February Skies
Useful info for visitors from New Zealand, South Africa and South America.
February 2; Venus and Jupiter very close. February 2; Moon occults Antares. February 4-5, Venus and Jupiter near Crescent Moon. February 7, Partial Solar Eclipse (update, see note about NZ times). February 16, Mars near Moon. February 21; Moon near Saturn. February 24; Saturn at oposition. February 27; Venus and Mercury very close. Comets Tuttle and Holmes visible in binoculars.
Looking up at the stars is still a rewarding pursuit, despite the increasing light pollution in our major cities. The southern sky is full of interesting objects, many of which go unseen in the northern hemisphere. All you need for a good nights viewing is yourself, a good idea of where south and east are, and your hands. Optional extras are a small pair of binoculars, a torch with red cellophane taped over the business end and a note book. A great many tips for backyard astronomy may be found here, although many of them are more relevant to the northern hemisphere. A general article on amateur astronomy from New Scientist is here (May require subscription otherwise see the TASS site.).This page is designed to give people a simple guide to the naked eye sky. In the descriptions of planet and star positions, distances in the sky are given as "fingers width" and "hand span". This is the width of your hand (with all the fingers together as in making a "stop" sign, not bunched as a fist) or finger when extended a full arms length from you.
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Summer is here once more, and the beautiful constellations of Orion, Taurus and the magnificent rambling constellations of Carina, Puppis and Vela grace our skies again. The December school holidays will be an ideal time to head out somewhere dark and view the stars and planets at their best. Summer also means very long twilights in southern Australia, so you may have to wait to see these delights. Despite the warmth of the days, nights are often cool, so don't forget a light jumper before doing any extended star watching. A blanket or rug to sit on is a good idea. Some mosquito repellent will be a must.
While these pages are primarily intended for the use of people observing in Australia, non-Australian Southern Hemisphere observers will find most of the information here applies to them. The star information will be most helpful, when you correct your location for latitude (see the Stars section for appropriate location information). Most Moon phase, planet, comet and asteroid information will be very similar to what will be seen in New Zealand, South Africa and South America. Countries close to the equator (eg Indonesia) will have somewhat different southern and northern views, but the eastern and western views should be similar enough to get a good idea of what is going on.Occultations, eclipses and aurora are highly location dependent, and it would be best to get a local almanac for these events. If there is no local almanac available, email me and I might be able to help you. I do try and give general info for occultations and eclipses in the Oceania area of the Southern Hemisphere.
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Aurora Alert UPDATED 21/01/08: Sunspot cycle 24 has offically started. We are still in Solar Minimum, but expect things to begin to pick up aurora-wise towards the end of the year. .Auroral images and description from past geomagnetic storms are now at the auroral image web page.
While we are at solar minimum, it will still be possible to see the occasional aurora. Tasmania, King Island and Southern Victoria are the most likely places to see aurora. However, on August 24, 2005 there was a massive auroral storm seen as far as northern NSW. Naturally, the best views of any aurora will be away from the city and bright lights. Aurora occur when charged particles from the solar wind enter earths outer atmosphere and interact with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms producing eerie displays of coloured lights. During solar maximum, which occurs every 11 years, the number and speed of the particles are higher, allowing them to penetrate the Earth's magnetic field at lower latitudes than normal. Observers in Tasmania are likely to see green glows or sheets of light in the southern sky. Observers in Southern Victoria are more likely to see a red glow in the southern sky, although more spectacular displays are possible.
The Astronomical Society of Tasmania has a webpage devoted to this phenomenon. The Australian IPS radio and space services covers Aurora and related phenomena in very great detail (too much if you don't know much about them) but has a nice education page. Flinders Uni also has real time magnetometer readings, however, this will probably not mean much to most people.
Aurora will generally follow solar flares by about 2 days, and a number of instruments are watching the sun for these outbursts. The solar mimiumin should occur in 2006, and sunspot numbers, and hence flare rates are dropping considerably, sometimes months will go by without an alert, then you have three in a week. The space weather site at http://www.spaceweather.com gives notice of when solar winds likely to cause aurora will arrive. Alternatively, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject and I will send you an email alert of any likely auroral event (or other interesting sky phenomena). However, even a strong solar flare is no guarantee that you will be able to see aurora, but it does increase the probability.
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Email alerts I try to update this page fairly regularly outside of the monthly postings. However sometimes things happen which I can't get in fast enough, or you forget to mark your calendar. If you would like to be alerted to or reminded of interesting astronomical or sky phenomena, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject. This is the old aurora alert list, but with auroras rare as we climb out solar minimum (except for the occasional humdinger, like the August 2005 auroral event), it is doing double duty. Astroblog will have images when possible of these events soon after.
