Monthly Sky Watch

The Old Farmer's Almanac contains 14 months' worth of Sky Watch information from our astronomer, Bob Berman. As a courtesy to our Web visitors, the information for the current and upcoming months is included below.

February 2010

Jupiter falls into the Sun’s glare at dusk and vanishes for the season. It meets slowly emerging Venus at midmonth, but is too close to the Sun for the pair to be readily seen. Mars has a banner month, still brilliant all night long even while it loses half its brightness as Earth pulls away from it. Saturn enters convenient viewing hours, rising by 8:30 p.m. at midmonth, due east in Virgo. By midnight, the planet is high enough to appear through thinner air, its rings still very much edge-on. The thin crescent Moon is oriented “on its back,” like a smile, in the fading dusk from the 14th to the 17th. It meets Mars when almost full, on the 25th.

March 2010

This is Saturn’s month, as the Ringed World makes its closest approach to Earth this year on the night of the 21st. At magnitude 0.5, brighter than all but four of the night’s stars, it nonetheless has a relatively dim opposition thanks to its nearly edgewise rings. It’s the brightest star in the east, rising at sunset and out all night long. Mars, well up at dusk and still quite bright, again loses half of its light even as it continues to outshine every star except Sirius. Venus returns during the last week of the month, quite low in the western sky after sunset, joined by Mercury just below it. Spring arrives with the vernal equinox on March 20 at 1:32 p.m.

April 2010

April is a month of striking conjunctions. Mercury, joined by brilliant Venus, is at its best of the year, as both gain height in the western dusk 40 minutes after sunset, and stand together from the 1st to the 10th. On the 15th, the crescent Moon hovers very close to Mercury, 10 degrees high in the fading twilight. Mars again loses half of its brightness as it passes near the Beehive star cluster from the 16th–19th; use binoculars. The Moon moves on to meet the Orange Planet on the 21st, as Mercury fades after midmonth. Venus keeps improving, floating just to the left of the famous Pleiades “Seven Sisters” star cluster from the 23rd to the 26th. For early risers, Jupiter emerges in the east, just before dawn.