Stars and sparklers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nFirst Quarter Moon occurs at 10:46 p.m. EDT. The Moon is up nearly all evening, not setting until after 11 P.M. local daylight time, so our viewing options are a bit more limited, with only a short dark window. But if you\u2019re willing to stay up late, you\u2019re in luck: NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula, is highest around 1 A.M. local daylight time, when it stands some 30\u00b0 above the southern horizon. It is also cataloged as Caldwell 63.<\/p>\n
Located in Aquarius, the Helix is a lovely circular planetary nebula generated as well as lit up by the dying star at its center. Although it is 8th magnitude \u2014 quite bright for a planetary \u2014 its inner portion covers some 16\u2019 of sky, making it one of the larger planetary nebulae we know. It also means that (like the Fireworks Galaxy yesterday) its light is spread out over a larger area, making its overall surface brightness low. But that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t be seen \u2014 in fact, it can still be caught in binoculars or a small scope. On a very dark night (and if you have very good eyesight), you may even be able to see it without any optical aid! It\u2019s in a patch of sky in southwestern Aquarius devoid of bright stars, but you can hop some 7.8\u00b0 southwest of 3rd-magnitude Skat (Delta [\u03b4] Aquarii) to find it. For a fainter but closer signpost, use 5th-magnitude Upsilon (\u03c5) Aqr \u2014 it\u2019s just 1.2\u00b0 west of this star.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve got a large scope, screw in a nebula filter to bring out more detail, including brightness variations along the edges of its ring.<\/p>\n
Sunrise:<\/strong> 6:15 A.M.
Sunset:<\/strong> 7:51 P.M.
Moonrise:<\/strong> 1:52 P.M.
Moonset:<\/strong> 11:11 P.M.
Moon Phase:<\/strong> First Quarter
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\nAlison Klesman<\/strong>\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Floating in the constellation Aquarius, the Helix Nebula is a bright, ring-shaped planetary nebula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,75779],"class_list":["post-645174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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