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Welcome to our Holiday Newsletter!

Astronomical Events in 2013

We are coming off one of the best astronomical years in recent history, with the transit of Venus, a widely observed annular eclipse of the Sun, and a total eclipse of the Sun as highlights. What can we expect in 2013?

First the bad news. There will not be much in the way of eclipses this year, at least for those of us in North America. There will be a partial and two penumbral lunar eclipses, each shading the Moon very slightly, and each visible mainly in Europe, Africa, and Asia. An annular solar eclipse on May 10 will repeat the eclipse on November 14 2012, starting in northern Australia and heading out into the south Pacific Ocean. A hybrid solar eclipse will occur beginning in the Atlantic Ocean and ending in some of the most tourist-unfriendly places in the world, the Congo Basin and northern Uganda.

It's fairly common for the Moon to pass in front of a star, what we call a lunar occultation. It is much rarer for a planet to pass in front of a star, but there will actually be three such planetary occultations in 2013. The first will be an occultation of a 7th magnitude star by Mars on the morning of August 18, visible from Alaska and western Canada, shown here as visible from Juneau AK. The second star shown will pass just south of Mars without being occulted.

The other occultations are by Venus. The first, on the evening of October 11, is of a 9th magnitude star, and will be visible from Mexico and the southwestern United States, seen here from Tucson AZ.

Finally, Venus will occult a 7th magnitude star just before sunset on November 21 in southeastern Ontario, shown here from Toronto ON. The two stars to the left will also be occulted, but are probably to be too faint to be visible.

But 2013 may become best known as the "Year of the Comets." Thanks to the detailed surveys now being undertaken of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, we have detected early a couple of potentially very bright comets. Having been burned in the past by predicting bright comets which turned out to be fiascos, astronomers have become very cautious about predicting major comets in advance, but both of these look very promising.

The first was discovered by the PANSTARRS project in 2011, and looks to be making a major appearance in the evening sky in early March, seen here as it may appear in Toronto on the evening of March 12, right over the Physics Building on the University of Toronto campus.

The second comet, discovered by the ISON project in 2012, promises to be even brighter in late November. It will be a sun-grazer, with its perihelion very close to the Sun, which is often disastrous for the later history of a comet. It is seen here as it may appear from Toronto on the evening of November 29.

Even if these comets are not as spectacular as predicted, 2013 is still looking like an interesting year astronomically. Clear skies!

Geoff Gaherty

I Was Wrong!

For the past three years, whenever I've been asked by members of the public whether anything was going to happen on December 21 2012, I've been answering "Nothing of astronomical interest, except for the winter solstice, which happens every year on that date."

Well, thanks to the lead article by Jay M. Pasachoff in the new Observer's Handbook 2013 of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, I have learned that another event will happen on this date, a transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.

Wait, you say, that happened on June 5 and 6, and we were told it wouldn't happen again until 2117. That's true, if you're viewing from Earth.

The transit of Venus on December 21 will be visible from the planet Saturn. And, of course, Starry Night isn't limited to views from only one planet, and can easily take us to Saturn to view the transit.

Point at Saturn, left-click or control-click on Saturn, and choose Go There from the contextual menu. Set the date to December 21 2012 in the latter half of the day Universal Time, and look at the Sun. You'll have to magnify quite a bit, because Venus is quite small seen from Saturn, but there it is.



Geoff Gaherty
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