Friday, January 13
Saturday, January 14
Sunday, January 15
Monday, January 16
Tuesday, January 17
Wednesday, January 18
Thursday, January 19
Friday, January 20
Saturday, January 21
Want to become a better amateur astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations. They're the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.
For an easy-to-use constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy. Or download our free Getting Started in Astronomy booklet (which only has bimonthly maps).
Once you get a telescope, to put it to good use you'll need a detailed, large-scale sky atlas (set of charts). The standards are the little Pocket Sky Atlas, which shows stars to magnitude 7.6; the larger and deeper Sky Atlas 2000.0 (stars to magnitude 8.5); and the even larger Uranometria 2000.0 (stars to magnitude 9.75). And read how to use sky charts effectively.
You'll also want a good deep-sky guidebook, such as Sue French's new Deep-Sky Wonders collection (which includes its own charts), Sky Atlas 2000.0 Companion by Strong and Sinnott, the bigger Night Sky Observer's Guide by Kepple and Sanner, or the classic if dated Burnham's Celestial Handbook.
Can a computerized telescope replace charts? I don't think so — not for beginners, anyway, and especially not on mounts that are less than top-quality mechanically. As Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer's Guide, "A full appreciation of the universe cannot come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understanding how the sky works. This knowledge comes only by spending time under the stars with star maps in hand."
This Week's Planet Roundup
Mercury is hidden deep in the glow of sunrise.
Venus (magnitude –4.0, in Aquarius) is the brilliant “Evening Star” shining in the southwest during and after dusk. It will continue to move a little higher each week all winter.
In a telescope Venus is a small gibbous disk 14 arcseconds in diameter; it's still on the far side of the Sun but rounding our way.
Mars (magnitude –0.1, at the Leo-Virgo border) rises in the east around 9 or 10 p.m., far beneath Regulus and the Sickle of Leo. Mars is brightening rapidly as it approaches Earth. It shines highest in the south around 3 or 4 a.m. In a telescope Mars has grown to 10 arcseconds wide, on its way to 13.9″ when closest to Earth in early March.
Jupiter (magnitude –2.5, at the Aries-Pisces border) shines highest in the south at dusk, moves lower toward the southwest as evening advances, and sets in the west around 1 a.m. In a telescope Jupiter has shrunk to 41 arcseconds wide.
Saturn (magnitude +0.6, in Virgo) rises in the east around 1 a.m. and is high in the south at dawn. Spica, just a bit fainter at magnitude +1.0, is 6° or 7° to Saturn's right or upper right. In a telescope, Saturn's rings are now presented to us a good 15° from edge on.
Uranus (magnitude 5.9, near the Circlet of Pisces) is still high in the southwest right after dark.
Neptune (magnitude 7.9, at the Aquarius-Capricornus border) is low in the west-southwest after dark.
All descriptions that relate to your horizon — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world's mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America. Eastern Standard Time (EST) equals Universal Time (also known as UT, UTC, or GMT) minus 5 hours.
Like This Week's Sky at a Glance? Watch our weekly SkyWeek TV short, now also playing on PBS!
To be sure to get the current Sky at a Glance, bookmark this URL:
http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance?1=1
If pictures fail to load, refresh the page. If they still fail to load, change the 1 at the end of the URL to any other character and try again.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.