January
2021
Updated: 8 January 2021
Welcome to the night skies of Summer, featuring Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, Andromeda, Cetus, Aries, Taurus, Orion, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn
Note: Some parts of this webpage may be formatted incorrectly by older browsers.
The Alluna RC-20 Ritchey Chrétien telescope was installed in March, 2016.
The 20-inch telescope is able to locate and track any sky object (including Earth satellites and the International Space Station) with software called TheSkyX Professional, into which is embedded a unique T-Point model created for our site with the telescope itself.
Explanatory Notes:
Rise and set times are given for the theoretical horizon, which is a flat horizon all the
way round the compass, with no mountains, hills, trees or buildings to obscure the view. Observers will have to make allowance for their own actual horizon.
Transient phenomena are provided for the current month and the next. Geocentric phenomena are calculated as if the Earth were fixed in space
as the ancient Greeks believed. This viewpoint is useful, as otherwise rising and setting times would be meaningless. In the list of geocentric events, the nearer object is
given first.
When a planet is referred to as ‘stationary’, it means that its movement across the stellar background appears to have ceased, not that
the planet itself has stopped. With inferior planets (those inside the Earth’s orbit, Mercury and Venus), this is caused by the planet heading either directly
towards or directly away from the Earth. With superior planets (Mars out to Pluto), this phenomenon is caused by the planet either beginning or ending its
retrograde loop due to the Earth’s overtaking it.
Apogee and perigee: Maximum and minimum distances of the Moon or artificial satellite from the Earth.
Aphelion and perihelion: Maximum and minimum distances of a planet, asteroid or comet from the Sun.
The zenith is the point in the sky directly overhead from the observer.
Eclipses always occur in pairs, a lunar and a solar but not necessarily in that
order, two weeks apart. The
meridian is a semicircle starting from a point on the horizon that is exactly due north from the observer, and arching up into the sky to the zenith and
continuing down to a point on the horizon that is exactly due south. On the way down it passes through the South Celestial Pole which is 26.6 degrees above the
horizon at Nambour. The elevation of the South Celestial Pole is exactly the same as the observer's latitude, e.g. from Cairns it is 16.9 degrees above the
horizon, and from Melbourne it is 37.8 degrees. The Earth's axis points to this point in the sky in the southern hemisphere, and to an equivalent point in the
northern hemisphere, near the star Polaris, which from Australia is always below the northern horizon.
All astronomical objects rise until they reach the meridian, then they begin to set. The act of crossing or 'transitting' the meridian is called 'culmination'.
Objects closer to the South Celestial Pole than its altitude above the southern horizon do not rise or set, but are always above the horizon, constantly
circling once each sidereal day. They are called 'circumpolar'. A handspan at arm's length with fingers spread covers an angle of approximately 18 - 20 degrees.
Your closed fist at arm's length is 10 degrees across. The tip of your index finger at arm's length is 1 degree across. These figures are constant for most people, whatever
their age. The Southern Cross is 6 degrees high and 4 degrees wide, and Orion's Belt is 2.7 degrees long. The Sun and Moon average half-a-degree (30 arcminutes)
across.
mv = visual magnitude or brightness. Magnitude 1 stars are very bright, magnitude 2 less so, and
magnitude 6 stars are so faint that the unaided eye can only just detect them under good, dark conditions. Binoculars will allow us to see down to magnitude
8, and the Observatory telescope can reach visual magnitude 17 or 22 photographically. The world's biggest telescopes have detected stars and galaxies as faint as
magnitude 30. The sixteen very brightest stars are assigned magnitudes of 0 or even -1. The brightest star, Sirius, has a magnitude of -1.44. Jupiter can reach -2.4, and
Venus can be more than 6 times brighter at magnitude -4.7, bright enough to cast shadows. The Full Moon can reach magnitude -12 and the
overhead Sun is magnitude -26.5. Each
magnitude step is 2.51 times brighter or fainter than the next one, i.e. a magnitude 3.0 star is 2.51 times brighter than a magnitude 4.0. Magnitude 1.0
stars are exactly 100 times brighter than magnitude 6.0 (5 steps each of 2.51 times, 2.51x2.51x2.51x2.51x2.51 = 2.515 =
The Four Minute Rule
How long does it take the Earth to complete one rotation? No, it's not 24 hours - that is the time taken for the Sun to cross
the meridian on successive days. This 24 hours is a little longer than one complete rotation, as the curve in the Earth's
orbit means that it needs to turn a fraction more (~1 degree of angle) in order for the Sun to cross the meridian again. It is called a 'solar day'. The stars,
clusters, nebulae and galaxies are so distant that most appear to have fixed positions in the night sky on a human time-scale, and for a star to return to
the same point in the sky relative to a fixed observer takes 23 hours 56 minutes 4.0916 seconds. This is the time taken for the Earth to complete exactly one
rotation, and is called a 'sidereal day'.
As our clocks and lives are organised to run on solar days of 24 hours, and the stars circulate in 23 hours 56 minutes approximately, there is a four minute
difference between the movement of the Sun and the movement of the stars. This causes the following phenomena:
1. The Sun slowly moves in the sky relative to the stars by four minutes of time or one degree of angle per day. Over the
course of a year it moves ~4 minutes X 365 days = 24 hours, and ~1 degree X 365 = 360 degrees or a complete circle. Together, both these facts mean that after the course of a
year the Sun returns to exactly the same position relative to the stars, ready for the whole process to begin again.
2.
For a given clock time, say 8:00 pm, the stars on consecutive evenings are ~4 minutes or ~1 degree further on than they were the previous night. This means
that the stars, as well as their nightly movement caused by the Earth's rotation, also drift further west for a given time as the weeks pass. The stars
of autumn, such as Orion are lost below the western horizon by mid-June, and new constellations, such as Sagittarius, have appeared in the east. The stars
change with the seasons, and after a year, they are all back where they started, thanks to the Earth's having completed a revolution of the Sun and returned to
its theoretical starting point.
We can therefore say that the star patterns we see in the sky at 11:00 pm tonight will be identical to those
we see at 10:32 pm this day next week (4 minutes X 7 = 28 minutes earlier), and will be identical to those of 9:00 pm this date next month or 7:00 pm the month after. All
the above also includes the Moon and planets, but their movements are made more complicated, for as well as the Four Minute Drift with
the stars, they also drift at different rates against the starry background, the closest ones drifting the fastest (such as the Moon or Venus), and the most distant ones
(such as Saturn or Neptune) moving the slowest.
Solar System
Sun:
The Sun begins the month in the constellation of Sagittarius, the Archer. It leaves Sagittarius and passes into Capricornus, the Sea-goat on January 20.
M
Moon at 8 days after New, as on January 22.
The photograph above shows the Moon when approximately eight days after New, just after First Quarter. A rotatable view of the Moon, with ability to zoom in close to the surface (including the far side), and giving detailed information on each feature, may be downloaded
here. A professional version of this freeware with excellent pictures from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Chang orbiter (giving a resolution of 50 metres on the Moon's surface) and many other useful features is available on a DVD from the same website for 20 Euros (about AU $ 33) plus postage.Click
here for a photographic animation showing the lunar phases. It also shows the Moon's wobble or libration, and how its apparent size changes as it moves from perigee to apogee each month. It takes a little while to load, but once running is very cool ! All these downloads are freeware, although the authors do accept donations if the user feels inclined to support their work.
Lunar Feature for this Month
Each month we describe a lunar crater, cluster of craters, valley, mountain range or other object, chosen at random, but one with interesting
attributes. A recent photograph from our Alluna RC20 telescope will illustrate
the object. As all large lunar objects are named, the origin of the name will be
given if it is important. This month we will look at
Stofler's northern, western and
south-western walls are intact except that parts of them have slumped down to
the crater's floor. The summits of the north-west and south-west walls each have
a later bowl-shaped impact crater of 19 kilometres and 18 kilometres diameter
respectively. The western half of Stofler's floor is a flat lava plain on which
are found many craterlets, the two largest being 3 kilometres across.
Not long after Stofler's
formation, another large impactor, incoming from the south-east, struck
the south-east wall, producing a 70 kilometre crater now called Faraday.
