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.
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