The Flatulence of Goats

At this time of year, Orion stands at his highest in the south after dusk. His top-left star is bright, red Betelgeuse, a bloated giant star nearing the end of its life. It’s consumed most of its hydrogen and turned it to helium, and it will keep on moving up the periodic table until it gets to iron, if its big enough, when it’s energy gone it will collapse on itself and turn into a super dense white dwarf. If it was a little bigger, well quite a lot bigger, like Mr Creosote, the collapse would trigger an enormous explosion and form a super nova, but its too small so it won’t. That’s a sad little story if I ever heard one, but don’t get to maudlin it will still be up there glowing red and podgy long after we’re all gone. Anyway I’m banging on about it because Betelgeuse, if you’ve forgotten forms part of the Winter Triangle (which is almost equilateral) with Procyon to its left and bright white Sirius below them both.

Tonight Castor and Pollux the twins in Gemini are left of the Moon, there’s a guide on the blog. And tomorrow the bright, fiery "star" near the gibbous Moon is Mars. A telescope reveals that Mars too is becoming gibbous; it's now nearly a month past opposition.

On Friday the Moon, Mars, Pollux, and Castor form a long, ragged across the Southern sky. And on Saturday, the "star" over the Moon is Regulus, as seen above.

As for the planets we only really have two this week, Mercury as usual is lost in the glow of the sun. Venus a very bright -3.9 is barely emerging from deep in the sunset. Look for it just above the west-southwest horizon about 20 minutes after sundown. Despite its brightness it won’t show well being so close to the setting sun.

Mars, still bright, but dimming now, shines high in the east at dusk and is highest in the south around 10 p.m. It's in Cancer, below Pollux and Castor after dark

Jupiter is hidden behind the glare of the Sun, it will be while now until it remerges in the dawn sky in the spring.

Saturn’s not overly bright rises in the east around 8 p.m. and stands highest in the south around after midnight

Now I must confess to a little misinformation last week, when I told you I’d missed the close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter last Tuesday evening. I recorded on Monday because I was travelling on Tuesday and assumed I’d miss it. Well as luck would have it, I had a starboard window seat on the plane looking west and as the sun set over northern France at 37,000 feet, though I have to take the pilots word for that, both planets were showing well beneath the tiny sickle moon. It was quite impressive more for the deep blue sky you get 8,000 feet higher than Everest; I’ve put an enhanced photo on the blog

Venus and Jupiter setting over France on the 16th Feb.

And that was your Scilly Stars for the week ending on the 77th anniversary of King Kong opening at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

Orion Nebula

The Great Nebula In Orion's Belt

Not a huge amount to get excited about this week, pretty well all we’ve got at the moment is Mars and Saturn. Mercury has cleared off again and Venus is about to turn up next week.

The stars are still all there of course and if you get the chance take a look at Orion while it’s so high, if you’re your eyes are good you will be able to see a fuzzy patch in his belt, but it’s easily seen with binoculars. This is the Orion Nebula (aka M42, or NGC 1976). It is one of the brightest nebulae; it’s located at a distance of 1,350 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. And its enormous at an estimated 24 light years across

The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula. There are also supersonic "bullets" of gas piercing the dense hydrogen clouds of the Orion Nebula. Each bullet is ten times the diameter of Pluto's orbit and tipped with iron atoms glowing bright blue, real Jovian thunder bolts if you like.

But mercifully it’s much quieter around here.
Mercury after a brief reappearance is sinking back into the sunrise. Look for it just above the east-southeast horizon about 30 minutes before sunup. Binoculars help. Venus is hidden nearby but she’s on the way back.

Mars, fiery bright at magnitude –1.1, shines in the east-northeast in twilight and higher in the east later. It's in Cancer, more than halfway from Regulus below it to Pollux and Castor above. Mars is highest in the south by midnight. Dramatic things are happening on Mars's north polar cap (bottom) as it shrinks in the Martian springtime. With billowing white clouds, and dust storms, unfortunately the clouds are co2 as is the ice at the poles. And if you’re an idiot like me and got your hand painfully stuck to a lump of dry ice as a kid, you’ll know just how cold it is. Mars has ice caps at both its north and south poles. The perennial or permanent portion of the north polar cap consists almost entirely of water ice. In the northern hemisphere winter, this gains a seasonal coating of frozen carbon dioxide about three feet thick.

