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Astronomical News

Aldebaran is the closest visible star to the Moon at the moment, on the right hand side. The 'eye of the Bull', in Taurus.
Aldebaran is about 65 light years away, so it isn't very far on a cosmic scale; it is normally surrounded by the open cluster known as the Hyades, about 120ly away, but you can't see them tonight because of the Moon. Aldebaran is an orange giant.

Close up it would look something like this (my image, made using Space Engine)
med_aldebaran.png
 
It's not a star It's Venus always bright and often reported as a UFO at this time of year.
 
Venus is much more than 3 moon widths away from the Moon tonight. In fact it has nearly set.
 
Here's a screenshot from Celestia to show where Aldebaran is at the moment; the Hyades can just be seen in this image near the edge, but they are too dim to be seen in the real sky without binoculars.
aldebaran.jpg
 
The last few days there's been a really bright star that's more or less on the opposite side of the sky to the full moon around 6pm, roughly in the SW... looks funny to me and blobbier than a normal star, also bright enough to stand out when there's hardly any others visible from the city centre.

I keep wondering if it's something else I;ve mistaken for a star but not sure what, it's not moving and the elevation is too high for it to be a crane (which usually have red lights).

Any guesses?
 
That makes it likely to be a nearby object. The planet Venus has been visible quite close to the Moon here, to the right of it.
 
Xanatic* said:
That makes it likely to be a nearby object. The planet Venus has been visible quite close to the Moon here, to the right of it.
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Venus is in the SW sky. Here in UK the moon hasn't even risen yet! (People forget how quickly the Moon travels eastwards against the stars.)
 
I meant now as in during the last week or so.
 
Xanatic* said:
I meant now as in during the last week or so.
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In a week, the moon moves through about a quarter of the sky! It's about the fastest moving astronomical body seen from Earth, because it is so close. It's not a static thing, as if painted on a theatrical back-drop...

If you care to notice, it moves significantly during course of an evening - this is what makes occultations so impressive when they occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultation#Occultations_by_the_Moon
 
However in late december, early january Venus could be seen close to the Moon.
 
No, I'm just trying to say that is likely what OneWingedBird saw. Venus doesn't follow the Moon around but early evening you can see this.
 
OneWingedBird said:
It looks like Venus strikes again, maybe just much better visibility than usual. Dunno what's making it seem blobby.
Click to expand...
The 'blobbyness' is caused by the fact that Venus is a crescent, just at the limits of visibility; it definitely isn't round, like Mars or Jupiter. People with good eyesight can sometimes tell which way the crescent is facing.

Incidentally, the (crescent) Moon should be near both Mars and Venus tonight (1/2/17)- if it ever stops raining, that is.
 
Only new to me, still a very bizarre object, seems to be the only known case of a ring galaxy that we see in this orientation, also resistant to most attempts to explain it's formation.

Just to top it off, there's another more distant ring galaxy seen 'inside' the ring... the universe is trolling us.

Hoag's object:

4e3324132b.jpg


NASA: A Strange Ring Galaxy

The Story of Hoag's Object

Apparently there's a second larger ring of hydrogen around it, though the one diagram I saw made it look more potato shaped than what I'd call a ring.
 
The Eye of Sauron!
 
What about the Cartwheel Galaxy?
 
Cartwheel isn't quite face on to us and doesn't have such a clear ring structure with the gap inbetween:

4e95fbb15b.jpg


It's also quite characteristic of being formed from a spiral galaxy by collision.

Hoag's object has no close companions that are likely to have been the other colliding party, some theories suggest it was a barred spiral that got a bad case of 'bar degeneration' or that it was 'cold accretion' which I don't entirely understand.
 
Xanatic* said:
What about the Cartwheel Galaxy?
Click to expand...

Two other face on rings are NGC 6028 and UGC 4599 - neither is quite as tight as Hoag's Object.

Also seems to be a case of a double ring glaxy existing, although it's not that evident for what we see (rather than looking at emission wavelengths):

Scientists have discovered a rare type of galaxy some 359 million light-years away from Earth, with a unique circular structure that's never been identified before.

The galaxy, called PGC 1000714, is an example of what's called a ring galaxy – where an external circle of young stars surrounds an older galactic core.

But closer inspection of PGC 1000714 reveals its core is actually in the middle of not just one but two of these star rings, and it's the first time that astronomers have encountered the phenomenon.
Click to expand...

Science alert
 
Back down to Earth for a second, the NASA space poop disposal challenge designer's competition details are here .. (not a joke link)

https://herox.com/SpacePoop
 
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