Much material was blasted across Stofler's floor, completely covering the
eastern half. Later impacts have struck Faraday as well, deforming it. In the
last billion years, another incoming impactor struck the lunar surface 400
kilometres to the south-west, creating the crater Tycho, one of the
freshest craters on the Moon
In the fifteenth century, Regiomontanus was the leading astronomer and first printer of astronomical tables and books. He read many ancient texts, and knew that the
Earth-centred world view was not the only one possible, although he adhered resolutely to the geocentric world view of Ptolemy. If he had lived, he might eventually have come
to the realisation that the Earth orbits the Sun, which would have led to other great discoveries.
He translated a Greek version of Ptolemy's Almagest into
Latin as the Epitome of the Almagest, and used it to produce the Nuremberg Ephemerides, an astronomical almanac that included longitude
measurements calculated by lunar distances, an idea far ahead of its time. It listed all celestial phenomena from 1 January 1475 to 31 December 1506 and went on sale in
the early 1470s. The Epitome of the Almagest went on sale in 1496 after Regiomontanus had died aged only 40. None of Regiomontanus’ contemporaries was equal to the task of following in his footsteps and taking astronomy forward, except perhaps
Johannes Stöffler (1452-1531), who followed the new Epitome of the Almagest of Regiomontanus faithfully. In 1499 Stöffler
produced a continuation of the Nuremberg Ephemerides as the Almanach nova plurimis annis venturis inserentia, and he is therefore
regarded as a successor to Regiomontanus, though not of the same intellectual stature. His book had a large circulation with 13 editions until 1551, and
strongly influenced Renaissance astronomy. Stöffler also published Elucidatio fabricae ususque astrolabii, a manual for the construction
and use of the astrolabe.
His name was given to the crater in 1651 by Riccioli.
Stofler is a spectacular
depression in the Moon's southern hemisphere at latitude -41º. The whole area
surrounding it is peppered with craters, most smaller than Stofler but a few
considerably larger. This is because this part of the Moon's surface is very
ancient and degraded, but there were no impacts large enough to cause lava
eruptions large enough to cause the formation of 'Mare' ('Seas' or lava plains).
The Moon's age is 4.55 billion years, and the large features shown above were
formed within 660 million years of its birth. The smallest features are the
youngest, the most recent ones being the smallest and brightest, having haloes
of white topsoil.
Stofler
The English scientist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) had little formal education, but rose to become one of the most influential scientists in history. Having discovered in 1821 the ‘lines of force’ that surrounded magnets, he also found that if a magnet moved near a wire, it induced an electric current in the wire. Not only that, but an electric current in a wire produced magnetic lines of force around the wire. Therefore, there was a close relationship between electricity and magnetism. Faraday also found that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying connection between the two phenomena. He similarly discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His invention of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor, dynamo and alternator technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in the everyday world.
n the field of chemistry, Faraday discovered benzene and the system of oxidation numbers, and invented an early form of the Bunsen burner. He popularised such terms as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion. In 1845, Faraday discovered that the plane of polarisation of linearly polarised light is rotated when the light rays travel through and interact with a transparent magnetic field, an effect now known as Faraday Rotation. This was the first real evidence that light was indeed related to electromagnetism. In 1846 he speculated that light might be some form of disturbance propagating along magnetic field lines and the following year he improved on this by suggesting that light was a high-frequency electromagnetic vibration which could propagate across space even if it were a vacuum, and lacking any medium such as a luminiferous æther. Faraday and his mentor Sir Humphry Davy attracted around themselves a coterie of English Romantic poets who were keenly interested in science, including William Wordsworth, John Keats, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake. This group watched the experiments, and participated in some entertaining “research” with nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
Click
The crater Stofler is located inside the rectangle above.
Geocentric Events:
It should be remembered that close approaches of Moon, planets and stars are only perspective effects as seen from the Earth - that is why they are called
'geocentric or Earth-centred phenomena'. The Moon, planets and stars do not really approach and dance around each other as it appears to us from the vantage
point of our speeding planet.
January 3: Earth at perihelion at 20:55 hrs
January 5: Mercury 56 arcminutes south of Pluto at 11:16 hrs
January 10: Limb of Moon 54 arcminutes north of the star Graffias (Beta-1 Scorpii, mv= 2.59) at 1:49 hrs
January 10: Mercury 1.6º south of Saturn at 12:41 hrs
January 12: Mercury 1.4º south of Jupiter at 3:37 hrs
January 12: Limb of Moon 45 arcminutes south of Venus at 4:29 hrs
January 12: Limb of Moon 24 arcminutes north of the star Kaus Borealis (Lambda Sagittarii, mv= 2.82) at 10:38 hrs
January 12: Moon 2.1º north of the star Nunki (Sigma Sagittarii, mv=2.02) at 21:32 hrs
January 12: Jupiter 1.7º south of the star Rho Capricorni (mv=4.76) at 21:31 hrs
January 13: Moon 1.2º south of Pluto at 18:41 hrs
January 14: Moon 2.9º south of Saturn at 6:32 hrs
January 14: Venus 2.2º north of the star Kaus Borealis (Lambda Sagittarii, mv= 2.82) at 9:24 hrs
January 14: Uranus at eastern stationary point at 16:26 hrs (diameter = 3.6")
January 14: Moon 3.1º south of Jupiter at 12:53 hrs
January 14: Moon 1.6º south of Mercury at 20:45 hrs
January 15: Pluto in conjunction with the Sun at 00:17 hrs (diameter = 0.1")
January 17: Moon 3.6º south of Neptune at 20:52 hrs
January 21: Mars 1.6º north of Uranus at 7:37 hrs
January 21: Moon 2.5º south of Uranus at 18:28 hrs
January 21: Moon 4º south of Mars at 19:28 hrs
January 22: Venus 1.6º south of the star Al Baldah (Pi Sagittarii, mv=2.88) at 5:05 hrs
January 23: Jupiter 44 arcminutes south of the star Upsilon Capricorni (mv=5.15) at 13:37 hrs
January 24: Mercury at Greatest Elongation East (18º 34') at 12:01 hrs (diameter = 6.9")
January 24: Saturn in conjunction with the Sun at 13:12 hrs (diameter = 15.1")
January 25: Mercury 2.8º north of the star Deneb Algiedi (Delta Capricorni, mv=2.85) at 11:01 hrs
January 26: Uranus at eastern quadrature at 22:40 hrs (diameter = 3.5")
January 27: Limb of Moon 8 arcminutes north of the star Mebsuta (Epsilon Geminorum, mv= 3.06) at 1:44 hrs
January 29: Venus 44 arcminutes north of Pluto at 2:36 hrs
January 29: Jupiter in conjunction with the Sun at 11:37 hrs (diameter = 32.4")
January 29: Mercury at perihelion at 12:08 hrs (diameter = 8.1")
January 31: Mercury at eastern stationary point at at 1:49 hrs (diameter = 8.5")
February 1: Mars at eastern quadrature at 20:13 hrs (diameter = 7.8")
February 2: Saturn 1.6º south of the star Rho Capricorni (mv=4.76) at 17:42 hrs
February 6: Limb of Moon 4 arcminutes north of the star Graffias (Beta-1 Scorpii, mv= 2.56) at 10:34 hrs
February 6: Venus 23 arcminutes south of Saturn at 17:07 hrs
February 8: Moon 1.2º north of the star Kaus Borealis (Lambda Sagittarii, mv= 2.82) at 19:05 hrs
February 8: Mercury at inferior conjunction with the Sun at 23:41 hrs (diameter = 10.3")
February 9: Moon 1.7º north of the star Nunki (Sigma Sagittarii, mv=2.02) at 3:23 hrs
February 10: Moon 1.3º south of Pluto at 1:57 hrs
February 10: Moon 2.6º south of Saturn at 22:39 hrs
February 11: Moon 3º south of Venus at 6:08 hrs
February 11: Moon 3.5º south of Jupiter at 8:42 hrs
February 11: Moon 7.3º south of Mercury at 18:39 hrs
February 12: Venus 26 arcminutes south of Jupiter at 1:05 hrs
February 13: Mercury 4.6º north of Venus at 17:05 hrs
February 14: Moon 3.8º south of Neptune at 5:11 hrs
February 15: Mercury 3.9º north of Jupiter at 6:08 hrs
February 18: Moon 2.5º south of Uranus at 3:46 hrs
February 18: Jupiter 1.9 arcminutes north of the star Theta Capricorni
(mv= 4.08) at 15:49 hrs
February 19: Moon 3.4º south of Mars at 9:15 hrs
February 20: Venus at aphelion at 15:01 hrs (diameter = 9.9")
February 21: Venus 1.4º north of the star Deneb Algiedi (Delta Capricorni, mv=2.85) at 1:04 hrs
February 21: Mercury at western stationary point at 10:42 hrs (diameter = 9.1")
February 23: Moon occults the star Mebsuta (Epsilon Geminorum, mv=
3.06) between 8:54 hrs and 9:35 hrs
February 24: Saturn 40 arcminutes south of the star Upsilon Capricorni (mv=5.15) at 13:05 hrs
The Planets for this month:
M
ercury: This month, the innermost planet is in the western twilight sky, having passed on the far side of the Sun (superior conjunction) on December 20 last. It will become visible half-an hour after sunset in the second week of January, just to the left of Jupiter and Saturn. At 7:12 pm on January 8, the International Space Station will rise above the west-south-western horizon just to the left of the three afore-mentioned planets, and will head north-east through the Great Square of Pegasus and just south of the Andromeda Galaxy M31 into Perseus, until it passes below the north-north-eastern horizon at about 7:22 pm. Between January 9 and 11 Mercury will remain close to Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Capricornus. The thin crescent Moon will join these three planets, making a fine grouping on January 14, although the Sun will be less than 10º away.
