It’s February and colder than heck here these days. That’s about what you’d expect for Northern Hemisphere winter (particularly in New England). But, that doesn’t stop me from stepping out at night and at least giving the night sky a quick look.
Here’s a quiz: what’s up tonight? The Moon? Any planets? What constellations are up at 10 p.m.? If you have 10 minutes to stand around outside, you can have a quickie star party for yourself and any loved ones you can dragoon into going out with you.
As it turns out, we’re just a couple of days past Full Moon, so if you look low in the East around 10 p.m., you should see a nearly-full (early waning gibbous) Moon somewhere around 10 degrees above the horizon, just below Leo and in Virgo. If you have a pair of binoculars and a clear sky, check out the lunar surface!
What’s Leo? It’s the constellation depicting a lion, but you won’t find a giant feline. What you really want to look for a giant, backwards question mark. The bottom of the mark is the bright star Regulus, which you can think of as the heart of the lion.
Now, as it turns out, there’s something ELSE bright in Leo. That’s the planet Jupiter. It looks like a bright star, but if you watch for a while, and compare it to the stars, you’ll notice that it doesn’t appear nearly as “point-like” as stars do. (Although, if you have a lot of turbulence in your air tonight, everything will look like it’s shifting and twinkling, so you do have to observe Jupiter several times to get a feel for its disk-like appearance compared to stars (which do look pointlike and twinkle).
Also, Saturn is still putting in a nice appearance over in Gemini, which at 10 p.m. or thereabouts, will be almost overhead. I posted a map here, for New Year’s Eve that shows Gemini and Saturn almost overhead at midnight. Now, a little over a month later, they’re almost overhead around 10 p.m. so you can use that map to get a feel for the whole sky. If you have even a small telescope, you should be able to see the rings quite nicely.
For what it’s worth, although the Moon will move out of the view fairly quickly over the next few nights, Leo and Jupiter will look pretty much the same for quite a while. Try going out a little later at night to see them higher in the sky. If you’re really hardy, check ’em out after midnight — say around 2 a.m. They’ll be really high in the sky.
Here’s a map to help you find Jupiter, the Moon, and Leo tonight.
Freezing yet? Okay. Head back in, get a cup of hot chocolate or tea! You’ve earned it! That’s what I do. Stargazing for me isn’t always a matter of standing outside for hours, looking for dim, distant objects. Sure I do that too. But sometimes it’s as quick as stepping out for a quick look and a little bit of starhopping!