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Coming events25 January 2008; Occulatation of Regulus
31 January 2008; Venus and Jupiter close
1-2 February 2008, Venus and Jupiter very close
2 February 2008, Occultation of Antares
7 February 2008, Partial Solar Eclipse
24 February 2008, Opposition of Saturn
6 March 2008, Venus, Mercury and Moon very close
30 April 2008, Occultation of Neptune (Northern Australia)
1 May 2008, Saturn and Regulus close.
6 May 2008 Eta Aquarid meter shower
9 June 2008, Saturn and Moon close to Regulus.
1 July 2008, Mars and Regulus very close together, Saturn nearby.
6 July 2008, Good alignment of Mars, Regulus, Saturn and Moon.
9 July 2008, Opposition of Jupiter.
14 July, Occultation of Antares.
10-21 August 2008, Venus, Mercuy and Saturn close together
17 August 2008, Partial Lunar Eclipse
1-18 September 2008, Mercury, Mars and Venus close together.
12 September 2008, Mars and Venus very close together.
4 October 2008, Occultation of Antares (WA).
1 December 2008, Very close meeting of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon.
29th December 2008, Occultation of Jupiter by Moon, Mercury nearby.
Out in SpaceCassini has some beautiful images of the the rings and a field of small Moons.
The NASA Mars rovers SPIRT and OPPORTUNITY have been on Mars for 4 Earth years. OPPORTUNITY has made a spectacular panorama of Victoria crater.
Mars Express has observed Terby crater on Mars.
Mars Reconaissance Orbiter has dramatic images of wind action on Mars.
Mercury MESSENGER has sent back images of the previously unseen side of Mercury.
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The Moon:
Current Phase of the Moon.
This is a JavaScript applet kindly supplied by Darren Osbourne. It shows the Moon as Southern Hemisphere viewers see it, and is upside down from the Northern Hemisphere perspective.
New Moon is on the 7th
First quarter on the 14th
Full moon on the 21st
Last quarter on the 29sth
On the mornings of the 4th and 5th the crescent Moon is close to the pairing of Venus and Jupiter. On the evening of the 16th the waxing Moon is close to Mars. On the evening of the 21st the waning Moon is close to Saturn.
An interactive calendar of the Moon's phases.
A view of the phase of the Moon for any date from 1800 A.D. to 2199, US based, so that the Moon is upside down with respect to us. The image above is from this source.
The phases of the Moon have been linked in the popular imagination to activities as diverse as madness and menstruation. However, careful study has shown that there are no such links. This web page outlines how the Moon is unconnected with a wide range of human activities.
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Planets:Finding planets, even with the directions below, can sometimes be difficult if you are unfamiliar with the sky. However, the Moon is very obvious, and can be a guide to location planets. Not only that, the combination of the Moon and bright planet(s) is often very beautiful. Thus the guide below gives the dates when the planets and the Moon are close together.
The Morning sky facing east in Melbourne on February 4 at 6:00 am AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 6:00 am ACDST Adelaide.
The Evening sky facing north in Melbourne on February 16 at 10 pm AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00 pm ACDST Adelaide.Mercury is in the morning sky late this month. This (and early next month) will be an excellent time to see Mercury in the morning. On the 18th Mercury will be two handspans above the eastern horizon half an hour before Sunrise, and a little over a handspan below Venus. Over the next few days Venus and Mercury come closer together, being closest on the 27th when they are just a fingerwidth apart. At this time they will be three handspans above the eastern horizon half an hour before Sunrise, and two handspans an hour before Sunrise, making this pairing very easy to see. After this, the two planets separate, but are still easily vsible well into March. Venus is prominent in the early morning skies in February, and has some attractive encounters. Venus starts the month in Sagittarius then moves into Capricornius. On February 1, Venus is 3 handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before Sunrise and is just 2 fingerwiths from Jupiter, under the "Teapot" of Sagittarius. On the 2nd Venus and Jupiter are at their closest. Those of you getting up to see the occultation of Antares will be rewarded with this attarctive sight after the occultation finishes. On february 4th the crescent Moon is above the lineup of Jupiter and Venus, then on the following morning, the 5th, the crescent Moon is below the line up. These attractive patterns will make it well worth getting up early in the morning. During the weeks Venus and Jupiter pull apart as Venus heads towards the horizon. By the 18th Venus is joined by Mercury, and is two handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before sunrise. Venus is also a handspan above Mercury. By the 27th, when Venus is closest to Mercury, it is still two handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before Sunrise, Mars is fading quickly now that opposition is over. However, it still is a very respectable brightness, and is in a beautiful part of the sky. The red stars Betelguese and Alderbaran, together with Mars form a distinct wide, red triangle in the early evening sky. Mars is still an obvious disk in even small telescopes (like my 50 mm refractor), but seeing markings becomes more and more difficult. On the 1st Mars is 4 handspans above the northern horizon at 10:00 pm daylight saving time, and is two fingerwiths from beta-Taurii (Elnath). By the 15th Mars is 4 handspans above the northen horizon at 10:00 pm daylight saving time. On the 16th, Mars, the waxing Moon and Elnath make an interesting sight. By the end of the month Mars is still 4 handspans above the horizon at 10 pm daylight saving time, but somewhat to the west of north. Mars is in Taurus all this month, and slowly moves away from the bright star Elnath (beta Taurii) during the month.