Venus: This, the brightest planet, was an 'evening star' in the first five months of 2020. It passed through inferior conjunction (when it overtook the Earth by passing between us and the Sun) on June 4, after which it moved to the eastern pre-dawn sky. It is now a 'morning star', and on January 1 it may be spotted a little less than a handspan above the east-south-eastern horizon just before dawn breaks, in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It will cross into Sagittarius on January 6, and into Capricornus on February 1. During mid-January it rises above the theoretical horizon at about 3:52 am. Venus reached its greatest elongation west (43º 17') on August 14, when it was at its greatest angular distance from the Sun. Shining at around magnitude -4, it is brighter than anything else in the night sky, except for the Moon. Venus is bright enough to cast faint shadows. Venus will remain a 'morning star' until March 26. The very thin, waning crescent Moon will be close to Venus on the morning of January 12.
Venus will join a close grouping of Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and the waning crescent Moon in the pre-dawn eastern sky in the second week of February.
(The coloured fringes to the second, third and fifth images below are due to refractive effects in our own atmosphere, and are not intrinsic to Venus itself. The planet was closer to the horizon when these images were taken than it was for the second photograph, which was taken when Venus was at its greatest elongation from the Sun).
early July 2020 mid-August 2020 March 2021 October 2021 December 2021
Click here for a photographic animation showing the Venusian phases. Venus is always far brighter than anything else in the sky except for the Sun and Moon. For all of 2019 up to July, Venus appeared as an 'Morning Star' in the eastern pre-dawn sky, but in August last year it moved to the evening sky to be an 'Evening Star'. It is now quite easy to find in the west as twilight begins to fade.
Because Venus is visible as the 'Evening Star' and as the 'Morning Star', astronomers of ancient times believed that it was two different objects. They called it Hesperus when it appeared in the evening sky and Phosphorus when it was seen before dawn. They also realised that these objects moved with respect to the so-called 'fixed stars' and so were not really stars themselves, but planets (from the Greek word for 'wanderers'). When it was finally realised that the two objects were one and the same, the two names were dropped and the Greeks applied a new name Aphrodite (Goddess of Love) to the planet, to counter Ares (God of War). We use the Roman versions of these names, Venus and Mars, for these two planets.
Venus at 6.55 pm on September 7, 2018. The phase is 36 % and the angular diameter is 32 arcseconds.
Mars: The red planet is still well-placed for viewing this month, since the Earth overtook it on October 14. On that night it was at its closest to Earth, with a brightness of magnitude -2.6 and an angular size of 22 arcseconds. We are now leaving Mars behind, and on January 1 its brightness will have fallen to magnitude -0.2 and its angular size reduced to 10 arcseconds. The phase will be 89%. By the end of the month Mars will have faded to magnitude 0.5 and its size reduced to 8 arcseconds.
Mars completed its retrograde S-bend in Pisces on November 14 and has now resumed its eastward movement through the constellations. It will cross into Aries on January 5, 2021 and into Taurus on February 24, Gemini on April 24, Cancer on June 8 and Leo on July 11. Mars will pass in front of the Praesepe (Bee-hive) star cluster on the night of June 23/24. The First Quarter Moon will be 4º south of Mars on January 21 with Uranus midway between them.
In this image, the south polar cap of Mars is easily seen. Above it is a dark triangular area known as Syrtis Major. Dark Sinus Sabaeus runs off to the left, just south of the equator. Between the south polar cap and the equator is a large desert called Hellas. The desert to upper left is known as Aeria, and that to the north-east of Syrtis Major is called Isidis Regio. Photograph taken in 1971.
Mars photographed from Starfield Observatory, Nambour on June 29 and July 9, 2016, showing two different sides of the planet. The north polar cap is prominent.
Brilliant Mars at left, shining at magnitude 0.9, passes in front of the dark molecular clouds in Sagittarius on October 15, 2014. At the top margin is the white fourth magnitude star 44 Ophiuchi. Its type is A3 IV:m. Below it and to the left is another star, less bright and orange in colour. This is the sixth magnitude star SAO 185374, and its type is K0 III. To the right (north) of this star is a dark molecular cloud named B74. A line of more dark clouds wends its way down through the image to a small, extremely dense cloud, B68, just right of centre at the bottom margin. In the lower right-hand corner is a long dark cloud shaped like a figure 5. This is the Snake Nebula, B72. Above the Snake is a larger cloud, B77. These dark clouds were discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard at Mount Wilson in 1905. He catalogued 370 of them, hence the initial 'B'. The bright centre of our Galaxy is behind these dark clouds, and is hidden from view. If the clouds were not there, the galactic centre would be so bright that it would turn night into day.
Mars near opposition, July 24, 2018
Mars, called the red planet but usually coloured orange, in mid-2018 took on a yellowish tint and brightened by 0.4 magnitude, making it twice as bright as previous predictions for the July 27 opposition. These phenomena were caused by a great dust storm which completely encircled the planet, obscuring the surface features so that they were only seen faintly through the thick curtain of dust. Although planetary photographers were mostly disappointed, many observers were interested to see that the yellow colour and increased brightness meant that a weather event on a distant planet could actually be detected with the unaided eye - a very unusual thing in itself.
The three pictures above were taken on the evening of July 24, at 9:05, 9:51 and 11:34 pm. Although the fine details that are usually seen on Mars
were hidden by the dust storm,
some of the larger features can be discerned, revealing how much Mars rotates in two and a half hours. Mars' sidereal rotation period (the time taken for one complete
rotation or 'Martian day') is 24 hours 37 minutes 22 seconds - a little longer than an Earth day. The dust storm began in the Hellas Desert on May 31, and after two months
it still enshrouded the planet. In September it began to clear, but by then the close approach had passed.
Central meridian: 295º.
The two pictures immediately above were taken on the evening of September 7, at 6:25 and 8:06 pm. The dust storm was finally abating, and some of the surface features were becoming visible once again. This pair of images also demonstrates the rotation of Mars in 1 hour 41 minutes (equal to 24.6 degrees of longitude), but this time the view is of the opposite side of the planet to the set of three above. As we were now leaving Mars behind, the images are appreciably smaller (the angular diameter of the red planet had fallen to 20 arcseconds). Well past opposition, Mars on September 7 exhibited a phase effect of 92.65 %.
Central meridian: 180º.
Jupiter: This gas giant planet is very close to the west-north-western horizon soon after sunset this month, and will reach conjunction with the Sun (passing behind it) on January 29. It is in the constellation of Capricornus, with Saturn and Mercury close by. After conjunction Jupiter will move to the pre-dawn eastern sky, rising before the Sun. It will not be seen before midnight until late May.
Jupiter as photographed from Nambour on the evening of April 25, 2017. The images were
taken, from left to right, at 9:10, 9:23, 9:49, 10:06 and 10:37 pm. The rapid rotation of this giant planet in a little under 10 hours is clearly seen. In the
southern hemisphere, the Great Red Spot (bigger than the Earth) is prominent, sitting within a 'bay' in the South Tropical Belt. South of it is one of the
numerous White Spots. All of these are features in the cloud tops of Jupiter's atmosphere.
