NEW MOON REPORT
Nehemia Gordon from Jerusalem, Israel compiled the
following New Moon Reports for November and December 2007 and the Ninth and
Tenth months on the Biblical Calendar.
November – “On Sunday November 11, 2007 observers across Israel
looked for the new moon but it was not sighted due to heavy cloud
coverage. The moon had 2.65%
illumination and 41 minutes lagtime and therefore would have been visible from
Israel had there been no clouds.”
December – “On Tuesday December 11 2007 the New Moon was
sighted from Jerusalem at 16:50 by Nehemia Gordon, Devorah Gordan, and Johann
Schutte. The moon was also sighted from
Herodion at 17:15 by Bruce Brill.”
It is expected that the next new moon will be
visible from Jerusalem near sunset on either January 9, 2008 when the moon will
be 1.23% illuminated and 8 degrees above the horizon at 5 minutes after sunset
(a borderline situation) or January 10, 2008 when the moon will be 4.48 %
illuminated and 19.6 degrees above the horizon at 5 minutes after sunset.
This year, the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah
(also known as the Feast of Lights and Feast of Dedication) will start on
sunset December 5th and will end on sunset December 13th. These dates are according to the Biblical
Calendar.
COMET UPDATES
Comet Holmes 17P is now fading away. The gases and dust cloud surrounding the
comet have greatly expanded making it more diffuse. I could not spot it in the third week of
November, but there was the light of the moon to contend with. There have not been clear nights here in
Oregon for the past month. There are
reports that the comet became quite visible again after the moon was not a
factor. I have had some difficulty
finding informative updates on the comet’s visibility. The best I can tell is that the comet is now
near a 4th magnitude object.
It is still visible to the naked eye but you really need to know where
it is to see it. It is still a good
binocular object according to some reports.
After its discovery during an outburst in 1892,
Comet Holmes had a second outburst about five months later. If history repeats itself, we may have
another splendid look at it before it finally fades away. So stay tuned for further developments.
The below photograph of Comet Holmes was taken by Johnny Horne from North Carolina on November 27, 2007.
What
Happened to Comet Holmes?
The following article written by J. Kelly Beatty is
from a November 15, 2007 news release by Sky & Telescope.
“Except for the double outburst observed during and
shortly after its discovery in 1892, periodic Comet 17P/Holmes has been a
run-of-the-mill interloper from the outer solar system. So why, professional
and amateur skywatchers have been asking out loud, did it erupt so suddenly and
dramatically in late October?
One possible explanation that's
almost certainly not correct is that it was struck by an asteroidal
fragment. Although this comet occupies the realm between Mars and Jupiter, its
orbital inclination (19°) actually keeps 17P/Holmes well separated from most
denizens of the asteroid belt. Moreover, counting the outbursts that occurred
during and after its discovery in 1892, three collisions would be needed
to explain all the activity.
Another unlikely scenario,
proposed by the late Fred Whipple in 1984, is that the nucleus was accompanied
through space by one or more satellites that "reentered" and released
a torrent of dust and gas when they struck the main mass in 1892. Other
comets have erupted like this before -Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak's
performance in 1973 comes to mind - though not as dramatically. Most likely,
repeated warmings by the Sun caused a dusty, ice-free "crust" to form
on the nucleus, sealing the interior. Over time the pressure beneath this seal
steadily grew as once-frozen ice became gas, eventually breaking through and
sending large chunks of crust flying into space that quickly disintegrated into
microscopic dust.
At least that's the leading hypothesis.
Realistically, we may never know the cause. This comet's behavior, particularly
the perfectly spherical outer halo, has confounded even the experts.
Remarkably, 17P/Holmes has mimicked almost perfectly the behavior seen during
its discovery 115 years ago. "I have never in my experience as a cometary
scientist seen such a symmetric structure in emitted material," admits
Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
Colleague Harold Weaver adds,
"That offset blob was very unusual. Some kind of large chunk must have
come off and disintegrated." Comet theorist Zdenek Sekanina (Jet
Propulsion Laboratory) estimates that this "megaburst," most likely
triggered late on October 23rd (Universal Time), shot 100 million tons of dust
into space. To put this in perspective, Mount St. Helens unleashed a
500-million-ton ash cloud during its catastrophic 1980 eruption.
Studies with ground-based
observatories show that Comet Holmes has been emitting a rather typical
combination of water and other compounds. Weaver, Lisse, and others managed to
commandeer the Hubble Space Telescope for one orbit's observations on each of
three nights in late October and early November. The blandness of these images argues that the nucleus
didn't break apart wholesale, as was the fate of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in April 2006.
Follow-up infrared observations with the Spitzer
Space Telescope on November 13th should provide some compositional constraints
on the vast cloud of dust particles that made Comet Holmes appear so bright.
"The Spitzer spectra show
that the dust coming off the nucleus is fine-grained silicates, with a mineralogy similar to Hale-Bopp's," says William
Reach (Caltech). The observations, spanning wavelengths of 5 to 40 microns,
targeted the area closest to the nucleus. Unfortunately, Spitzer didn't get to
check out the blob of matter seen moving outward soon after the outburst
because, Reach adds, "at the time of our proposal we didn't know where
that stuff was going to be!"
