Articles by J. Alex Knoll

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 5/5/11

The Dawn’s Early Lights

Meteors and planets dance across our skies

The annual Eta Aquarid meteors will likely be at their best before dawn Friday with encores possible early Saturday and Sunday. Unless you’re pulling an all-nighter, you’ll have to wake early, as the closer to dawn the greater their intensity. The spawn of dust and debris from Halley’s Comet igniting against earth’s atmosphere, the Eta Aquarids are not the most furious meteor shower, producing from 10 to 40 meteors an hour. What they lack in numbers,...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 4/28/11

Hopping the Heavens

Follow the Big Dipper

The sun sets a little before 8:00 this week, with full darkness coming almost an hour later. By that time, the great bear Ursa Major is almost directly overhead. The third-largest constellation, Ursa Major has been seen as a great she-bear by ancient peoples from Greece to India, Babylon to North America. In the modern age, when the few bears most of us see are captive in zoos or performing in circuses, we are more familiar with the seven stars of the bruin’s hind-quarters, a grouping...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 4/21/11

Against the Moon’s Light

Only the strongest of this year’s Lyrid meteors will pierce the glare

The waning gibbous moon rises around midnight at week’s end and shines bright through dawn, which puts a damper on the annual Lyrid meteor shower, peaking in the dark hours of Thursday/Friday and Friday/Saturday. Even under ideal conditions with no competing moonlight, the Lyrids tend to max out at 15 to 20 meteors an hour. But any meteor bright enough to pierce the moonlight is likely to catch your attention as it streaks through the sky. Additionally, many of the...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 4/14/11

Colored Lights In the Night

A rainbow of hues shines from the heavens

The waxing moon reaches full phase Sunday. Saturday it shines less than 10 degrees — the span of an average fist held at arm’s length — below Saturn, the only visible evening planet. The next night, the full moon is farther to the east of Saturn, and the star Regulus five degrees above it. Saturn and Regulus appear about equally bright, both near first magnitude, but Saturn’s steady golden glow is a sharp contrast to the twinkling, blue-white star. ...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 4/7/11

The Buzz in the Heavens

Follow the moon to these star clusters

The moon waxes through afternoon and evening skies this week, passing through the spring constellations of the zodiax and reaching first-quarter phase Monday. Thursday the crescent moon appears high in the west as the sun sets at 7:35. The bright-orange glow of Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the bull, shines less than 10 degrees beneath the moon. Surrounding Aldebaran is a V-shaped group of stars, the Hyades cluster, which makes up the bull’s face. Six degrees above the...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 3/24/11

Going, Going, Gone

We have several planets to look for, but they’re disappearing fast

The waning moon reaches last-quarter on Saturday, rising around 2:30am and shining high in the south as the sun rises at 7am. If you’re up before this time, look to the east for blazing Venus. At magnitude –4, Venus is by far the brightest star-like object in our sky. So low in the sky, Venus puts on quite a display, dancing and shimmering above the horizon. While Venus is always bright, no matter its position in the sky. But when it is so close to the horizon,...

Article - Creature Feature; by J. Alex Knoll - 3/24/11

A Dog-Gone Shame

Ten percent of dogs in America are homeless

America loves dogs. In a country with more than 300 million people, there are 77-plus million owned dogs. Well over a third of all households in America have a pet dog, with many having two or more. Sometimes that love goes to extremes, as in Anne Arundel County where Animal Control officers found 51 dogs in a Pasadena home. The dogs, though numerous, were not abused. “They were flea bitten and had ear mites,” said...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 3/17/11

Look, Up in the Sky ...

Neither plane nor loon, it’s Super Moon

Thursday’s near-full moon shines below the bright star Regulus, the heart of Leo the lion. This star, 77 light years away, has four times the girth, burns more than twice as hot and is more than 100 times brighter than our sun. By Saturday the moon is full, and like all full moons, it rises as the sun sets, around 7:30 on this day. Aligned as they are, with earth in between the two, the gravitational pull of both sun and moon work in conjunction to produce the highest...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 3/10/11

Seasonal Holdouts

Spring is days away, but the stars of winter still rule the heavens

Thursday as the sun sets around 6:10, the waxing moon glows high in the west. Look just a few degrees below this smiling crescent for glimmers from the Pleiades star cluster. With clear dark skies you might see six of these distant lights, but with the moon’s glow you’ll have an easier time with binoculars, which should reveal far more stars. Shaped like a small dipper, the Pleiades cluster fits within a pair of binocular’s field of view, about 5 degrees. ...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 3/3/11

Escaping the Sun’s Grasp

Sometimes we can’t see the things right before our eyes

By week’s end, the moon is lost amid the glare of the sun, with new moon at 3:46 Friday afternoon. While you might say that the moon has disappeared behind the sun, it has in truth disappeared in front of the sun. As our natural satellite, the moon’s orbit around earth never carries it opposite the sun. Rather, the new moon is there before our eyes, as close as ever. But as it hovers in broad daylight directly between Earth and the sun, we are blind to it. By...