Jupiter at opposition, May 9, 2018
Jupiter reached opposition on May 9, 2018 at 10:21 hrs, and the above photographs were taken that evening, some ten to twelve hours later. The first image above was
taken at 9:03 pm, when the Great Red Spot was approaching Jupiter's central meridian and the satellite Europa was preparing to transit Jupiter's disc.
Europa's transit began at 9:22 pm, one minute after its shadow had touched Jupiter's cloud tops. The second photograph was taken three minutes later at 9:25
pm, with the Great Red Spot very close to Jupiter's central meridian. The third photograph was taken at 10:20 pm, when Europa was approaching
Jupiter's central meridian. Its dark shadow is behind it, slightly below, on the clouds of the North Temperate Belt. The shadow is partially eclipsed by Europa itself. The fourth
photograph at 10:34 pm shows Europa and its shadow well past the central meridian. Europa is the smallest of the Galilean satellites, and has a diameter of 3120 kilometres.
It is ice-covered, which accounts for its brightness and whitish colour. Jupiter's elevation above the horizon for the four photographs in order was 50º,
55º, 66º and 71º. As the evening progressed, the air temperature dropped a little and the planet gained altitude. The 'seeing' improved slightly, from
Antoniadi IV to Antoniadi III. At the time of the photographs, Europa's angular diameter was 1.57 arcseconds. Part of the final photograph is enlarged below.
Jupiter at 11:34 pm on May 18, nine days later. Changes in the rotating cloud patterns are apparent, as some cloud bands rotate faster than others and
interact. Compare with the first photograph in the line of four taken on May 9. The Great Red Spot is ploughing a furrow through the clouds of the South
Tropical Belt, and is pushing up a turbulent bow wave.
Jupiter at opposition, June 11, 2019
Jupiter as it appeared at 7:29 pm on July 2, 2017. The Great Red Spot was in a similar position near Jupiter's eastern limb (edge) as in the fifth picture in the series above.
It will be seen that in the past two months the position of the Spot had drifted
when compared with the festoons in the Equatorial Belt, so must rotate around the planet at a slower rate. In fact, the Belt enclosing the Great Red Spot rotates around the
planet in 9 hours 55 minutes, and the Equatorial Belt takes five minutes less. This high rate of rotation has made the planet quite oblate. The prominent 'bay'
around the Red Spot in the five earlier images appeared to be disappearing, and a darker streak along the northern edge of the South Tropical Belt
was moving south. In June this year the Spot began to shrink in size, losing about 20% of its
diameter. Two new white spots have developed in the South Temperate Belt, west of the Red Spot. The five upper images were taken near opposition, when the Sun was
directly behind the Earth and illuminating all of Jupiter's disc evenly. The July 2 image was taken just four days before Eastern Quadrature, when the angle
from the Sun to Jupiter and back to the Earth was at its maximum size. This angle means that we see a tiny amount of Jupiter's dark side, the shadow being
visible around the limb of the planet on the left-hand side, whereas the right-hand limb is clear and sharp. Three of Jupiter's Galilean satellites are visible, Ganymede to
the left and Europa to the right. The satellite Io can be detected in a transit of Jupiter, sitting in front of the North Tropical Belt, just to the left of its centre.
The third photograph was taken at 10:41 pm, when Europa was about a third of its way across Jupiter. Its dark shadow is trailing it, slightly below, on the clouds of the North Temperate Belt. The shadow is partially eclipsed by Europa itself. The fourth photograph at 10:54 pm shows Europa and its shadow about a quarter of the way across. This image is enlarged below. The fifth photograph shows Europa on Jupiter's central meridian at 11:24 pm, with the Great Red Spot on Jupiter's limb. The sixth photograph taken at 11:45 pm shows Europa about two-thirds of the way through its transit, and the Great Red Spot almost out of sight. In this image, the satellite Callisto may be seen to the lower right of its parent planet. Jupiter's elevation above the horizon for the six photographs in order was 66º, 70º, 75º, 78º, 84º and 86º. As the evening progressed, the 'seeing' proved quite variable.
There have been numerous alterations to Jupiter's belts and spots over the thirteen months since the 2018 opposition. In particular, there have been major disturbances affecting the Great Red Spot, which appears to be slowly changing in size or "unravelling".
It was very fortuitous that, during the evenings of the days when the 2018 and
2019 oppositions occurred, there was a transit of one of the satellites as well as the appearance of the Great Red Spot. It was also interesting in that the
same satellite, Europa, was involved both times.
Saturn:
Neptune:
The photograph above was taken when Saturn was close to opposition, with the Earth between Saturn and the Sun. At that time, the shadow of Saturn's globe upon the
Ring system was directly behind the planet and hardly visible. The photograph below was taken at 7:14 pm on September 09, 2018, when Saturn was near eastern quadrature.
At such a time, the angle from the Sun to Saturn and back to the Earth is near its maximum, making the shadow fall at an angle across the Rings as seen from
Earth. It may be seen falling across the far side of the Ring to the left side of the globe.
Uranus:
Neptune, photographed from Nambour on October 31, 2008
Pluto: The erstwhile ninth and most distant planet is now too close to the Sun for observation. It will be
in conjunction on January 15.
The movement of the dwarf planet Pluto in two days, between 13 and 15 September, 2008. Pluto is the one object that has moved.
Width of field: 200 arcseconds
This is a stack of four images, showing the movement of Pluto over the period October 22 to 25, 2014. Pluto's image for each date appears as a star-like point at the upper right corner of the numerals. The four are equidistant points on an almost-straight line. Four eleventh magnitude field stars are identified. A is GSC 6292:20, mv = 11.6. B is GSC 6288:1587, mv = 11.9. C is GSC 6292:171, mv = 11.2.
D is GSC 6292:36, mv = 11.5. (GSC = Guide Star Catalogue). The position of Pluto on October 24 (centre of image) was at Right Ascension = 18 hours 48 minutes 13 seconds, Declination = -20º 39' 11". The planet moved 2' 51" with respect to the stellar background during the three days between the first and last images, or 57 arcseconds per day, or 1 arcsecond every 25¼ minutes.
The fine conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn that has been on-going in the night sky for the past six months came to a climax in December. On January 1, both
planets will still be close together, very close to the west-south-western horizon as soon as darkness falls, in the constellation of Capricornus. On the evening of
January 10, Mercury will join them, and on January 14 so will the thin crescent Moon. Unfortunately for observers, all four objects will be close to the Sun and
looking for them in the solar glare will likely damage your eyesight.
Jupiter, being closer to the Sun than Saturn, travels around its orbit faster, and has not as far to go as its orbit is smaller in circumference. Jupiter
takes 11.8 years to complete one orbit of the Sun, while Saturn, further out, takes 29.45 years. This means that, from our vantage point on the moving Earth, Jupiter
appears to catch up and pass Saturn once every 20 years. Such an event occured last month, and the two planets were within 30 arcminutes of each other (about the Moon's
diameter) in the week of December 17 to 25. Both planets fitted together into the same low power telescopic field of view. The closest approach was on December 21 and 22,
when they were less than 7.5 arcminutes apart. An approach this close is very rare, and if you missed it, the next will occur on October 31, 2040,
but that approach will be far less spectacular, as the planets will be over a degree apart (twice the diameter of the Moon).
In the first week of January 2021, Mercury will join Jupiter and Saturn in Capricornus. The best time to look will between January 8 and 11,
but all three planets will be hard to find in the solar glare, and looking for them will endanger your eyesight. Mercury will be about 1.4º to the right of the faint
crescent Moon, low in the west at 7:15 pm on January 14. By the end of January Jupiter and Saturn will both have passed through their respective conjunctions (passing
behind the Sun), and during February both will have reappeared in the eastern pre-dawn sky. On February 9, brilliant Venus will appear midway between them, outshining both,
but the glare of the Sun will make observations difficult. Meteor Showers:
Radiant: Near the star Vega. Named after the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis (Mural Quadrant).
Use this
Although most meteors are found in swarms associated with debris from comets, there are numerous 'loners', meteors travelling on solitary
paths through space. When these enter our atmosphere, unannounced and at any time, they are known as 'sporadics'. On an average clear and dark evening, an
observer can expect to see about ten meteors per hour. They burn up to ash in their passage through our atmosphere. The ash slowly settles to the ground as
meteoric dust. The Earth gains about 80 tonnes of such dust every day, so a percentage of the soil we walk on is actually interplanetary in origin. If a
meteor survives its passage through the air and reaches the ground, it is called a 'meteorite'. In the past, large meteorites (possibly comet nuclei or small asteroids) collided with the Earth and produced huge craters which still exist
today. These craters are called 'astroblemes'. Two famous ones in Australia are Wolfe Creek Crater and Gosse's Bluff. The Moon and Mercury are covered with such
astroblemes, and craters are also found on Venus, Mars, planetary satellites, minor planets, asteroids and even comets.
