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From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: StarDate: September 20 Venus and Regulus Before Dawn
Message-ID: <740@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 02:00:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.740
Posted: Fri Sep 20 02:00:32 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Sep-85 17:24:32 EDT
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 34


Look for Venus very near the star Regulus before dawn on Saturday.
More -- after this.

September 20  Venus and Regulus Before Dawn

If you get up before dawn on Saturday, and look toward the eastern sky,
you'll see Venus -- now so bright it can be seen easily from inside
most cities.  On Saturday, you can see a much fainter-looking star next
to Venus.  It's really one of the brightest stars in the sky --
Regulus, the heart of the lion in the constellation Leo.

Regulus is now climbing higher in the east before dawn each day, as
Earth's predawn sky turns in the direction of this star's location in
the galaxy.  As the days pass, and Earth moves around the sun, our dark
side will turn even more directly toward the direction of Regulus in
space -- so that a few months from now the star will be overhead at
midnight -- and by spring it'll be rising in the east when the sun is
going down.  That's the way of stars -- they rise earlier each day as
Earth journeys around the sun.

Venus on the other hand is much closer to Earth than any star -- and it
moves around the sun even faster than we do.  So Venus has a motion
apart from the stars.  The brightest planet is now in the east before
dawn -- very close to Regulus Saturday morning.  But as Regulus rises
earlier each day -- and appears higher int he east at dawn -- Venus
will sink lower in that part of the sky -- as it speeds ahead of Earth
around the sun -- and soon "turns a corner" in the solar system from
our earthly vantagepoint -- and disappears in the sun's glare.


Script by Deborah Byrd.

(c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin


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