Plan
your dark-sky gazing around the deep nights shown on this page: The
calendar at right displays the hours of "deep night" -- the time
between astronomical twilights without the Moon in the sky -- for the night
beginning
on the date indicated. Please note: asterisk * indicates Friday evenings,
and [ ] = New moon, ) = First Quarter, (--) = Full Moon and ( = Last
Quarter. These circumstances are calculated for Tuckahoe State Park, MD,
located at 38° 59' N and 75° 56' W.
Graphic shading reflects the number of hours of deepnight. For example, the New Moon in March occurs on the night of the 20th. The weekend of Friday - Saturday, the 19th and 20th, with 8.8 hours of deep night, is the primary weekend for the annual Messier Marathon. At the start of this year, dark nights runs occur in the third week of each month. By year's end. deepnight runs advace toward the second week.
At Tuckahoe: Latest sunrise, 5 and 6 January; Latest beginning of twilight, 9 January; Earliest sunrise, 13 - 14 June; Earliest beginning of twilight, 17 June; Shortest nights, 14 - 26 June at 5.1 h, and deep nights, 14 - 19 June; Latest end of twilight, 25 June; Latest sunset, 27 June; Earliest end of twilight, 3 December; Earliest sunset, 6 December; Longest nights, 14 - 27 December at 11.4 h; Longest deep nights, 9- 13 December at 11.3 h.
For
us on this planet: Perihelion, 4 January; Equinox, 20 March; Solstice,
21 June; Aphelion, 5 July; Equinox, 22 September, Solstice; 21 December
2004. All times are UT. Eastern Standard Time is 5 hours behind Universal
Time; Daylight Saving Time, between 4 April and 31 October 2004, is 4 hours
behind.
The calendar at left shows the Moon’s phase through 2004. Indicated are phase, relative apparent size, and position angle of the bright limb for each night at 0 h UT on the date indicated. Eclipses are shown in red: partial solar on on 19 April, total lunar on 4 May, partial solar on 14 October, and total lunar on 28 October. Only the late October lunar eclipse will be visible from here.
And be sure to mark Tuesday 8 June on your calendar: the first transit of Venus in over 120 years. The final hour and a half of this event should be visible from Delmarva following sunrise at 0538 EDT.
Moondark is written by Doug Miller, published at the Moondark web site, and printed in the Delmarva Star Gazers' Star Gazer News. This document was last revised on 21 December 2003. Text and images copyright © 2003 by Douglas C. Miller, All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without prior permission.