Mars at its closest.

There’s a couple of high points this week both involving Mars, though perhaps I should qualify that, high points may be pushing it a little, maybe a couple of less subterranean would be more apt. Tonight the red planet is at its closest point to us until 2012, and its at its brightest. It’s a mere 63 million miles away, nowhere near as close as in 2003 when it was as close as 35,000,000 miles, the closest it’s been for at least 5000 years. It appears brighter than at any point between 2008 and 2012. At magnitude -1.3 it’s just a shade dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which is far to Mars's right in the southeast.

And if you’ve been following the saga of Spirit, the Mars rover that Nasa landed 6 years ago, which is still functioning, you’ll know that there’s a lot of evidence that Mars was once a lot warmer and wetter than it is now, which considering its freezing cold and bone dry is plausible. So what happened, it’s obvious really the Martians, bless them, didn’t use their compositors adequately, flew off on too many gas guzzling skiing holidays on Olympus Mons and drove their children to school when they should have made them walk.
And on Friday Mars is at opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's sky. So it will be rising and setting with Friday’s full Moon. And the Moon is at perigee, the closest point to us in its orbit making this the largest and brightest full Moon, by a little bit, of the year. And if you happen to be on Mars looking Earthward, well the blue planet will be invisible buried in the heart of the sun, much like Venus is for us at the moment. If you want to find Mars it’s pretty easy, because its in opposition it where the sun would be 12 hours before. So it’s rising in the SE at sunset, it pokes hits little red head over the horizon at 5:03 and is due South at midnight, very red and very bright, it's in Cancer, nearly midway between Regulus below it and Pollux and Castor above it.
And we have three other planets to see this week.
Mercury is having a good morning apparition. Look for it low in the southeast about an hour before sunrise
Venus is hidden behind the glare of the Sun.
Jupiter still very bright shines in the west-southwest in twilight and sets soon after dark.
Saturn rises in the east around 10 p.m. and stands highest in the south around 4 a.m. In earliest dawn, trace the huge, horizontal line of Spica, Saturn, Regulus, Mars, and Pollux all the way from high in the south to lower in the west-northwest
And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 130th anniversary of the installation of the first electric streetlight Wabash, Indiana.

Rather Cold

The sky at this time of year is as good as it gets, the summer constellations which pale in comparison with the winter stars are firmly lodged in the daylight sky, and we have Orion, Taurus Gemini and the little Pleiades star cluster dominating the southern sky all night. To the north is Polaris, the great and little bears and Cassiopeia much higher and looking much brighter than they do in the summer. And with the cold nights there’s less atmospheric distortion, but there’s the rub it’s to cold to stand around looking even with a Radio Scilly Winter Weight Hoody. And going out to set up a telescope is a lost cause. So most of us at this time of year only see the sky when walking between one warm environment and another.

One New Years Day there was a spectacular tilted Rhombus, that’s a diamond shape, in the South Eastern Sky, Betelgeuse the red giant on Orion’s shoulder making one point, brilliant Procyon, I can pronounce it now, making the lower point, Mars very bright now in the East the furthest point and Pollux in Gemini the upper point suitably embellished with the almost full moon in the middle. Of course the moons moved on now, but the loop sided diamond is still there in the S eastern sky, becoming ever more loop sided as Mars moved further to the west.

We’re down to 3 visible planets again now, Mercury and Venus are hidden behind the sun, Venus will appear again in the Sunset in late February. Mars (a bright magnitude –0.8, in Leo) rises in the east-northeast around 7 or 8 p.m. local time, far below Castor and Pollux and a bit to the left. About an hour later, dimmer Regulus rises about a fist-width beneath it. By 2 or 3 a.m. Mars and Regulus are highest in the south, now lined up horizontally.

In a telescope Mars is 13 arcseconds wide, nearly as large as it will become during this apparition. The north polar cap is in good view, bordered by a wide dark collar.. Mars will pass closest to Earth on January 27th, when it will be 14.1 arcseconds wide.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.1, at the Capricorns-Aquarius border) shines brightly in the southwest in twilight, but lower after dark. It sets around 8 p.m. With binoculars you will be able to see up to 4 of the giant planets 63 named moons.

Saturn in the head of Virgo rises in the east around 11 and stands highest in the south before dawn. Saturn’s rings are narrow, tilted 5° from edge-on to us, their maximum tilt until next August, but it’s still pretty dim.

And remember its January 6th today, so you’d better take down your decorations or something dreadful may happen, maybe all the doom and gloom predicted in Island Parish will come true, than we’ll all have to go live on the mainland, if anything survives the snow that is.

That was your Scilly Stars for the week ending on the 237th anniversary of the opening of the first public Colonial American museum in Charleston, South Carolina.