For more details, links and observing hints, see my Mars Opposition page.
Jupiter enters therises higher in morning sky this month. It is still relatively close to the horizon, making telescopic observation difficult. However, following its moons in binoculars should be rewarding later in the month. On February 1, Jupiter is nearly 3 handspan2 above the horizon, an hour before sunrise. On February 1 and 2 Jupiter is just 1 fingerwiths from Venus, under the "Teapot" of Sagittarius. After this Jupiter pulls away from Venus, but on 4 and 5 February Venus and Jupiter are joined by the crescent Moon is a delightful line up. By the 29th Jupiter is 6 handspans above the eastern horizon, and hour befoe Sunrise. With the waning Monn above, and the pair of Venus and Mercury below, this is another attractive sight.
This table was created using The Planets 2.02 a free program available from http://www.cpac.org.uk Times are AEST, subtract 30 minutes for ACST and 2 hours for AWST. Add 1 hour for Daylight saving time. GRS = Great Red Spot. S = Shadow Transit, T = Transit Tue 5 Feb 5:37 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Fri 8 Feb 4:58 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Sat 9 Feb 4:20 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Sat 9 Feb 5:07 Io : Transit Ends Sun 10 Feb 4:46 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Mon 11 Feb 5:25 Eur: Disappears into Eclipse Tue 12 Feb 6:25 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Tue 12 Feb 6:35 Gan: Reappears from Occultation Wed 13 Feb 4:55 Eur: Transit Ends Fri 15 Feb 3:56 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Fri 15 Feb 6:52 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Sat 16 Feb 4:00 Io : Shadow Transit Begins S Sat 16 Feb 4:52 Io : Transit Begins ST Sat 16 Feb 6:14 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Sun 17 Feb 4:29 Io : Reappears from Occultation Sun 17 Feb 5:34 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Tue 19 Feb 4:16 Gan: Disappears into Eclipse Wed 20 Feb 5:00 Eur: Transit Begins ST Wed 20 Feb 5:48 Eur: Shadow Transit Ends T Fri 22 Feb 4:44 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sat 23 Feb 5:53 Io : Shadow Transit Begins S Sat 23 Feb 6:51 Io : Transit Begins ST Sun 24 Feb 3:14 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Sun 24 Feb 6:22 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sun 24 Feb 6:28 Io : Reappears from Occultation Mon 25 Feb 3:36 Io : Transit Ends Wed 27 Feb 3:53 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Wed 27 Feb 5:43 Eur: Shadow Transit Begins S Fri 29 Feb 4:00 Cal: Disappears into Occultation Fri 29 Feb 4:39 Eur: Reappears from Occultation Fri 29 Feb 5:32 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Fri 29 Feb 6:49 Cal: Reappears from OccultationSaturn is now visible in the eastern evening sky. Saturn is at opposition on the 24th. This month and the next are the best times to observe this rined world in a small telescope. Satruns rings are becoming more "edge on", and this makes Satrun a very interesting sight. Saturn rsies at 9:30pm (ADST) on February 1st and is 4 handspans abover the north-eastern horizon at midnight. Saturn is also over a handspan to the right (east) of Regulus, the brightest star in Leo. Over the month Saturn will rise progressively earlier, making it more accessibel. On February 21, the waning Moon is close to Saturn making a triangle with Regulus. This will be a nice sky lineup. On February 31, Saturn is seven handspans above the northern horizon at midnight.
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Starshine 3
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Iridium Flares, the International Space Station and other satellitesSee this amazing site for images of the space station taken through a telescope.
Iridium flares add a bit of spectacle to the night sky. The Iridium satellite network was set up to give global phone coverage, so an Iridium satellite is almost always over head. Occasionally, one of the antenna of the satellites is aligned so that it reflects the sun towards an observer, giving a brilliant flare, often out-shining Venus. However, the visibility of Iridium flares is VERY dependent on observer position, so you need a prediction for your spot within about 30 km. Hence I'm referring you to a web site for predictions rather than doing it myself.
- Heavens above, an excellent site. You need to choose your location or manually enter a longitude and latitude (once done the site remembers this). Predicts Iridium Flare occurrence, and gives the visibility the space shuttle, the International space station and heaps of other satellites. I find this the most useful site.
Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Another site, JPASS, doesn't do Iridium flares, but is very cool and does the International Space Station, and many other satellites. However, although the output is flashy, it's harder to use than heavens above.
- The JPASS site from NASA.
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Meteor showers:
Date Meteor Shower ZHR IlluminationThe figure ZHR is zenithal hourly rate. This is the number of meteors that a single observer would see per hour if the shower's "point of origin", or radiant, were at the zenith and the sky were dark enough for 6.5-magnitude stars to be visible to the naked eye. Illumination gives an idea of how dark the sky is, the lower the figure, the darker the sky.
There are no significant showers this month.
A good page describing meteor watching is at the Sky Publications site.
The Meteor Section of the Astronomical Society of Victoria has some good information on meteor watching too.
Learn how to take a meteor shower photograph.
A Cool Fact about meteor speeds
A good page on detecting meteors using home made radiotelescopes is here.
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Comets:Comet 8P Tuttle will be visible in binoculars for the first half this month. It is moving mderately quickly, and is in Eriadnus, a locator map for Tuttle and Holmes be found here.
Comet 17P/Holmes is amazingly still visible to the unaided eye in the northern hemisphere. I have not been able to see it though. Although it has an overall brightenss of magnitude 4-5, the comet is very diffuse and hard to spot without binoculars at southern latitudes. Around 10:00 pm (daylight saving time) see it very low to the northern horizon, almost due north, not far from Algol (beta Persii, the brighest star in that location). People with dark sky sites north of about Canberra should be able to pick it up in binoculars as a fuzzy dot. A spotters map for Tuttle and Holmes can be found here. It will probably fade slowly over time.
A list of current comet ephemerides is at the MPC.
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Occultations:Occultation of Antares by the Moon February 2.
The Moon will occult the bright star Antares on the morning of February 2. This event will be seen in most of Australia and New Zealand after midnight. The Moon will be a waning crescent not far above the eastern horizon. In WA the Moon rises after tares has disappeared behind the Moon, in Alice Springs the Moon is only just above the horizon when Antares dissapears. Auckland will see a grazing occultation, where Antares skims along the Moons edge. Times listed are local times. This will also be good in binoculars or a small telescope. More details of this occultation, with contact times for other cities (mostly New Zealand) in UT time are here.
City Disappears behind bright limb Reappears from dark limb Australia Adelaide (ACDST) 02:40 03:38 Brisbane (AEST) 02:07 03:15 Canberra (AEDST) 03:10 04:08 Darwin (ACST) - - Alice Springs (ACST) 01:28 02:20 Hobart (AEDST) 03:20 04:23 Melbourne (AEDST) 03:13 04:13 Perth (AWST) - 01:08 Sydney (AEDST) 03:09 04:05 New Zealand Aukland 05:00 05:05 Christchurch 04:38 05:34 Wellington 04:38 05:26
Eclipse:UPDATED Partial Solar Eclipse (Australia and New Zealand) February 7: (scroll down for penumbral eclipse data)
On the afternoon of February 7, Australians and New Zealanders will see a partial eclipse of the Sun. This one is a bit disapointing, as only between 10-60% of the Sun will be covered, with the best views in New Zealand. Australian times are local times that have been adjusted for daylight savings. New Zealand times have NOT been adjusted for daylight saving. Scroll down past the observation information to see the contact times for your local area.
Do NOT look directly at the Sun! Do not use so called filters. Over exposed film, smoked glass etc. used as filters is NOT, repeat NOT safe. Never use eyepiece filters for telescopes. These can crack at inopportune times and destroy your eyesight.
The best way to observe this event is by making a pinhole in a stiff square of cardboard and projecting the image of the Sun onto a flat surface. You are basically making a simple pinhole camera, which will reveal the changes to the Suns outline quite satisfactorily. A card with a 1 mm hole should be projected onto a surface (eg white paper, or a white wall) about 20 cm away, a 5 mm hole should be projected onto a surface 1 to 1.5 meters away. You need to create a reasonable sized image, so you need a fair distance between the pinhole and the surface you project the image on. This will mean the image is going to be fairly dim, so you also need some sort of sun shield to keep in image in shadow. I use the longest available postpac postal tube, with alfoil over the top (and the pinhole in the alfoil), and wide ring of stiff cardboard to ensure that the image of the sun is projected into a dark area. This link will show you several methods to make pinhole projection systems. This link will show you how to make safe solar viewing and telescope projection systems.
Remember, do NOT look directly at the Sun, as irreparable eye damage or blindness can occur.
New Zealand times NOT adjusted for daylight saving.