One clue to
what has triggered the outburst now — and not, say, during its previous
appearance in 1999 — may be its vacillating perihelion distance. As master comet chronicler Gary
Kronk noted recently in an online posting, "The comet's orbit was
altered by Jupiter during December 1908 so that the perihelion distance
increased from 2.12 AU to 2.34 AU. The comet was lost until 1964 and it
remained faint during that apparition."
"An approach to Jupiter
during April 1968 decreased the perihelion distance back to 2.16 AU,"
Kronk continues, "but no outbursts were observed at any apparition between
1972 and 2000. Another approach to Jupiter in January of 2004 decreased the
perihelion distance to 2.05 AU, [followed by] an outburst at the very next apparition."
Coincidence? Perhaps not!”
Another comet that is now heading
toward its closest approach to the sun and Earth is Comet Tuttle 8P. This comet is expected to brighten to just
within naked eye visibility but will still be too dim for most to see with the
naked eye. This should be a real nice
binocular object if you know where to find it.
Some expect it to brighten to a magnitude 5.5. All of my models show its brightest magnitude
at 5.7 (rounded to the nearest 10th). The comet will be at this magnitude from
January 4th to January 6th 2008, being slightly brighter
of the three evenings on January 5th.
Comet Tuttle is a periodic comet
with an orbital period of about 14 years.
P.F.A. Mechain from Paris, France discovered the comet on January 9, 1790. Horace Parnell Tuttle of Harvard College
Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts re-discovered the comet on January 5,
1858. The comet is named after the
latter.
Chart 452 shows the path of Comet Tuttle 8P
from December 20, 2007 to January 7, 2008.
The comet starts off in the constellation Cassiopeia on December
20 and blazes a trail through Andromeda and Pisces, heading
toward Cetus the beast from the sea.
Cassiopeia represents the delivered bride of Messiah, making
herself ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Andromeda represents the captive bride
before and during the time of her deliverance from the beast. The comet passes
through the bands of Pisces near where the lamb is loosening or breaking the
bands. It will be at its brightest near that
point in the sky. See Chart 452 to see
where the comet will be between January 4th and 6th.
Chart 452 – Path of Comet Tuttle 8P from
December 20, 2007 to January 7, 2008
As mentioned in the November 2007
issue of Biblical Astronomy, the constellation Perseus or Peretz
the breaker, represents Messiah delivering His
bride. Comet Holmes 17P is now on a
curved path through Perseus and will reach a very close conjunction to
the star Algol (the evil spirit) in Rosh Satan or the head
of Satan on January 22, 2008. On January
22, Comet Tuttle will be too far south to be seen from the northern hemisphere
and will not be in any particular constellation. At any rate, these two comets are putting on
a great display that has its main emphasis on deliverance from the beast. If Comet Tuttle were to have a bright
outburst, that would be really awesome.
We will see what happens.
MARS AT OPPOSITION
The planet Mars will reach
opposition (its closest approach to the earth for the year) on December 24th. Near that time, Mars will be in a very close
conjunction with the full moon. Mars
will be at its brightest magnitude since 2005 at magnitude –1.6 during
opposition. This will be its brightest
magnitude for the next nine years.
Chart 453 shows the positions of Mars and
the full moon when Mars is at opposition as seen from Jerusalem, Israel at 6:00
a.m. on December 24, 2007. There is less
than 1/6th of a degree between Mars and the moon.
Chart 453 – Mars and the full moon as seen
from Jerusalem at 6:00 a.m. on December 24, 2007
The best time to view Mars and
the Moon at their closest point in the Western Hemisphere is in the evening
sky. You can see them dance together all
through the evening on December 23. The
light of the full moon will take away much of the brightness of Mars. When Mars reaches opposition on December 24,
the moon will be further away from Mars allowing for a brighter view of the
planet, though still not optimal.
The moon will occult (pass over)
Mars as viewed from NW Canada, Alaska, northern Russia, eastern Europe, and NE
British Isles in the evening/morning of December 23/24.
The conjunction of Mars
and the moon on December 23/24 will occur in the sign and constellation Gemini. Both are within the borders of this
constellation though they lie between Gemini and Auriga and are
above Orion. One portrayal of Gemini
is that of Messiah with His bride.
Another is that of Y’shua coming as a servant and a sacrifice to do his
labors set before him in the left figure, and Y’shua coming back to do battle
with his enemies and to rule as King of Kings in the right figure. Auriga represents the Great Shepherd
Y’shua protecting His flock from the wrath of God that is poured forth on His
enemies. Orion portrays Messiah
crushing his enemy under His foot.
The planet Adom (Mars) represents
the atoning blood of Messiah Y’shua and also blood and war. The moon is Yahweh’s faithful witness (Psalm
89:35-37).
The portrayals of the two comets
and the opposition of Mars in conjunction with the full moon clearly portray
Messiah coming to deliver His bride and protect His sheepfold while the wrath
of God is poured out on his enemies as Y’shua makes war against them. The planet Adom (Mars) also represents
Michael the warrior angel who makes war against the dragon in Revelation 12.
This is a clear portrayal of the
above events but when these events are to actually occur only our Heavenly
Father knows.
Yahweh Bless you in Y’shua.
