-plus years from now.

Space Pioneers

In April 1959, NASA announced the first seven astronauts.  The Mercury Seven are, in order of birth date:

John Glenn (1921)

Wally Schirra (1923)

Alan Shepard (1923)

Deke Slayton (1924)

Scott Carpenter (1925)

Gus Grissom (1926)

Gordon Cooper (1927)

John Glenn, the oldest of the Project Mercury astronauts and the first American to orbit the Earth, was the last to die, in 2016, at the age of 95.

Gus Grissom (1967) – Apollo 1 launch pad fire
Deke Slayton (1993) – brain tumor
Alan Shepard (1998) – leukemia
Gordon Cooper (2004) – Parkinson’s disease; heart failure
Wally Schirra (2007) – abdominal cancer; heart attack
Scott Carpenter (2013) – complications following a stroke
John Glenn (2016) – complications after heart valve replacement, stroke

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) and Wally Schirra (1923-2007) covered the Apollo moon missions on CBS—far better than anyone else—and I can still remember the events as if they happened only recently.

Want to know who holds the title for longest duration human spaceflight (so far)?  Valeri Polyakov (1942-) entered space aboard Soyuz TM-18 on January 8, 1994 and stayed aboard the Mir space station until returning to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-20 on March 22, 1995.  That’s nearly 438 days (1.2 years) in space!  Moreover, Polyakov, who is a medical doctor, spent over 240 days in space during his first visit to Mir in 1988-1989, giving a total spaceflight time of nearly 1.9 years.

While Polyakov still holds the record for the single longest duration spaceflight, Gennady Padalka (1958-) has spent more time in space than anyone else: 878.5 days (2.4 years)!