City Eclipse Start Mid Eclipse Eclipse End Precent covered Adelaide 02:38 pm 02:58 pm 03:18 pm 5% Brisbane 02:21 pm 03:0 pm 03:42 pm 15% Hobart 02:21 pm 03:19 pm 04:18 pm 30% Melbourne 02:41 pm 03:29 pm 04:18 pm 17% Sydney 02:55 pm 03:43 pm 04:34 pm 20% Auckland 03:46 pm 04:51 pm 05:51 pm 57% Wellington 03:38 pm 04:42 pm 05:46 pm 60% pm Christchurch 03:28 pm 04:37 pm 05:39 pm 60%
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Stars:
The southern evening sky at 10:00 pm AEDST in Melbourne on February 1 (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00pm ACDST Adelaide).
All descriptions here are based on the view from Melbourne at 10.00 pm AEDST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on 1 February and assumes a fairly level horizon. Starset occurs progressively earlier each day, so these descriptions are valid for 9.00 pm on the 15th and 8.00pm on the 30th. Readers for Central and Western time zones should see roughly the same views at 10.00 pm ACST and 9.00 pm AWST. Corrections for cities other than Melbourne are given below.
How do I find east, west, north and south?
- Readers in Adelaide and Auckland should see roughly the same views at the local equivalent of 10.00 pm AEST.
- Readers in Hobart and Christchurch must decrease descriptions to the North by about five finger widths and increase those to the south by the same amount.
- Readers in Sydney, Fremantle, Perth, Santiago and Capetown should add 3 finger widths to the northern descriptions, and subtract 3 finger widths to the south.
- Readers in Brisbane, Alice Springs Rio deJanerio and Johannesburg must adjust North/South descriptions by two hand spans (and adjust for daylight saving).
- Readers in Darwin, Cairns, Brazilia, La Paz, Lusaka and Lima must adjust North/South descriptions by about 4-5 hand spans (and adjust for daylight saving).
Face east, just above the north eastern horizon is Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, which is just rising above the horizon. Directly east, above the horizon by 4 handspans is Hydra, and to the south east is the distinct wine-glass shape of Crater, the Cup.
About 13 handspans up from due east is Puppis, the poop deck of the form constellation of Argo Navis, the argonauts ship. The Milky Way passes through Puppis (and its companion constellations Vela and Carina), and there are several rather beautiful clusters worth looking at in binoculars.
Directly to the left of Vela is Canis Major. The bright white star 3 handspans left of due east is Sirius (alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky. The constellation of Canis Majoris has a number of open clusters that are well worth exploring with binoculars, Most of these lie two handspans to the right of Sirius, amongst the V shaped group of stars that marks the tail of Canis Major. Below Sirius by two hand spans, and one handspan to the right is M47. This cluster is quite nice in binoculars.
To the left of Sirius by about four handspans and almost due north is the distinctive saucepan shape of Orion's belt. The handle of the saucepan is Orion's sword, which contains some good naked eye open clusters, and the final star in the handle hosts the famous Orion nebula, which is visible to the naked eye under clear skies. Directly above the handle of the saucepan is bright Rigel (beta Orionis). Directly below the saucepan is the bright reddish Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis), a red giant star.
To the left of and below Orion's belt by about 4 handspans is Alderbaran (alpha Tauri), another red giant which forms the base of the V shaped group of stars called the Hyades, which forms the head of Taurus. Further to the left and down again by 2 handspans from Alderbaran is a faint, but pretty, compact cluster of stars called the Pleiades (the seven sisters). The Pleiades are particularly beautiful through binoculars.
To the right of and below Orion's belt by around 8 handspans are bright Castor and Pollux, the brightest stars of Gemini.
Directly below Orion's belt by around 9 handspans, and just a handspan from the northern horizon is Capella, the brightest star of Auguia, the Charioteer.
Facing east, and Puppis again, to the left of Puppis is Vela and Carina, the sail and keel of Argo Navis. When Argo Navis was broken up into Puppis, Vela and Carina in 1750, they forgot to assign alpha and beta stars to Vela, and its brightest star at magnitude 1.5 is Gamma Velorum. Gama Velorum is a double star which may be resolved in good binoculars. The Milky Way passes through Vela, and there are many open clusters which can be seen with binoculars or the naked eye. One of the best of these is NGC2547, a little below gamma Velorum. Vela is also home to the spectacular Gum nebula (which can only be seen in telescopic photographs), and the second pulsar to be observed optically. Kappa and delta Velorum, with iota and epsilon Carina, make the "false cross" (about 7 hand spans above the southern horizon). A high definition map of Vela is here.
