10-01-2009 January Night Sky (Article 170)

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Simon Kenny
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Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:17 pm
Location: Shannon, Co. Clare, Ireland

10-01-2009 January Night Sky (Article 170)

Post by Simon Kenny » Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:19 am

January Night Sky (Article 170)

With January upon us, we’re entering into the month that usually holds the coldest nights of the year, when the skies are clear we’re almost guaranteed a hard frost. At the start of the month, you will see the planet Venus rising higher in the evening sky (6pm) as the month goes on. The planet has been visible for the past 2 months or so but will now become easier to see with only the Sun and Moon brighter than it. By the end of the month it will be nearly 20 million miles nearer to the Earth then it is at the start of the month, this means that it is brightening and will become bigger as seen through a telescope. On the 1st and 30th of January the crescent Moon passes within a few degrees of Venus making for a nice view in the evening sky.
Saturn rises above the eastern horizon after midnight, through a telescope you can see that the rings are almost edge on, by the end of the month they will have opened up very slightly. This provides us with an opportunity to observe the many moons of Saturn crossing its disk; these are only visible in a sizable telescope. Transit times for these moons can be found on the internet. The planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are not observable this month due to their proximity to the Sun.
This month presents us with a great opportunity to observe some of the best constellations in the sky; constellations such as Orion and Taurus just to name a few. You can see from the map printed here, that Orion resembles the general shape of a person holding up a club and fleece. The Orion nebula (aka M42) is a star cloud in space lying in what is known as the sword of Orion and is visible as a fuzzy patch to the unaided eye just below the 3 central stars of Orion, these 3 stars are known as Orion’s belt. Through a telescope this area of the sky looks marvelous as it is littered with many faint stars with the nebula been the showcase object.
The moon is at its first quarter (half moon) on January the 4th (best seen in the evening), full moon is on the 11th (best seen around midnight) and last quarter is on the 18th (best seen in the early morning) with new moon on the 26th.
This month’s club meeting is on Wednesday the 14th of January in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick and our guest speak is the club secretary Frank Ryan, he will be discussing Astrophotography.

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