The M.A.S. Newsletter
Journal of the Mauritius Astronomical Society
June 99
The Next Meeting:
Friday 25th of June at 7hr00
pm at the St Esprit College, Quatre Bornes.
This will be a general observation night...
Mercury:
Mercury is back in the evening
sky. Moving swiftly from the constellation of Gemini to Cancer. The
planet is nearly perfectly alligned with Castor and Pollux on the evening of the 24th. It
crosses into Cancer the following evening where it will have its maximum
elongation to the east of the Sun on the 28th. On that date it sets at 7.34 pm. Mercury
then nears the Praesepe open cluster being at its nearest to it on the 4th of
July.
Venus:
Venus will be crossing the Praesepe
open cluster (M44) in Cancer on the evening of the 12th to 14th of June. This
event is best observed through binoculars and small telescopes. Then on the 17th a
crescent Moon accompanies a setting Venus.
Mars:
Mars is close to Spica and
nearly overhead (at the zenith) in the first part of the night. The planet is now slowly
drifting towards the constellation of Libra.
The sky this month:
The brightest part of the
Milky Way is overhead. From a dark site the several dust lanes running across this part of
the Milky Way can easily be seen with the naked eye. The faint and huge constellation Ophiucus
(Serpent Holder) is overhead. The constellation is the 13th of the Zodiac. The Sun
entering the constellation on the 30th of November and leaving it on the 18th of December.
Hubble Deep Field South:
The estimated number of galaxies in the observable Universe has now soared to 125 billion from an initial estimate of 50 billion made in 1995 from the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF North). It is not that the galaxies are being formed at such a high rate, but rather because more distant ones have been detected on the HDF South taken in October 1998. To achieve such a feat, the exposure time lasted 10 days. With the NICMOS infrared detector, even more distant galaxies have now been found.
Serge Florens, Secretary