Carina (the keel of the former constellation Argo Navis) is a little further to the left of Vela. Canopus (alpha Carina) is a bright yellowish star sitting 3 handspan from due east and 14 handspans above the south-eastern horizon (and about 3 handspans up from the False Cross). A high definition map of this region is here. It is now far enough from the horizon to appreciate its many faint objects. Looking almost anywhere in the area of Carina will reveal an interesting cluster or star formation. However, the area between the Southern Cross and the false cross is particularly rich. The False Cross is 3 handspans below Canopus, four handspans up from the Southern Cross and, nine handspans from the southern horizon. Just to the left of the False Cross is a good open cluster. Between the False Cross and the Southern Cross you will find the "Southern Pleiades" surrounding the tail star (Theta Carina) of a prominent kite shaped group of stars, with theta Carina two handspans up from Acrux in the Southern Cross. Smaller and less spectacular than their northern counterparts, they still look very nice in binoculars. Four fingerwidths below the Southern Pleiades are two rich open clusters, and the barely visible star Eta Carina. Eta Carina's spectacular nebula is only dimly seen in binoculars.
Continuing down from Vela and Carina, following the Milky Way, we come to the Southern Cross.
The Southern Cross is, as expected, a cross shaped formation with Acrux (alpha Crucis) and gamma Crucis forming the long axis of the cross (pointing down to the south-east, with bright Acrux on the end of the axis away from the horizon). Beta and delta Crucis form the cross piece of the cross. Just to the right of Acrux is the Coal Sack. This dark area against the glow of the Milky Way represents a large dust cloud and is usually clearly visible in dark skies, but will be hard to see this close to the horizon. The Jewel box in the Cross is a small open cluster just to the right of Beta Crucis. It is quite beautiful, but requires strong binoculars or a small telescope to see properly, and is unlikely to be good viewing this close to the horizon.
Continuing down and south from the cross we come to the bright, distinctive alpha and beta Centauri, the so-called "pointers". They are a little over two handspans from the south-eastern horizon, with alpha being the yellow star which is closest to the horizon, and beta the blue white star just above and to the left. Most of the rest of Centarus, the Centaur, is too close to the Horizon to be seen properly. Later in the month however, omega Centauri, a naked eye globular cluster three handspans to the left of alpha Centauri, should be high enough to view properly. It is the object marked 5139 on the eastern sky map. A high definition map of Centaurus and Crux is here.
Alpha Centauri is the closest star to our sun at around 4 light years. However, recent measurements with the Hippacaros satellite put the system 300 million kilometres further away than previously thought. Alpha Centauri is actually a triple star, consisting of two sunlike stars and a red dwarf, Proxima Centauri, which is the closest of the triple stars to earth.
Directly above the southern horizon by 11 handspans is the extended nebulosity of the Large Magellanic cloud, the largest of the dwarf satellite galaxies. Binoculars will reveal a rather attractive nebula near it, the Tarantula nebula.
To the left of this by 4 handspans and down by 3 handspans is the Small Magellanic cloud, the second largest of the dwarf satellite galaxies to the Milky Way. This feature is best viewed on a dark night, away from the city. In this nebulosity is what looks to be a fuzzy star; this is 47 Tucana (marked 104 on the western sky map), a spectacular globular cluster that is very nice through binoculars. To the right of the Small Magellanic Cloud by about 4 handspans is the dim constellation of Tucana, the Toucan, the parent constellation of 47 Tucana.
To the left, about two handspans from the south western horizon is Fomalhaut, alpha Piscinus Austrinis.
Almost 5 handspans up from due west is Deneb Kaitos, beta Ceti, brightest star of Cetus the whale, which stretches off to the right. Mira, Omicron Ceti (O on the maps) is a variable star with a period of about 332 days. Mira is currently fading rapidly and is no longer visible to the naked eye.
Cetus also hosts a nearby sun like star. Tau Ceti is 11.4 light years away from earth. From beta Ceti, Two handspans to the right is eta Ceti, two handspans from eta Ceti, forming a triangle with eta and beta, is Tau Ceti.
Continuing up from beta Ceti by around 9 handspans is the rambling, faint constellation of Erandius, the river. Bright Achenar is about 8 handspans up and to the left from beta Ceti (around 9 from the south western horizon).
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Sky Maps
How to use the maps
Comparison of a section of a skymap showing the Southern Cross (Crux) and pointers, with the appearance of the night sky. The map and sky are for August 1 at 10.00 pm, facing south. Both show approximately 30 degrees (5 handspans) of sky just above the horizonThe maps look a little busy, as they cover all sky from horizon to zenith. The grid lines are navigational helpers; each horizontal or vertical line covers 30 degrees of arc (the gridlines in the illustration show 15 degrees of arc), which is roughly five handspans (where a handspan is the width of your hand, held flat light a "stop" sign at arms length). As you can see from the way the lines bunch up. The map is a little distorted, due to trying to project a spherical surface on a flat surface. The horizon is the lowest curved line on the map (for technical software reasons I can't block things out below the Horizon). Constellations are linked by lines and their names are in italics. Stars are shown as circles of varying size, the bigger the circle the brighter the star. The stars are named with their Bayer letter (eg a - alpha, the brightest star in a constellation, a Crucis is the brightest star in Crux). Variable stars are shown as hollow circles, double stars are marked with a line (eg a, b and g Crucis are all double stars, that look quite beautiful in a small telescope). Clusters and Nebula brighter than magnitude 6.0 are marked as broken circles (eg the Jewel box cluster next to b Crucis above which is best viewed in binoculars or a telescope) and squares respectively. To find Crux for example, locate Crux on the appropriate map (eg see the illustration above). Holding the Map, face either east or west (depending on the map), then use the grid lines to determine how far over and up you should look, then look for the Crux pattern in that part of the Sky.