Comets:
ZHR = zenithal hourly rate (number of meteors expected to be observed at the zenith in one hour). The
maximum phase of meteor showers usually occurs between 3 am and sunrise. The reason most meteors are observed in the pre-dawn hours is because at that time
we are on the front of the Earth as it rushes through space at 107 000 km per hour (30 km per second). We are meeting the meteors head-on, and the speed at
which they enter our atmosphere is the sum of their own speed plus ours. In the evenings, we are on the rear side of the Earth, and many meteors we see at that
time are actually having to catch us up. This means that the speed at which they enter our atmosphere is less than in the morning hours, and they burn up less
brilliantly.
Note: NEOWISE refers to the
Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite which
discovered this comet. This satellite was placed in orbit in December 2009
as the WISE (W
Comet
Comet
In
December 2018, Comet 46P/Wirtanen swept past Earth, making one of the ten closest approaches of a comet to our planet since 1960. It was faintly visible to the naked eye for two weeks. Although Wirtanen's nucleus is only 1.2 kilometres across, its green atmosphere became larger than the Full Moon, and was an easy target for binoculars and small telescopes. It reached its closest to the Sun (perihelion) on December 12, and then headed in our direction. It passed the Earth at a distance of 11.5 million kilometres (30 times as far away as the Moon) on December 16. In the week preceding it was at its brightest at magnitude 4, but this was a cloudy week at Nambour. It passed between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters on the night of December 19-20, but the light of the almost Full Moon made it difficult to see. It then headed towards the star Capella in Auriga, which it passed on December 24-25. It is currently 470 million kilometres away in the constellation Virgo, between Spica and Arcturus, and close to the star Heze (Zeta Virginis), but at 18th magnitude it is too faint for most amateur telescopes. Click here for more information and chart
This comet, (C/2007 N3), discovered in 2007 at Lulin Observatory by a collaborative team of Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers, is now in the outer Solar System, and has faded below magnitude 15.
Comet Lulin at 11:25 pm on February 28, 2009, in Leo. The brightest star is Nu Leonis, magnitude 5.26.
The
LINEARNearly all of these programs are based in the northern hemisphere, leaving gaps in the coverage of the southern sky. These gaps are the areas of sky where amateur astronomers look for comets from their backyard observatories.
To find out more about current comets, including finder charts showing exact positions and magnitudes, click
here. To see pictures of these comets, click here.
The 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at the Australian Astronomical Observatory near Coonabarabran, NSW.
Deep Space
Sky Charts and Maps available on-line:
There are some useful representations of the sky available here. The sky charts linked
below show the sky as it appears to the unaided eye. Stars rise four minutes earlier each night, so at the end of a week the stars have gained about half an
hour. After a month they have gained two hours. In other words, the stars that were positioned in the sky at 8 pm at the beginning of a month will have the
same positions at 6 pm by the end of that month. After 12 months the stars have gained 12 x 2 hours = 24 hours = 1 day, so after a year the stars have returned
to their original positions for the chosen time. This accounts for the slow changing of the starry sky as the seasons progress.
The following interactive sky charts are courtesy of Sky and Telescope magazine. They can simulate a view of the sky from any location on Earth at any time of day or night between the years 1600 and 2400. You can also print an all-sky map. A Java-enabled web browser is required. You will need to specify the location, date and time before the charts are generated. The accuracy of the charts will depend on your computer’s clock being set to the correct time and date.
To produce a real-time sky chart (i.e. a chart showing the sky at the instant the chart is generated), enter the name of your nearest city and the country. You will also need to enter the approximate latitude and longitude of your observing site. For the Sunshine Coast, these are:
latitude: 26.6o South longitude: 153o East
Then enter your time, by scrolling down through the list of cities to "Brisbane: UT + 10 hours". Enter this one if you are located near this city, as Nambour is. The code means that Brisbane is ten hours ahead of Universal Time (UT), which is related to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the time observed at longitude 0o, which passes through London, England. Click here to generate these charts.
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Similar real-time charts can also be generated from another source, by following this second link:
The first, circular chart will show the full hemisphere of sky overhead. The zenith is at the centre of the circle, and the cardinal points are shown around the circumference, which marks the horizon. The chart also shows the positions of the Moon and planets at that time. As the chart is rather cluttered, click on a part of it to show that section of the sky in greater detail. Also, click on Update to make the screen concurrent with the ever-moving sky.
The stars and constellations around the horizon to an elevation of about 40o can be examined by clicking on
The view can be panned around the horizon, 45 degrees at a time. Scrolling down the screen will reveal tables showing setup and customising options, and an Ephemeris showing the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, and whether they are visible at the time or not. These charts and data are from YourSky, produced by John Walker.
The charts above and the descriptions below assume that the observer has a good observing site with a low, flat horizon that is not too much obscured by buildings or trees. Detection of fainter sky objects is greatly assisted if the observer can avoid bright lights, or, ideally, travel to a dark sky site. On the Sunshine Coast, one merely has to travel a few kilometres west of the coastal strip to enjoy magnificent sky views. On the Blackall Range, simply avoid streetlights. Allow your eyes about 15 minutes to become dark-adapted, a little longer if you have been watching television. Small binoculars can provide some amazing views, and with a small telescope, the sky’s the limit.
This month, the Eta Carinae Nebula is poorly placed for viewing, but it may be found rising above the south-south-eastern horizon after 8 pm.
The Stars and Constellations for this month:
These descriptions of the night sky are for 10 pm on January 1 and 8 pm on January 31. Broadly speaking, the following description starts low in the south-west and follows the
horizon to the right, heading round to the east, then overhead, then south.
[ On January 1, the Sun will set at 6:45 pm and twilight will end by 7:45 pm. At this time, three planets will be visible in the constellation
of Capricornus, and two are naked-eye objects. All will have set by 9 pm, an
hour before the time when the constellations described below will be visible: Jupiter sets at
8:09 pm and Saturn at 8:04 pm. Tiny, faint Pluto sets at 7:38 pm. All three
planets will have passed on the far side of the Sun (conjunction) by the end of
January. They will reappear in the eastern pre-dawn sky in late February. More details about the movements of these planets are in the section The Planets for this month above. ] Low in the south-west, the flattened triangle of Grus is setting. It is nearly
upside-down at this time. To its right, the star Fomalhaut is curving down to the west-south-western horizon, and in the west-south-west, Aquarius is about
to set. There are no stars brighter than third magnitude in that constellation, but it does contain many interesting objects, including a group
of four stars known as the 'Water Jar'. Also, this month faint Neptune may be found in its eastern end,
23 arcminutes south of the fifth magnitude star 96 Aquarii. A little to the north of due west,
the faint constellation of Pisces, the Fishes, is setting. East of Pisces
is Aries and then Taurus. At the beginning of January, Mars is still in Pisces, but it will cross into Aries on January 5. A well-known
asterism in Pisces is the Circlet, a faint circle of seven fourth and fifth magnitude stars.
Neptune is 9.5º south of the centre of the Circlet this month.
In the north-west, the Great Square of Pegasus and Andromeda are also dipping below the horizon. These constellations contain the
well-known spiral galaxies M31 (in Andromeda) and M33 (in Triangulum - see below). These large spirals are members of the
Local Group of galaxies (our Milky Way is a third member), and can be easily seen with binoculars. They are the nearest galaxies that can be
seen from the large observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. This month, they are best seen as soon as darkness falls, for they soon head towards the horizon.
The Great Spiral M33 in Triangulum.
The Great Galaxy in Andromeda, M31, photographed at Starfield Observatory with an off-the-shelf
digital camera on 16 November 2007.
The three main stars in Andromeda are, from left to right, Alpheratz, Mirach, and
Almach, and above them is the faint constellation of Triangulum, a narrow triangle of stars. M31 lies about eight degrees (one third of a handspan) below
Mirach tonight, while M33 is a similar distance above Mirach.
