This month is an interesting one for those of us who love to stargaze. I know the nights are still cooler, so wrap up and head out to watch the stars. While the sun will gradually set later and later until the summer solstice. We will still have plenty of dark sky time. While we do, find somewhere with as little light as possible to look out to the universe.
Constellations
We are going to see some recognisable constellations for this month including Orion the Hunter (best known for his belt of three stars) and Taurus with some notable deep sky objects of its own. Both constellations are quite old, recorded by an astronomer called Ptolemy in the 2nd century, but he did not create or imagine them. They were two of forty eight constellations that he learned of while studying the stars. Back then there were no telescopes for astronomers to use, so everything they saw was with the naked eye. In the time since then, the stars have shifted, but the shapes of the constellations will be the same to our eyes. So, we can look to Orion first.
Below the asterism of Orion’s Belt, we can see a colourful smudge which is actually a nebula. Conveniently, it is named the Orion Nebula. This nebula is about 1300 lightyears away and 25 lightyears across.
Planets
Back in January there was a lot of commotion about a planet parade, and I think that is justified. For the first few weeks of February, we will have SIX planets in the night sky, ranging from Saturn in the West to Mars in the East. So don’t worry if you missed it when it had all the hype in January. Venus will become visible as the sun sets in the evening and as the sky becomes darker more planets and stars will appear. Now it is important to note that of the six planets in the sky, only four are visible to the naked eye. Saturn, Venus, Jupiter and Mars (from West to East) can be seen unaided. However, if you have a telescope, you might be able to find Uranus and Neptune in the southern sky.
All of our planets fall on or close to the Ecliptic, which can is two things (1) The path of the Sun across the background of the stars; and (2) The plane of the solar system. In a sense, the orbits of the planets are quite ‘level’ with each other, although not perfect.
Chasing the Moon
From the 1st to the 9th of February we will be chasing the Moon across the evening sky for National Astronomy week. On each night the Moon will shift and move through its phases to be nearly full on the last night. If you have a telescope or binoculars, it will be much clearer, and you can see some craters and the maria (dark patches) on the moon. When it reaches the first quarter phase on the 5th we can see the terminator line separating night and day on the moon. On this line you might see the shadows in some of the craters as well.
The full moon will be on the 12th of February and is known as the Snow Moon, as it is still quite cold in parts of the Northern Hemisphere. This phase of the moon does make it harder to stargaze as it reflects so much light down to Earth that many of the fainter stars are much less visible than usual.
source: armaghplanet.com