11-20-2012, 06:15 AM
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#341
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: I live in the last place where you Look.
Age: 31
Posts: 7,376
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Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.
What's in the sky tonight?
November 20, 2012
-First-quarter Moon (exact at 9:31 a.m.). The Moon shines high in the south in early evening, below the Water Jar of Aquarius.
-Saturn (magnitude +0.6, in Virgo) is lower left of bright Venus before and during dawn. They appear closer together every day. They're on their way to a conjunction less than 1° apart on the American mornings of November 26th and 27th.
Astro Picture of the Day:
November 20, 2012
Source:
Have you ever seen a halo around the Moon? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo. A similar Sun Halo may be visible during the day. The setting of the above picture is Athens San Sebastian, Greece. The distant planet Jupiter appears by chance on the halo's left. Exactly how ice-crystals form in clouds remains under investigation.
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