Nine degrees (half-a-handspan) to the south-east (above) of the sexcond-magnitude star Sheratan (Beta Arietis)
is the planet Uranus, but it is not visible without at least a pair of binoculars. At 6:25 pm at mid-month, Uranus will be crossing the meridian (the north to
south line passing through the zenith). It will be 45º (two and a half handspans) north of the zenith at the time of culmination, and close to the junction between the
constellations Pisces, Cetus and Aries.
Cetus, the Whale, lies a little north-west of the zenith. Though this part of the sky has no really bright stars, a little more than a handspan
west of the zenith is a mv 2.2 star. This is Beta Ceti, the brightest ordinary star in Cetus. Its common name is
Diphda, and it has a yellowish-orange colour. It appears all by itself in a large area of sky deficient in bright stars. By rights, we would expect the star
Menkar or Alpha Ceti to be brighter, but Menkar is actually more than half a magnitude fainter than Diphda. Menkar may be seen high in the north-east, halfway
between Diphda and Aldebaran in Taurus.
Cetus is a large constellation, and to the unaided eye it appears unremarkable. But it does contain a most interesting star, which
even medieval people noticed. Hevelius named it Mira, the Wonderful (see below). Between Cetus and Pegasus is the zodiacal constellation of Pisces, the
Fishes, described above.
Mars is the only bright object in this part of the sky at present, and is currently cruising
through Pisces and shining at magnitude -0.13 with an orange colour. It is similar in colour to the star Aldebaran in Taurus (see next
paragraph) but is brighter. Mars will join Uranus in Aries on January 5 and the two planets will be only 1.6º apart on January 21. In January, the spectacular constellations
are in the eastern half of the evening sky. Taurus, with its two star clusters the
Pleiades (or
Subaru) and the Hyades, is high in the north-north-east (see below). The brightest
star in Taurus is an
orange star dominating the Hyades cluster, but not a member of it. This is Aldebaran
(Alpha Tauri), a K5 star with a visual magnitude of 0.87.
The Pleiades is a small group like a question mark, and is often called the
Seven Sisters, although excellent eyes are needed to detect the seventh star
without optical aid. The group is also known as ‘Santa’s Sleigh’, as it appears
around Christmas time. All the stars in this cluster are hot and blue. They are
also the same age, as they formed as a group out of a gas cloud or nebula. There
are actually more than 250 stars in the Pleiades.
The Pleiades is the small cluster at centre left, while the Hyades is the much larger grouping at centre right.
Wisps of the nebula which formed the Pleiades can be seen around the brighter stars in the cluster.
The Hyades cluster appears larger, with the appearance of a capital A or inverted V. Aldebaran lies at the foot of its right leg. The V shape looked to the ancients like the face of a bull, with Aldebaran as his angry orange eye. Being in the southern hemisphere, we see it upside down. The Pleiades form the bull’s shoulder.
Below the Pleiades we can see part of the far-northern constellation of Perseus. The two brightest stars are Mirphak (Alpha Persei) and Algol (Beta Persei). Algol is the higher above the northern horizon of the two. Since ancient times, Algol has shown regular variations in brightness. It usually shines at magnitude 2.1, but every 2 days 20 hours 49 minutes it dims to magnitude 3.4 for 10 hours before recovering its original brightness. Because of this clock-like change, early astronomers called it the 'Demon Star'. It marks the head of Medusa, the Gorgon, which is carried in the hand of Perseus.
The Dutch-born Englishman John Goodricke (1764-1786) was a young amateur astronomer. He was profoundly deaf and also without much speech after suffering from scarlet fever as an infant. Goodricke is best known for his explanation of the variations in the star Algol in 1782. Although several stars were already known to vary in apparent magnitude, Goodricke was the first to propose a mechanism to account for this. He suggested that Algol is actually a pair of stars circling each other, and the variation in brightness is caused when one passes behind the other. Such a star system is now known as an eclipsing binary. He presented his findings to the Royal Society in May 1783, and for this work, the Society awarded him the Copley Medal for that year.
Goodricke is also credited with discovering the periodic variation of the namesake, Delta Cephei, of the type of variable stars called Cepheids, in 1784. It was the second Cepheid found, the first, Eta Aquilae, being found by Goodricke’s friend Edward Pigott earlier the same year. Goodricke proposed that Cepheids were unstable stars that regularly swell up and then fall back - 'pulsating variables' (see
Mira, the Wonderful below).He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on April 16, 1786, but never learned of this honour, as he was very ill and died four days later, probably from pneumonia, aged only twenty-one years and seven months.
Between the Hyades and the northern horizon is a large constellation shaped roughly like a tall pentagon. This is Auriga the Charioteer, its brightest star being Capella, at the left side of the base of the pentagon. Above Capella and slightly to the left is a small triangle of stars known as 'The Kids'.
To the left of Capella lies the northern constellation of Perseus. Above Auriga, and to the right of Aries, lies the interesting zodiacal constellation of Taurus, the Bull, with its famous star clusters the Pleiades and Hyades. Taurus is due north at 9:15 pm at the beginning of the month.
To the east of Auriga, Gemini is quite high, with its brightest two twin stars at its eastern end, Pollux and Castor. Rising in the north-east is the head of Leo, its brightest star Regulus (Alpha Leonis) marking the Lion’s heart. The whole constellation will have risen by midnight on January 1.
Between Gemini and Leo is a fainter constellation, Cancer the Crab. Though a fairly unremarkable constellation in other ways, Cancer does contain a large star cluster called Praesepe or the Beehive, which is a splendid sight in binoculars.
In January, the constellation of Orion is as high as he can ever appear from our latitude. He is about a handspan north of the zenith, and is about to cross the meridian (the line that runs from due south to due north and passing through the zenith, directly overhead). When a sky object crosses the meridian, it is said to be culminating. At that point, it ceases rising and begins setting. The brilliant white star Rigel (Beta Orionis) is approaching the zenith at 10 pm on January 1. Orion appears upside-down to us, but to an observer in the northern hemisphere, e.g. London or New York, he appears right-way-up, striding along the southern horizon this month.
About a hand-span to the south-east of Rigel is the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, also known
as Alpha Canis Majoris. Sirius will culminate at 11.00 pm in mid-January.
Skirting the horizon from north-east to south-east is a long, faint constellation, Hydra, the Water Snake. It is the constellation with the largest area and is very long, stretching half-way across the sky. Well up in the east is Hydra’s brightest star, Alphard, mv= 2.2. This orange star was known by Arabs in ancient times as ‘The Solitary One’, as it lies in an area of sky with no bright stars nearby.
Coming up in the south-south-east, Crux (Southern Cross) is lying at an angle. Crux is the smallest of the 88 constellations. If you have a low, clear horizon in that direction, you will be able to see below it and to the right the two bright Pointers, Alpha and Beta Centauri. To the right of Crux is a small, fainter quadrilateral of stars, Musca, the Fly. In mid-month Crux will be horizontal by midnight, and vertical just before sunrise.
Between Crux and Sirius is a very large area of sky filled with interesting objects. This was once the constellation Argo Navis, named for Jason’s famous ship used by the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece. The constellation Argo Navis was found to be too large, so in 1755 Nicholas Louis de la Caille divided it into three sections - Carina (the Keel), Vela (the Sails) and Puppis (the Stern).
A handspan south of the zenith and two handspans south of Sirius is the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus (Alpha Carinae). On the border of Carina and Vela is the False Cross, larger and more lopsided than the Southern Cross. Both of these Crosses are actually more like kites in shape, for, unlike Cygnus (the Northern Cross), they have no star at the intersection of the two cross arms.
Two handspans south-west of Canopus is Achernar, Alpha Eridani. It is the brightest star in Eridanus the River, which winds its way with faint stars from Achernar in a northerly direction to Cursa, a mv = 2.9 star close to brilliant Rigel in Orion. Achernar is midway between Canopus and Fomalhaut, which is setting low in the south-west.
High in the south, about 50 degrees above the horizon, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is faintly visible as a diffuse glowing patch. To its right and below is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a smaller glowing patch. The LMC and SMC are described below.
The zodiacal constellations visible tonight, starting from the south-western horizon and heading overhead to the north-east horizon, are Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer and Leo.
The amazing thing about the star Mira or Omicron Ceti is that it varies dramatically in brightness, rising to magnitude 2 (brighter than any other star in Cetus), and then dropping to magnitude 10 (requiring a telescope to detect it), over a period of 332 days.
