“No, it’s Jupiter!”

Actually, it’s both! The two bright planets move closer together in the western sky after sunset, confusing and bedazzling stargazers all over the world. The two planets are 40 degrees apart at the start of the month, and just 12 degrees apart by month’s end. To tell which is which, remember Venus is always brighter. The Moon brushed past the two bright planets in late January, and will do so again later this month. And the planet Mars is just four weeks from its closest approach to Earth for the next two years.

Here’s what’s happening in the sky this month…

7 Feb. Full Moon (21:54 Universal Coordinated Time)

9 Feb. Mars appears just northeast of a waning gibbous Moon. The Red Planet rises in the early evening and is well positioned to view before midnight.

After hovering in the late-night and early morning sky for the past month, Mars becomes visible in the constellation Leo in the late evening sky. It reaches magnitude -1.2 by month’s end on the way to its closest approach to Earth this year on March 5. This isn’t a great apparition… the planet is not as close as past years… but you can see large surface markings and the polar caps with a small telescope at high magnification.

* * * Highly Recommended * * *

Ready to see deeper into the night sky?  Stargazing for Beginners takes you on an easy-to-follow binocular tour of the stars and main constellations. No telescope required!  Click here to learn more…

Mars and the Moon as seen at 11 p.m. local time February 9, 2012 in the mid-northern hemisphere (click to enlarge)

9 Feb. In a telescope, you can see the tiny disk of Uranus just 1/3 of a degree south of bright Venus.

12, 13 Feb. The Moon passes the bright star Spica and the planet Saturn over these two days in the southeastern sky well after mighnight. Spica shines with a bright white light, and may twinkle a little. Saturn shines with steadier sand-colored glow. Saturn will reach its closest to Earth in mid-April. This month, it’s best seen after midnight.

14 Feb. Last Quarter Moon (17:04 UTC)

21 Feb. New Moon (22:35 UTC)

22 Feb. A very thin 1-day old crescent Moon lies near the bright planet Mercury just after sunset. Use binoculars to see the pair.

Mercury and the 1-day old crescent Moon, as seen on February 22, 2012 after sunset (click to enlarge).

23, 24 Feb. A waxing crescent Moon climbs in the western sky after sunset towards brilliant Venus.

25, 26 Feb.The Moon moves past Venus and towards Jupiter over these two days. Venus is brighter, with magnitude -4.3 this month, while Jupiter shines at magnitude -2.2.  (See image of the two planets at top of page, courtesy Bullit Marquez/AP)

Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon as seen at 7:30 p.m. local time looking west on February 25, 2012 (click to enlarge)

28, 29 Feb. The Moon moves towards the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.

28 Feb. through March 7. Mercury lies 10 degrees above the western horizon after sunset. This is the best chance to see Mercury in the evening sky this year.

29 Feb. This is a “leap day”, the extra day added to the calendar every four years. Most years have 365 days, but it takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds to move all the way around the Sun. To keep the calendar aligned to the Sun’s position, we add one full day every four years.  There are no leap days in years divisible by 100, unless the year is divisible by 400.

1 Mar. First Quarter Moon (01:21 UTC)

Gamma Velorum shines at magnitude 1.7. The primary star consists of two unresolvable stars. One is a massive evolved star — a Wolf-Rayet star — that’s shedding mass at a rapid rate. A few million years ago, the star had a mass of 40 suns. Today, it’s slimmed down to “only” 10 solar masses. The escaping hot gas causes the curious spectral signature of this star. This massive star has a close, massive blue O-type companion that revolves around the Wolf-Rayet star once every 79 days.

* * * Highly Recommended * * *

Discover the exotic delights of the deep-southern night sky! Stargazing for Beginners takes you on an easy-to-follow binocular tour of the southern stars, constellations, and bright deep-sky sights. No telescope required! Click here to learn more…

The star gamma Velorum (Regor), highlighted in cross-hairs at center (click to enlarge).

About 41″ to the south-southwest lies a 4th-magnitude blue-white star that’s easily resolved in binoculars or small telescope at low power. Recent surveys by the Hipparchos satellite revealed this star is not physically associated with its brighter neighbor. Another 8.5-magnitude companion is visible 62.3” away from the primary. A second double star is located 94” away from the primary. This double is split by just 1.8” and has components with magnitude 9.4 and 13.5.

Gamma Velorum lies 530 light years away.  It’s visible only south of 35°N latitude.