GIF Maps
A view of the Eastern February sky at 10.00pm AEST on 1 February can be downloaded here (febsky_e.gif 30 Kb) and a view of the western February sky can be downloaded here (febsky_w.gif 30 Kb). These are more compact files but don't have a lot of resolution.If you wish to print the GIF maps directly from Netscape you must set the printer in landscape mode and you must set the margins to 0 cm (yes, that's right, 0 cm) or the maps will not print correctly.
PDF Maps
High Resolution PDF files can be obtained for the eastern (110 Kb) and the western (110 Kb) horizon maps.The Zenith Map (110 Kb) shows you the whole sky. You will need to face the one of the compass points, then hold the map with the appropriate compass point on the map at the bottom of the page.
You will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat or GhostView to view and print them. They look slightly worse on-screen than the GIF files, especially as Acrobat 3.0-4.0 can only display them side on, but print much better and come with legends. However, Acrobat 4.05 and higher can display them in the proper orientation.
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[December Skies] [January Skies]
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Cheers! And good star gazing!
Ian's Astrophotography Gallery
Some of the photographs/images I have taken in recent years of astronomical phenomena that may be of interest.
- Partial Lunar eclipse. Partial Lunar eclipse, July 5, 2001
- My Solar eclipse report. Pictures from the Dec 4, 2002 solar eclipse in South Australia
- Transit of Mercury pictures! 7 May 2003
- Images of the partial solar eclipse 24 Nov 2003
- Transit of Venus June 8 2004 report
- Images of Jupiter, taken, after an enormous struggle, with my webcam, April 2005
- Mosaics of the Moon, more fun with my webcam, April-May 2005
- Animation of Sunrise on the Moon November 2006
- Animation of A shadow Transit on Jupiter May 2007
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Links
Societies:
- OnLine Astronomical Societies in Australia, from the Astronomical Society of New South Wales Inc.
- Astronomical Society of Australia
Australian Planetariums:
- A clickable star map for Victoria
- Monthly free Star maps. High quality, monthly maps for Southern and Northern Skies, has lists of interesting objects. Requires Adobe Acrobat to print.
- ASNSW Astro Almanac page for 2004
- ACT skywatch This site focuses on the ACT.
- Australiasky has moved, this nice site covers all of Australia, and has some nice features.
- Gordon Garradd's Astronomy Page
- Excellent Magellanic Cloud page with heaps of maps and info.
- Peter Enzerinks Astronomy page - Web based telescope/eyepiece calculator and other southern sky tidbits.
- Southern star gazer A bit heavy on graphics but pretty good.
- Buying a telescope in Australia, lots of helpful hints.
- Anglo-Australian Observatory
- MSSSO - Mt Stromlo and Siding Springs Observatory
- ATNF - Australian Telescope National Facility
- Parks Radio telescope facility
- RP - CSIRO Radio Physics (part of TIP Division)
- Spaceguard Australia the proposed search for Near Earth Objects including meteroids.
- Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
- Melbourne's Astronomy Central
- Star Class, Astronomy Education
- Information about Aboriginal astronomy.
- Australian weather forecasts
- Sky and Space, Australia's Astronomy magazine.
- Planetary Society, Australian Volunteers events diary.
- Australian Astronomy
Astronomy for Kids
- Canberra Planetarium and Observatory
- Launceston Planetarium
- Science Centre and Planetarium (Wollongong)
- Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium
- Perth Observatory and Planetarium
- Museum of Victoria Planetarium, Skynotes Index
- The Cosmos Centre in Charleville
International Resources:
- Star Class Kids Club (costs $30/year for materials)
- Thursdays Class Room NASA sponsored site, more planetary science really
- Interactive site on the Sun, good kids resources
- ABC Space for Kids, Games, information and more.
Stunning sites:
- SEDS, home of the Nine Planets Tour, and much much more
- The Planetary Society
- Center for Backyard Astrophysics
- Amateur Radio Telescopes
- International Occulation Timing Society
- Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy pages (very educational)
- SKY Online - Your Astronomy Source on the World Wide Web
- Astronomy Magazine
- Stellar distances
- Space Weather site (with Meteor counts)
- Near Earth Object home page (also follows comets, including LINEAR S4 and meteor showers)
Useful programs:
- A 3D map of satellites orbiting the Earth in real time! Simply amazing!