This drop of eight magnitudes means that its brightness diminishes over a period of five and a half months to one six-hundredth of what it had been, and then over the next five and a half months it regains its original brightness. To the ancients, they saw the familiar star fade away during the year until it disappeared, and then it slowly reappeared again. Its not surprising that it became known as Mira, meaning 'The Wonderful' or 'The Miraculous One'.
We now know that many stars vary in brightness, even our Sun doing so to a small degree, with a period of 11 years. One type of star varies, not because it is actually becoming less bright in itself, but because another, fainter star moves around it in an orbit roughly in line with the Earth, and obscures it on each pass. This type of star is called an eclipsing variable and they are very common.
The star Mira though, varies its light output because of processes in its interior. It is what is known as a pulsating variable. Stars of the Mira type are giant pulsating red stars that vary between 2.5 and 11 magnitudes in brightness. They have long, regular periods of pulsation which lie in the range from 80 to 1000 days.
In 2019, Mira reached a maximum brightness of magnitude 3.4 on October 24, and after fading to a minimum magnitude of 9.3 last June reached its maximum again on September 20 last. It has now faded below sixth magnitude again, so a telescope is required to find it. Each of these cycles lasts 332 days.
Mira near minimum, 26 September 2008 Mira near maximum, 22 December 2008
Astronomers using a NASA space telescope, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, have spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind
Mira as the star streaks through space. Galaxy Evolution Explorer ("GALEX"
for short) scanned the well-known star during its ongoing survey of the entire sky in ultraviolet light. Astronomers then noticed what looked like a comet with
a gargantuan tail. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the
sun. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star.
The Hunter and his Dogs:
Two of the most spectacular constellations in the sky may be seen high above the eastern horizon soon after sunset in January. These are Orion the Hunter, and his greater dog, Canis Major. Orion straddles the celestial equator, midway between the south celestial pole and its northern equivalent. This means that the centre of the constellation, the three stars known as Orion's Belt, rise due east and set due west. A smaller constellation, the lesser dog Canis Minor, accompanies them.
This is one of the most easily recognised constellations, as it really does give a very good impression of a human figure. From the northern hemisphere he appears to stand upright when he is high in the sky, but from our location ‘down under’ he appears lying down when rising and setting, and upside down when high in the sky. You can, though, make him appear upright when high in the sky (near the meridian), by observing him from a reclining chair, with your feet pointing to the south and your head tilted back.
Orion rising as darkness falls in January
Orion has two bright stars marking his shoulders, the red supergiant Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. A little north of a line joining these stars is a tiny triangle of stars marking Orion’s head. The three stars forming his Belt are, from west to east, Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak. These three stars are related, and all lie at a distance of 1300 light years. They are members of a group of hot blue-white stars called the Orion Association.
To the south of the Belt, at a distance of about one Belt-length, we see another faint group of stars in a line, fainter and closer together than those in the Belt. This is the Sword of Orion. Orion’s two knees are marked by brilliant Rigel and fainter Saiph. Both of these stars are also members of the Orion Association.
The Saucepan, with Belt at left, M42 at lower right
Orion is quite a symmetrical constellation, with the Belt at its centre and the two shoulder stars off to the north and the two knee stars to the south. It is quite a large star group, the Hunter being over twenty degrees (a little more than a handspan) tall.
The stars forming the Belt and Sword are popularly known in Australia as ‘The Saucepan’, with the Sword forming the Saucepan’s handle. This asterism appears upside-down tonight, as in the photographs above. The faint, fuzzy star in the centre of the Sword, or the Saucepan's handle, is a great gas cloud or nebula where stars are being created. It is called the ‘Great Nebula in Orion’ or ‘M42’ (number 42 in Messier’s list of nebulae). A photograph of it appears below:
The Sword of Orion, with the Great Nebula, M42, at centre
The central section of the Great Nebula in Orion
New stars are forming in the nebula. At the brightest spot is a famous multiple star system, the Trapezium, illustrated below
Canis Major:
To the right of Orion as twilight ends, a brilliant white star will be seen about one handspan away. This is Sirius, or Alpha Canis Majoris, and it is the brightest star in the night sky with a visual magnitude of -1.43. It marks the heart of the hunter's dog, and has been known for centuries as the Dog Star. As he rises, the dog is on his back with his feet in the air. The star at the end of his front foot is called Mirzam. It is also known as Beta Canis Majoris, which tells us that it is the second-brightest star in the constellation. Mirzam is about one-third of a handspan above Sirius.
The hindquarters of the Dog are indicated by a large right-angled triangle of stars located to the right of Sirius and tilted. The end of his tail is the lower-right corner of the triangle, about one handspan south (to the right) of Sirius.
Both Sirius and Rigel are bright white stars and each has a tiny, faint companion. Whereas a small telescope can reveal the companion to Rigel quite easily, the companion to Sirius the Dog Star, (called ‘the Pup’), can only be observed by using a powerful telescope with excellent optics, as it is very close to brilliant Sirius and is usually lost in the glare (see above).
Canis Major as it appears high in the east soon after sunset in January
Canis Minor:By 10.00 pm this small constellation is about 40 degrees up in the east-north-east. It contains only two main stars, the brighter of which is Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris). This yellow-white star of mv= 0.5 forms one corner of a large equilateral triangle, the other two corners being the orange Betelgeuse and white Sirius. Beta Canis Minoris is also known as Gomeisa, a blue-white star of mv= 3.1.
Between the two Dogs is the constellation Monoceros the Unicorn, undistinguished except for the presence of the remarkable Rosette Nebula. South of Orion is a small constellation, Lepus the Hare. Between Lepus and the star Canopus is the star group Columba the Dove. Eridanus the River winds its way from near Orion west of the zenith to Achernar, high in the south-west. Between Achernar and the western horizon is the star Fomalhaut, a white star of first magnitude in the small constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish). To the left of Fomalhaut is the triangular constellation of Grus, the Crane. Between the zenith and the south-western horizon are a number of small, faint constellations, Horologium, Pictor, Caelum, Mensa, Tucana, Phoenix, Hydrus and Reticulum. The LMC lies in the constellation Dorado, and the South Celestial Pole is in the very faint constellation Octans.
Estimates vary that between 15% and 50% of stars are single bodies like our Sun, although the latest view is that less than 25% of stars are solitary. At least 30% of stars and possibly as much as 60% of stars are in double systems, where the two stars are gravitationally linked and orbit their mutual centre of gravity. Such double stars are called binaries. The remaining 20%+ of stars are in multiple systems of three stars or more. Binaries and multiple stars are formed when a condensing Bok globule or protostar splits into two or more parts.
Binary stars may have similar components (Alpha Centauri A and B are both stars like our Sun), or they may be completely dissimilar, as with Albireo (Beta Cygni, where a bright golden giant star is paired with a smaller bluish main sequence star).
Rigel (Beta Orionis, left) is a binary star which is the seventh brightest star in the night sky. Rigel A is a large white supergiant which is 500 times brighter than its small companion, Rigel B, Yet Rigel B is itself composed or a very close pair of Sun-type stars that orbit each other in less than 10 days. Each of the two stars comprising Rigel B is brighter in absolute terms than Sirius (see above). The Rigel B pair orbit Rigel A at the immense distance of 2200 Astronomical Units, equal to 12 light-days. (An Astronomical Unit or AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun.) In the centre of the Great Nebula in Orion (M42) is a multiple star known as the Trapezium (right). This star system has four bright white stars, two of which are binary stars with fainter red companions, giving a total of six. The hazy background is caused by the cloud of fluorescing hydrogen comprising the nebula.
Acrux, the brightest star in the Southern Cross, is also known as Alpha Crucis. It is a close binary, circled by a third dwarf companion.
Alpha Centauri (also known as Rigil Kentaurus, Rigil Kent or Toliman) is a binary easily seen with the smallest telescope. The components are both solar-type main sequence stars, one of type G and the other, slightly cooler and fainter, of type K. Through a small telescope this star system looks like a pair of distant but bright car headlights.
Alpha Centauri A and B take 80 years to complete an orbit, but a tiny third component, the 11th magnitude red dwarf Proxima , takes about one million years to orbit the other two. It is about one tenth of a light year from the bright pair and a little closer to us, hence its name. This makes it our nearest interstellar neighbour, at a distance of 4.3 light years. Red dwarfs are by far the most common type of star, but, being so small and faint, none is visible to the unaided eye. Because they use up so little of their energy, they are also the longest-lived of stars. The bigger a star is, the shorter its life.