The name of the star, Suhail, causes some confusion because the star lambda Velorum is also called Suhail. But gamma Velorum also has a more modern name. It was coined by astronaut Virgil (Gus) Grissom, the commander of the first Apollo mission. The crew of Apollo 1 planned to use gamma Velorum to help navigate their spacecraft. Grissom jokingly called the star “Regor”, after his crewmate Roger Chaffee (Regor is Roger spelled backwards). After the ghastly accidental fire that claimed the lives of Grissom, Chaffee and their fellow astronaut Edward White on January 27, 1967, the name Regor was informally adopted as the name of this fascinating star system.

Bonus Object: Turn your gaze just 1 degree south of Regor to see the fine T-shaped open cluster NGC 2547. The shape is visible in binoculars, and the cluster opens up nicely in a small telescope. NGC 2547 is sometimes called “St. Peter’s Cross”.

First, you need a camera. Nearly any digital camera will work. A SLR (single-lens reflex) give you more flexibility and lets you switch to faster lenses, but even a point-and-shoot will work if you have control over the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO speed. You might need the camera manual for this!

And you need a tripod. It’s just as important as the camera, since there’s no way to hold the camera steady for the relatively long exposures need to image aurorae. You don’t need a $300 tripod for this… a simple one will do. Even those little backpack-friendly Gorilla-Pods can work well.

A DSLR on a tripod (credit: Jerry Lodriguss)

Now here’s what to do when you’re graced with a good display of aurorae overhead…

• Put the camera on a tripod.

• Set the lens’ aperture to its fastest setting (if you have a DSLR, select a wide-field lens, not a telephoto); you want a setting of f/2.8, f/3.5, or f/4… even f/5.6 works well enough.

• Set the focal length to its widest setting if you have a zoom lens. If you have an 18mm-55mm zoom, for example, choose something closer to 18mm.

• Focus on infinity (it may help to pre-focus on a distant object when there’s still some light)

• Aim the camera to frame what you want to shoot: the aurorae.  Don’t just shoot the sky… make sure there’s something interesting in the foreground… trees, houses, mountains, whatever… it makes for a more dramatic image.

• Set the ISO to 1600 (or as high as your camera allows)

• Open the shutter for 10 seconds to 1 minute. Use a remote shutter release or the built-in timer to avoid shaking the camera. Any longer than 1 minute, and you may see some star trailing, and the aurora themselves may start to blur because of their apparent motion.

• Close the shutter (which will likely happen automatically, depending on your camera)

That’s it!

Now take a look at your image (don’t move the camera yet). Is the aurora bright enough? If not, set the shutter to open longer. If the aurora is too bright, set a shorter shutter time. Experiment will many shutter settings… digital images are free. You can always pick the best one later.

If you get a really good image, send it to me and I’ll share it with your fellow readers!!

Note: If you want to learn how to image all aspects of the night sky with a digital camera, why not learn from the best? Master astrophotographer Jerry Lodriguss shares all his secret with you, and you can learn more from him right here…

(Image at top of page credit: Jan Curtis)

This enigmatic object lies nearly 1º south of iota Orionis at the south end of the Orion Nebula, M42 (see map below).  At 20-30x, the nebula looks like a fuzzy star; at 50-75x, the object looks like a faint star wrapped in icy mist.

Increase magnification to 150x to see the unusual nature of this nebula.  Look carefully for a keyhole-shaped gap in the middle of the reflection nebula itself.  When astronomers first noticed this gap more than a century ago, and others like it (such as the Horsehead Nebula), they believed it was simply a region without stars.  In time, astronomers discovered that most such gaps are not voids, but simply dark clouds of cold dust in the foreground that block out the brighter background material.

*** Highly Recommended ***

A concise guide to observing the universe beyond our solar system.  Secrets of the Deep Sky includes tips on equipment selection and observing techniques, along with a tour of dozens of lovely sights in the north and south hemispheres. Click here to learn more…

NGC 1999 (in red circles), just south of the Orion Nebula

In 2010, the Herschel Space Observatory, peered into the dark gap of NGC 1999.  Herschel detects infrared light, and can look into dark nebula to see through to the stars within.  But the telescope detected… nothing.  In essence, the telescope verified that this particular dark patch in NGC 1999 is devoid of stars, dust, and any other material.  It really is an empty space.  No one yet knows why, but one theory holds that radiation from new stars within the nebula blast a hole in the surrounding dust.

