Looking up in 2015

jfSDAS

Hi all,

It's been three years (!) since I posted a preview of the astronomical year but here goes with one for 2015 ...

Feel free to get in touch if there are any errors, other items that should be listed, and for any extra info on a specific event.

John



Highlights of 2015



Jan 10 Venus and Mercury ½° apart in the evening sky

Jan 19 Mars is 13’ from Neptune in the evening sky

Jan 24 Triple satellite shadow transit on Jupiter. Get the skinny on what is a triple shadow transit at http://www.darkskytelescopehire.co.uk/watch-a-rare-triple-shadow-transit-on-jupiter-this-october-12th/

Jan 26 NEO 2004 BL86 flyby of Earth. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(357439)_2004_BL86

Jan 30 Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) at perihelion. More details from https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/

Feb 06 Jupiter at opposition. See http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/

Feb 19 18½ hour old Moon visible after sunset

Mar 11 Mars is 17’ from Uranus in the evening sky

Mar 20 Partial solar eclipse visible from the UK/ Ireland. See http://astro.ukho.gov.uk/eclipse/0112015/

Apr 04 Total lunar eclipse — not visible from Ireland/UK

Apr 11 Venus near the Pleiades star cluster

Apr 19 Moon, Mars, and Mercury in the evening sky

May 22 Moon, Venus, and Jupiter in the evening sky

May 23 Saturn at opposition

Jun 12 Venus near the Beehive star cluster

Jul 01 Venus and Jupiter ½° apart in the evening sky

Jul 25 (1) Ceres at opposition. See http://in-the-sky.org/findercharts.php?obj=ceres&year=2015

Jul 30 second Full Moon in July

Aug 13 Perseid meteor shower at maximum. See http://www.imo.net/

Aug 20 Mars near the Beehive star cluster

Sept 01 Neptune at opposition

Sept 05 The Moon occults Aldebaran and the Hyades. Read more at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/occultations/

Sept 28 Total lunar eclipse visible from the UK/Irl. See http://astro.ukho.gov.uk/eclipse/1412015/

Sept 29 (4) Vesta at opposition

Oct 12 Uranus at opposition

Oct 28 Venus, Jupiter, and Mars fit in a 5° circle

Oct 29 The Moon occults Aldebaran and the Hyades

Nov 12 Northern Taurid meteor shower at maximum

Nov 15 Comet Catalina (2013 US10) at perihelion

Nov 26 The Moon skirts the edge of the Hyades

Dec 09 The Moon, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars in morning sky

Dec 14 Geminid meteor shower at maximum

Dec 23 The Moon occults Aldebaran and the Hyades

Dec 26 8.1m star occulted by 1017 Jacqueline. See http://www.asteroidoccultation.com



Spaceflight in 2015

• MESSENGER space probe to crash on Mercury at the end of its mission ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESSENGER
• The singer Sarah Brightman will be the next space tourist to the ISS (when Denmark will also have their first astronaut making a flight)
• Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will take part in a year-long stay on the ISS ... see http://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year-crew/
• Timothy Peake will make a flight to the ISS late in 2015 ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_46
• New Horizons will sweep past Pluto and its moons in July ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons
• Dawn will reach the dwarf planet Ceres in late-March ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_(spacecraft)
• Cassini swoops within 50 km of the intriguing Saturn moon Enceladus on October 28th ... see http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
• Sun-Earth missions DSCOVR and MMS will launch this year ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Climate_Observatory and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetospheric_Multiscale_Mission
• Japan will make a second attempt to insert the Akatsuki probe into Venus orbit ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akatsuki_(spacecraft)
• June may see the Barcelona Moon Team launch their entry in the Google Lunar X Prize ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Moon_Team
• LISA Pathfinder will test technologies for a future planned gravitational wave detector ... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_Pathfinder
• Keep up to date with Olaf Frohn's wonderful diagram on What's Up In The Solar System at http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/whats-up-in-the-solar-system-frohn.html and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_in_spaceflight

Useful web sites and software

Check out the links at http://www.esero.ie/useful-links/ that I contributed for ESERO. These are the web sites I tend to check very frequently to read up on astronomy & space news, upcoming celestial events, and more.

Stellarium is an excellent piece of freeware though I've heard of stability/non-running issues with the latest release if you are on an older operating system than the latest and ... er ... greatest.

I'm on iOS so have the apps Gas Giants (for moons of the giant planets), SkySafari (as a planetarium program), Moon Globe (lunar map), and Sky Guide (a more basic planetarium) installed. A couple of other nice apps are Analemma and Planet Wheel. Cloud-spotters might like Coton.