Alpha Centauri, with Proxima
Knowing the orbital period of the two brightest stars A and B, we can apply Kepler’s Third Law to find the distance they are apart. This tells us that Alpha Centauri A and B are about 2700 million kilometres apart or about 2.5 light hours. This makes them a little less than the distance apart of the Sun and Uranus (the orbital period of Uranus is 84 years, that of Alpha Centauri A and B is 80 years.)
Albireo (Beta Cygni) is sometimes described poetically as a large golden topaz with a small blue sapphire. It is one of the sky’s most beautiful objects. The stars are of classes G and B, making a wonderful colour contrast. It lies at a distance of 410 light years, 95 times further away than Alpha Centauri.
Binary stars may be widely spaced, as the two examples just mentioned, or so close that a telescope is struggling to separated them (Acrux, Antares, Sirius). Even closer double stars cannot be split by the telescope, but the spectroscope can disclose their true nature by revealing clues in the absorption lines in their spectra. These examples are called spectroscopic binaries. In a binary system, closer stars will have shorter periods for the stars to complete an orbit. Eta Cassiopeiae takes 480 years for the stars to circle each other. The binary with the shortest period is AM Canum Venaticorum; the two stars take only 17½ minutes to complete an orbit.
Sometimes one star in a binary system will pass in front of the other one, partially blocking off its light. The total light output of the pair will be seen to vary, as regular as clockwork. These are called eclipsing binaries, and are a type of variable star, although the stars themselves usually do not vary.
The South Celestial Pole is that point in the southern sky around which the stars appear to rotate in a clockwise direction. The Earth's axis is aimed exactly at this point. For an equatorially-mounted telescope, the polar axis of the mounting also needs to be aligned exactly at this point in the sky for accurate tracking to take place.
To find this point, first locate the Southern Cross. Project a line from the top of the Cross (the star Gacrux) through its base (the star Acrux) and continue straight on for another four Cross lengths. This will locate the approximate spot. There is no bright star to mark the Pole, whereas in the northern hemisphere they have Polaris (the Pole Star) to mark fairly closely the North Celestial Pole.
Another way to locate the South Celestial Pole is to draw an imaginary straight line joining Beta Centauri (low in the south-south-east) to Achernar (a little less than two handspans above the south-western horizon at 10 pm at mid-month). Both of these stars will be at about the same altitude, on either side of the South Celestial Pole, at about 1 am. Bisect this line to find the pole.
Interesting photographs of this area can be taken by using a camera on time exposure. Set the camera on a tripod pointing due south, and open the shutter for thirty minutes or more. The stars will move during the exposure, being recorded on the film as short arcs of a circle. The arcs will be different colours, like the stars are. All the arcs will have a common centre of curvature, which is the south celestial pole.
Star trails between the South Celestial Pole and the southern horizon. All stars that do not pass below the horizon are circumpolar.
Star Clusters:
The two clusters in Taurus, the Pleiades and the Hyades, are known as Open Clusters or Galactic Clusters. The name 'open cluster' refers to the fact that the stars in the cluster are grouped together, but not as tightly as in globular clusters (see below). The stars appear to be loosely arranged, and this is partly due to the fact that the cluster is relatively close to us, i.e. within our galaxy, hence the alternate name, 'galactic cluster'. These clusters are generally formed from the condensation of gas in a nebula into stars, and some are relatively young.
The photograph below shows a typical open cluster, M7
Galactic Cluster M7 in Scorpius
Outside the plane of our galaxy, there is a halo of Globular Clusters. These are very old, dense clusters, sometimes containing over a million stars. These stars are closer to each other than is usual, and because of its great distance from us, a globular cluster gives the impression of a solid mass of faint stars. Many other galaxies also have a halo of globular clusters circling around them.
The largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky is NGC 5139
Globular Cluster NGC 104 in Tucana
Another remarkable globular, second only to Omega Centauri, is well positioned for viewing in the
evenings this month. About two degrees to the right of the SMC
Observers aiming their telescopes towards the SMC generally also look at the nearby 47 Tucanae, but there is another globular cluster
nearby which is also worth a visit. This is NGC 362, which appears to lie above 47 Tucanae as we see it in
mid-evening this month. It is less than half as bright as the other globular, but this is because it is more than twice as far away.
Its distance is 12.6 kiloparsecs or 41 000 light years, so it is about one-fifth of the way from our galaxy to the SMC. Both
NGC 104 and NGC 362 are always above the horizon for all parts of Australia south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
* M42:This number means that the Great Nebula in Orion is No. 42 in a list of 103 astronomical objects compiled and published in 1784 by Charles Messier. Charles was interested in the discovery of new comets, and his aim was to provide a list for observers of fuzzy nebulae and clusters which could easily be reported as comets by mistake. Messier's search for comets is now just a footnote to history, but his list of 103 objects is well known to all astronomers today, and has even been extended to 110 objects.
** NGC 5139: This number means that Omega Centauri is No. 5139 in the New General Catalogue of Non-stellar Astronomical Objects. This catalogue was first published in 1888 by J. L. E. Dreyer under the auspices of the Royal Astronomical Society, as his New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. As larger telescopes built early in the 20th century discovered fainter objects in space, and also dark, obscuring nebulae and dust clouds, the NGC was supplemented with the addition of two Index Catalogues (IC). Many non-stellar objects in the sky have therefore NGC numbers or IC numbers. For example, the famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion is catalogued as IC 434. The NGC was revised in 1973, and lists 7840 objects.
The recent explosion of discovery in astronomy has meant that more and more catalogues are being produced, but they tend to specialise in particular types of objects, rather than being all-encompassing, as the NGC / IC try to be. Some examples are the Planetary Nebulae Catalogue (PK) which lists 1455 nebulae, the Washington Catalogue of Double Stars (WDS) which lists 12 000 binaries, the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) which lists 28 000 variables, and the Principal Galaxy Catalogue (PGC) which lists 73 000 galaxies. The largest modern catalogue is the Hubble Guide Star Catalogue (GSC) which was assembled to support the Hubble Space Telescope's need for guide stars when photographing sky objects. The GSC contains nearly 19 million stars brighter than magnitude 15.
High in the south, to the left of Achernar, two large smudges of light may be seen. These are the two Clouds of Magellan, known to astronomers as the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud) and the SMC (Small Magellanic Cloud). The LMC is to the left and slightly above the SMC, and is noticeably larger. They lie at a distance of about 200 000 light years, and are about 60 000 light years apart. They are dwarf galaxies, and they circle our own much larger galaxy, the Milky Way. They are linked to our Galaxy by a long arc of hydrogen, the Magellanic Stream. The LMC is a little closer, but this does not account for its larger appearance. It really is larger than the SMC, and has developed as an under-sized barred spiral galaxy.
From our latitude both Magellanic Clouds are circumpolar. This means that they are closer to the South Celestial Pole than that Pole's altitude above the horizon, so they never dip below the horizon. They never rise nor set, but are always in our sky. Of course, they are not visible in daylight, but they are there, all the same.
The Large Magellanic Cloud - the
bright knot of gas to left of centre is the famous Tarantula Nebula
These two Clouds are the closest galaxies to our own, but lie too far south to be
seen by the large telescopes in Hawaii, California and Arizona. They are 15 times closer than the famous Andromeda and
Triangulum galaxies referred to above, and so can be observed in much clearer detail. Our great observatories in
Australia, both radio and optical, have for many years been engaged in important research involving these, our nearest inter-galactic neighbours.
If we look at ninety degrees to the plane, either straight up and out of the galaxy or straight down, we are looking through comparatively few stars and gas clouds and so can see out into deep space. These are the directions of the north and south galactic poles, and because we have a clear view in these directions to distant galaxies, these parts of the sky are called the intergalactic windows. The southern window is in the constellation Sculptor, not far from the star Fomalhaut. This window is reasonably well-placed for viewing this month, and many distant galaxies can be observed in this area of the sky. The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, a photograph with an exposure of one million seconds to detect faint objects at the edge of the observable universe, was taken in this direction. The northern window is between the constellations Virgo and Coma Berenices, roughly between the stars Denebola and Arcturus. It is below the horizon in the evenings this month but will rise after midnight.
Some of the fainter and apparently insignificant constellations are found around these windows, and their lack of bright stars, clusters and gas clouds presents us with the opportunity to look across billions of light years of space to untold millions of distant galaxies.
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