The image at the top of this page, from the European Space Agency, shows in inset what the nebula looks like in visible light.  The main image shows the nebula as seen by the Herschel telescope, and it shows the keyhole-shaped gap in the upper left.

NGC 2169 is one of a handful of appealing object in the “club” of mighty Orion, above the Hunter’s shoulder marked by the bright orange star Betelgeuse. Look about 5º north-northeast of this star, first to 5th-magnitude μ (mu) Orionis then to the pair of stars ξ (xi) and ν (nu) Orionis. The 6th-magnitude open star cluster NGC 2169 sits just one degree west-southwest of xi (the easternmost star).

At moderate magnification, you’ll see in NGC 2169 about 15-20 stars of 7th magnitude or fainter arranged in two groups, both about 1/10 of a degree across. One group contains 6-7 stars and the other perhaps 10-12 stars. This cluster is sometimes called the “37 Cluster”, because the larger group forms the letter “3” and the smaller group forms the letter “7”. Depending on your optics, the numbers might be flipped left-to-right or upside down, so use your imagination to unscramble the numbers.  See image of the cluster above (credit Noel Carboni, from Astronomy Picture of the Day, Nov. 18, 2005)

NGC 2169 is about 3,400 light years from Earth and is just 8 million years old.

Position of star cluster NGC 2169 in Orion

Much further away, about 12,000 light years, lies the faint open cluster NGC 2194. Find it about 1.6° south-southeast of NGC 2169. In a 4 to 6-inch scope, this appears as a faint icy glow, with few of its brightest stars resolved even at 150x. In an 8-inch or larger scope, the cluster reveals a few more stars along with a silver unresolved background.

NOTE: This article is adapted from the upcoming guide “What To See in a Small Telescope: January-March”, which will be published by One-Minute Astronomer and Stargazer University in early February.

To find Kemble’s Cascade, sweep due east of the W-shaped Cassiopeia a distance equal to the span of the “W” itself, about 10 degrees (the width of your fist held at arm’s length).  The group consists of a 2.5 degree span of some 20 stars in a nearly-straight line running northwest to southeast. The stars are of 7th to 9th magnitude, with a single 5th-magnitude star mid-span.  You need binoculars or a wide-field telescope to see this group.  See the image above to see what to look for (image credit: Walter McDonald).  The asterism lies over the border of Cassiopeia in the constellation Cameloparadalis, the Giraffe.

The open star cluster NGC 1502 lies at the southeastern end of the cascade. This open cluster reveals some 25-30 stars in a triangular pattern in a small telescope at 60-70x.

**********  Highly Recommended **********

Discover how to take great astro-photos with your digital camera.  Capture images of the crescent moon and Venus at sunset, or the nebulae of Orion rising over the trees above the eastern horizon  No experience required.  Click here to learn more…

****************************************

This asterism was first noted by Lucien Kemble as he scanned the sky with 7×35 binoculars. Kemble sent his description of this asterism to the great astronomy writer Walter Scott Houston at Sky and Telescope magazine. Houston published Kemble’s remarks in December of 1980, and referred to the group as Kemble’s Cascade from there on.

Lucien Kemble was a respected deep-sky observer in the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC). In addition to his religious training and duties, Kemble diligently observed the deep sky, recording his observations of more than 5,000 objects with his 11″ telescope under the clear skies of Saskatchewan. Kemble passed away in 1999.

Location of Kemble's Cascade (click to enlarge)

Astronomers refer to Jupiter’s four largest moons as the Galilean satellites, since they were first observed by the great Galileo in 1609. Each of Jupiter’s moons is a distinct world in its own right, and each is influenced and influenced by its proximity to Jupiter itself.

From nearest to Jupiter to farthest, the four Galilean moons are:

Io, a red-orange sulphuric hell-hole of a world, where volcanos spray molten lava high into space. Io shouldn’t have a molten core– it’s too small– but the gravitational push and pull of Jupiter kneads the core of this small world, and keeps it perpetually active.

Europa is slightly smaller than our Moon, but it’s much lighter. The surface is smooth and free of craters, but long cracks criss-cross the surface. Fly-bys of NASA satellites suggest Europa has a liquid-water ocean miles under its icy surface, and some planetary scientists think the moon’s hot core may furnish enough energy and minerals to stimulate the formation of simple life forms.

