SKYLIGHTS
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, January 5, 2001.
Welcome not to the turn of the odometer (to 2000), but to the turn
of the Millennium itself, not to mention the 21st Century and the
New Year, 2001. We begin with the Moon heading toward its full
phase, reached on Tuesday the 9th. Having just had a solar eclipse
last Christmas Day, we get a lunar eclipse this full Moon (if
conditions are right for a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse will
commonly precede or follow). This one will be total and a beauty,
but for Europe, Asia, and Africa, not for the Americas. This full
Moon will be the second highest of the year, shining from amidst
the stars of Gemini. The highest will occur next December, when
the Moon will also be eclipsed, bookending the year. (That eclipse
will not be visible in the Americas either, no loss, since it will
be a penumbral partial-shadow eclipse, which is essentially a non-
event). Lunar perigee takes place only a day after full
(Wednesday, the 10th), the combination of full, near-perigee, and
near-perihelion (for Earth) producing exceptionally high ocean
tides.
While approaching full, the Moon will make beautiful configurations
with the two giant planets, Saturn and Jupiter, which are both
still in retrograde against the stars of Taurus. The night of
Friday, the 5th, the waxing gibbous Moon will pass just beneath
Saturn, while the following night it will be down and to the left
of Jupiter, at the same time just above Taurus's brightest star,
first magnitude Aldebaran, all this action taking place above the
sky's brightest constellation, great Orion. One can hardly ignore
Venus, however, shining brilliantly in the southwest at sundown.
If you stay up after midnight, also note Mars, which now rises
around 2 AM and continues to brighten among the stars of
Libra.
Directly north of Jupiter and Saturn, find the hero of the
Andromeda myth, Perseus, which passes roughly overhead in mid-
northern latitudes and contains a bright portion of the Milky Way.
The constellation is especially known for naked-eye clusters. The
most famed, the Double Cluster, lies to the northwest of the bright
string of stars that make the most prominent part of the
constellation. Just barely visible without optical power, it is a
marvelous sight in a small telescope. Hardly recognizable as a
cluster is central Perseus itself, making Perseus one of the
constellations that are not made just of random stars, but of those
that are at least in part physically associated. Much the same is
true for Orion. Though not a cluster bound by gravity, many of the
stars are in loose association, their births connected in both time
and space. Look in particular for the famed "belt," the Arabs
"string of pearls," which nearly straddles the celestial equator
and lies above the most famed of all interstellar gas clouds, the
Orion Nebula.
