The Moon will be New on the 3rd, and First Quarter will be on the 10th, when it’ll rise at 2.20 in the afternoon and set at midnight. Full Moon will be on the 18th rising at 9.45pm in the east just as the Sun is setting in the west. It’ll set at 4.30 in the morning. Last quarter will be on the 25th rising at 11pm and setting at 2 in the afternoon.
Planets.
Your best chance of seeing Mercury, the Winged Messenger, is on the 1st, an hour before the Sun rises. By the 5th, it’s getting too close to the Sun to be safe to seek. Very small, but quite bright. On the 1st the very thin crescent Moon will be 7° above and left of it. The next night it will be New, so look for an even thinner crescent, 15° to the lower left, and on the 3rd it’ll be too close to the Sun, but Mercury will still be there. All this will not be easy, being swamped by the dawn twilight, but worth a look from 4.30 to 5.30am.
Saturn and Mars have almost left the scene, but can still be seen at dusk low in the west. On the first they will be 5° apart at sunset about 15° above the horizon, with Regulus, lead star of the constellation Leo within 0.5° of Mars. If you care to watch this area each evening throughout the month at the same time, 9.30 to 10pm-ish, being careful to avoid the Sun, you’ll see Mars moving eastwards, reluctant to set it seems, passing Regulus, not easily seen in the twilight, then getting within 0.5° of Saturn and moving past it till by month’s end it will be more than 10° east of Saturn.
From the 3rd the Moon, a very thin crescent, will join in, some 40° further west and lower, and 3° to its right will be Venus, big and bright. This will be just after sunset and the twilight will make things difficult, be wary of the Sun if you’re using binoculars. At the same time of night on the 4th the Moon will be midway between Venus and the Mars/Saturn duo. By the 5th it’ll be 11° to the right of Mars, and on the 6th the D-shaped crescent Moon will be 4° below Saturn, making a foursome photo opportunity with Regulus, Mars and Saturn, but you’ll need a cloud free western horizon. Venus will be keeping station further to the right and quite close to the Sun. Though very bright, not easy, as it will be setting no more than 20mins after the Sun so be wary of catching the Sun if using optical aid.
A point to note. With the brightness of the sky so close to the Sun, your brain will probably have narrowed your pupils to about 4mm diameter, so with 50mm binoculars you’ll be inviting 600 times more light, suddenly, into your eye, so beware!
As the month progresses, Saturn and Mars move westwards and Venus moves eastwards till by the end of the month they will be 10 and 15° apart and will set within an hour of the Sun.
When these three have set, turn your attention to the east and look for Jupiter rising at 10pm on the first and by 8pm at the end of the month. Jupiter will be brighter than anything other than the Moon so should be easy to find as it rises in the south east. Unfortunately, it won’t get very high in the sky this year, 14° above the horizon at the most, that’s a fist and a half at arm’s length, so will be in the murky air and it’ll be difficult to make out much detail on the disc with a telescope. The four Galilean moons will be easy to see with big binoculars or a telescope though.
Neptune will need a telescope to find and a chart for where to look, but it will be rising at 11.30pm at the start of the month and by 9.30pm at the end and like Jupiter it’ll stay low. Uranus too will stay low but will rise half an hour after midnight at the start of the month and by 10.30pm at the end, but it’ll get higher than Jupiter, about 30° above the horizon. They both present a small blue disc in telescopes.
Meteors. A busy month but almost all the dozen showers peak at less than 6 meteors/hour at the clearest part of the sky, so are little better than those from the constellation of Sporadica. The exception is the Delta Aquarids, peaking on the 28th, with 20/hour, coming from the east before dawn, between Neptune and Uranus. The Moon’s thin crescent will be rising then too, in the same part of the sky, but shouldn’t be a problem.
Satellites. The International Space Station will cross the Doncaster sky in daylight only this month, so will be very difficult to see. But if out on a clear night, look up for the moving non-flashing stars. They cross silently in any direction, taking up to 5 mins to make the crossing.
Iridium Flares. These are a selection of the brightest to be seen from Doncaster.
4th at 9.31.23 pm 17° above the horizon at compass point 354° (N)
5th at 9.24.59 pm 19° above the horizon at compass point 354° (N)
6th at 9.18.39 pm 21° above the horizon at compass point 354° (N)
7th at 9.12.17 pm 24° above the horizon at compass point 354° (N)
They suddenly appear then fade, so be watching on time. For others check http://www.heavens-above.com/ for details.
What else? For deep sky folk the south is the place to look, in Serpens, Scutum, Ophiuchus and Sagittarius, where the centre of our galaxy is. Full of clusters and star birth nebulae. The other place is further along the Milky Way disc, and indeed the Milky Way’s disc itself, visible, without optical aid, on a clear dark night as a band of light, like a thin cloud, but it’s all stars! Pick out the Planetary nebulae the Ring M57 in Lyra and the Dumbbell M27 in Vulpecula; globulars M10, M12, M14 in Ophiuchus; globulars M15, M71 and M56 in Pegasus, Sagitta and Lyre respectively; and M92 and M13 in Hercules, the biggest and boldest of them all. In a good sky it’ll take your breath away.
Brian