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This month, we show the western sky at 8:00 PM. Comet C/2002
T7 (LINEAR) is near the Great Square of Pegasus about 15 deg above the
western horizon. LINEAR is an acronym from Lincoln Laboratories Near
Earth Asteroid Recovery Project. The Lincoln people are based at
MIT in Boston, but they do their automated observing in New Mexico, which
aims at finding objects headed for the earth. The comet’s magnitude
is now about 7, below naked-eye observation but visible in binoculars.
Our scope should give us a good view – weather permitting.
Mars is almost straight west, about halfway up the sky, shining at 0.9 mag. Venus is about 30 deg above the western horizon, dazzling at -4.1 mag. Saturn and Jupiter are in the eastern sky, off our star chart. Both are worth a quick naked-eye look. |
You can print a copy of this star chart so you can take it outside.
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