* * * Highly Recommended * * *

Find the exotic delights of the southern night sky! Stargazing for Beginners (Southern Hemisphere) takes you on an easy-to-follow binocular tour of the southern stars, constellations, and bright deep-sky sights. No telescope required! Click here to learn more…

Jupiter's moon Europa (courtesy NASA)

Ganymede also has a smooth, glassy surface with patches of older, cratered material. The moon is the largest in the solar system, outsizing even Mercury and Pluto. The geology of this moon is not well understood.

Callisto, the most distant of the four moons, is geologically dead as a doornail. Like Mercury and our own Moon, its surface is strewn with craters, which means not much has happened here since the early days of the solar system.

When you look at the four Galiliean moons through optics, it’s not always apparent which is which. Callisto may appear closer to Jupiter’s disc than Io as it prepares to pass behind the planet, for example. Sky and Telescope magazine provides a useful and free tool to help you find the positions of all four moons at any time:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/38135094.html

You can clearly see the moons of Jupiter move over the course of an hour or less. It’s great fun to track them during an evening, especially when the moons pass in front or behind Jupiter, or when they cast a shadow on the big planet. The above link also gives times of such events.

At 100x or more, you can resolve the discs of each of the moons, which are all brighter than 5th magnitude and would be visible without optics if not for the glare of Jupiter. With large, high-quality telescopes and dead-steady seeing, some amateurs have even reported seeing markings on the moons!

Philosophers have debated the question for centuries. Clerics claim nature is the work of a divine hand. And modern scientists use a mix of logic, mathematics, and experiment seek the fundamental physical principles to explain why the universe behaves as it does.

But what if there’s a simple explanation for it all?

What if the universe is as it is because if it was different, mankind (and any other intelligent life) wouldn’t be here to think about it?

This apparently obvious and seemingly absurd observation is known as the anthropic principle.

It has some basis in scientific fact. Scientists have calculated that if the physical laws in our universe were just a tiny bit different, we (or any other intelligent life) could not exist. For example, if the force that holds atomic nuclei together were just a few percent stronger, the hydrogen atoms created after the Big Bang would have fused into helium atoms, and no hydrogen would remain. No hydrogen means no water, no organic molecules, and no life.

* * * Highly Recommended * * *

Ready to see deeper into the night sky? Stargazing for Beginners takes you on an easy-to-follow binocular tour of the stars and main constellations. No telescope required! Click here to learn more…

* * * * * * * * * *

On the other hand, if the nuclear force was a tiny bit weaker, larger atoms like carbon and iron which are essential to complex life could not hold together. Again, no life. So it seems the nuclear force (and other forces of nature) are finely balanced in a way to allow the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, and people (and perhaps other forms of intelligent life).

The anthropic principle is an interesting idea and makes for good after-dinner debate. But it is– so far– a concept of philosophy, not science.

To scientifically test the anthropic principle, we would have to examine the conditions in other universes, a feat which may, by definition, be impossible.

But those other universes may well exist. Recent cosmological theories suggest our universe is not unique, but just one of a nearly infinite number of other universes called the multiverse (current theories suggest some 10⁵⁰⁰ universes may exist, give or take). Of these many universes, some collapse after a fraction of a second, others have different physical laws not friendly to intelligent life, and yet others may hold other forms of matter not yet imagined.

According to this view, our universe– completely by chance– is “just right”, with physical laws balanced enough to allow the formation of complex material systems like atoms and molecules, stars and galaxies. And intelligent life, like us.

The anthropic principle is not a used to predict any aspect of our universe.  As a stand-alone idea, it’s a dead end.  Indeed, Steven Hawking called the anthropic principle “a counsel of despair”.   But it may simply be a natural consequence of the concept of the “multiverse”, that we happen to live in a habitable universe that allows intelligent life to form.  If our universe was otherwise, we wouldn’t be here to observe it.  But the idea that our universe takes its properties by chance, and not from any fundamental physical principle, is a depressing thought for many physicists who hope for a more satisfactory and elegant explanation of physical law.

The idea of the multiverse, that our universe is just one of countless others, is largely speculation, of course. But it puts the petty toils of everyday life into perspective. Because the fact that you, I, and all humanity are here at all to observe the universe, to look up into the night sky or enjoy a silent snowfall or the first blossoms of spring may simply be amazingly good luck.  We won the “multiverse lottery”, where our elementary particles get to inhabit an orderly and long-lived universe conducive to intelligent life.  This is surely a state of affairs to be celebrated and embraced, is it not?

