_edited.png)
Temps are dropping, stars are twinkling and it's the perfect time to visit Joshua Tree National Park! Although there is so much to see under a clear desert winter sky, with just a little help from state of the art technology, more of the Universe's wonders can be brought down to Earth.
The winter night sky boasts some highly sought after deep sky objects, but before we get to the beautiful nebulae and galaxies not so visible to the unaided eye, we must first speak of winter's marvels. Our summer planet deprivation is over, there are currently 4 planets visible within a couple hours after sunset.
Saturn has been ruling the constellation Aquarius and our night sky for months. Still fairly high in the south/southwest sky shortly after sunset, Saturn is between an incredibly bright Venus to the west and Jupiter to the east. Venus is striking, only rivaled in brightness by the sun and the moon. Although less bright than Venus, Jupiter is still hard to miss with some nearby markers to help. Think you see it? Look within one fist's distance from Jupiter for the very noticeable star cluster known as the Pleiades and often mistaken for the Little Dipper!
The last visible planet to join our evening sky is Jupiter's son himself, the god of war, Mars. Although fainter and more difficult to locate, Mars rises a couple hours after Jupiter and is recognizable by its glowing red color.
Besides the ancient gods and goddess' of unaided beauty, there are many things up in our winter skies that can be appreciated with just a little help from modern technology.
The Great Nebula in Orion is one of the best deep sky objects to view. It is bright enough to be viewed with the unaided eye in dark sky areas, a show stopper with a small pair of binoculars, and a portal to another world in our enhanced vision telescopes. Look for it as the middle 'star' in Orion's sword, just below his belt. This fuzzy 'star' is in fact light coming from the Orion Nebula. Check out our view below.
The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest, largest and closest areas of star formation to planet earth. A stellar nursery growing thousands of baby stars.
In the direction of the Orion constellation is the Orion Molecular cloud, a fancy way of saying a whole lot of gas and dust. Within this molecular cloud we find many pockets of star formation as this is where baby stars first get their start. Although the Orion Nebula tends to steal the show in naked eye visibility, the Horsehead and Flame nebulae can be viewed in our state of the art digital telescopes, bringing out a beauty most rarely get to see up close.
Although it is hard to beat the beautiful stellar nurseries rising in our winter sky, a dying star may just do the trick! Just slightly to the east of Jupiter are two bright stars that mark the horns of the famous bull, Taurus. Nearby one of these horns you can find the crab nebula, a supernova remnant of a star that exploded in its demise almost 1000 years ago. Documented in recorded human history, this explosion was visible to the naked eye, in the daytime! Today, it is viewed as remnant gas exploded from the massive star, visible only in a high powered telescope and currently up for viewing on our stargazing tours.
With so many wonderful nebulae joining our night sky, it is hard to choose a favorite! However, space is big, and besides the wonders of ancient star deaths and stellar nurseries, there are some other show stoppers to view this season.
There are always galaxies up to view and this winter we have some of our favorites! The Triangulum galaxy is now high over our heads, a swirling mass of billions of stars that is the second closest galaxy to our home, The Milky Way. You can find our closest galactic neighbor, The Andromeda Galaxy, not too far from the Triangulum galaxy, also getting high up over our heads. Andromeda takes up a vast portion of the night sky, however most of it is not visible to the unaided eye. The center of the galaxy can be viewed with the naked eye in dark sky areas, but if you could see the whole thing, it would take up a portion of the sky as wide as 6 full moons!
Although Triangulum and Andromeda may be the most famous galaxies up currently, some of the more minor ones are our personal favorites. Check out below NGC 0891, sometimes referred to as the Silver Sliver Galaxy. Here we view a disc shaped galaxy from it's edge, boasting a view of how thin some of these objects are.
Whether your looking to see as much as possible with your naked eye or venture deeper into the detail of these cosmic wonders, the winter sky in Joshua Tree is a treat for all. Join us and transport yourself to another place in space and time!
Comments