We begin the week with the waxing crescent
Moon visiting Venus. The
night of Thursday, January 29, the Moon will appear just down and
somewhat to the right of the planet, while by the following night,
that of Friday the 30th, the Moon will have moved to the other
side, and appear above and a bit to the left of Venus. The
crescent then takes leave as it moves northward toward first quarter, the phase reached the evening
of Monday, February 2, to celebrate Groundhog Day, a "cross quarter
day" that marks the halfway point from the beginning of
winter to that of spring. The Moon thence grows and brightens
in the waxing gibbous phase.
The evening of Tuesday the 3rd, the just-past-quarter Moon then
passes just to the north of the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus, even occulting some of the stars as seen from
northern North America. Use binoculars for a very pretty
sight.
Then its back to Venus, the
planet glowing gloriously high in the southwest in twilight.
Though the Sun is catching up to it, Venus still marginally sets
ever later, and will until the middle of the month, not setting
until after 9 PM. Glowing a creamy white when high, the planet is
so bright that it can be seen close to the horizon, where it
becomes reddened like the setting Sun. As our week
begins, Venus moves across the celestial equator and enters the sky's
northern hemisphere not far from the Vernal Equinox in Pisces. By the time Venus goes down,
Saturn is rising in the east, still residing on far
southeastern Leo just to the west
of the border with Virgo. Look
for it high to the south around 2:30 AM.
As January turns into February, Orion hunts high to the south in mid-evening. While
the striking constellation is
surrounded by other bright figures, it also marks the beginning of
Eridanus, the celestial river,
which starts with Cursa (Beta
Eridani), a star seen just up and the to right of Rigel, which lies at Orion's
southwestern corner. Eridanus then winds to the west before
plunging out of sight below North America's southern horizon.
