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EmailHere are the monthly sky watch highlights. Each month, we share the wonders of the universe to help you explore the night sky from your own backyard. (Note: Times listed below are ET.)
February 2012
by Bob Berman, as featured in
The 2012 Old Farmer's Almanac
Venus floats higher each day as evening twilight ends. Use binoculars to find it to the right of green Uranus on the 9th. (It's a close conjunction.)
Jupiter, in Aries, is halfway up the southwestern sky at nightfall and remains visible for a few hours. Mars, brightening explosively, retrogrades through Leo. At midmonth, the Red Planet rises at around 8:00 P.M., while Saturn rises at 11:00 P.M. Mercury, very low in the evening twilight, is to the left of the crescent Moon on the 22nd.
The Moon passes closely above Venus on the 25th and to the right of Jupiter on the 26th. Leap Day, the 29th, shifts the calendar so that 2012's equinoxes and solstices occur earlier than in any year since 1896.
Sky Map: February 2012
Courtesy of Jeff DeTray of AstronomyBoy.com
produced using Chris Marriott's Skymap Pro
Astronomer Jeff DeTray has created the printable Sky Map below to help you navigate the night sky. This month's highlight: The farthest thing you've ever seen.
If you normally do your sky gazing from a town or city, you owe it to yourself to occasionally get away from all that light pollution and observe the wonders of the heavens away from city lights. It's the only way you'll ever see this month's highlight, the Great Spiral Galaxy in the constellation Andromeda. It is the farthest thing most of us will ever see with our unaided eyes.
The Andromeda Galaxy, also known by the designation M31, is a grand collection of stars similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy. By some estimates, Andromeda may contain as many as one trillion stars. In photographs made with large telescopes, the galaxy has a spiral shape, like an emmense whirlpool. Andromeda and our Milky Way are the largest members of The Local Group, a group of more than 50 galaxies that are loosely bound to one another by gravity. "Local" is a relative term. The Andromeda Gallaxy is about 2.5 million light-years from Earth. Its light has taken 25,000 centuries to reach us. Interestingly, it's getting closer all the time. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are rushing toward one another at about 75 miles per second. Don't worry, though; any possible collision is billion of years in the future!
To see the Andromeda Galaxy with your own eyes, you need to get away from bright lights and give your eyes 20-30 minutes to adapt to the darkness. It takes that long for your night vision to be at its best. At the location shown on this month's sky map, look for a hazy patch of sky, like a small oblong cloud. The faint cloud is the combined light of Andromeda's countless stars. Andromeda is larger than you might expect for something so far away. Its width is about that of the full Moon. It is its faintness due to distance that makes the Andromeda Galaxy difficult to see. Once you have spotted Andromeda for the first time, you will discover it easier to find in the future, even from not-so-dark locations. Knowing what to look for makes all the difference.
We can't look upon the western sky this month without noting the bright planets Venus and Jupiter. Venus is dazzlingly bright, the brightest of all the planets in fact. Venus never ventures too far from the Sun, so she is visible for only a few hours after sunset and at other times of the year, only a few hours before sunrise. For much of the year, Venus is too close to the Sun to be seen at all, so make the most of this opportunity. Giant Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and is normally considered quite bright, but it pales in comparison to brilliant Venus.
Sky Map for February 2012: Click to View PDF
Explore the sky night from your own backyard. A printable black and white map is provided below!
Click for Printable Sky Map (PDF)
Just click, print, and bring outside!