Jupiter now almost gone is descending into the sunset glow low in the west-southwest. But it will be in a close sunset conjunction with Venus on the 16th.

Saturn’s in Virgo and rises in the east around 9 p.m, standing highest in the south around 2 a.m. I’ve not seen it yet this yet, but it will get easier to find as the year progresses.
Now I rarely mention the outer planets because they’re so dim and distant, and on Uranus can be seen with the naked eye. Uranus and Neptune are hidden in the glare of the Sun. Pluto is low in the southeast before dawn, but I defy any one to find it, I know I couldn’t. As usual I’ve put some guides up on the blog and will attempt another video this week, but they are a little time consuming.
Now on a more serious note sadly we must return to the Black Shadow and a particularly poignant plea from a little girl who must remain nameless. In early December the Black Shadow aka Barbara Simpson cleared the poor child’s house, including her mum’s dentures. Since then mum just sits on a over turned wheel barrow day and night vacantly drinking meths, because her dentures were her life. The hapless child’s dad couldn’t stand it anymore and ran off with a shepherd on Christmas Eve. All the little girl wants is for the Black Shadow to return her mum’s false teeth, so that her dad will hopefully come back and then they can begin rebuilding their lives.

And that was your Scilly star for the week ending on 142nd anniversary of New York’s City Jolly Corks organization renaming itself the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

February's Outlook and A VIDEO!!!!!!

A pretty shoddy first attempt at a Scilly Stars video.
Fellini it's not!

The Moon Occulting The Pleides Cluster

Mercury 45 minutes before sunrise

Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus on the 16th Feb at Sunset.

Firstly this week I’ve have to make a correction, because last week I made myself a bit of a laughing stock. If you recall I said that Mars was in Opposition, which it was on Friday, but I also said that it would be easy to spot, which it was, because it would be where the sun was 12 hours ago, which is a pack of lies. What I should have was it would be where the sun was 12 hours earlier on July 31st in pretty well any year you want. Because unforgivably I forgot that that the earth’s axis is sloped toward the night sky during the autumn and winter months. Which is why the planets always take a higher path across the sky during the winter months.

Anyway Mars is still there and very bright it rises in the e north e around 5, where the sun will rise at the end of July as I just painstakingly told you. By 10pm it will be almost due south as Saturn rises due East. And Mars is still retrograde against the stars, which moves it appears to be moving east instead of west which means according to the laws of toffee that it’s a bad time to be assertive. Here’s Belinda to take you into the Twilight zone

It seems that When Mars is in its retrograde cycle, we are forced to re-assess our current projects, our approach to getting what we want, and our desire nature. Rather than directly asserting our desires, we tend towards introspection. While Mars in direct motion is direct, straightforward, assertive, and aggressive, with Mars in retrograde motion, Mars energy is essentially turned inward--it's internalized, intensified, personalized, and perhaps pressurized. We can be hesitant about taking action, second-guessing our instincts or our natural impulses rather than acting upon them. The way we react to situations under normal conditions doesn't necessarily work for us now, or we don't exactly trust it.

And that’s why you feel more like Norman Wisdom than Charles Bronson, at the moment!

February has a couple of very nice high points. Venus is back for a star. And on the 16th there’s a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. Given a low south-western horizon and a clear night you will have a chance to see a close conjunction of the two brightest planets at about 6 pm, just after sunset. Jupiter is moving towards the Sun, so getting lower in the sky whilst Venus is moving away so getting higher in the sky. Their closest approach is on the 16th February when they are just 4 degrees above the horizon with a very thin crescent Moon hanging in the sky above. This should be a lovely sight, so let’s hope that it is clear. Porth Looe will be a good viewing point for those of us unfortunate enough to live on St Mary’s.

On the 21st at 18:50 The Moon occults some of the stars in the Pleiades Cluster. The first quarter Moon at will occult the very pretty arc of stars that extends down to the left of the Pleiades Cluster. As the leading limb of is in darkness, it will be nice to see the stars disappear from sight without an obvious cause. More about that in two weeks.

And as you know this the international year of Astronomy and to celebrate a team of British astronomers have made the largest lunar image in history and gained a place in the Guinness Book of Records! The image comprises 87.4 mega pixels with a Moon diameter of 9550 pixels. This show details as small as 1km across. It works a little like Google Earth.

That was night sky for the week ending on the 65th anniversary of the first deployment of US combat troops in Vietnam. Life was so much simpler then.