Publications

The Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies (IFAS) has produced a wall calendar for 2015 that lists numerous astronomy highlights for the year, details of the planet movements for each month, anniversary dates, space mission launches, and much more. The facing page for each month features a different image taken by contributors to the IFAS forum. All profits from sales of the calendar will go back to IFAS for promoting astronomy countrywide (printing of the calendar at cost done at cost by a firm in Tullamore). Ordering information and more details at http://www.irishastronomy.org

Sky-High 2015 is an annual by the Irish Astronomical Society and describes celestial phenomena visible from Ireland for the year ahead. Priced around €5, it will be available in early January 2015 and can be ordered direct from http://www.irishastrosoc.org

Paul Money produces an A5-sized annual called Nightscenes 2015 which is specifically geared towards observers in the UK and Ireland. The publication has a set of monthly notes and a star chart for that month along with more detailed information on other pages. At a bargain £6 it’s a valuable guide sprinkled with lovely photos taken by Paul. Available in Hodges Figgis or order from http://www.astrospace.co.uk/nightscenes/nightscenes.html

Philips publishes the colourful Stargazing 2015 written by well known astronomy popularisers Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest. The guide retails for £6.99 (about €9) and is pitched at observers in the UK and Ireland. You will find it available in many bookstores around Ireland or through online sellers.

Collins have also muscled in on the almanac market with their Night Sky 2015 written by Storm Dunlop and illustrated by renowned uranographer Wil Tirion. It too sells for £6.99 (about €9) and is aimed at a similar market. Night Sky 2015 can be sourced from the usual booksellers or online.

Sir Patrick Moore's venerable Yearbook of Astronomy 2015 continues with its well established format and comprises monthly notes, detailed information on transient phenomena, and a number of lengthy articles from across the spectrum of people in astronomy. The cover price is £20 (almost €29 in some shops) but it can be picked up cheaper online.

The Astronomical Calendar produced by Guy Ottewell since 1974 is a large format soft-cover publication that is packed with an incredible amount of detail. The size also allows for each page to contain Ottewell’s unique and informative diagrams. The 2015 edition of the calendar can be ordered through Universal Workshops web site http://www.universalworkshop.com/AC.htm or Amazon.com (not Amazon UK whose site will slap on a horrendous postage rate from the US).

Richard Barlett has produced 2015 An Astronomical Year as a Kindle ebook and it is quite detailed in describing what's on view during the year ahead. Graphics are few though and it is more a day-by-day description of what to look for.

Many, many other sky guides appear annually but there are two non-astronomical diaries that I really like. The first is the Irish produced Get Up And Go 2015 diary ( see http://getupandgodiary.com/ ) which is full of inspirational thoughts for the day. The Ecological Diary 2015 is one I stumbled across in calendar format in the Chester Beatty Library shop. I liked the calendar so much that I purchased the diary online from Amazon. I did find some errors in the astronomy but they do not detract from this beautiful publication which would make a fine Christmas gift for a friend or even yourself. You can preview a couple of pages at http://www.calendarclub.co.uk/p-557-ecological-deluxe-diary-2015.aspx

Organisations such as the British Astronomical Association (BAA) and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) publish handbooks for members annually but these can be purchased by non-members too. See http://www.britastro.org or http://www.rasc.ca/observers-handbook

The December 2014 edition of The Sky At Night magazine features a 2015 calendar stapled into the centre pages and this lists many upcoming astronomy highlights. Sky & Telescope magazine have also got a couple of annuals listed at http://www.shopatsky.com/category/calendars-and-almanacs/

I haven’t even touched on the non-English publications, some examples of which I’ve accumulated over the years. For example, Italian amateur astronomer Pierpaolo Ricci produces an almost 500-page pdf annual which lists a bewildering array of tables of astronomical phenomena occurring during the year. The caveat is that some data such as rise/set times is only calculated for cities in Italy.

Finally, the Astronomical Almanac is the doyen of professional and amateur astronomers worldwide. Co-produced by H.M.’s Nautical Almanac Office and the US Naval Observatory, the detailed tables in the Almanac cover a whole range of astronomical phenomena. The accurate ephemerides are calculated with the latest adopted numerical theories. Amazon will stock the Almanac but you can generate many of the tables of data for your location with the MICA software published by Willmann-Bell -- see http://www.willbell.com/almanacs/almanac_mica.htm

All in all this is just a quick flavour of the extensive selection of sky guides available for the amateur astronomer or casual sky-watcher curious about what’s up for the year ahead.

Fluffy88

Very detailed post with lots of good info, thanks very much for taking the time to gather it all

I always wondered if there was ever a Google calendar (or similar) which we could add to our calendar applications which had all the years astronomical events in one place. This fills that gap.

jfSDAS

Many thanks for the kind words about my post.

I'll look at transcribing all the event dates into a .csv or pipe-delimited file which can then be converted for import into an online diary. I can aim to make that available from January 1st, 2015 because of also having a vested interest in the IFAS calendar. The monthly events were compiled by myself in that publication so I don't want to stymie potential sales for IFAS. A Google calendar also allows extra info to be added that could not fit in the printed one.

John

Darkglasses

Great thread! Yesterday I ordered my first ever telescope (for Christmas) and now I'm even more excited for it to arrive! Thanks

now online

Santa is bringing a telescope for my son loads of info here for him (me) to work with!

the_monkey

Hey ,
I always assumed the "dust" of the milky way was millions of stars in the distance, but someone mentioned it is actually nebulae dust where starts are being born ?

is this true ?

Hoof_Hearted

Great to have this list thanks, I just checked for the date of the Perseids next month, fingers crossed for a bit of good weather for a camp out to see them blaze across the sky.
A nice new crescent moon and Venus in the west tonight if the clouds play ball.