- Star Trails and a Winter Moon - Benjamin Earwicker
The moon sees a lot of action this January as it passes well-known sky objects and passes in front of the sun for northern parts of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The Partial Solar Eclipse of January 4
The moon passes in front of a portion of the sun as seen from northern Africa, almost all of Europe, and western Asia on January 4. The eclipse begins at 6:40 UTC, with the moment of greatest eclipse at 8:51 UTC and finishing by 11:00 UTC. The amount of sun that will be eclipsed varies by location, with areas farther south seeing a smaller eclipse and those areas farther north (London, Moscow, etc.) will see more of an eclipsed sun. It goes without saying that a partial eclipse must be viewed with special eclipse glasses.
There are four partial solar eclipses this year, but the June 1 eclipse occurs over north polar regions, the July 1 eclipse occurs over a small portion of frigid ocean off the coast of Antarctica, and the November 25 eclipse occurs over Antarctica, the southern areas of South Africa and parts of Tasmania and New Zealand.
Jupiter and Uranus's Close Encounter
For the first 11 days of January, Jupiter and Uranus are less than a degree apart. Jupiter is bright in the southwest, shining at magnitude -2.4. Uranus shines at magnitude 6 and is best found with binoculars or, even better, a telescope. On January 1, Uranus will be to Jupiter's upper right. On the 3rd and 4th, Uranus will have moved in to less than a half degree of Jupiter, their closest pairing. On January 5 the two are nearly side by side, and in the days afterward Uranus sinks to Jupiter's lower right. Remember that through a telescope the view is inverted, meaning Uranus will start out the month looking as if it's to the lower left and moving to the upper left.
The Quadrantid Meteor Shower
Overnight from January 3 to 4, the Quadrantid meteor shower rains down as many as 90 meteors an hour. The meteors appear to come from a region of space between Bootes and Hercules, a region that was once a constellation known as Quadrans Muralis, explaining how the Quadrantids got their name. The comet 2003 EH1 is the parent of this debris path that creates the meteors.
Tracking the Moon
The moon passes a number of bright or interesting objects over the course of the month. Below is a list of pretty pairings or other notable events.
- January 7, after sunset, the crescent moon is 5 degrees to the upper right of magnitude 8 Neptune.
- January 9, after sunset, the 28%-lit moon is less than 8 degrees to Jupiter and Uranus's lower right.
- January 10, the moon is above Jupiter.
- January 14 and 15, the moon is by the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus.
- January 16, the moon is below El Nath.
- January 18, the moon is above Procyon and below the twins (Castor and Pollux) of Gemini.
- January 19 is the full Wolf Moon at 4:21 p.m. EST.
- January 21, the moon is below Regulus.
- January 24, the moon is below Saturn and beside Spica in the late evening.
- January 29 and 30, the moon passes Venus in the hours before sunrise.
Source: Celestron's The Sky Software
Kelly Whitt - I have been a professional writer for more than a decade, covering many topics from science-based articles to do-it-yourself home ...
