Photo of the Week. Rusty evening clouds highlight a
waxing crescent Moon.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, February 6, 2009.
Beginning the week in the late waxing
gibbous phase, the Moon heads toward
full phase shortly after
moonset the morning of Monday, February 9 (perigee, the
Moon closest to Earth, taking
place two days earlier). The evening of the 9th, the just-past full Moon will
thus rise just after sunset. The remainder of the week finds it waning in the gibbous phase. The night of
Tuesday the 10th, the Moon will appear to the west of
Saturn, while on that of Wednesday the 11th, it will have moved
to the east of the ringed planet.
On Monday the 9th, the full Moon will undergo an
eclipse; but don't get very excited about it. First, it's not
visible in North America (except in the far northwest), and second,
it's "penumbral." That is, the Moon passes only through the region
of partial shadow of the Earth. From the Moon's point of view, the
Earth blocks only part of the Sun. The dimming from such penumbral eclipses is only
barely recognizable.
Venus remains glorious high in the southwest in
early evening. Later in
the week it sets as late as it will during this appearance, shortly
after 9 PM. It is now only marginally brightening, reaching
maximum brilliance (magnitude -4.8, some 20 times brighter than Sirius) next week. On the other side
of the sky, Mercury hits
greatest western elongation on Friday the 13th, rendering it fairly
visible in the southeast in morning twilight. In between, Saturn rises to
the southeast of Regulus in Leo ever earlier, now around 8 PM,
well before Venus sets, the ringed planet crossing the meridian to the south around 2 AM. Above
it all,
Neptune passes conjunction with the Sun on Thursday the
12th.
As the saying goes, "you can't hardly take your eyes off Orion." But for awhile do, and look
to the southeast of the Hunter's figure to note brilliant Sirius in
Canis Major. If you live in the
far southern US, find a clear southern horizon to note Canopus in Carina (part of the great Ship Argo), after Sirius the sky's second brightest star.
In between the two lies the sprawling figure of Puppis, the Stern of the Ship. In the
other direction, to the north of Sirius, are the dim stars of the
modern constellation, Monoceros,
the Unicorn.
