The planets are still strung out across the southern sky this week, but you have a narrow window around 7:30 a.m. when Mercury’s up and. the Sun hasn’t brightened up the sky too much. On the 6th, look for a thin crescent Moon rising in the south east, and just below it, gleaming Mercury. Brilliant Venus lies five degrees to the upper right. A third ‘planet’, Pluto, sits a thumb-width above Venus today, but as usual, is too dim to see. Too bad, as this would be a rare opportunity to view the planets nearest to, and farthest from, the Earth at the same time.
A shy Mercury spends most of its life hidden in the Sun’s glare and doesn’t come out to play more than a couple of times a year. On February 7th, it is as far away as it will get from the Sun before it gets nervous and begins creeping back toward safety again. Catch it while you can.
If instead you’re out on the 8th, the next New Moon, the beginning of a new lunar month, occurs just after sunrise. You’ll find New Moons listed on most wall calendars, although you can’t actually go out and see one; at the time of a New Moon, our satellite passes so near the Sun that you simply can’t look at it. The only time a New Moon is visible is when it passes directly in front of the Sun, causing an eclipse. I’ve always found it odd that at mid-eclipse, you never hear anyone say “Hey, I can see the New Moon”. I’m pointing this out so, at the next eclipse, you can be the first.
The dark weeks on either side of a New Moon are the best times for backyard astronomy, especially now as some of the sky’s finest constellations are on review. Well placed in the south, Orion the Hunter struts his stuff, the three stars of his belt forming a familiar asterism (the astro word for ‘pattern’). Below and to the left shines Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Above and left lies Gemini the Twins, and to the right, Taurus the Bull, along with its famous asterism ‘The Pleiades’, or ‘Seven Sisters’. At 9 p.m. in the east, we can catch Jupiter rising (the planet, not the movie).
There is not a much better time of the year to find a dark spot free of nearby lights, and spend a few minutes looking up. The skies are dark early, and the universe’s best is passing in front of you. Beware, though, that the gleaming gems of winter have been known to draw the unwary over to the dark side of amateur astronomy. Not to worry, though; should that happen, those of us already there love company.
