Astronomy news for the two weeks starting Friday, February 12,
2016.
The next skylights will appear February 26.
Happy Valentine's Day, and a belated Happy Groundhog Day, the
latter marking the halfway point in winter on our way to spring.
The Moon begins our fortnight in the fat waxing crescent phase, which ends at first quarter the night of Sunday, February
14, shortly after moonset in North America. It thereafter enters
the waxing gibbous phase as it heads
towards full Moon on Monday
the 22nd around noon. The Moon will thus be just shy of full the
evening of Sunday the 21st and just past the phase the night of
the 22nd. It then concludes our period in the waning gibbous phase. During our two weeks,
the Moon steadily moves away from us toward apogee, where
on Friday the 26th it will be farthest from Earth, a change of
only 5.5 percent from the average distance.
Watch the evening of Monday the 15th as the quarter Moon plows
through the southern part of the Hyades cluster in Taurus, covering stars as it goes, then finally
meeting up with Aldebaran in
the morning, the occultation of the star visible only from the
west coast. Look for the Pleiades to the northwest of the Moon. The night of
Sunday the 21st, the near-full Moon will appear west of the star
Regulus in Leo, while the following evening it
will lie between Regulus and bright
Jupiter. Then the night of Tuesday the 23rd we are in for a
treat as the Moon passes just a couple degrees south of the bright
planet.
Given Jupiter's angular proximity to the near-full Moon, it
obviously rises early, by 7:30 PM at the start of our fortnight
(just after the end of twilight), an hour earlier at the end of
it. Next up is Mars, which
rises just after midnight and shortly before Jupiter transits the
meridian, Mars well to the west-
northwest of Antares. Having a
similar color, the star's name means "rival of Mars." At about the
time Antares rises, so does Saturn, 2:30 AM as we
begin, 1:30 AM as we end, Mars and Saturn bracketing northern Scorpius and forming a nice triangle
with Antares. Finally, if you have a good southeastern horizon you
might spot Venus
glimmering up in morning twilight.
Orion rides high to the south
in early evening, Gemini (with
Castor and Pollux) to the northeast, Auriga (with Capella) above. To the southeast
of the Hunter glows white Sirius, the brightest star of the
sky and in winter nights the champion twinkler as its light is
jittered about by our irregular atmosphere. The planets on the
other hand shine with a steadier light, the result of their being
extended disks that average out the twinkling suffered by the
near-points of light that are the stars.
