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.

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.

Blue Moon

CAN'T UPLOAD ANY PICS TO THE BLOG YET, HOPEFULLY LATER!

Well here we are with the last Scilly Stars of the year, nay the whole decade, perhaps if this was Household tips or even a clever pets spot, it would be appropriate to do a round up but its not so I won’t, and anyway the only thing I can remember was the total Lunar Eclipse of August 2009, when town was full thronged with panicking locals who were convinced the end of the world was imminent, being reassured by east European seasonal workers mopping there brows and telling them in perfect English that the moon will come back. And that’s my review of the decade.

Not much going on this week, though I expect you're all to jaded to care, but on Thursday, New Years Eve by the way, we have a full moon, the second full moon in December, which means it’s a blue moon, which means we must have another in January as well, except its full at 7:15, so technically it won’t be full on New Years Day, but its good enough for me. So how exciting two blue moons in a row.

And on Thursday again, there’s a very slight partial lunar eclipse from 18:52 to 19:54.

What else do we have this week, well like last week and next week Orion's Belt points the way down to rising Sirius. Betelgeuse, Sirius, and Procyon form the nearly equilateral Winter Triangle. And if you don’t know where Orion is yet have a look at the blog.

Mercury is still just about there in the sunset, going down shortly after the Sun. Venus is on winter vacation on the other side of the sun.

Mars getting brighter all the time now in Leo rises around 9 p.m. local time, far below Castor and Pollux in Gemini a bit north of east. A little later, dimmer Regulus rises about a fist-width beneath it. By 2 or 3 a.m. Mars and Regulus are highest in the south, lined up horizontally.

Saturn (magnitude +0.9, in the head of Virgo) rises in the east around midnight and shines highest in the south before and during dawn. Its rings are still narrow, tilted 4.8° from edge-on to us.

Jupiter, bar the moon far away the brightest object in the sky, brightly in the south-southwest in twilight, and lower in the southwest after dark. It sets around 9 p.m.

Now for the lucky among you Santa came a bit late this year, but for others not at all, why? Well I was talking to a very tired Black Shadow on Boxing Day, and it seems that she blackmailed Santa, she showed me the photos, into letting her borrow his fully laden sleigh this year, which has Tardis like properties, Barbara tells me. Anyway she took what she wanted and gave him a detritus laden sleigh back in the early hours of Christmas morning. She then blindfolded me and took me to her secret hideaway in the depths of mount moorwell, which is now a Aladdin’s cave stuffed full of plasma TVs, laptops and iphones. Well as she said on happy talk only last week it supplements the pension.

That was your night’s sky on the 288th anniversary of The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishing its findings.