The Moon
New ------------ 4th up from 08:18 to 16:18
First Quarter - 12th up from 10:38 to 00:32
Full ------------ 19th up from 16:12 to 07:39
Last Quarter -- 26th up from 00:55 to 10:06
Not only will the Moon be New on the 4th of January, but it’ll be coming up with the Sun behind it to produce a Partial Solar Eclipse. It will have started at 7:03am, maximum will be at 8:15am, about the same time as it rises above the horizon, and it will end at 9:30am. It’ll cover some 70% of the Sun’s face. So a darker than normal morning for folk up at that ungodly hour.
Planets
Jupiter is coming to the end of its reign over the night skies, and on the 1st of January can be found in the south at dusk. So make time during your revelling to wave farewell. It will be setting that night about 10:30pm. If you look closely you’ll note Uranus in close attendance, within half a degree in fact, and it will remain so for the next few nights as Uranus moves past. By the end of the month they’ll have moved 3° apart, and will be 30° up in the south west as dusk descends and will set soon after 9pm.
Leading Jupiter will be Neptune, about 30° ahead. This tiny body, 2arcsec and mag 8, can be seen, in telescopes, in the south west at dusk on the 1st of January. It sets at 8pm that night and at the end of the month it’ll be setting at dusk, 6pm.
Moving over to the east we have the new contender to replace Jupiter, Saturn, rising in Virgo, at 1am on the 1st of January. Mag 0.8 and 17arcsec, easy to miss but yellow, and that will help it stand out. It should make a good wide triangle with equally bright, white Spica below, and brighter, orange Arcturus to the left, as they rise together. By the month’s end, Saturn will be rising at 11pm, a little bigger and brighter, at least brighter than Spica. It’ll be up for the rest of the night. So, have the rings widened? Look at the Solar System simulation that NASA has posted at http://space.jpl.nasa.gov . Enter the data you want and it will draw you a picture. Looks promising!
Venus will rise on the 1st, at 4:30am (5:15am on the 31st), very bright at mag –4.5 and 27arcsec, so you can’t miss it, the sky will still be dark, dawn won’t lighten it till 6-ish. If you’re able to follow Venus all month at a particular time, you’ll notice that it sits in almost the same place all month, getting a little lower in fact, while all the stars rise past it, so that it starts the month in Libra, passes through Scorpius and into Ophiuchus. It’ll also become less bright, and a bit smaller, though you’ll hardly notice. What you will notice, if you use a telescope is the change in phase, from 46% to 61% over the month. It’ll also change in size from 27arcsec to 20.
All this month Mars will be too close to the Sun to be seen with advantage.
Mercury does much the same as Venus, by getting closer to the Sun through the month and letting the stars pass it by, but unlike Venus it will be too close to the Sun for safe observation after the first week of the month, so beware. Mercury’s phase will change through the month from 42% to 90%, and it’s size from 8arcsec to 5.
Meteors Showers.
There are 7 showers with peaks in January but only the Quadrantids report more than 4/hour. It should be a good shower peaking on the 3rd, with up to 120/hour. But it’s a sharp peak that usually lasts hours rather than days, so must be caught at the right time, which this year is at 6am on the 4th. The radiant is in Bootes and though it won’t be above the horizon till 11pm it should give something worth getting dressed up warm for, as the best place to look for meteors is between the zenith and the radiant, and not directly at the radiant, where you’ll see only the ones coming straight at you and they'll produce very short trails. The Moon will be New too and that will help, so get outside and watch the display, and not just at 6pm, but for as long as you can. Take a flask of hot tea with you rather than keep coming inside which will destroy your dark adaption.
Comets.
After that damp squib of a comet, Hartley, there doesn’t seem to be any others daring to be seen naked eye. A hopefully promising one was C/2010 V1 Ikeya-Murakami, but it’s reported to be fading. You can look up it’s ephemerides at http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/ephemerides/comets This will get you to a long list of comets. Click on your choice and its ephemerides will be screened. Look for the line “Download this Ephemeris as a KML file”. Click on it to download it. It should settle on your PC’s desktop or wherever you choose. When it’s arrived, click on the file, or double click if necessary, and it’ll wake up google Earth, if you have it on your machine, and present you with a message suggesting you switch to google Sky. Click on Switch to Sky, and it’ll show you the track of the comet, with dates and mag etc.
You may be able to use this tactic for any comet you hear of in the news media.
For manmade satellites, the ISS and Iridium flares etc., you’ll have to check http://www.heavens-above.com, and for any sky charts of planets or stars or other objects, contact me at the observatory, http://www.donastro.org.uk