January 1. First Quarter Moon (06:15 Universal Time)

4 Jan. Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede cast simultaneous shadows on the big planet from 6:27 to 7:57 UT. Given the constraints of daylight, this event is best viewed from the Americas. Use a telescope at 100x or more to see this event.

4 Jan. After watching shadows on Jupiter, grab a cup of hot coffee and head back outside to look for the brief but sometimes intense Quadrantids meteor shower between moonset and dawn on the early morning of January 4. The peak shower peaks this year about 07:00 to 08:00 UT, so North Americans will get the best view this year (if the prediction is correct). The shower is quite short… about 2 hours on either side of the peak. Western Europeans may see a few meteors before dawn. The radiant of the shower lies between the handle of the Big Dipper and the head of Draco in the now defunct constellation northern Quadrans Muralis.

4 Jan. Earth passes through perihelion, its closest point to the sun, at a distance of 147,097,907 km

4,5 Jan. The waxing gibbous Moon passes near the Pleiades (on Jan. 4) and the Hyades (on Jan. 5) in the constellation Taurus.

9 Jan. Full Moon (07:30 UT)

16 Jan. Last Quarter Moon (09:08 UT)

19 Jan. The bright star Antares lies just southwest of the crescent Moon in the southwest before dawn.

22 Jan. New Moon (07:39 UT)

22 Jan. Jupiter, which hovers fat and bright overhead all month, reaches quadrature (90 degrees east of the Sun). The planet fades slightly from magnitude -2.4 to -2.1. It also shrinks to an apparent diameter of 39″ (arcseconds) by month’s end. Still worth observing closely with a telescope.

Saturn, Mars, and bright stars Spica and Antares as seen looking south at 5 a.m. on January 25, 2012 at mid-northern latitudes. Southern observers will get a similar view looking nearly overhead. Click to enlarge.

24 Jan. Mars halts its eastward motion and retrogrades westward today. The red-orange planet brightens slightly, but it’s still small at just 12″ by month’s end. The planet reaches opposition on March 3. Some detail is visible now at high magnification in steady sky.

25, 26 Jan. Brilliant Venus is about 8 degrees from the crescent Moon. The bright planet shines at magnitude -4.1 all month in the southwestern sky after sunset.

27 Jan. Saturn rises near midnight. The best time to observe the planet is before dawn this month. The rings are tilted to a generous 15 degrees from edge-on. The planet lies near the bright star Spica in Virgo

31 Jan. Last Quarter Moon (04:10 UT)

First off, this star cluster is NOT dipper-shaped like the Pleiades.  It’s much less regular, with two distinct groupings of stars.  But it resembles the Pleiades in many other ways.

Like M45, many of this cluster’s brightest constituents, including the star theta Carinae itself and the 4th magnitude star V518 Carinae, are easily visible with the naked eye.  In all, the Theta Carinae cluster has about 10 stars brighter than 6th magnitude.

Also like the Pleiades, this cluster is quite young… just 30 million years old.  It’s some 500 light years away versus 450 light years for the Pleiades.  And like M45 it’s 15 light years across.

This cluster, like the Pleiades, is best viewed with binoculars or a wide-field telescope at low power.

* * * Highly Recommended * * *

Find the exotic delights of the southern night sky!  Stargazing for Beginners takes you on an easy-to-follow binocular tour of the southern stars, constellations, and bright deep-sky sights. No telescope required! Click here to learn more…

IC 2602, the “Southern Pleiades”, above center

Most of its 60 members are bright blue A and B-type stars, like M45.  But astronomers worked extra hard determining which stars belong to the cluster, and which are merely foreground and background stars in this dense section of the Milky Way.

The cluster, catalogued formally as IC2602, is found in the deep southern skies at RA 10h 43m and Dec -64d24m.  You’ll have a hard time seeing even from Hawaii or India.  For a good look, south of the equator is where you need to be.

Like many southern star clusters, the southern Pleiades were discovered by the diligent French astronomer Louis de Lacaille in 1755 during his star mapping sessions in South Africa.

Bonus Object: There are no shortages of things to see in this stretch of sky.  Just 3/4-degree south of the “Southern Pleiades”, look for another small open cluster called Melotte 101.