In this the circular motion of the epicycle was carried round the Earth on a circle that was itself not centred on the Earth, but offset from its centre. It became apparent that the planets displayed retrograde motion when the Earth ‘caught up’ and ‘passed’ the planets in their orbits. Occasionally, however, the three bodies are more-or-less perfectly aligned to give an eclipse: a solar eclipse at New Moon, or a lunar eclipse at Full Moon.

Night Sky Almanac 2023 | Storm Dunlop | download on Z-Library Night Sky Almanac 2023 | Storm Dunlop | download on Z-Library

Still very hot this shines with a blue-white colour, but is cooling down and will eventually become dark and invisible - a "black dwarf"! But then the Senate decided to rename one month in honour of Augustus – so the month of Sextilis became our August. The second southern shower, the γ-Normids, begins its activity around 25 February 2023 and continues into March, reaching a weak (but very sharp) maximum on March 14–15. The Leonids enter the atmosphere at ~71 km/sec and this makes them somewhat challenging to photograph but its worth trying as one might just capture a bright fireball.This way of explaining the motion of the planets, where the circular epicycle was carried around the Earth in a larger circlar orbit prevailed for some years. Another important line on the celestial sphere is the Sun’s apparent path against the background stars – in reality the result of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. s solstice will feature the waxing crescent moon glowing next to brilliant Venus with the much, much dimmer Mars nearby. Both branches of this shower reach a low maximum, with an hourly rate of about 5–6 meteors per hour, on February 8.

Night Sky for August 2023: Planets, Stars, and the Moon Night Sky for August 2023: Planets, Stars, and the Moon

Farther round there is the constellation of Ara and, for observers farther north at 30°S, Triangulum Australe is fully visible.If you’d like to learn more the technology behind solar observing, solar imaging and more, you can check out our free publication, “The Definitive Guide to Viewing and Imaging the Sun”. It is now moving up the ecliptic and reaches an elevations of ~52 degrees when crossing the meridian this month.

Night Sky Almanac 2023 By Storm Dunlop, Wil Tirion, Royal

Polaris is, of course, the star about which the sky appears to rotate, even though it is not precisely at the North Celestial Pole. In the north, the NCP is very close to Polaris, which has been known as the North Star since antiquity. This shows that Albireo is made of two stars, amber and blue-green, which provide a wonderful colour contrast. Even in a single culture, the actual names often varied between different tribes, so there may be more than one name used for a particular Full Moon. Lying between Canopus and the SCP is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy to our own.Pope Gregory XIII instigated the reforms that led to what is now known as the Gregorian calendar, which he introduced in October 1582, and which we still use.