Venus Trails the Sun
Welcome to the Gunnison Valley Observatory weekly astronomical report featuring updates from our local head space. Crested Butte affords a remarkable domain for naked eye night sky gazing. This week at sunset, +/- 6:00PM MST, Venus trails the Sun down into the western horizon beyond Mount Emmons, also known locally as Red Lady. A couple of hours later between 8:00 and 10:00PM look for golden tinted Saturn rising from the south eastern horizon of our sky. Saturn proceeds in a wide arc over the southern vistas of Mounts Whetstone and Axtel throughout the night finally fading into the west at 7:00AM as the sun rises in the east.
This week we have a new moon so the star gazing should be really good over the weekend if the predicted high pressure pops in to clear out the clouds. An easy deep sky object to spot for is the sword of the constellation Orion. The constellation Orion lies in the same region of sky as just described for the planets and becomes visible quickly after sunset. Look for a square of stars bisected laterally by three bright stars or what is considered to make a belt outlined by a torso. Just south or underneath the three belted stars there should be some diffuse cloud structure visible coupled with some star light. This is the sword or Orion Nebula (Messier 42/NGC 1976). It is the nearest massive star forming region to us at an approximated distance of 1270 light years away. This distance places the nebula well within the estimated 100,000 light year span of our Milky Way galaxy making it a great naked eye view point. It looks spectacular through the Gunnison Valley Observatory’s 30 inch reflector telescope.