August 26, 2007 - Two Celestial Events This Coming Week:
- Total Lunar Eclipse Early Tuesday Morning, August 28.
Skywatchers in western North and South America, the Pacific,
eastern Asia and Australia are favored to see the moon turn red-orange
in a full lunar eclipse like the image above taken in 2000. Eclipse will begin at 1:51 a.m.
Pacific reaching total eclipse, when moon is covered by Earth's shadow, at 2:52 a.m.
Mountain time is 2:51 a.m. to 3:52 a.m.; Central time is 3:51 a.m. to 4:52 a.m.;
Eastern time is 4:51 a.m. to 5:52 a.m. Total lunar eclipse image © 2000 by F. Espenak.
- Rare Aurigid Meteor Shower Early Saturday, September 1.
2000-year-old Dust Trail from 36 B.C. - 45 A.D. Comet Kiess.
Green Perseid August 11, 2007, Cave Creek, Arizona. Image © 2007 by David Wheat.
At an uncertain date during the time of Christ, a mysterious "long-period comet" that has visited the inner solar system only twice in the past two thousand years appeared from the direction of the Auriga constellation (oh-RYE-guh) in the northeastern sky. Those two passes left dust debris the Earth previously passed through in 1935, 1986 and 1994, without much public observation. Another mystery in 1994 was why the Aurigid meteors were blue-green? On September 1, 2007, will the Aurigids be blue green again? This ancient meteor shower will not be seen again in our lifetimes.
Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute says, "We expect the outburst to peak at 11:36 UT (4:36 a.m. PDT) +/- 20 minutes on Sept. 1. The whole event should last about 2 hours and be visible from California, Oregon, Hawaii and the eastern Pacific Ocean."
Jenniskens will be flying with NASA Ames Research Center scientists in two aircraft over the Pacific Ocean to study the Aurigid meteor shower. The scientists are asking for the public's help in taking digital images and videos of the shower. Go to http://aurigid.seti.org for more information.