- The Anglo Australian Observatories 3D virtual tour through a 3D map of the Cosmos. Mind Blowing!
- Views of extrasolar planets seen from the Southern sky, stunning Java-driven map with heaps of (complex) info.
- Stellarium, free (but large) photorealistic sky charting software. What I use for the horizon views.
- Celestia, free 3D space travel software, see the Earth from Mars, see the Moon of EL62, see Saturn rise on Titan.
- Ian's Celestia resources. Save these files into the "Extras" directory
- Script to show Conjunctions of Earth from Mars.
- Definition File for asteroid 87 Sylvia and her two moons (see story here).
- Definition File for Pluto's two new Moons P1 and P2.
- Definition file for three Neptunian extrasolar planets of HD 69830.
- Asteroid 2004 VD17, which will not hit the Earth.
- Definition file for Comet 2006/P1 McNaught
- Definition file for for the Gliese 581 system that contains the most Earth-like world yet.
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Charts, Books and Software for Astronomy
If you would like to have charts available all the time, rather than relying on mine, for between $2-$10 you can pick up a planisphere from a newsagent or bookshop (or for a bit more you can get fancy ones from Australian Geographic, the ABC shop or the other Australian Geographic look alike shop, or the Wilderness Society, or even a binocular/ optical store). The planisphere won't give you position of the planets, so you will need to get the planet rise/set times. These can be found in most serious newspapers (the Age, the Australian, SMH etc. The Australian is probably the best bet for budding amateurs). The combination of planisphere and rise/set times is the best value for beginners though, if you are not too worried about identifying star clusters in your binoculars.Or, for $19.95 US, you can have the Touring the Universe through Binoculars Atlas http://www.philharrington.net/tuba.htm which can print observing charts, but has a few annoying quirks. These include having no horizon line, and the planets are shown in the wrong places.
I use a combination of a 1962 star chart, the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac and SkyMap Pro 11.0 . I highly recommend the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. It is more helpful for planetary/comet/asteroidal observations and eclipses than for double stars, clusters galaxies etc, but is an excellent resource for Australian observers and anyone who would like to seriously follow the planets in Australia should have this almanac. It has easy to follow month-by-month summary information, as well as detailed charts, tables and whole sky maps. It is easily navigated. The Almanac is often in big bookstores or optical shops, or email info@quasarastronomy.com.au to purchase a copy directly for those outside major population centres. The Australian Astronomy almanac comes out in around November for the following year, and is now approx $24.
Sky and Space, the Australian equivalent of Sky and Telescope, is also very good, especially for breaking news. It is found in most big newsagents at $7.40 an issue. Disclaimer! I am now a contributing editor and write the planetary observation section for Sky and Space.
Sky and Telescope now also do an Australian version of their magazine.
For detailed chart drawing and timing of events, as well as satellite track predictions I feed the information from the almanac into the $150 AUD SkyMap Pro 11.0 , planetarium program. This is a very handy program which prints maps of every possible orientation and scale. The maps on this page are produced by SkyMap.
A shareware version of SkyMap that runs on windows 3.x, and win95 can be found here http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win3/desktop/skymp21a.zip this is approximately 640 Kb zipped.
A shareware version of the win95 only version 5.0 is here http://www.download.net.au/cgi-bin/dl?13607
Other highly recommended Sky charting packages (win95/98/2000/XP sorry) are:
Cartes du Ciel at http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ (FREE) a bit messy to install but very good.
Stellarium at http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/ (FREE) stunning photorealistic program, but requires grunty PC and OpenGL.
TheSkyVarious packages from $49 US to $249 US
Stary Night various versions from $49 us for the basic pack (10 day trial of the basic pack at http://www.siennasoft.com/english/downloads.shtml) up.
Earth Centered Universe $88 AUD (shareware version at http://www.nova-astro.com/)
On the other hand a standard Sky Atlas for serious observing (much handier than carting a computer with you) such as Norton's Star Atlas can range from $35 to $90.This is not meant to be a product endorsement of any kind (outside of the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. For any budding astronomers out there, it is fantastic value and no, I don't have any commercial interest in it, but I did win bronze in their website Olympics). I am now also a contributing editor for Sky and Space so naturally take my enthusiasm with the appropriate grains of salt (although I was enthusiastic before I was approached to write for it).
This page can be used freely for any non-commercial purpose but please attribute it correctly. However, see the disclaimer.
Email: reynella@mira.net
e-mail
Ian with any suggestions
Created: Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 11:22:13 PM
Last Updated: Monday, 21 January 2008, 11:30:13 PM
